hi everybody we're back after that break and we're here at the ServiceNow knowledge conference in Las Vegas with the aria hotel i'm here with my co-host and colleague Jeff Frick as you know we've been broadcasting also live from sa p sapphire now in orlando we're also out of google i/o today markers and Hopkins and Kenny Bowen are out there so we get it all covered for you check out SiliconANGLE calm for all the blogs and all the news check out Wikibon org for all the research youtube.com SiliconANGLE youtube.com slash SiliconANGLE for all the videos that we're doing here and we are going to continue to unpack the ServiceNow messaging the marketing messaging and test the alignment with the customers Craig Wishart is here he's the CIO of service stream an Australian company and customer of service now Greg welcome to the cube thank you very much mortals yeah so we've been talking to a number of practitioners this morning about the show about sort of how they're using service now but before we get into that tell us more about service stream and tell us about your role there is a CI L show so service stream is a Australian listed business and we really have three unique business divisions so we have a telecommunications business which specializes in rolling out and managing fiber across the country nationally we have a mobile communications business which specializes in building mobile communications towers in fact this year we'll do around about fifteen hundred of those towers and upgrading to the new LTE standards and we have an energy and water business which in itself is quite diverse but everything from in-home services from solar installations on roofs and hot water service through to read or out 40 million meter reads a year initiator coming with over 400,000 smart meter replacements we have a field force of about 4,000 plus people which makes us one of the largest in the country for field force and of course you know service stream by nature graph through acquisition and one of the challenges that we found well when I first joined 12 months ago was it by default you end up with very different cultures very different platforms very bespoke architectures and that sort of led us down the path in many ways to looking for a platform that could start to consolidate business but start to give us some leverage through commonality of process and also some synergies through the way in which the businesses work together bespoke is a good description of the way that a lot of IT operations their own so you guys are seriously into infrastructure obviously well that's true you know in terms of what we do as a technology team we saw our our objectives is being very closely aligned with the business unit in terms of being able to build commonality and drive costs out you know one of the one of the key premises that we offer to our clients is that we manage your customers customer and we do it very well and we do it on the basis of delivering to the expectations of our clients and you know to do that you really need a platform that can get you from the back of house if you like from the data center right out to parts of Australia which is still going through connectivity issues with telecommunications so we have a very mobile workforce you know if people working from right up the north end to write down into the metros so you were at the the CIO decisions conference that was taking place here i guess the i call it conference but it's like a sub advantage yeah sort of a breakout if you will at this event before we get into sort of your implementation of service now talk a little bit about what was shared at that little side event what kind of themes were struck and you know what was on the minds of the cios that were in that yeah look that's a good question and it was it was firstly it was a terrific event to be a part of and around people who are like-minded in a sense of you know one thing you find when you start talking to people regardless of where you work you've faced the same challenges you know you're under increase in cost pressures to not only take cost out but to deliver value the other challenges you're facing too often are how do you compete very quickly you know the market is moving so quickly and your competitors are moving quickly that often what you're trying to do is not only keep pace but innovate at the same time so innovation was a key theme I think the other thing that came out is you know how do we start to leverage what each of us are doing and how do we start to learn more from one another and I found that quite refreshing because in most instances when you're ten these sorts of conferences people are very guarded and one thing I've really taken out of this one in particular is that people are very open and want to share so you know the three key themes i took out here is you know how to CIOs lead and how do you get business connectiveness second piece is around how do you drive innovation often when you're competing against taking cost out and I think the third thing that you know became quite obvious to is how can we start to work together to leverage the capabilities of this platform which seemed to be developing you know week by week so let's talk about some of those themes I want to start with good leadership yeah what has changed in the last 10 years as far as CIO leadership look that's you know that's something to that is being discussed quite openly in Australia to the role of the CIO and in many ways I think the title itself will change over time but you know I think if we go back 15 20 years you know cos typically evolved from being infrastructure applications people and they grew up with specific knowledge around how to build stuff and you know over the last five years I think what we've seen is a transition of you know the CIA role being very much the person in the business who has accountability for information systems and technologies but really they're there to provide