6 Months of Insights from our Top Execs: EXPAND Recap Deck
Welcome back to week two of our 2021 Christmas in July! We’re halfway through with our content giveaway, the peak if you will, and in our minds, there is no better time to try to top everything we’ve done so far… by giving you not just one video but six videos.
That’s right, today we’re putting the last six months of EXPAND insight videos in one place, plus adding executive summary commentary to each one.
Haven’t heard of EXPAND before? Here’s what you need to know…
Each month this year, we’ve sat with a different Acorio executive to tackle digital transformation’s most pressing questions. These conversations cover a wide variety of topics ranging from ServiceNow strategy to our client’s top challenges of 2021, but each interview shared a single purpose: to provide our clients with the most insights possible. Keep reading to see what insights were shared as our top digital transformation leaders laid all their cards on the table.
So you’re familiar with our monthly EXPAND segment, but you weren’t able to keep up with every segment in real-time since the beginning of 2021. Worry not! Today, we’re recapping the last six months of insights into a sleek new slideshare. We’ve also added a high-level overview of each interview down below so you can quickly soak up the most valuable highlights for each leader in less than a minute.
For those wanting to take a deeper dive into any of these segments, we’ve included links back to all of the original articles that each contain a slide share, video, and blog detailing the topics listed below.
6 Months of Insights Distilled into 10 Slides
January: Vice President, Strategic Marketing, Meghan Lockwood on ServiceNow’s 2021 Strategy
In this year’s first EXPAND segment, Meghan comments on ServiceNow’s 2021 strategy as the company marches ahead with its mission to lead the “workflow revolution” and define digital transformation in modern companies. At the heart of this goal is the company’s #1 priority: the customer. Meghan notes several key shifts in the cloud company to better support their clients:
- A more verticalized strategy
- Increased investments in data analytics
- New additions to the platform’s Leadership Team
- An expanded digital strategy
February: Vice President, Ellen Daley, on the Future of Digital Transformation
In my view, Digital Transformation is all about aligning talent, technology, processes, and outcomes to enable cross-functional initiatives to create a digital-first organization that serves the people in and around it.
Digital transformation is a hot buzzword in business, but many folks still struggle to visualize what it means in the context of their organization. In this EXPAND interview, Ellen talks clearly and concisely through the ABCs of digital transformation. Here’s what you need to know:
- There’s a common misconception that technical challenges are the number one roadblock for projects when it’s the opposite. Most issues stem from Organizational Change Management and earning buy-in from team members.
- HR Support, customer workflows, and technology are the big 3 priorities for the future of digital transformation.
- Digital transformation is all about alignment. Increased connectivity between internal organizations ramps up efficiency, which improves customer and employee satisfaction, and drives up profitability. It’s a win-win-win.
March: Vice President, Client Success, Grant Pulver on Client’s Biggest Concern for 2021
As someone who spends the majority of his time with client teams, Grant uses his EXPAND interview to share the top ServiceNow client priorities for 2021:
- Fewer siloes. The circumstances of 2020 prompted most clients to embrace a more comprehensive approach surrounding customer service. Now, today’s executives are looking to improve the overall work experience – and noticing that by doing so, optimization, cost savings, and customer satisfaction scores all seem to fall into place.
- After COVID-19 disrupted the work landscape, many clients are prioritizing flexibility in their roadmaps to allow space for projects to pivot as needed. While this is a rational response to the last 18 months, this prioritization of flexibility is noteworthy because it’s a new trend in the ecosystem.
- Increased Alignment. Related to our first point of fewer siloes, today’s clients are focusing more on internal alignment during their ServiceNow projects. This is critical, as critical mistakes can flourish wherever client organizations are disconnected. Conversely, when teams are aligned on ServiceNow, they can better provide a standard experience to their end-user.
April: Vice President, Juliet Acuff on Maximizing Platform Value
For her EXPAND interview, Juliet reveals the #1 trend amongst our 2021 Insight & Vision Report: increased platform use across the entire platform.
The past year has accelerated digital transformation with a distinct focus on both customer and employee experience. Meanwhile, the ServiceNow platform has strategically aligned itself to absorb change and enhance automation, allowing companies to focus on these impacts.
This expansion has led to a growing demand for ServiceNow developers, but many firms struggle to find the appropriate resources to staff their projects. The two most common challenges preventing organizations from taking full advantage of the ServiceNow capabilities available to them are two sides of the same coin: demand and staffing.
Read Juliet’s full interview and learn how to respond to these two growing challenges in the ServiceNow ecosystem.
May: Chief Sales Officer, Brian Murphy on Shifting Platform Investment Strategies
Following ServiceNow’s virtual annual Knowledge conference, Brian shares his perspective on shifting platform investment strategies amongst clients. He notes that long-time ServiceNow customers have begun prioritizing or accelerating plans to bring prior customizations “back-to-box”. It also means shifting to CSDM so they can more rapidly leverage opportunities on the ServiceNow platform while also reducing costs through consolidation and automation.
Brian’s insights don’t stop there, he also highlights the top three most common client challenges for ServiceNow projects in 2021: unexpected costs causing budget issues; basing executive sponsorship exclusively on seniority; and limited availability with Subject Matter Experts. If you’d like to learn more about how to sidestep these common roadblocks, check out Brian’s complete interview.
June: Vice President, Marci Parker on the Evolution of Experience
In Marci’s EXPAND interview from last month, she zeroes in on the keystone of digital transformation: experience. More specifically, she distinguishes CX from UX and EX – alphabet soup, anyone?
She explains that while User Experience was a hot topic for the last several years, that focus has now shifted towards the overall employee and customer experience. These differ from UX and its focus on technology by placing the priority on the people using the tool and how they can best interact with technology to serve them, rather than solely focusing on optimizing the tool itself.
Customer and Employee Experience (CX and EX) goes deeper than User Experience by not only asking about the layout of a tool but going the extra mile to consider how the user feels while they’re using it. As most offices transitioned to remote work this past year and continue to serve their customers and employees virtually, this trend and its digitization have only accelerated.
Looking for more insights on ServiceNow and digital transformation in 2021? We’ve got you covered! Our latest Insight & Vision Report summarizes data from a total of 1200 survey respondents across three years, distilling thousands of data points into 38 pages (plus 51 charts to use in your next presentation.)
