live from Las Vegas Nevada it's the cute covering knowledge 15 brought to you by service now okay welcome back everyone you're watching the cube live in Las Vegas this is the cube so look at angle he bonds flagship program we go out to the events and extract the sink low noise I'm Jennifer with my coach Dave vellante our next guest is q bola link alandur beep vice-chancellor college services Lone Star College welcome back good to see you here servicenow mean we've been he world vmworld what's new what's up what's up with you what's happening oh there you know there's so much going on especially the educational space so let me step into Lone Star a little bit first because you know we first talked I think we were talking about 85,000 students now we're supporting over 100,000 students we're the largest institution of higher education in the Houston area fastest growing in the United States but I gotta put it in perspective in the last three years we've added thirty three thousand students and we're on for a double-digit growth again so you know that type of growth presents a lot of challenges whether it's in the IT or the instructional space or facilities as you look at it so it's been exciting it hasn't changed any over over that period that's a wave of new new inbound absolutely ability so how did you handle that give us some give us some working examples of what you went through emotionally taxing with technology I mean you know there's a lot of work coming in right well there's a lot of challenges to it I mean you know you can look at it from the IT perspective in the capacity management or the facilities and and their capability or the ability to bring on you know qualified instructors through that process so the challenges have been continuous but but the reality is we've been in this pattern for so long that we've adapted very well we're very agile but what we do the interesting challenge though is this last August we have a new chancellor on board so we had two completely different vision to an extent but it really isn't now it our new chancellor came in from inside was a president and he basically did a mission realignment so we pride ourselves in the fact that we want to be a college of choice that we want to be there for the first time in college student but now we've actually strengthen our mission around workforce and workforce training programs in fact actually I'm really excited because we are now actually becoming an educational partner for service now and we're going to be putting students to a training program but we've also wove it into our converged infrastructure program so they're learning IT Service Management Idol foundations and there and that's embedded in that train it's like an integrated track for them in this new specialized way we're adding a little sore snail component into the bigger picture it what we're doing is in the internet program we're giving an opportunity is that they learn the fundamentals but then I get certifications along the sides so they can actually in the converge program get a certification in emc and to virtualization such a knee I mean you're helping build the product it's building what I need in my pipeline I made it I can't find highly qualified entry level students that know these items and really around the IT service management side so you know this new vision in this new workforce part has been phenomenal and it's going to propel our growth it really well so let's talk about the role as CIO it's something that's I know you're passionate about that some people have said the role of CIOs going away some people say it's transforming the chief digital officer chief data officer the COO on and on and on let's talk about the evolving role the CIO what's changed in the last 10 years and what's going to change all right so let's put this in perspective 5-10 years ago would you look to IT to help deliver services would you have came to him said you know how can we improve our service delivery no there's not a chance you know the business have been really good on the outside edge of the customers or a b2b strategy but internally we're no good to each other internally between whether you're talking an HR you're talking finance our ability to deliver services inside the organization hinder the organization so now we're in a totally different role the CIO has to be a business partner and now we're being looked at is how do we expand service delivery look look at IT did over this period of time now they become a service provider that's trusted I mean part of my mission statement in our organization is customer delight and you know people first look at a customer to like East customer delight we have to be aligned with the business we have to look at how do we support the organization and how do we become a valued partner and part of that is delight you're happy with what you get from us just like when they were talking about earlier why do you use ever said if attack see well you get to light you get you get what you need and you get it into think ratification you got it that's what the world's about today is it and you pay more for that instant gratification sometimes you even pay less Jerry under false news you bring a cost of delight is the outcome that's the value that's a renewal that's the happiness that's the checkbox and under the covers is the cost to do that so talk about the efficiency piece of this because that seems to be what service now saying and their messaging is ok we automate a bunch of work processes that I say I call Monday you know that's not their word they've actually use that word but you say mundane tasks whether on value producing for sure well there any machine there in the machinery workflow but I could you get rid of human moment just the easy task so what's the efficient seeing what have you seen and how did you well well let's start with the first part so I like the idea of getting rid of email and you know I get too many too many requests in all the time they come in via email and I'm like wait a minute okay or I lose it it gets lost in the shuffle whereas when you're using a service management platform it doesn't get lost in the shuffle stays in the queue until you close it out or you pass it on to somebody else so changing that workflow around requests in the types of services you provide is efficient you're getting your work done faster you're not dropping the ball here and there it's better than a task list or sheet of paper the post-it note you know by far so that's an important part of that the efficiencies though become especially nit as you transform to an organization it is running a private cloud that's using public cloud services and integrating their you're looking at that IT infrastructure that running water and nobody cares about the running water they just want to know that I know what I'm doing and I have the right team to keep the water running okay now where's that next little piece and then next little pieces around how do I provide that level of service that is aligned with the business and then they want to get to the very top of that pyramid they want to get down to innovation what can we do they can help the organization to be innovative and you think higher education how can you be innovative in higher education there's thousands of ways and faculty have amazing ideas so you need to be able to look at what their want to apply in technology in the classroom and how do you deliver that new service and how do you engage with them so as you look