Enterprise, Content, Security Staff Acquisition & Development

ServiceNow Hires Former SAP CEO Bill McDermott

ServiceNow has hired former SAP CEO and well-known business showman Bill McDermott to succeed John Donahoe as chief executive officer by the end of 2019. Donahoe, meanwhile, will join Nike as CEO in January 2020.

ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott
Former SAP CEO Bill McDermott will run ServiceNow

The stunning announcements surface roughly a week or so after McDermott stepped down from SAP and triggered a CEO succession plan at that enterprise software company. company.

McDermott joins ServiceNow at a key time for the fast-growing IT service management (ITSM) software provider. ServiceNow has been growing rapidly and expanding into HR, security, compliance and other types of use cases. For the full year 2019, ServiceNow expects subscription revenues between $3.240 billion and $3.245 billion, the company said today.

Enterprise and midmarket MSPs -- such as Fully Managed -- have been embracing ServiceNow for various IT automation initiatives. Amid an industry shortage of ServiceNow technicians, IT consulting firms and systems integrators have been acquiring ServiceNow partners worldwide.

But ServiceNow company also faces challenges as it seeks to maintain its torrid growth. For instance, new rivals such as SolarWinds Service Desk are attempting to upend ServiceNow. The latest SolarWinds Service Desk R&D information, which surfaced today, features new chat and mobile capabilities for IT service management (ITSM), the company says.

Amid ServiceNow's CEO transition and concerns about potential slowing growth, the company's stock fell about 13 percent in after-hours trading.

New ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott: His SAP Track Record

Still, ServiceNow's latest financial figures show momentum, For the third quarter 2019, subscription revenues were $835 million, representing 35% year-over-year growth, adjusted for foreign exchange (FX) rates, the company said on October 22.

McDermott has plenty of experience scaling enterprise software companies. He was SAP's CEO from 2014 until October 2019, and was co-CEO from 2010 to 2014.

During McDermott’s tenure as co-CEO and CEO, SAP tripled its market value to approximately $140 billion, growing into a global software company with more than 437,000 customers in over 180 countries, ServiceNow says.

It's a safe bet McDermott, a well-known showman, will make headlines during the ServiceNow Knowledge 2020 conference for customers and partners.

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.