(soft techno music) >> Live from Las Vegas It's The Cube covering Service Now, Knowledge 2018. Brought to you by Service Now. (soft techno music) >> Welcome back to The Cube's live coverage of Service Now, Knowledge '18. I'm your host Rebecca Knight along with my co-host Dave Vellante. We are The Cube, we are the leader in live tech coverage. We are joined now by Alan Marks, he is the Chief Communications Cfficer of Service Now. So thanks so much for coming on the show. >> Thank you, great to be here. >> So the new brand identity of Service Now is we make the world of work, work better for people. >> That's right >> That's your baby, you came up with it so tell us a little bit about your creative process and coming up with that idea and why it works for Service Now. >> Well, it's been a team effort and we think of that identity as our purpose as a company. And as John talked about in his keynote today, purpose is really the center of who you are as a company and what you believe in and what you aspire to do, and I think it's so important in your own life to have a sense of purpose and meaning and I think that's true for companies as well, companies are just collections of people, right? And so as we thought about the next phase of growth for Service Now and how do we build the company awareness and build the brand, we started with, who are we, and why do we exist? And so we did a process where we met with a leadership team we did employee focus groups around the world we met with about a dozen customers to just talk about how do you think about Service Now, what does Service Now mean to you, and that's what lead to our purpose statement of "we make the world of work, work better for people" and really emphasizing people, cause that's something we believe deeply in, that technology should enable people. And what we do is really trying to help people have more meaningful work. Take some of the routine task out of your job so you can focus on things that matter more to you and create more meaningful work for you and create more productivity for your company and your enterprise. >> Dave: I'm always, oh go ahead please. >> Well so, we started with our purpose and then that lead to the brand identity we have a new tagline; Works For You. So, Service Now Works For You, is kind of our version of a Just Do It kind of tagline. >> Dave: (laughs) >> And so we've got our purpose statement we've got a new brand identity, what you see here at Knowledge and we've got a new tagline called, Works For You and you'll see us rolling that out now more. This was the launch of it. We spent the first quarter rolling it out to our employees we did a global tour in eight locations around the world rolling out our purpose to our employees and now this is the first public launch of the new brand. >> I was fascinated by that process. I love that you guys start with wide, big fan of Simon Sinek Google him if you don't know him, his Ted Talk is fantastic and we heard John Donahoe this morning talking about he started with why, so okay, so you do all this research but somehow you have to put that into a creative package the idea of putting the person in the center of the logo and whether it's color scheme or, you know little snippets. How do you come up with that, is that just in your DNA is that really by committee, I mean how does that all work? >> Well we put together a creative team, this is the fun part once you've landed the purpose, this is take out the crayons and let's start decorating something, right? And so when we landed our purpose, and we said well if we're really focused on technology enabling people the former logo of the company was the power button so that was more purely about technology and so we started playing, we had a creative team we put together, we had our in-house creative team we also were using some outside creative support and we started playing with well, how can you change the power button to more reflect people and that's what morphed into the logo today of really using the yellow in the word Now to symbolize people, to symbolize the "you" in "Works For You" instead of the power button as a symbol for the company. >> So you, the last Knowledge, Knowledge '17 you had just started. >> Just started, first week. >> First week on the job, trial by fire here. So tell us a little bit about your first year, reflect on some of the things that might have surprised you during the year, some of your challenges, what would you say? >> Oh it's been wonderful. I say to Pat Waters our Chief Human Resources Officer, every new employee should start the week of Knowledge. It was just such a wonderful way to start, I literally did sign the papers and got on a plane and came to Knowledge '17. And so, to come into the company being able to experience this, and meet our customers and really understand the culture of the company was an extraordinary way to get grounded in the company and understand the, you know, Service Now has just a deep commitment to customers, and listening to our customers, and then responding to their needs. So, given the brand work I've done over the past year that I couldn't think of a better way to start. And then after Knowledge '17, a week or two after that I went down to San Diego and spent an afternoon with Fred Luddy, our founder. And I just said "Fred, tell me your story.", and two hours later Fred was still talking, such a wonderful person, and what struck me in that conversation with Fred is we were spending, really two hours talking about the history of the company and why he founded it, and I realized he was talking mostly about people he wasn't talking about technology and Fred's a product guy. And so it just started to hit me from day one just how focused we are on helping people and helping companies succeed and our customers succeed and that's really what lead to where we are today, and the branding, and so it's an amazing company, amazing culture, and what we're trying to do with this brand the product is well known, we've got deep customer loyalty but the company is not that well known and so as we think about growing the company and reaching other state coders, as we think about expanding our business with existing customers and engaging new customers at the C-suite level, we felt we needed to really elevate the company and that's what this is about. How do we continue to have a strong product brand but elevate the company brand both to drive greater awareness of the company but then also the talent brand piece is important as well and how do we use our brand identity and our purpose to engage the right talent worldwide as we continue to grow and recruit from around the world. >> And that's a big part of why John Donahoe was brought in. I remember I was talking to Frank Slootman, I'm like Frank is so young, he goes look, we found the right guy to take this to the new level. He's been kind of working at it for a while so the timing was perfect. As you do all this research as you talk to customers about their future of work. I mean they're telling you what they need maybe what some of their challenges are, but you guys still have to figure out how to get there. It's almost like Steve Jobs inventing this smart phone, nobody told him no customer told him, this is what we need. >> Alan: Right. >> So you're minds have to put that together, I know it's only