coaching and leadership to our business units on how they can best leverage new technologies you know to increase their profitability drive revenue take costs out but also increasingly how do you manage your workforce it's a very diverse role and I think one of the challenges and I'm talking about this later today my presentation the CI roll roll by default can also lock you into a paradigm that restricts you from being innovative and you know one of the things I'm talking about today is that you know be careful in a sense if you define yourself as a cell role in fact you may define yourself as being out of the business I see the role of the CIO now really being another business executive at the table who really just has accountability for systems and process so that leads me to the next you know piece that you mentioned which is innovation I want to talk about the role of the CIO at innovation jeff's from from Silicon Valley where there's a lot of innovation going on and one of the one of the montreux Silicon Valley right right Jeff is if you're going to fail fail fast you know failure is oftentimes not something that's part of the cios DNA in fact oftentimes they're trying to avoid failure yeah so talk about that dissonance how in your view can the CIO both lead and drive innovation in a climate that is frequently thought of as you know de-risking themselves yeah what you know when we talk about the themes and what's what's obvious and I put into this context you know there's there's three things that have really come up over the last six months which continue to resonate no matter where you are and they are you know how do we solve for mobility how do we solve for you know what is effectively going to be big data and how effectively you know do we solve for what is going to become predominantly these cloud-based services so if I talk about de-risking you know I think I think one of the challenges here is where we run at either end at times we run from right at legislation end which is what can you do and of course in Australia we often face into the context of you know data sovereignty it's always a big issue in terms of when you speak to you know the legal team wears it hosted who's got the data how can we protect the data in the IP right through to I think the role that Sarah plays in terms of you know taking investments and turning them into things that you know make sense for the business I think the challenge around de-risking is often about relationships and you know I think there's a lot of things that you can read about it but at the end of the day the position you take as a chief information officer as a big you know business executive how do we take an investment strategy and how do we translate into something it's going to mean something for the business either in adding value to the share price or taking costs out of the business so that we can do more with the money that we save you know I think by many default you know we are constrained sometimes what legislation but I think often it's just the questions we ask that helps us solve for those problems now of course we the third area want to talk is the collaboration we do a lot of these events and a lot of them are you know at a big boom vendor shops like IBM or HP or EMC and by the very nature of this their heft they're running into partners and there you know the whole cooperation yeah what's the cios attitude on collaboration in terms of I mean though the peer-to-peer thing is very strong you guys culturally very strong with your peers but how do you collaborate with competitors as that hole co-op titian thing hit your your world and talked about it specifically in terms of collaboration within the service now can yeah I think I think we're very much on the start of our service now journey we've we've been going now really for about six months and like most we started with the night esm instance from what I've been able to see we're very well progressed on what we do and obviously we'll talk about that as well but you know we I don't think there's anything that we're doing that hasn't been done elsewhere and I think the challenge is how do you apply that in your own context we've been very open with a lot of our people in terms of you know even some of our competitors are watching what we do and of course we watch what they do at the end of the day I think the measures of success are very simple for our clients and that is deliver the services that we ask you to do deliver them very well the technologies that you use regardless well you know what that's up to you so Craig talk a little bit about mobile and you know you mentioned that you've got 4,000 field guys out there and Australia for those who don't know still doesn't have a road that goes all the way across right i mean there so there's some desolate areas is a bumpy one at one point is there a bumpy one if you have a if you have a range rover hope it's about anyway so talk about you know one the challenges of having this field force and then to how the current trends and mobility are impacting your ability to know that help them do their jobs perhaps a couple things on this one that you know and I'll start at the telecommunications in the public internet level you know we we do run into challenges around the breadth of and the size of our country and we do run into coverage issues but you know if you put that aside where that seems to be growing and some people may be familiar with what the federal government's doing around their national broadband network program which is in our 36 billion dollar program to provide connectiveness around the country that aside you know from our perspective we want to have people in the field we want them working and the way to do that is to provide them with infield devices a lot of our people for so long have been working off paper they literally print paper out they'll take it with them they'll fill it out in some cases they'll