ServiceNow : Now Platform San Diego release stays true to our innovative roots

I fell in love with San Diego on my first visit in 1996. I could imagine calling it home. A laid-back lifestyle, an amazingly diverse community, sea breezes-what else could a systems engineer from gray England want?

Back then, San Diego wasn't exactly a hub of innovative technology. So, when Fred Luddy founded ServiceNow in San Diego, he forged a new path. In fact, he was ahead of his time in many ways.

Fred's original vision in 2004 was to "build a cloud-based platform that would enable regular people to route work effectively through the enterprise." Remember, this was when most people thought clouds only referred to the fluffy stuff floating in the air.

Today, ServiceNow is launching its latest Now Platform release, proudly named after our birthplace, San Diego. I couldn't think of a better name.

A flexible platform that stands the test of time

Eighteen years ago, when ServiceNow started, none of us could have known we'd be streaming all our content, calling up rides from strangers on our smartphones, or signing important legal documents with a fingertip on our tablets.

And I didn't exactly predict everyday employees would be creating low-code apps and working remotely from, say, a California beach. The world has changed so much-and ServiceNow is still thriving.

I think that's because Fred's original vision steered us toward creating a platform that's so flexible that it keeps responding to customers' changing needs. As the world evolves, so does the platform.

In fact, much of our innovation happened thanks to our customers. The HR Service Management product? That was born out of a customer's need for it and a solution engineer's demo product. Later, in 2014, we did the same for Security Incident Management.

This history of agility and flexibility allows us to empower our customers. That's been Fred's vision all along. We started with IT Service Management because it happened to have the most defined processes, so it was the best starting point for this journey. Now, we serve the entire breadth of our customers' enterprises-all while retaining the simplicity and efficiency of our original offering.

Exciting, innovative features

So, what am I most excited about in the San Diego release? Quite a few things.

Though more and more companies are turning to automation technology, siloed systems make it impossible to truly speed up work while sparing employees repetitive tasks. The new robotic process automation (RPA) capabilities in San Diego-including RPA Desktop Design Studio, which lets users quickly design, test, and publish bots-offer visibility and control across departments, finally delivering on the promise of hyperautomation.

Rounding out the list of my personal favorite features are:

• Advances in artificial intelligence that bring humans and AI together in the loop

• Built-in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) tools such as the EcoVadis green ratings

• The intuitive Next Experience user experience that goes well beyond the beautiful new interface

I could go on and on, but my friend CJ Desai, chief operating officer for ServiceNow, would be a better person to dive deeper into all the details of the San Diego release.

Most important for me is that with Next Experience, San Diego makes service a holistic concept, embodying the importance of breaking down organizational silos. San Diego gives people an experience that helps them work faster, easier, and more efficiently. Flexibility has always made the Now Platform® unique, and the San Diego release takes this extensibility to a new level to empower our customers to innovate faster.

We've made sure work flows smoothly on the back end so our customers' customers and employees can "route work effectively through the enterprise," living up to Fred's original vision.

Employees shouldn't be constrained to a place-or by how work gets done. With modern workplace tools, I have more flexibility and choice so I can enjoy the very things that made me join ServiceNow and move to Southern California.

ServiceNow, welcome home to San Diego.

Find out more about the San Diego release.

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