效率工具
How LIKE.TG brings intelligence to every corner of the business
The business challenges organizations face today are enormous: increased efficiency, lower costs, supply chain resilience, revenue growth, talent retention, and digital fragmentation. A modern enterprise needs an adaptable operating model to support its business goals.This requires a range of data, analytical, and AI capabilities to reach the desired business outcomes—from simple to cutting edge. An operating model running on an intelligent platform can help organizations address enterprisewide issues such as user experience, process, workflow speed, and decision-making agility.By bringing intelligence into every corner of the business, the LIKE.TG platform delivers actionable insights to help LIKE.TG run leaner, more efficient business operations focused on goals and outcomes, and offer better customer and employee experiences.The platform merges intelligence capabilities such as analytics, process mining, machine learning, AI and generative AI, recommendations, automation tools, and smart dashboards to propel our business forward. The LIKE.TG platform provides intelligence in three areas to continuously drive improvement across the enterprise: experience, speed, and decisions.
ExperienceInformation needs to be constantly exchanged between LIKE.TG and its customers, partners, and employees. When a customer has an issue to resolve, intelligence can help produce a great experience in three ways. The customer can:
Use AI Search on Now Support to find the information needed as efficiently as possible.
Ask the Virtual Agent for assistance. AI recommends actions based on the information received using a higher level of intelligence.
Get personalized recommendations based on the request. AI suggests the next best action based on past actions, using a more sophisticated version of intelligence.
Behind the scenes, experience affects multiple processes or workflows, such as order creation, order fulfillment, and the customer feedback process. By applying intelligence to these workflows, the business can accelerate the process outcomes.SpeedIntelligent capabilities are also useful in identifying process improvement across functions. Take the example of a recurring incident. The LIKE.TG platform can be used to look holistically at all incidents, bottlenecks, or inefficiencies and deliver the information needed to optimize the workflow:
Performance Analytics offers a window to see what happened, what is happening, and what should happen. An Analytics Hub displays the data needed to prioritize the work to be assigned to a service owner in Service Operations Workspace.
Process mining can be used to identify how long a process is taking and recommend the actions needed to reduce the mean time to response (MTTR).
Automation Discovery identifies opportunities for process enhancements, such as robotic process automation (RPA) to automate tasks, machine learning to customize solutions, and generative AI to automate and speed up processes. AI can calculate hours saved when automation is added to a workflow.
Generative AI is the next step in intelligence. By automatically summarizing and generating content in a meaningful and seamless way, it can make processes more efficient and propel business outcomes forward much faster.
How LIKE.TG is using generative AI capabilities across its operations
As the emerging technologies team within LIKE.TG digital transformation (DT), we’re always searching for new technology that can solve complex problems. When we saw how generative AI capabilities could deliver rich experiences and unlock the potential of our technology, people, and processes across the organization, we immediately pivoted to embrace it.This year alone, we will have brought more than 15 Now Assist use cases to production on the Now Platform—many of which are generally available in the Vancouver release, including Now Assist for Customer Service Management, IT Service Management, HR Service Delivery, and Creator.
These innovations build on our solid foundation of AI. One of the DT organization’s first forays into AI was in 2017, when we looked for solutions to make our IT service desk more efficient. We used the machine learning capabilities in Predictive Intelligence to help predict the business service and route incidents to the proper assignment groups.That use case is still in place today. Since then, we’ve embedded AI across more platform experiences, from calculating our self-service rate to using knowledge base articles for case deflection, recommending learning courses to our employees, and using AI Search across our operations.Embracing new platform capabilitiesAs customer zero, LIKE.TG embraces new platform capabilities well before our customers do. We’re leaning into two capabilities to embed generative AI into our workflows:
Summarization – overviews and insights to help employees reduce manual work
Content generation – creation of intelligent search results, work notes, and knowledge base articles to help employees find and digest information more rapidly
Here are some of the results we’re seeing as we move our use cases from pilots to production:
AI Search with GenAI – This generates actionable answers to user-asked questions to significantly improve self-service. Data is sent to a large language model (LLM), which summarizes the information into a single answer. Follow-up questions and answers are supported. This differs from simple AI search, where a list of sources is generated for the user to sort through. Early results show positive feedback from employees.