roll it over the bonnet of a four-wheel drive in Western Australia they'll mark it up with a texture I'll probably spill some toffee on it at the same time that will then be post packed back into the main office where will render that back into autocad and then we'll figure out six weeks later that actually we really don't understand what you've done and we'll send them back out again it's probably not the best way to do things so you know if I think about what we're doing there very shortly our people will take out a tablet they'll mark it up on the fly will be using surface now to drive the service autumn side of that and as mediately as they submit that will render that in autocad in have an infield collaboration which is just going to take out six weeks of a cycle time just at the front end and you know to reduce 0 error rate by at least eighty percent the second piece which i think is really interested in terms of how we're using the product within the next six months will have nearly 250 million dollars of revenue flowing through service now whilst it's being used for itsm we're standing it up as a business platform with 250 million million dollars in revenue I'd say within a month the target will be half a billion so our revenue base will be flowing through the platform now to give you an example of what we're doing there we will do in home services for one of the utilities companies in Australian will drive about 70 to 80 million dollars worth of revenue through it this year and we are putting all of our service orders in there we're running asset management through the platform serialization of stock integrated into Division Microsoft's and vision persol are set we then take that information and we push that out to a tablet for our Enfield people who accept or reject the job now one great example of where service now so given us power that we didn't have is if you think for every hundred jobs that we do our technicians have to fill out 2,000 pages of a 4 it's a compliance issue that we've had to face into we service now we're driving it from form-based they mark it up on the tablet they then asked the custom to sign it they physically draw the house and mark up where the panels will go on the roof and they submit it for every job we do we take 20 pages of a 4 out and we take out back a house after you had to read that it's a remarkable thing to be able to do I think this year will take out 40,000 pages of a for that need review wow that is amazing i'm having saying all week that to me service now is about scaling your business and it's about delivering business value i try no you just gave two examples for its enabling you to reach means the scale and this i really like this value discussion is that is the value discussion in your mind something that its service now isn't is enabling additional value or is it just enabling you to actually see the value flow or a combination you know one of the things that i really liked about service now when i first saw it meant it's resonated with me since we started the journey is the simplicity of the interface and you know i was just talking to one of one of the service providers downstairs about some reporting and analytics software and i said what do you want to use for as it actually I don't want to use it I want my business execs to use it right because I don't want to be sitting there writing reports i think you know i need to be able to empower my people and my colleagues at the table as well as my board to be able to construct reports with information that makes sense to the problems they're trying to solve for you know and i think when we look at servicenow in terms of the value it derives its the simplicity of the way in which the information could be presented back and you know the information is then providing a framework for taking decisions and more importantly I want a framework from which our clients can see the value that we're pushing out to them we were talking earlier this morning to Fred ludie after his keynote and the internet of things came up he indicated that is one of the interesting trends yes he's tracking and then he sort of tied it back into service now as part of the vision they basically he wants to touch virtually you know everybody out there and you know presumably potentially every device out there yeah you guys are in this sort of Internet of Things business of instrumenting you know the the infrastructure energy infrastructure can you talk about that a little bit and talk about the whole you know this big data theme what this all means to your company I think you know the big big diet is interesting because I don't think it's really been defined I think it's still it very much at a concept stage so people talk about it in terms of what do we know about what we know they talk very broadly about social networks and interactions and information you can extract but perhaps I can give you a really good example of where we're going to take the platform next that will play into the big data piece you know over the next six months we will stand up a self-management workforce interface for our people so if you can imagine this which doesn't exist today I think we're really going to be first in the southern hemisphere to stand this up people will be able to register with our business putting in place in fact their skills their capabilities the insurances they hold the compliance as they hold the type of work that they want to do so for example I only want to work on a thursday sat down sunday and by the way I only work on single story houses I don't do doubles by the way here's my contracting model and the subset of contractors that I have and this is the rate that I'll work for now today we have a very heavy process-driven hey char you know I've got to talk to everyone and then I'll employ you and that process just takes too long we'll get to self managing of not only the registration cycle but also how I self-managed