2023 World Forum: Sydney Key Takeaways

World Forum Sydney ‘23 was a great day - filled with insights, customer stories, and reconnections with friends and contacts. It was fantastic to see everyone in person again, and I continue to believe we haven't scratched the surface of the value ServiceNow can bring to customers.

If you're still thinking "ServiceNow is just an expensive ticketing tool", let's sit down for a coffee - we'll bring it, from?Pirate Coffee, of course. We can take you through multiple examples about how to get the best value from your ServiceNow investment, how GenAI can improve your service while reducing costs, and how to deliver digital workflows that matter.

For now, let's talk about the Top Five-and-a-half Key Takeaways from the event:

1. GenAI, GenAI, GenAI

Unsurprisingly, the key buzz at the event was how GenAI is getting baked into the platform, based on Large Language Models (LLM's) built in partnership with NVIDIA, who have a track record of being able build and deliver this sort of capability.

It's a canny investment by ServiceNow - ride on the hype wagon, but with a good amount of under-the-cover R&D to continue to raise the bar for what the platform can do. AI is now a "fifth pillar" for ServiceNow, after their four pillars of workflows - technology, customer, employee and creator, because of how it can be used across a range of use cases.

Want to drive intent understanding on a customer's interaction? Can do. How about drag a bunch of information together and write a new knowledge article? Also can. Increase case deflection and auto-resolution by having natural-language conversations in the chatbot? Sounds great!

2. But GenAI needs data…

The biggest challenge is that AI is no use if you can't train it on enough of the right, accurate data. Does an LLM know how to speak Singlish? If your knowledge articles are incomplete or poorly written, will it accidentally create articles and provide responses to customers and employees that don't align with your policies or values?

The dream of GenAI is real, but as anyone who's tried to write an assignment or proposal using ChatGPT has found, it's pretty easy to spot when a human hasn't been involved. If you haven't been working on your CMDB, knowledge articles, or having your agents fully write up notes from cases, be prepared for the ground work required.

3. It needs automation

So your chat agent can say some phrases, that's nice. Now what? The promise of ServiceNow (and CloudGo) has always been about delivering digital workflows that matter - and workflows imply automation.

Work on the services you're providing and where you'll be able to automate steps that can be triggered by Now Assist and its GenAI capabilities. No need to boil the ocean here - pick the Top 10 catalog items, FAQ's and services you deliver and work out how you can make the platform sing behind the new capabilities.

More value to customers at a lower cost to deliver? Yes please!

4. Public sector to be the big winner from digital workflows…

There was a big public sector SIG (Special Interest Group) this year, showing off case studies and new capability. An example of the new capability CloudGo had at our stand is our new Authority to Operate accelerator, co-built with ServiceNow, to help agencies remain secure by design while meeting their PSPF obligations.

Risk and privacy management are critical in the public sector space - this accelerator is built on top of ServiceNow's Integrated Risk Management and Privacy modules and had a great reception at the event. We're running a webinar later this month - please register here.

5. …as are employees

ServiceNow continues to slide into the space traditionally occupied by HR ERP systems like SuccessFactors and Workday with a surrounding strategy. There's a new enhanced workplace services module coming, continued improvements to Employee Centre (see our previous webinar here), and most importantly the launch of "Employee Growth & Development".

This is a new way to uncover and nurture the talent in your company (shoutout Simon Greening). The war for talent never went away, and ServiceNow is becoming the place you manage and automate those engagements.

5 and a half: There must be a Karaoke bar around here somewhere right?

The best part about these events is always the in-person catchups - and the after-events that need never be mentioned on social media. To everyone who came by both during and after the vent, thanks so much - see you all next year!?

Please download our "Eight Ways To Gain More Value from your ServiceNow investment" white paper and in the interests of supporting small local businesses, we will be providing a special code to everyone who visited our booth to get a free bag of Pirate Coffee with free shipping anywhere in Australia.

Didn't visit the booth? That's OK, DM me and I'll give you the code. This stuff is {chef's kiss} - much like the World Forum!

Check out our library of content in the downloads page on our website.

Have a look at our previous webinars and let us know what you think!

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