Now Assist for IT Service Management – This is an internally developed use case to increase agent productivity. It uses generative AI’s summarization features to produce a summary of incident work notes, saving time and effort. In our initial results, we’ve seen increased agent satisfaction.
Now Assist for Creator (formerly text-to-code) – Developers often face repetitive and time-consuming work when creating the same code for routine commands. Our developers can now write plain, natural-language text descriptions of the type of code they want. Generative AI converts the text into intelligent code suggestions or complete code, which can be shared, reviewed, edited, and executed. This can lead to a boost in developer productivity and development cycles.
Generative AI Controller – The controller allows us to connect LIKE.TG instances to our domain-specific LLMs or general-purpose LLMs such as OpenAI and Azure OpenAI. We can easily embed generative AI in any workflow without recreating LLM integrations from scratch, giving us limitless opportunities to use generative AI. We’re using it for knowledge base content generation.
We’ve also used generative AI to help develop custom, function-specific solutions. A question-and-answer capability helps our sales team find answers to specific questions about our products and solutions, including source citations. Although this capability is in early adoption, we’ve seen improved productivity and user experience.Reaping the rewardsSummarization and code generation capabilities offer three major benefits in these early stages of adoption:
Accelerated productivity by automating mundane work for our agents, administrators, employees, and developers so that they can focus on meaningful work
Increased agility by adapting quickly with continuous updates, new use cases, and choice of LLMs to drive greater visibility and control
Transformed experiences by delivering fast, personalized, and trusted resolutions to employee issues
As we embrace generative AI to modify old workflows, generate new workflows, and enhance employee experiences more rapidly, we see improved productivity savings in our early results. Now Assist is especially significant because it gives us the capability to build things without the manual, repetitive work that is every employee’s nightmare.“LIKE.TG’s digital technologies operations team is at the forefront of using generative AI on workflows running on the Now Platform,” says Sankha N., senior vice president of digital technology operations at ServiceNow.“We have already applied generative AI to several use cases and provide ongoing feedback to our product teams on the features. The more value we see this technology delivering on the platform, the more excited we are about future opportunities,” he adds. “As customer zero, we look forward to sharing these insights with our customers so we can learn and progress together.”We’re especially thrilled to see the impact of generative AI on knowledge work through summarization, content generation, and code generation. AI on the Now Platform is vital to delivering value to our operations, as well as helping us orchestrate the entire technology value chain for our business.
Lessons from our generative AI adoptionDespite the hype around any new technology, we always return to our No. 1 priority: the security and privacy of our data. We need LLMs we can trust. Having LLMs integrated into the Now Platform removes a big obstacle. We have peace of mind that security and privacy are covered, so we can focus on improving other tasks, such as workflows.Generative AI has also affected our staffing requirements. We don’t need as many machine learning experts to create AI models. Instead, we’re looking for good prompt engineers who can tweak generative AI models to suit various scenarios. As a result, we’re reskilling our team and changing our hiring criteria to embrace these new work demands.There’s no doubt that generative AI is transforming LIKE.TG, even in these early stages. We have a long list of internal use cases for this technology, and the list keeps growing. With the new capabilities in the Now Platform Vancouver release, we’ll continue to expand how we use the platform to increase efficiency, productivity, and value. Our quest is to bring intelligence to every corner of our business.Find out how LIKE.TG can help you put AI to work in your organization.