at service management fundamentals you're taking care of that base level that that core operational need and then you're constantly just expanding and growing so I want to pick up on that theme of alignment you're talking about email and and what a pain it is and and you gave an example of having a service management system where you can have all those requests you know documented and acted upon but there's a nuance here you could do a lot of that with a ticketing system but it's not a whole house solution it's a bespoke solution so can you talk about the relationship between a holistic service management approach maybe it's a single cmdb maybe it's not be interested if you're taking the approach and just sort of bespoke tools like a ticketing system well we do use it as a single cmdb so that that is a critical part the other part of about it is is that so I actually in our user group talked about that this is basically the youngin rapper outside and it wraps around that ERP core service where you have all these core services that you don't get out of your ERP and that you don't want to build or customize in that erp we're anti customization in my organization so that we can be a drummer you telling us that oh yeah so now now I look at this platform as a platform that allows me to do more automation to improve processes without causing damage in the ERP and being a single source of record you know so this is the sole source of truth and so I'm Caesar about four years ago we actually did student financial aid as a service inside of service now before they were even thinking outside of service now we knew that the students needed to get quality responses we need to track what was happening and so we just applied IT principles and built out an instance that supported financial aid so people that say how would you say to people that say I've we've had people do them we've been a conference is people said the CIO roles going away see I was gonna have to make a choice have to become the chief digital officer chief data officer that coo or the CTO make a choice ever had the chief innovation officer ok I forgot that one so if I'm inferring what you're saying you're saying no no the CIO roles going to transform to a service management you know guru who are enabler a business person essentially but you can you elaborate on that well for one you're going to see that there have to be a business person they're going to have to be in that alignment so as we talk about changing role I find it interesting we start about earlier i think in 2010 you announced me as the cio of the lone star and i was at that time the CTO so i found that to be a chuckle and I thought that'd be a good lead-in to this one because my role did change already when this new chancellor came on we had a lot of discussions around the service delivery and the team the fundamentals and my role changed significantly in the fact that now i'm actually not just over IT so I am the CIO but I also oversee analytics institutional reporting and when you think about that that's kind of a big data thing that's correct and we're doing predictive analytics and we're modeling in that direction but it's also about items like how do i align the analytics to student success how do i provide faculty with the information that they're looking for and feed it through so it's a totally different than just it's so this brings up the whole point that fred was bringing up which is as you connect devices and get the data it brings up new capabilities so what your story is progressing is showing is you know vice chancellor is a holistic view now that includes not just IT that but the business model of the institution well I didn't get the last one I also took on so so I awesome over human resources now really yeah have you heard that one before no logistics coming next facilities no CFO job then you can approve all your I don't think you like that either there are certain things I don't even have a desirable but no but it is reality question though this business model impact right i mean what is it comes down to it how do you get people in the pipeline correctly and I'm really excited I've spent a lot of time here I've got some HR staff here we're rolling out the HR service delivery model in service now and I've got some HR staff here ServiceNow is great when I came in early we had a chance to sit down with a bunch of chr OS and talk and understand the challenges we looked at the onboarding application and said wow you know this is this is what we need we need to make employees welcome when they come in so it really is if you think about it IC is in everything change early you are the instantiation of that that transformation I mean you think well we were talking before we're talking about you know server virtualization you know storage backup recovery business transfer but but they're all just as important I mean I'm the hood that has got his brazen elevation yeah and you have to match your services with your target audience deliver that value get paid for it the end a that's the outcome and have happy customers correct so that's an IT function basically I mean we're so much better than everything so you know you talk the Internet of Things well you just think about it IT permeates the institution so the key to that and one thing we didn't really get into is that transformation is also it's not just the CIO transforming you have to transform the IT staff and what that really means is you know I've got some phenomenal individuals we're a hundred percent centralizing organization which is odd for higher ed but the reality is is that we really have focused on a lot of soft skills on leadership skills on training so that the IT staff has that same mindset and when we talk about goals and objectives they understand that we are not the mission of the college we are there to support the mission and to do that we need to understand what the business drivers you've been do you feel that you guys are agile and that's a term that's been kicked around that's a goal that people have in their transformation or a over your extremely agile I mean we have the ability to work closely with our partners or business partners we can deploy services quickly and that comes down to when we went into the private cloud and we looked at how do we become highly available and provide those core services at the same time is we adopted project minute management methodologies that are unique I have a phenomenal portfolio by the way kept in service now and give them their plug there because I love the product I mean every morning when I walk in at seven o'clock two monitors go on and I see exactly what's going on my service delivery side and I see what's going on my portfolio side I can see if projects are hanging but that project portfolio it was reshuffled and reviewed and adjusted every four months I don't believe in projects that go over six months sometimes I'll have a phase two for a year but that's it we won't push that because things change too fast there's other opportunities that may come up and we're not we're not just being so agile that we have no plan I have a very clear plan but the plan really comes down to what are the business needs how did the partners look at it and how do we move it forward from there we had rob thicke going on yesterday CIO and he said his number-one value probably just service now when he went to the c-suite was for the first time he could show executives this is what I teen looks like and actually give a picture