ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW), Forbes’ No. 1 World’s Most Innovative Company in 2018, announced transformational changes to its global partner ecosystem strategy, introducing new programs for ServiceNow’s global partner community to accelerate growth with ServiceNow and deliver greater value to customers. These programs, unveiled at Knowledge 2019, ServiceNow’s annual user conference, underscore ServiceNow’s commitment to developing a world-class partner ecosystem and enabling digital transformations that make work, work better for people.
“ServiceNow believes it can become a $10 billion company, creating significant opportunity for our global partner ecosystem to grow with us as we help enable digital transformation for customers worldwide,” said David M. Parsons, ServiceNow Senior Vice President of Global Alliances and Channel Ecosystem. “The changes announced more intuitively segment our global partner portfolio, better differentiating levels of expertise for our partners and customers. We also are implementing a more consistent, proactive and predictable joint go-to-market engagement framework. Together, ServiceNow and its partners represent a true ‘force multiplier’ for our customers. We are committed to helping customers accelerate their digital transformation journey and realize unprecedented business value.”
Highlights of ServiceNow’s global partner ecosystem strategy and partner programs include the following.
New Global Partner Segmentation Approach
ServiceNow has established a new global partner segmentation approach to recognize partners’ expertise across its ecosystem. This will enhance opportunities for partners to differentiate and position their services to joint customers.
Within this new framework, partners are segmented according to two sets of criteria: 1) their breadth and depth of ServiceNow-enabled solutions adoption associated with their practice development and managed service offerings, and 2) their go-to-market maturity. The former is determined by four key factors, which include:
- Capacity, which pertains to the number of people who are certified on ServiceNow technology within the partner organization;
- Competency, characterized by a partner’s specialization, which is determined by achieving specific ServiceNow product, solutions and workflow certifications and recognized via ServiceNow’s new ‘Digital Badging System’;
- Customer success, as validated by published criteria, including multiple product line, solution, and workflow implementations that meet baseline customer satisfaction scores; and
- Capability, with respect to a qualitative assessment of a partner’s digital transformation skills, industry domain expertise, and global scale.
Based on these sets of criteria, partners are segmented within one of the following partner categories:
- Global Elite Partner:†A Global Elite partner meets all of the ‘Elite Partner’ criteria and has the following characteristics: deep industry domain expertise; digital transformation skills, including business process re-engineering and organization change management; global scale; commitment to achieve a $1billion ServiceNow practice within three-to-five years; and CEO-level commitment to a ServiceNow practice. The attainment of these characteristics is reviewed annually.
- Elite Partner:†An Elite partner typically specializes in five or more ServiceNow products across the IT, Employee Experience and Customer Service workflows and has established operations in multiple geographies.†
- Premier Partner:†A Premier partner typically focuses on fewer than five ServiceNow products in more than one geographic region.
- Specialist Partner:†A Specialist partner typically provides highly specialized skills in a specific area in any one or more ServiceNow product.
- Registered Partner:†A Registered partner is new to the ServiceNow partner ecosystem, has met the minimum qualification requirements for the program and has yet to achieve measurable activity or certifications.
New†Service Provider Coverage Model and Partner Programs
The company has implemented specific programs that support each level of specialization and go-to-market strategies. This includes providing visibility into ServiceNow’s product roadmap. These programs will help partners build ServiceNow technology practices and managed services offerings that are powered by the Now Platform and workflows.
ServiceNow has created a dedicated business development team to support the top global and regional service providers. It also has launched a new program for service providers who innovate on ServiceNow’s workflow products or platform. A new ServiceNow reference design validation process encourages service providers to build their own offerings powered by the Now Platform.
In order to better address the unique needs of partners who serve public sector customers operating in a highly regulated environment, ServiceNow has established a new program to help its partners more effectively respond to public sector customer opportunities. Initially, the program will focus on partners serving U.S. Federal customers; over time, the program will expand to include State, Local and Education and will be extended to partners in Europe and Asia as well.
As the foundation of the global partner ecosystem transformation, ServiceNow has established a new global-regional joint engagement framework to enhance joint go-to-market consistency and predictability, a new next-generation deal registration process and a global Partner Concierge Service Center (5×24) to simplify the way partners engage with ServiceNow and ensure that they have the support they need to be successful. The global partner organization also has put in place a new, joint go-to-market governance model, unified enablement and progressive training programs to lower the cost of training and accelerate time to certification across the global partner ecosystem.
“This announcement represents a strategic pivot to engage with our global and regional partner community in a world-class manner. Our goal is to enable our partners to be successful as they grow their ServiceNow practices and managed services offerings. At ServiceNow, we are committed to making partner success synonymous with customer success,” Parsons continued.