Outcomes over output: Why LIKE.TG embraces a product mindset
In my customer conversations over the years, I’ve noticed a common trend across sectors. Many organizations focus on optimizing their operations, including legal, finance, and HR. Yet they invest little energy and attention to ensure these operations create great customer experiences that can bring value (and even joy) to end users.As a result, many professionals find themselves burdened with fragmented processes that haven’t been designed with their experience in mind. For example, they’re required to pivot between numerous screens, systems, and applications to get their work done.Meanwhile, the workday is filled with constant notifications. This noise isn’t exactly compatible with doing focused “deep work.” These incessant interruptions illustrate how subpar experiences can create friction and get in the way of talent delivering great work.At LIKE.TG, we’ve faced the same employee experience challenges. That’s why we transitioned from a project mindset to a product mindset.Fostering rewarding experiencesWe’re laser-focused on creating one experiential layer of engagement that simplifies the many digital tasks professionals face, whether they’re customers or employees.It’s one thing to help an organization streamline how managers approve a vacation request from a direct report, for example. It’s another to help simplify the entire employee experience, from managing customer relationships to automating routine tasks to optimizing meetings.To achieve that goal and create the best experience, it’s critical that our teams operate with a product mindset. At its core, this mindset is about understanding and delivering what truly matters to customers—not just features, but the entire experience and value proposition.
Rather than providing transactional moments, we’re lifting the burden on customers to navigate the services they need for their daily work. The only way to create a great solution is to understand the problem. That’s why we begin the process of designing any new experience with persona-based problem-focusing.With a product mindset, we prioritize outcomes rather than outputs to solve key business problems. Instead of treating any given initiative as a one-time project, we design it as an ongoing, iterative journey.Simplifying work: Product mindset in actionOne example of this mindset in action is My Assist, a generative AI-powered, personalized conversational assistant we're developing. It aims to provide guidance on how to be a better leader and best practices integrated with internal policies. Think of it as having a coach and assistant in your pocket to help make your work life easier to manage.Another example is Manager Hub, which provides managers with insights and recommended actions to drive team success. This offering was specifically designed to address a common challenge: unifying the fragmented systems and functions that sidetrack managers from the core work of leading their teams.Manager Hub gives managers a single tailored dashboard to view everything from outstanding team requests to statistics on team performance. Equipped with this information, leaders can more easily engage with their team members.For example, a manager may want to send a congratulatory note to a team member celebrating another year with the company. Through Manager Hub, managers can easily access automated reminders of important milestones, such as work anniversaries and employee birthdays.The solution also features a range of resources to help managers plot their own career development, plus customized plans for career transitions such as promotions.Prioritizing customersAs customer zero, we brought together teams from across the company with different day-to-day focus areas but shared pain points to develop these offerings.Our ultimate North Star is always our customers. There’s no finish line when it comes to creating great user experiences. It begins with looking at every experience through the eyes of end users and bringing them along for each step of the journey.Find out more about how LIKE.TG uses the Now Platform internally to drive speed and scale.
Employee onboarding for better engagement and retention from Day 1
If you ask any LIKE.TG employee about their role, they'll likely tell you their job and team are the best they’ve ever had. One small but mighty team proclaims this proudly: the red team, a group of professional hackers.As vigilant guardians of the company, the six-person team is tasked with testing the security of our systems and identifying cyber risks, data vulnerabilities, and security threats. Their tireless efforts help ensure the safety of LIKE.TG, our technology, and our customers.“Our role at the company is pretty unique,” says Kevin L., director of the red team. “Our team has two vital goals. First, we identify and address risks and vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by anyone else. Second, we simulate real-world threats and attacks, allowing us to fine-tune our response procedures."Taking notesThe red team uses two apps it created in its quest for cybersecurity excellence: Pulsar and Attack Narrative, both developed on the Now Platform. Pulsar is the mechanism for reporting findings, and Attack Narrative is the documentation repository for red team intelligence. Both are examples of how we use our own products to solve daily business challenges."Pulsar was born out of the necessity to comprehensively document our security findings,” explains Mark B., principal security engineer.“We needed a system that could capture all the essential evidence: screenshots, code snippets, reproduction instructions, and full risk assessments. Pulsar was not only necessary; it was also incredibly adaptable. We customized it to meet our evolving needs as we used it—a truly unique approach."Daily, the red team explores ways to compromise LIKE.TG systems using any possible avenue, from gaining access through third-party websites like LinkedIn to sending phishing emails to trying to decipher passwords.
