Why do custom apps matter? The short answer is because they are how users across the enterprise and customers and partners beyond it consume the enterprise's services. A longer answer can be found in my earlier blog post on why custom apps matter.
But it's not just me saying such things. At the Knowledge14 conference last April, KPMG and ServiceNow surveyed 275 IT professionals about automation of business services. (You can read the complete survey results report here.) Of those respondents:
- 90 percent think service automation should replace e-mail requests;
- 93 percent say IT's role is transforming from infrastructure administrator to driver of enterprise services; and
- 98 percent believe IT's service model can improve HR, Facilities and other enterprise service providers.
These results state clearly and loudly that at least among Knowledge14 attendees, as my colleague Stephen Mann entitled a pre-conference blog post, "It's a Custom App World After All." Because as growing numbers of ServiceNow customers know, custom apps built and deployed on the ServiceNow Service Automation Platform are a sure path to service automation and the transformation of IT into, as our own CEO Frank Slootman put it, "the backbone of the modern enterprise."
In another blog post, "Managing Service Across the Enterprise," Frank underscores that this is not about some fuzzy future goal. "The truth is, many of our customers have already figured this out and have showed us the way by taking ServiceNow into so many use cases outside of ITSM across the broader enterprise."
A great example: MetroPCS. Before it was acquired by T-Mobile, MetroPCS was the fifth-largest facilities-based wireless carrier in the US, and a leader in unlimited wireless broadband services that didn't require signed contracts. MetroPCS also became an early beneficiary, champion and advocate of building and deploying custom enterprise applications on the ServiceNow Service Automation Platform. As detailed in the ServiceNow MetroPCS case study, the company began by deploying ServiceNow to modernize and improve IT service management. MetroPCS then quickly began to exploit the Platform via custom apps for multiple departments.
You might consider MetroPCS an early "poster child" for the power of the ServiceNow Platform. In fact, here's a new poster highlighting several examples of what MetroPCS has done with the ServiceNow Platform.
For companies already using ServiceNow to modernize and transform IT, custom apps are a sure route for extending the value of those ServiceNow investments. For companies not already using ServiceNow, the power of the Platform offers multiple opportunities to modernize out-of-date incumbent custom apps and to create new ones. Easily, quickly and with IT's full endorsement. And without putting additional undue pressure on resource-challenged IT teams.
As you may have already discerned, I am a big fan of the ServiceNow Service Automation Platform and the benefits enterprises of all types are getting from it, within and beyond IT. So you can expect me and others to step up evangelism behind the ServiceNow CreateNow Development Suite, our Shared Services Applications for Facilities Service Automation, Field Service Automation and HR Service Automation, and other examples of the power of the Platform. Including, of course, ServiceNow Share and the Custom Application Showcase. And if you've got or seen examples you think are share-worthy, do please let me know.
The Power of the ServiceNow Service Automation Platform is already proving its business value every day at thousands of enterprises. As The New Age of Service takes hold at (and challenges) more organizations, custom applications, better services and true enterprise service management will all become more critical to those organizations. And the positive experiences of enterprises such as MetroPCS will provide increasingly compelling examples of how the power of the ServiceNow Platform can fuel success in that new age. Which is now, by the way.
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