ServiceNow and IBM revolutionize talent development with AI

Deniz Demirel, a partner for talent transformation strategic partnerships at IBM Consulting, co-authored this blog post.

Generative AI is fundamentally changing the world of work, redefining the skills and jobs needed for the future. In fact, recent research from ServiceNow and Pearson found that an additional 1.76 million tech workers will be needed in the U.S. alone by 2028.

However, according to the IBM Institute for Business Value, less than half of CEOs surveyed (44%) have assessed the impact of generative AI on their workforces.

To help customers develop and upskill their workforces to meet the demands of a rapidly changing talent market, IBM Consulting announced a new services solution in collaboration with ServiceNow.

Part of IBM’s Skills Transformation offering, the new solution combines IBM’s HR and talent transformation consulting expertise with IBM's Talent Frameworks and skills taxonomy data to identify critical industry and role-specific skills. This can accelerate the launch and adoption of the ServiceNow® Talent Development solution, which helps customers create more agile, adaptable, and skill-centric workforces.

The talent challenge in the age of AI

HR and people leaders sit at the center of workforce planning and design, a critical role for this moment. Businesses need a clear skills roadmap to ensure they have the right talent in place to execute their strategy today and in the future.

That roadmap includes redefining employee roles and responsibilities to take advantage of existing skill sets and harnessing the power of technologies such as AI and automation. It also involves building a strategy to fill gaps with reskilling, upskilling, and redeploying talent—while aligning roles in an operating model that brings people and technology together in new ways.

Access to trustworthy data and insights about the current state of the workforce is also key for leaders to help their organizations:

• Establish a strong and accurate skills roadmap
• Build the right talent strategy to close skills gaps
• Equip their teams with the skills and competencies needed for the jobs of the future

Data and AI to support talent strategy

The new services solution can help businesses optimize their talent strategy by mapping a clear skills roadmap and closing skills gaps.

ServiceNow Talent Development helps organizations better understand the capabilities of their workforce so that they can build high-performing teams and improve employee experiences—all on a single platform.

As the AI platform for business transformation, ServiceNow’s open architecture and dynamic, AI‑powered skills intelligence engine can help give people leaders a distinct competitive advantage. In doing so, it can enable companies to integrate with systems across the enterprise and third-party data sources.

With AI and skills intelligence on a single platform, organizations can identify skill gaps and recommend relevant training and growth opportunities for employees in the flow of work.

For example, AI can help detect if an organization needs more salespeople with experience selling in a specific industry or region. It can also assist in recommending relevant training to build those skills. This training helps ensure employees have the critical capabilities to drive the business forward.

IBM has deep expertise in HR and talent transformation, reimagining and modernizing HR to unlock employee and work potential. This includes developing a skills-focused culture, driving organizational change management and leadership alignment, advancing the HR digital roadmap, and reengineering a company’s HR technologies to realize this transformative vision.

The new services solution can help enterprises accelerate time to value in three ways:

1. Skills ontology: By supplementing ServiceNow's out-of-the-box job and skills ontology with IBM's Talent Frameworks and skills taxonomy data, companies will have a more robust database that helps them understand the skills they have and the skills they need.
2. Implementation: IBM will help customers implement the Talent Development solution, including a tailored approach to ensure seamless integration with existing HR enterprise systems and processes.
3. Organizational skills transformation: IBM will help employees understand why and how Talent Development is crucial to personal growth and business success, as well as consult on critical success metrics.

Testing our own processes and solutions

IBM Consulting worked with ServiceNow as a client, helping with skills mapping for a pilot group across a few key job functions. The collaboration has yielded impressive results, reducing the time to build job family architectures for these groups at ServiceNow by 50%. IBM also tailored a change management strategy to support the internal rollout of Talent Development at ServiceNow.

Through this engagement, the companies have seen firsthand the impact combining ServiceNow Talent Development and IBM Consulting expertise can have on an organization. Technology, paired with an effective change management strategy, is critical for companies on a skills journey.

IBM is also a customer of ServiceNow. IBM is using the advanced workflow automation capabilities of the ServiceNow platform across many parts of its enterprise to help improve operations and user experiences for employees.

A growing partnership

The new solution builds on IBM and ServiceNow’s longstanding collaboration supporting HR leaders at client organizations.

As one of six Global Elite Partners of ServiceNow, IBM combines technology and ServiceNow platform consulting and implementation expertise to help enterprises in every industry jump-start their ServiceNow AI-enabled journey across functional enterprise domains.

Earlier this year, IBM and ServiceNow announced a new integration that will combine the power of the Now Platform® with IBM watsonx™ to boost productivity for mutual business partners and customers. ServiceNow will also incorporate watsonx.ai™ and IBM® Granite™ large language models into its Now Assist experience for ServiceNow customers.

Additionally, ServiceNow joined the AI Alliance in 2023, co-launched by IBM and Meta. Together, ServiceNow and IBM can help organizations unlock their employees' full potential and cultivate the workforces they need for today and tomorrow.

Find out more about how ServiceNow Talent Development and IBM Consulting capabilities empower leaders to gain insights into their workforce’s skills and abilities.

Forward-looking statements

This blog post contains “forward-looking statements” about the expectations, beliefs, plans, and intentions relating to ServiceNow and IBM’s collaboration on a talent development solution. Such statements include statements regarding future product capabilities and offerings and expected benefits to ServiceNow. 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, ServiceNow’s results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements made. ServiceNow undertakes no obligation, and does 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 the partnership or delivering the product capabilities and offerings, (ii) changes in the regulatory landscape related to AI, and (iii) uncertainty as to whether sales will justify the investments in the product capabilities and offerings. Further information on factors that could affect ServiceNow’s financial and other results is included in the filings ServiceNow makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time.