Application Development
Now at Work: Helping companies embrace digital transformation
The Now at Work 2021 Digital Experience provided a forum for companies around the world to demonstrate how they’re using the Now Platform, boosted by the Rome release, to bring about digital transformation. ServiceNow helped businesses not only cope with the pandemic, but also build more innovative, nimble organizations for the future.
ServiceNow Chief Innovation Officer Dave Wright opened the event by urging companies to focus on three goals:
- Reimagine ways to create experiences that transform lives.
- Be able to adjust course at any moment.
- Innovate with continuous improvement.
With COVID-19 pushing companies to accelerate digitization, "we have a unique opportunity to make a positive and long-lasting impact on the world," Wright said. "This is one of those do-or-die moments. Business models are changing forever."
Streamlining the service desk
David Rottman, a senior IT manager at TD Bank, headquartered in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, said the Now Platform helped rescue the bank's IT service operations from "the Stone Age." Prior to the pandemic, the bank operated five legacy platforms, and the company's service desk took 1.3 million calls a year. It often took several days to complete a request.
"It was too hard to find what you needed, and it took too long," Rottman said. "We needed help."
The pandemic spurred TD Bank to adopt the Now Platform to establish a self-help portal for employees. As a result, calls to the service desk dropped 16% year over year.
Simplifying vaccine management
When COVID-19 struck New South Wales in Australia last year, health officials were uncertain how many people they needed to vaccinate. At first, officials vaccinated 150,000 government employees, but they soon discovered that 8 million people would need vaccines.
The government's vaccine eligibility requirements also kept changing, said Dr. Zoran Bolevich, chief information officer of NSW Health. "We needed a platform that was not only scalable, but also flexible so we could deal with the changing criteria," he explained.
NSW Health chose the Now Platform and, within 10 business days, was able to deploy its first vaccine management system at one of its clinics.
Smoothing the supply chain
COVID-19 has wreaked havoc with international supply chains, but Britain perhaps felt the pain more acutely. Prior to the pandemic, the country had decided to leave the European Union, forcing British firms to fill out loads of customs paperwork to export and import goods with EU nations.
"There has been a confluence of events that has exposed the brittleness of supply chains," said Christian Benson, vice president of tax and international customs in the UK office of Fujitsu.
Fujitsu has been using ServiceNow to ease the flow of goods between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Even though Northern Ireland is a part of Britain, the province shares an island with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member.
The border between Ireland and Northern Ireland remains open, but certain goods passing from Northern Ireland to Britain must go through border checks. Benson said the Now Platform helped automate workflows relating to cumbersome customs paperwork.
Integrating workflows
In Japan, companies haven’t embraced digital transformation as fast as they should, according to Fumihiko Shinoura, director, executive officer, and general manager of business development for Net One Systems. He believes Japan must pick up the pace in digitization operations or risk falling further behind the United States and China.
"We can no longer wait for digitization," Shinoura said. "We just need to make progress." Part of the problem is that Japanese companies tend to work on their own instead of collaborating with others, he added.
"Rather than a company thinking on its own, you should instead think together with vendors, clients, and other ecosystem partners," Shinoura advised. "You can compensate for areas you're lacking in. So, I would like to see a more open mindset."
One Japanese firm seems to be getting the message. Dai-ichi Life Insurance is transforming itself to meet the challenges of its new strategy. Japan's birth rate is slowing, and the population is aging. So, the company wants to offer new services, including prevention through early diagnoses, extending healthy life expectancies, and controlling medical expenses.
To accomplish this, the company is working with ServiceNow to move its on-premises servers to the cloud, said Eita Yoshidome, an executive IT specialist. Dai-ichi Life once operated 50,000 different databases, so employees had to "search multiple places to find one piece of info," he said. With the Now Platform, Dai-ichi Life has unified its data sources to create integrated workflows.
Turning disruptions into opportunities
James McCready, vice president and managing director for ServiceNow Japan, said the pandemic has certainly disrupted companies around the world, but that could end up being a good thing. Companies have accelerated their digital transformations and embraced new ways of getting work done, he said.
"Companies have an opportunity to turn disruptions like the pandemic into opportunities for growth," McCready said.
Learn more about how ServiceNow helps companies embrace digital transformation in our on-demand Now at Work content. Registration is free.
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