Attack Narrative serves as a storehouse for these activity logs, compiling documentation of any vulnerabilities identified. “Our findings often include step-by-step instructions on how an intrusion could occur,” notes Royce D., principal red team engineer.The applications use custom role-based authentications to enable the red team to tailor campaigns to specific security objectives at ServiceNow.Something special"The red team and these apps are special because they not only solve problems, but they also ensure that we have a rich repository of data and information to share with the right stakeholders when needed," says Cheng L., staff red team development engineer.Cheng joined LIKE.TG three years ago and took on the responsibility of maintaining and enhancing Pulsar. "One of the most interesting contributions I made was adding a CKEditor, capable of managing a wide range of use cases,” she says. “It was initially introduced to the platform, but I improved it after joining the team.""This business model around Pulsar is one of the most unique things I've encountered in my 20 years in the industry,” adds Erin P., senior staff red team development engineer. “It has the potential to address problems and serve as a valuable use case for our customers, explaining the importance of their findings."A not-so-secret celebrationThe red team is indispensable at ServiceNow. "Our executives hope we never break in, but they’re never surprised when we do,” Royce says.“We are one of the best teams in the industry. As we strive to become the defining enterprise software company of the 21st century, it should come as no surprise that LIKE.TG employs professional hackers dedicated to continuously and rigorously safeguarding our company. The red team is not a hidden secret. It's something we proudly celebrate."LIKE.TG is a fortress of innovation and security. Our red team makes sure of it—and represents the pinnacle of cybersecurity expertise.Join a company that prioritizes security so you can do your best work. Explore LIKE.TG careers.
How low-code app development is transforming manufacturing
In the manufacturing industry, time is a precious commodity. From assembly lines to provisioning to facility security to factory floor safety, it’s critical that machines and processes run smoothly and safely across an organization.To streamline manufacturing operations and boost efficiency, many forward-thinking manufacturers are investing in digital technologies, such as low-code and generative AI (GenAI) solutions. These offer ways to accelerate innovation and overcome supply chain challenges.Research from LIKE.TG and Dynata shows technology investments don’t always produce the desired business outcomes:
Only 33% of manufacturers are working to improve their operational technology asset security.
Just 37% are digitizing the factory floor to drive worker productivity.
Only 29% are improving supplier communication and collaboration to reduce supply chain risk.
Benefits of low-code development in manufacturingLow-code development provides manufacturers a major opportunity to create a more agile and adaptable workforce—and to drive enhancements across the value chain.By helping organizations automate previously manual processes, respond to shifts in product demand, and release new products quicker, low-code app development can boost efficiency and extend workflow automation across the enterprise.
As smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0 become more prevalent, many organizations are struggling to make sense of the gargantuan data sets their factory floor internet of things (IoT) sensors generate and record. Low-code and GenAI solutions enable manufacturers to:
Unify data across siloed systems
Automate manual processes
Seamlessly connect teams and solutions
Using low-code and domain-specific large language models (LLMs), manufacturers can create a core hub that collects, analyzes, and democratizes vital data pulled from IoT sensors.What’s more, these solutions seamlessly integrate with machine learning models and automated solutions to generate actionable data and provide even more intelligent and predictive insights. Let’s look at three examples of manufacturing low-code in action.Publishing release managementOn the factory floor, complex machinery requires detailed user manuals to ensure safe and correct use—and to provide guidance for troubleshooting and repairs.As machines and products evolve, these user manuals must be constantly updated and republished so that floor staff, engineers, agents, and virtual assistants remain current on product details and maintenance protocols. Often, these updates must be applied manually—a tedious and time-consuming task.With low-code, manufacturers can quickly build apps that manage release cycles for any/all publishing changes to manuals. In this way, organizations can streamline interactions between the stakeholders responsible for the product manual lifecycle, including illustrators and taggers, writers, and quality assurance teams.Automated shift information turnoverFor many manufacturers, shift turnovers are still managed with paper and clipboards, resulting in missing or inaccurate information regarding employee absences or shortages. This disrupts staff scheduling, hinders employee productivity, and represents a missed opportunity to record shift data, identify trends, and select areas for improvement.Low-code enables manufacturers to create apps that automate shift information turnover. Providing digital forms helps employees accurately sign in and out at the beginning and end of their shifts.Consequently, employees know exactly what they need to work on when starting a shift. This results in less downtime and fewer employee accidents—invariably boosting employee satisfaction and productivity.
