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Top 10 Global Systems Integrators Prioritize ServiceNow Talent, CEO Asserts

SUN VALLEY, IDAHO – JULY 09: CEO of ServiceNow Bill McDermott walks to a morning session at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 09, 2021 in Sun Valley, Idaho. After a year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world’s most wealthy and powerful businesspeople from the media, finance, and technology worlds will converge at ...

How is ServiceNow overcoming the technology talent shortage across its partner ecosystem? Part of the answer involves ServiceNow customer demand influencing global system integrator hiring, training and talent resource reallocations.

A case in point: If you look at the top 10 global systems integrators, ServiceNow is a top five technology partner for each of those businesses, CEO Bill McDermott (pictured above) asserts.

"So while they may have some difficulty hiring to meet demand, we are getting preferential resource allocation -- not only as a top five technology partner, but also because our swelling pipeline and our growth is so amazing that all want more of that real estate," McDermott said during ServiceNow's quarterly earnings call on January 27, 2022.

Dedicated ServiceNow Talent Pools

To grab that ServiceNow real estate with customers, Accenture, Deloitte and others have formed dedicated and expansive ServiceNow groupss. Also M&A within and across the ServiceNow partner ecosystem has been strong.

Moreover, those Top 10 global systems integrators have "less interesting growth scenarios with other partners, they're actually peeling off headcount in favor of the ServiceNow practice," McDermott said. "This is happening all over the place."

Still, ServiceNow knows that it must continue to invest in partner training -- particularly university programs to meet the demand, he noted. "We've also been working with our partners to sponsor and engage with local diversity profit and nonprofits to target diverse populations for next-gen skill development, which will help alleviate such labor shortages in the future," McDermott added.

McDermott also credited ServiceNow founder Fred Luddy for creating a platform that was a productivity tool for people. The platform, he asserted, makes it easy for "people to learn and develop and grow on it. And now they see where we're going. They know it's a growth sensation. And you know how it is: A rising tide kind of lifts all boats-- and everybody wants to get on this one."

ServiceNow Growth, Expansion from ITSM to Workflow Automation

ServiceNow's latest financial results reinforce that thesis. Total revenues were $1.6 billion in Q4 of 2021, up 29 percent from Q4 of 2020. The platform has emerged as a de facto standard for IT service management (ITSM) for global 2000 companies, and it's also catching on for workflow automation across cybersecurity, HR, finance and other departmental use cases.

Meanwhile, ServiceNow has also caught on as a co-managed services platform for mid-market MSPs.

Next up, it sounds like the ServiceNow Knowledge 2022 conference is scheduled for May in Orlando, Florida.

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.