Johannesburg, 27 Jul 2022
A fact about me that often surprises people is that five years ago, just before I joined ServiceNow, I almost declined an interview here.
Don’t get me wrong, I knew it was one of the best employers out there. But I’d been in the IT industry for years, and I was looking for something beyond your average technology company. In my mind, ServiceNow was just a ticketing solution – one that was doing great things when it came to ITSM, but not the career move that I wanted.
But after further research, I know that ServiceNow is so much more than your basic IT solution. It has the potential to help organisations in South Africa – and across the world – face a multitude of challenges, from the war on talent to the need to provide top-tier customer experiences across every industry imaginable.
Challenges facing South African organisations right now
First and foremost, the world of work has changed. Companies across the world are navigating a huge shift towards remote or hybrid working, and South Africa is no different – with many of us looking to relocate to the coast and smaller towns in recent years.
With the peak of the pandemic behind us, now is the time for businesses to fine-tune their technology in a way that not just enables our workforce to work from home, but to do it just as efficiently and successfully as they would in person.
This ties in with another key challenge facing many of our customers in South Africa – the ongoing talent crisis. We’re seeing high unemployment rates across the country – and what that tells us is that we have the people available, but we haven’t necessarily nurtured them or enabled them with the right skills in order to fill gaps in the workforce.
This shortage, in turn, means workforces in the region are extremely competitive right now. Put simply, if organisations are not providing their employees with everything they need to thrive, they’re going to lose them.
Couple that with growing demands from consumers accustomed to top-tier, one-click experiences, and the pressure service providers face is extensive.
This is where ServiceNow comes in.
How ServiceNow can help businesses navigate these challenges
The key to staying competitive right now lies in two areas. One, organisations must provide a stand-out customer experience. Two, they must keep their employees happy.
Put simply, the way we do both is to make sure everything internally is running as smoothly as possible. By empowering your employees with technology that allows them to do their job to the best of their ability – wherever they are in the world – you can not only improve their experience, but also ensure that they’re able to provide your customers with the best possible experience.
How does this relate to South Africa?
What we’re seeing in-market so far is that many customers already have solid ITSM foundations set in place.
What they need now is all the other tools and processes to deliver efficiency and a positive user experience to their employees. But they don’t want hundreds of different tools, all with different purposes.
That’s where ServiceNow comes in. Look at it this way: you’ve already got ITSM as your front door for digital. With ServiceNow, you can take that same digital front door and make it the front door for IT and HR and employee service, and any other department that can benefit.
After all, technology is no longer just for the IT department. Whatever industry you find yourself in, automation technology can alleviate the burden of time-consuming administrative tasks and free up staff time to focus on other projects. This, in turn, can positively impact the employee experience, boosting retention rates and saving valuable time and resources.
Helping you address your business challenges
There is so much potential for organisations within South Africa to thrive. But in order to do that, they need the right people, the right resources and, most importantly, the right technology.
Solutions like ServiceNow’s Now Platform are ideally placed to help improve the customer and employee experience.
We may still lead in IT service management, but we’re no longer just the ITSM solution provider. We’re now the whole end-to-end platform and we can help your organisation too.
If you want to find out how, then I’d encourage you to visit our website.
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