Published on the 08/03/2017 | Written by Donovan Jackson
Vendor strengthens in-country representation as service management catches on…
With the promotion of Hamish Miles to the newly created position of New Zealand Country Manager, ServiceNow is bolstering its in-country representation as demand for its service management solutions continues to ramp up. Miles told iStart that the company is experiencing strong growth locally, both within its existing client base and with prospective new customers.
ServiceNow provides a cloud platform for workflow-based service management which it likes to call ‘intelligent automation’, with an underlying idea to change the way people work by addressing the multiple snag points and inefficiencies most of us take for granted in the daily grind.
While rooted in the concept of ‘ITSM’, or IT service management (and the closely associated ITIL standards), service management is applicable far beyond control of the IT function within any business, a notion that ServiceNow continues to successfully exploit. Indeed, said Miles, in its engagements the company tends to ‘land and expand’. “Generally, once our customers see the software in action, they want to grow its use throughout their organisations.”
That’s something iStart has previously noted from discussions with MinterEllisonRuddWatts’ CDO, Nick Whitehouse and a chance encounter with a ServiceNow customer in a coffee shop.
Miles said his New Zealand team now numbers seven members, with offices in Auckland’s Queen Street. He said there is every expectation headcount will increase in the coming months as the company follows its ‘growth trajectory’.
Founded by Fred Luddy in 2003, that trajectory has been both substantial and sustained; by January 2016 ServiceNow passed US1 billion in turnover, something only one other cloud company (Salesforce.com) had managed at the time. Expectations for this year are for a turnover of between $1.34 and $1.37 billion, and a projection of $4 billion by the end of 2020. Just how much the Kiwi market will contribute to that tally remains to be seen, but certainly the company has high hopes.
Just last month, Frank Slootman, who had served as president, CEO and chairman of the board since 2011, announced that he is to step aside as of April 3, with the hot seat to be filled by John Donahoe, previous CEO of eBay. Slootman remains chairman of the board.
ANZ MD David Oakley said the company has a strong and loyal customer base in New Zealand and “The timing is right to double down and accelerate the journey.”
Miles joined ServiceNow two and a half years ago as an Auckland-based sales representative. Prior to that, he spent six years at Attachmate and subsidiaries NetIQ and Suse.
