Representing five years of multi-million dollar investment between Accenture and ServiceNow, the new business group will look to help clients in the public and private sectors rapidly evolve organisational processes and unlock the full value of technology investments.
Supported by approximately 8,500 Accenture people skilled in ServiceNow, the new group looks to combine expertise in transformational workflow and platform development, marketing, sales, and business development from both organisations.
With companies’ recovery process from Covid-19 continuing, clients of Accenture and ServiceNow can leverage digital workflows that deliver more personalised customer and employee experiences, while increasing workforce empowerment.
Included in the services offered by the business group is remote working and self-service programs that offer increased flexibility, mobility, and choice. These will allow organisations to maintain productivity while optimising costs.
Initially, these capabilities will be open to clients in telecommunications, financial services, government, manufacturing, healthcare, and life sciences, while workflow innovation will focus on employee engagement, customer service and operations, artificial intelligence for IT operations, and security and risk.
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“By further strengthening our strategic alliance with ServiceNow, we will enable our clients to more quickly embrace change,” said Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture. “With a move to the cloud, they can reimagine their operations, reskill their employees, and become more sustainable.
“Working together with ServiceNow to automate complex processes and create better experiences across industries, we will help organisations deliver greater 360-degree value that benefits all — their customers, people, shareholders, partners, and communities.”
Bill McDermott, CEO of ServiceNow, commented: “Leaders in every organisation know that their 20th century technologies are too slow, too siloed, and too stuck in the status quo to meet the dynamic digital demands of employees and customers today.
“Speed, agility, and resilience are what’s needed now. Our ServiceNow and Accenture partnership brings together world-class teams, expertise, and our modern workflow platform to accelerate every organisation’s digital transformation.
“The Accenture ServiceNow Business Group will help every organisation become a 21st century digital business.”
Business group use cases
Clients of Accenture and ServiceNow that have leveraged services from the two organisations to accelerate digital transformation include pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim, and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Boehringer Ingelheim, a client with over 51,000 employees, uses ServiceNow’s technology and Accenture services to create and deliver improved customer and employee experiences.
“Our work with Accenture and ServiceNow has strategically fueled our innovation power,” said Andreas Henrich, corporate vice-president of IT Enterprise Data Services at Boehringer Ingelheim. “By optimising our global employee experience, we’ve made our work processes across business functions faster and more efficient, ultimately driving better patient outcomes.
“We’ve reduced complexity across our disparate bespoke systems and, in doing so, have transformed our business for growth.”
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In the case of the VA, the United States governmental body leveraged a $96 million task order, set up by Accenture Federal Services (AFS). This allowed for modernisation of enterprise service management and IT capabilities, using ServiceNow to power the digital transformations end-to-end.
Additionally, using the Now Platform, AFS will work with the VA to automate its manual workflows and introduce applied intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities, allowing the VA workforce to focus on more complex tasks that serve veterans.
“Today, Veterans Affairs is truly running IT like a business,” said Greg Rankin, service management office director, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Information & Technology.
“We are utilising ServiceNow’s powerful discovery engine and Accenture’s expertise to create top-down business service maps that eliminate the guessing game as to which configuration items underpin which business service.
“With a mission as critical as providing service to veterans, it’s imperative that we have real-time visibility into the health, availability, and costs of the services we provide – we have that now.”
Information Age analysis
The Covid-19 pandemic has affected business within all sectors, and it’s imperative that organisations find ways to remain agile and keep up with the competition by offering the best customer experiences possible.
The launch of Accenture and ServiceNow’s business group will allow its clients to offer more personalised, immersive experiences for customers, but the promise to help improve the employee experience could be just as important. A recent study from NTT showed that the majority of organisations worldwide are prioritising employee engagement, which is key to keeping the workforce engaged.
As demonstrated in the case of the VA, the leveraging of applied intelligence and machine learning will go a long way in ensuring that employees have more free time to complete other tasks for customers, which should improve workforce morale as well as business overall.
It will be interesting to see how the business group evolves its services and technology over the next few years. Companies that leverage these offerings cannot afford to become complacent, and will need to keep their finger on the pulse when it comes to customer satisfaction and behaviour. As soon as customers find a more immersive experience being offered that suits their routines, they are not likely to stay loyal.
