Execution management meets digital workflows

The longer the pandemic stretches on, the more convinced I become that innovation is the key to recovery. And I’m not alone. McKinsey research found more than 90% of executives “expect the fallout from COVID-19 to fundamentally change the way they do business over the next five years.”

Yet, many organizations are focusing less on innovation in an effort to minimize risk, save money, pursue safe opportunities, and bolster their core business, McKinsey reports.

That’s not the case at ServiceNow. We’re more focused on innovation than ever before. That’s why I’m proud to announce a new strategic partnership with execution management company Celonis that will help customers spur innovation by rethinking business processes.

ServiceNow and Celonis plan to jointly develop solutions that combine Celonis’ execution management capabilities with the digital workflow capabilities of the Now Platform® to modernize and digitize business processes.

Innovation at the workflow level

Tweaking existing processes to stay ahead of competition is simply a bandage. It’s not sustainable or scalable. To truly transform business processes and make work better and more efficient requires a new approach that combines process insights and business execution. That’s what Celonis offers: execution management.

Combining that expertise with ServiceNow’s digital workflows expertise can help businesses understand how work flows across people, processes, and systems, equipping them to apply automation and continuously improve the flow of work.

ServiceNow workflows are a series of activities that follow an execution path to complete a process. Essentially, Celonis will help identify issues preventing process efficiency, and ServiceNow can take action through automation, machine learning, or low-code application development to increase efficiency.

Using our joint solutions will enable customers to quickly identify process bottlenecks and leverage automation to help improve customer satisfaction, drive revenue growth, and increase cash flow and operating margins. We can deliver these improvements through integrations, simple workflows, and custom apps built using ServiceNow Creator Workflows.

Gaining visibility into processes

Execution management is a two-sided coin. The process mining side captures all of the data, insights, and intelligence about exactly what’s happening in any business process. It X-rays enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, and other business processes to provide a set of data that can drive intelligent recommendations, actions, and automations.

Process mining is the gateway to modern execution frameworks such as hyperautomation and data-driven workflows. This type of systematic approach to execution allows companies to:

• Understand how core business processes run and interact with other processes.

• Glean where processes are deviating from the desired model.

• Identify gaps, bottlenecks, and inefficiencies.

• Standardize processes before automating them.

Toward hyperautomation

Embracing this new way to get full visibility into processes and data execution puts companies on the fast track to hyperautomation, which brings together artificial intelligence, robotic process automation, and process mining to automate end-to-end business and IT processes. Hyperautomation frees people—the heart of any business—to focus on strategy, innovation, and empathy while leaving everything else for computers to handle.

The draw of hyperautomation is a more productive, agile, and efficient business, which is what we’re all looking for in the new world of hybrid work. Execution insights from Celonis, combined with ServiceNow’s hyperautomation platform, will give organizations the visibility, analytics, workflow, and automation to unlock their business potential and carry them into the digital future.

The joint solutions are expected to be available in 2022. Learn more about business process optimization.

Hear what ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott has to say about the ServiceNow-Celonis partnership in the Celonis World Tour.

Use of forward‑looking statements

This blog contains “forward‑looking statements” about the expectations, beliefs, plans, and intentions relating to the formation of a new strategic partnership between ServiceNow and Celonis. Such forward‑looking statements include statements regarding expected investments and performance and benefits of forming this new partnership. Forward‑looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on potentially inaccurate assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected or implied by the forward‑looking statements. If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, our results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward‑looking statements we make. We undertake no obligation, and do not intend, to update the forward‑looking statements. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward‑looking statements include: (i) delays and unexpected difficulties and expenses in executing this partnership or delivering solutions and (ii) uncertainty as to whether sales will justify this partnership or these investments. Further information on factors that could affect our financial and other results is included in the filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time.

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