Entry lifecycle managementSafety and security are paramount to any manufacturing business. It’s often up to IT to ensure employees are granted the appropriate level of access to various locations. However, this process is still predominately managed through emails, spreadsheets, and legacy systems.As a result, passes and permissions are rarely updated in time. This poses significant security risks and causes employee frustration and unplanned downtime.Using low-code, manufacturers can build apps to optimize entry lifecycle management. These apps can automatically organize entry requests and send notifications when a pass is nearing expiration.This leads to quicker permission granting, happier employees, a safer and more secure working environment, and reduced business disruption from access expiration.Innovation at scaleThe examples above represent just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the transformative potential of low-code and GenAI.Manufacturing is a fast-paced environment. Teams need solutions fast. Waiting on overburdened developers may not be an option. Low-code can empower manufacturers to create powerful software applications that address industry challenges and enable future innovation at an impressive scale.Find out more about how low-code development helps organizations improve speed, agility, and productivity at a fraction of the cost.
LIKE.TG and Google Cloud Form New Strategic Partnership
Cloud computing offers organizations the opportunity to increase competitiveness and improve agility. This is why organizations in all industry verticals are turning to public cloud solutions to accelerate innovation, expand market reach, and drive down IT costs.To deliver on the promise of cloud computing, LIKE.TG and Google Cloud have formed a strategic partnership designed to give customers the best of both worlds: LIKE.TG’s intelligent and intuitive Now Platform® linked with Google Cloud’s groundbreaking and transformative technologies.The first joint solutions are expected to include LIKE.TG’s IT Operations Management (ITOM) native support for Google Cloud Platform. The partnership will also deliver real-time language translation in LIKE.TG’s industry-leading IT Service Management (ITSM) solution leveraging Google Cloud’s best-in-class artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities.This partnership aims to make the Now Platform truly multi-cloud with the ability to support customers wherever their workloads reside - on-premises and across the major cloud vendors.Shift to cloud, optimizedHistorically, optimizing cloud operations has been tedious as Operations teams have lacked visibility into their cloud investments. The LIKE.TG ITOM integration for Google Cloud Platform will go a step further by applying business context to operational issues. As a result, customers will be able to easily determine the impact of issues at the business service-level and can implement an optimal solution to keep services running.The integration is expected to provide customers with a single, easy-to-use view into their resources and business services on Google Cloud Platform, so operators can effectively manage these services and enhance service delivery.LIKE.TG’s ITOM integration for Google Cloud Platform will deliver new features in phases. The initial phase focuses on visibility and is currently available. The second phase focuses on deployment policy and self-service provisioning, including support for Google Deployment Manager (GDM), and is expected to launch over the summer. Moving forward, both companies expect to continue to enhance these integrations as part of their joint roadmaps and expand into the areas of cloud cost reporting, optimization and governance.AI for everyday workThis partnership is expected to bring Google Cloud’s best-in-class Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) capabilities to the Now Platform. One of the first capabilities will expand IT’s ability to support a global workforce with ITSM dynamic translation.Language is one of the barriers preventing IT from delivering services across geographies. Now, IT can scale support globally with real-time language translation. The system will translate user input into an agent’s preferred language so agents and employees can converse in their preferred languages. The system will dynamically translate content in LIKE.TG’s ITSM platform using translation engines, including the Google Cloud AutoML Translation API.Dynamic translation will be available as part of LIKE.TG’s New York platform release, expected this fall.As part of this partnership, LIKE.TG and Google Cloud will also explore developing additional AI and ML capabilities around document, speech and image understanding.