to your dashboard question so Andy now take it to home of the level so a sense that's the your comfort blanket of service now gives you the capability well the keepass transparency so I T needs to be transparent every says OIT spends too high this is going on you know we need to control we need to be a better value partner but if you're not transparent and they can't see that then the questions do arise we have large budgets we have a huge operational expenses and we can quantify those by looking at the analytics well I'd see you know it's so true like because if you look at technology technology were always doing more with less our budgets don't go up maybe you do because you're growing but what other part department does more with less but the problem has been I don't know what's in there it's like just get this big IT tax you know every month on my P&L but when you you know when you look at the budget ago there's no more money left over it's not like we're having big parties here we're not throwing big marketing it out it's a we're picking up all the pieces and trying to make it work so that transparency is key know you so did you start with itsm and then part of that was project till you moved into project and HR is facilities next maybe talk about that journey okay so the journey as I see it right now we actually started in ITSM in 2009 with service now okay we've been there for a long time and we are constantly looking at new ways to improve services and add you know in turn on other modules I guess the better way to put it as we move forward when project came out the first time it wasn't ready for prime time so we stayed on our project servers and I had to spirit project information so i didn't have that transparency when the next generation rule is released it was like this is exactly what we need you know we across the organization adopt one platform one view gave me that capability so true portfolio view absolutely connected aligned with the other I constants I can sit down with any of my business units and show them a CIO roadmap that is related to their area and to the institution as a whole so they're able to see what I have on the roadmap and where things are going right now we've rolled acid in we're rolling the finances in I've been very good about the finances always it always come down to can I be transparent about the dollars but now I have a dashboard view versus a bunch of spreadsheets and we're moving that part in HR when HR was discussed a couple different times as a way to improve that service delivery like that we don't quite a few other things analytics before they reported to me went into request management's are doing that financial aid we've done that as a service before that we just applied the ITSM principles to that now we're looking at from the HR perspective a true case management solution that will help us walk through everything and then and then follow back through or could we get a call we can we can see what's going on exactly something we don't have that that visibility facilities is an interesting one we're going to as we after we roll out HR we're gonna meet with facilities group and talk to them and say what do you think here because as we talk about the automation the Internet of Things you're talking about all of these controls you talk about nest in the house we are seeing johnson controls and what it does in in large building spaces it's great it's pretty impressive stuff so how can you you know can you feed that kind of data in there and provide that same service request platform so we'll look into those directions there's quite a few different areas we feel that service now is platform will take care of those items we don't have that aren't available to us how about developing apps and you guys aggressively doing that or you know service now are not necessarily not necessarily will do the standard service requests like said I'm anti customization so you're looking for cuts you know I'm looking for efficiencies we roll out the newest releases very quickly every time we stay on track now that's a little bit different in this apps development because it's not as complicated we are going to look in the store excited about what I've seen already in just the quick peeks at the store and see what's there with the training program we're going to have app developers being trained in our organization now so that might open some opportunities also you want to buy enough build necessarily right now that's really we're not I mean we're an IT support organization we're not a software developer so the question I want to ask you to end the segment here I know you gotta run thanks for your time by the way your create visionary and also great executive leading the charge is showing really where I t I'm an executive standpoint managing now it's every its permit for mysteries across the organization so that's congratulations to your success share the folks out there you know service now how does that change your job your your company and what advice would you give them if someone's kicking the tires for service now I'll see their developer communities exploding and getting some great foundational growth and company's success has been pretty significant well you can't beat rapid deployment and service now I mean we basically turned it on and started running and then we had a bit of build a strategy around how do I take those idle principles and itsmf and actually make them functional because as you know they're not exactly functional when you you read the instruction set its kind of just ideas so you're able to make them functional very quickly so that speed the deployment is phenomenal but really the transformation the organization comes down to is that transparency again my customers can go see exactly what's going on with a service request they can see when we have a problem that the problem information is out there and it we're cueing everything up and we're working through this it's they're not left in the dark I mean we're my organization is great about communications we have I communication strategy for a long time but this is even further because most people don't know the problem you work in the problem yeah they wanted they want to go see it so they can go into the portal there it is what's going on they understand better about especially in the project side now they see not just the projects but we also align those to our strategy and to the institutional goals and objectives for strategic planning so now they can see that I've got this meeting the queue that are related to this initiative this initiative in this initiative and you know that so ServiceNow kills the pills the excuses and says oh it's in my spam folder emails then I take away email yeah yeah and I could have done that with a project portfolio management system before but it's in a stovepipe it's as i connect to a CMU V and doesn't connect you know to the bit I know it they said that did right and you could sort of create these sort of scoring things that sort of worked with a ton of work I mean a ton of work a lot of you know heavy right now do that yeah great like appreciate your time coming for you appreciate have a good flight home appreciate it the gallons or vice president vice chancellor college sources here on the q of cio cio nice we screw is timeless yeah yeah co we've been there she's three running every day it'll update he'll be running be CEO soon next time on the cube thanks for coming out for you right back its pressure break