my profile now once i get to there think our workforce reach will move from 4,000 to 20,000 or 30,000 people will register with our business to do work for us that we can then go out and capture so you'll be able to essentially funnel down those candidates right so you didn't add so then you talk about Big Data right and you say so now that I know who you are what else do I know about you in the public internet world and I can start to look at what people say about you on facebook so i can say ok you're a plumber terrific we need that sort of skill and capability what else do you know out there and how do you represent yourself out there because if i'm going to put you out there with one of our clients customers i need to know that you're going to represent us the way that i want you to be represented how about all this how about all the data that's going to come up with smart meters how do you envision using that that's the bets a great question when you're going to this year do somewhere around about 400,000 smart meter replacements and you know those sorts of jobs funny enough they take about twenty eight minutes each they're a very quick job the data that comes back off the smart meter obviously goes back into the utility providers but one thing that the utility providers in Australia doing very now is that they have what's called an in-home display device you put that device on your wall I don't know if you've got it in the US but you put it on your wall and you can look at it you know every minute and tells you how much energy you're consuming in your house and you can start to take decisions around the way in which you use your appliances but you know if you look at us we are very much the intermediary there to get that data to the house and back to the utility company and and for us of course service now will then form the backbone of the asset management cycle so we now know where that asset is we know when that s it needs to be treated and then we can proactively go back and help these people manage their devices both at a consumer and at the business end ya think you're a little bit of head up from New England we just finally get rid of our windmills yeah I know Austin you know the folks down at austin energy of doing some cool stuff like that yeah i think you know generally you're a little bit ahead of the companies now you're actually implementing those today is absolutely so we are doing the ship packing dispatch of the in-home devices today in australia and then we're also been doing the smart meter replacement for two or three years now we've got a large cycle to come so it appears that service now has great potential of the i likened to a tick it's not the best analogy sort of embedded into the organization yeah and then you know it's like a ticket of virus but but not really I mean you know it's funny because you talk about you know Salesforce and that's kind of how Salesforce happens right here by two licenses and then three seasons and five seats and then you got a million seats it seems like service now actually doesn't take that that sort of approach but nonetheless this whole not idea of a platform of the ability to develop other applications seems to be something that your organization could take advantage of our time where do you see that going I think from my perspective is and other things that we need to get right you know the first thing is we've got to be able to capture a workforce so you know really we need a workforce of people with skills and capabilities that we can leverage back into the market we want our clients to see the value in which we hole I think the second thing for us very much is that we have to be able to move information around very quickly and we need to capture the information in terms of the work that we perform push that information out get the information back and then pass that back to our clients and of course like any business we need to be run a very effective billing cycle so to give an example again how service now is helping us we've built in what's called an RCT I process which effectively is just a taxi invoicing so when I go out and do a job once I close that job in service now that kicks a process that starts the billing cycle so I will immediately know that I've just been paid for that job you know and we run some assumptions around the quality and the work that you've done so that part is also next steps for us in terms of just maturing it I think the third piece which is probably one of the challenges of I think we're all going to face in tosa 6 to 12 months is so we've got all this data now what do we do with it you know do we do we understand the information that we've got and you know one of the things that I really like about the platform that will start to work on more is how can you extract the data and such you know such a format if you like for our business leaders they can start to take decisions I really think that the growth of the platform is not going to come from my team I think I'm going to be surpassed by my business leaders and executives are going to ask me to do more and I think they're going to ask me to do more in the field and the space of mobility and they're going to ask me to do more and how can they start to interpret the data they've got to drive business performance yeah in the example you gave it so this is a great example of instrumenting your business and that seems to be where it's headed yeah taking out costs in efficiencies and dry new revenue opportunities yeah I'll go everything alright great so Craig thanks very much for for coming to thank you thank you John says we talked a little bit about Big Data go to Wikibon 02 / big data you'll get all the free research that we've done we've got a new infographic out just today that actually Forbes did on our data so that's kind of cool check out the blog of Craig Bashar thanks very much for coming on this is the cube right back after this work