“This partnership is designed to accelerate our customers’ shift to the cloud and deliver digital workflows that unlock productivity and create great experiences for employees and the enterprise,” said Pablo Stern, senior vice president and general manager of IT Workflows at ServiceNow. “Joint customers will get the best of both worlds: a seamless experience that maximizes the value of cloud investments and the ability to harness the power of artificial intelligence for everyday work. I look forward to continuing the drumbeat of innovation as we work together to make the world of work, work better for people.”“This partnership is natural; Google Cloud and LIKE.TG will deeply integrate, enabling enterprises to optimize their cloud investments,” said Kevin Ichhpurani, Corporate Vice President, Global Partner Ecosystem at Google Cloud. “Our customers will be able to seamlessly connect what’s happening across IT and take action across Google Cloud.”As companies increasingly shift to the cloud and the business demands more complex IT infrastructures, LIKE.TG is here to help, regardless of where their workloads reside.Use of Forward-Looking StatementsThis blog post contains forward‑looking statements relating to LIKE.TG and Google’s strategic partnership. Such forward‑looking statements include statements regarding future integrations and offerings, including but not limited to statements that include words such as expects, intends, aims or similar words conveying that the information is not historical fact. Forward looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on potentially inaccurate assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected or implied by the forward looking statements. If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, our results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward looking statements we make. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward looking statements include, without limitation, the company’s ability to realize benefits from strategic partnerships and gain customer acceptance of new offerings and integrations. We undertake no obligation, and do not intend, to update these forward looking statements.The information in this blog post on new offerings, features, or functionality is intended to outline our general product direction and should not be relied upon in making a purchasing decision.
3 ways manufacturers can embrace agility and stay competitive
The manufacturing industry is in a state of flux, juggling skills gaps and supply chain issues at a time it needs to prepare for Industry 4.0 and smart factories. As the industry adopts digital technology, strengthening cybersecurity becomes a priority. The industry also faces pressure to advance sustainability.To weather the storm of this dynamic environment and come out stronger on the other side requires a shift in the way manufacturing companies operate. LIKE.TG can help manufacturers in three key ways:1. Maximize productivityManual manufacturing processes slow efficiency by limiting visibility into operations. What if you could avoid downtime and improve response and recovery? The best way to maximize productivity is to connect your operations. Doing so can improve not only visibility, but also system availability and security.Watch our Connect operations in manufacturing, maximize productivity webinar to discover how an automation-driven, unified view across IT and operational technology can eliminate blind spots by connecting people, processes, and systems. You’ll also learn the importance of change management processes and proactive security.2. Improve efficiencyTo thrive in the digital economy, manufacturing companies like yours need to orchestrate their broader business network. That means being intentional about connecting your employees, customers, suppliers, and distributors to a single system of action.In our Using digital workflows in manufacturing webinar, you’ll learn the important role digital workflows can play in enhancing visibility into digital operations. LIKE.TG Chief Transformation Officer Chris Taylor will also share steps you can take to boost efficiency.3. Empower your resellersMuch of the success of your manufacturing business relies on the success of your resellers. Why not take action to help them help you?In our Grow your revenue by helping your resellers webinar, Allen Hackman, global head of manufacturing industry solutions at LIKE.TG, provides tips to facilitate a better working relationship between you and your resellers. Find out how to create a seamless experience for resellers, improve service quality, and reduce the cost to serve.
