In August, Bill McDermott, the chief executive officer (CEO) of ServiceNow, released what can only be described as an extremely aggressive revenue target plan when he said his goals were as follows: reach US$11 billion within two years, and up that to US$16 billion by 2026.
They are indeed lofty – particular given the fact its third quarter results announced on Oct. 26 reached US$1.7 billion and for fiscal 2022, the company is projecting revenues of US$6.8 billion.
Commenting on the quarterly results, McDermott said that “once again, ServiceNow beat both our top and bottom-line goals. Businesses are leaning into the generational shift from architectures built in the last century to platforms engineered for this one.”
And as far as reaching the US$16 billion mark, Dave Wright, the company’s chief innovation officer (CINO), said in an interview with Channel Daily News that in order to hit the target, channel partners will need to play a key role.
“Channel partners touch a high percentage of our deals,” said Wright at the Toronto stop of the company’s World Forum 2022, a series of one-day events that have already taken place in Tokyo, London, Chicago, and Frankfurt and will take place in Paris tomorrow and Zurich later this month.
“We realized that in order to hit the target of US$16 billion, we are not going to be able do it by ourselves.”
According to the company, its partner program “enables companies to build, test, certify, and distribute apps and integrations for the Now Platform. Designed for independent software vendors (ISVs), systems integrators, and other app developers, this multi-segmented global program provides a rich set of tools and resources.”
Wright described it as an initiative that is continually evolving: “You see mergers and acquisitions happening – boutique companies being bought by larger-size companies, and we see boutique companies grow to become major companies. It is a very interesting community.”
It could end up becoming larger and more varied as a result of a new ServiceNow program announced last month that is aimed at both the channel and end-user community. Called RiseUp, the goal is to skill or reskill one million people on the company’s Now Platform by 2024.
“Digital transformation requires a talent transformation, so ServiceNow is creating a new kind of career path,” said Lara Caimi, the company’s chief customer and partner officer. “Instead of focusing on the skills gap, we believe it is time to focus on the opportunity gap and broaden the definition of tech talent so more people can benefit from the demand for digital transformation.
“We’re creating new opportunities for both technical and non‑technical talent, to help more people advance into higher‑paying roles across our ecosystem, regardless of their background. RiseUp with ServiceNow will empower people to build meaningful careers and enable customers and partners to find much needed talent so they can thrive in the digital economy.”
The company says the initiative will focus on what it described as three pillars: Lower barriers to learning through 600+ free courses and 18 job-related certification paths, expand the opportunities for tech talent and place newly skilled talent in jobs.
RiseUp, said Wright, is specifically designed to run at a global level and “be able to produce the specialists that the partners want, or the specialists the customers want, for everywhere you go, you get different nuances.”
The goal, he added, is to enable the ecosystem to be able to grow, but it is also a people initiative in that it “allows people to look for new opportunities. We do get a lot of people that are not necessarily from an IT background, who want to get into this industry and having a business analytics background can be as useful if not more useful than having an IT background.”