a year in, but what are you seeing in terms of your ability to shape the future of work? >> Well I think it starts with the Service Now platform and to me that's the secret sauce. A lot of people have focus, cause people know the ITSM product suite and how the company, the flagship product of the company and a lot of people think of the company in that way but its really the platform itself that can cut across the enterprise and connect different work flows and different work streams particularly work streams are cross-functional areas and the ability to understand that and leverage that with our product suite that really is unlocking the potential of how we can partner with a customer and really drive transformation in the way enterprises operate and drive transformation in how work gets done in a company. >> So with your consumer background, did you like, when you first heard about Service Now say, "really, IT service management?", or did you say "hey, why should the consumer guys have all the fun I want to bring this to the enterprise". >> Exactly, well part of it, this is my first job in the B2B world my background is in consumer, but as John has talked about we really do see the things that we've enjoyed as consumers coming into the workplace. So I really do see a lot of B2C type creative thinking and ideas coming into the workplace to drive this transformation and that's so exciting to take the best of traditional B2B marketing and branding and bring in B2C to help reflect this new wave of technology and how it's changing the way we work and the way we think about work. >> As you're now embarking on this strategy to get Service Now to have wider recognition in the market and you're background in consumer, particularly at Nike, what do you think makes a great brand and what really makes it sort of take hold of customer's imagination. >> That's a great question and I would go back to purpose. I can't say enough about purpose, a company that is clear about who it is and why it exists and what it aspires to achieve in the world, and the impact it aspires to achieve in the world, that's what connects people emotionally, right? You can connect people intellectually but really connect heart and mind, that's the secret sauce. And you said consumer brands, obviously that's what they do right, that's what you have to do. In the B2B world, you see a broader spectrum but that ability to say, how do we take this technology and the more intellectual aspects of our business and really connect it to how you help people and how you enable people and connect it more emotionally. I think that's the (inaudible) NOC, and today, you look at millennial employees today they really do care about what is the purpose, what's the higher value of working for this company vs. that company, and what kind of impact are we going to try to have in the world, and it really does matter. I see it today where you're talking to potential employees and they're asking that question. About if I'm going to join this company, what are the values tell me about the culture of the company. And I think at the end of the day, culture and talent really is what differentiates a company. And strategy is obviously important, but companies that have strong purpose, strong brand, strong identity and that get expressed through strong culture that gets expressed through the kind of people they attract to the company, the kind of talent they have in the company. I think that's what creates great, enduring companies over time. >> So thinking about transparency, I go back to Fred. The self deprecating humor, always, if there's a wart in the software, he talks about it, he's not shy about that. Frank continued that tradition certainly with Wall Street and I'm sure employees, and Mike Scarpelli, very much transparent, John is continuing that tradition. It's obviously worked for Wall Street, you've built trust with investors. How do you take that brand and build trust beyond the investor community, it's a challenge. What are you trying to accomplish there? >> You'll see us marketing more and that's part of what you see here, expressing the brand in a bigger way, you'll start to see us do more marketing at the company level in addition to what we already do at the product level. You'll see us do more marketing directed to talent and being a great place to work. You'll see us expressing this in a variety of ways the kind of culture we create, what we do in the community, the broader impact we have in the world and so I think it's all of those things together and communicating but ultimately you've got to walk the talk, right, it's not just the marketing, you've got to be authentic in what you're doing and have people experience you in an authentic way to really create that sense of trust and engagement over time. And you see we've got that today in our customers. The loyalty we have with our customers the renewal rate the company has with our customers and now we're just trying to continue to build on that and engage other stakeholders as we grow as a company. >> So making work better, okay that's good. The new sort of focus, expanded focus, but what do you want people to say about you, how do you want them to describe you, what are the adjectives you'd like them to use? >> Human, we're "work for people" right, "make work better for people". I think we're a human company, we're an authentic company we're a company that cares, we're a company that really understands technology should help you, it shouldn't be technology for technology's sake, that the end result should be making your life better and we're trying to do that in a work context and I hope that people look at our brand and our identity and how we show up in the world and think that's a copmany I want to be associated with as an employee, as a customer, as an investor, as a partner, as a stakeholder because that's a company that really cares about people and really understand how to apply technology and innovative technology to help people have better lives and in this context, have a better life at work. >> We've been talking a little bit about how you're company is working to attract the best talent, and it's really at a time when the skill sets are changing and we were talking about Fred not being an IT guy, he's a product guy, but you really need the sort of confluence of the two together, you need people who are thinking about the technology but also about the human idea. How hard is it to find the right people or do you just say "we can train them", what's your approach? >> It's always hard to find great talent all over the world it's very competitive, and particularly in technology but I think it gets back again to purpose and culture really being clear about who you are so a potential employee can say "is that a place that I want to work at, when I see the purpose of Service Now, does the resonate for me?". If I'm an engineer, do I want to create product that really is focused on helping people have better work lives and again it really, purpose is the essence of it and I think that really is the center of everything and if you can connect people with your purpose then you will attract the right talent and it'll build on itself through word of mouth and reputation that that's company that I feel attached to and that I want to a part of, and I want to work at.