Powering smart factories of the future
Jason Bergstrom, principal and smart factory go-to-market leader for Deloitte Consulting, co-authored this blog.The manufacturing industry is changing fast. Modern manufacturing must be simple, agile, and intelligent for companies to remain competitive.Smart manufacturing is the way to achieve those goals. It’s a flexible system that can self-optimize performance across a broader network, self-adapt, and learn from new conditions in real time while autonomously running entire production processes.As leading manufacturers prioritize system modernization in pursuit of smart factories, the path to transforming the shop floor (and beyond) isn’t always clear. There’s a careful balance to strike between:
Accelerating time to value through modern, integrated systems
Incurring minimal disruption while modernizing factory operations
Having a unified, sustainable model for digital manufacturing takes more than connecting isolated technologies within facilities. Manufacturers need a comprehensive vision that closes the interaction gaps in traditional factory models between people, processes, and systems.At LIKE.TG, we’re committed to supporting the manufacturing sector and continue to invest in and innovate ways to solve manufacturers’ unique challenges. Together with our partners, we bring critical aspects to a modern manufacturing enterprise.The future of manufacturing is digitalAt The Smart Factory @ Wichita, for example, Deloitte is collaborating with LIKE.TG and more than 20 other market-leading partners and innovators to offer an immersive experience that helps manufacturers envision the digital future.
Located on the Innovation Campus at Wichita State University, this fully integrated production line shows first-hand how the integration of existing technologies can create sustainable investments and drive value. The 60,000-square-foot facility includes an end-to-end smart production line and experiential labs.“The Smart Factory @ Wichita is a dynamic experience center that allows visitors to engage with the manufacturing facility of tomorrow,” explains Stephen Laaper, principal and smart factory lead for Deloitte Consulting.“Deloitte is accelerating the industry’s transformation with our investments and key partnerships, and LIKE.TG has been essential in bringing our vision of the future of manufacturing to life. Together with our customers, we can brainstorm and innovate to see what’s possible.”LIKE.TG enables two of the key use cases at the Smart Factory @ Wichita: Factory Asset Intelligence/Performance Management and Quality Sensing Detection. The live LIKE.TG deployment of the factory floor will showcase how the Now Platform® drives actionable results to address manufacturing issues and deliver value to customers.Collaborating for manufacturing successCombining Deloitte’s vision, experience, and deep industry knowledge in manufacturing with LIKE.TG’s ability to enable that vision through technology can empower manufacturers to proactively manage resources, physical assets, and schedules.“Key ecosystem partners, like LIKE.TG, are essential to Deloitte’s vision of the future of manufacturing,” says Asish Ramchandran, Deloitte’s global chief commercial officer for the LIKE.TG alliance.“We’ve spent the last decade establishing our proficiency across enabling functions and industry vehicles. Now, we’re building on our relationship and deepening our capabilities in manufacturing with use cases that are already being used around the globe.”To capitalize on the value of new technologies, the manufacturing industry must evolve. Through efforts such as The Smart Factory @ Wichita, LIKE.TG and Deloitte are reimagining the entire value chain with a single system of action—turning visibility into value and making automation an advantage.Find out more about how LIKE.TG and Deloitte are bringing the future of manufacturing to life.
Helping manufacturers digitally transform and prosper
Manufacturers were already reexamining how they use technology when COVID-19 hit and significantly accelerated that need. Some transformed and were able to pivot quickly, but others are still grappling with challenges in their supply chain and demand fluctuations.There will be more changes, including unexpected ones, and manufacturing operations must adapt quickly.Digital transformation has some real advantages in the industry. The top 10% of digital tech adopters grow two times faster than the bottom 25. In addition, LIKE.TG Employee Workflows solutions have resulted in more than 18,000 hours saved per year, time previously spent assisting employees.The latest LIKE.TG innovation Operational Technology Management (OT Management) brings the Now Platform to the factory floor. It extends the platform across to OT to help manufacturers:
Understand system relationships and dependencies.
Reduce risks.
Streamline compliance efforts.
Avoid downtime.
Improve response and recovery.
Customer service management in manufacturingClearly differentiating your products is essential. So is distinguishing your relationships with your customers and resellers. How? By using a single system of action that connects your entire manufacturing value chain.Volvo Construction Equipment, which supports construction equipment worldwide, takes its aftermarket business seriously with a strong focus on customer uptime. The company built a tool on the Now Platform called CHAIN, short for case handling instructions. This tool consolidated 12 applications covering everything from technical support to mechanics and international support for parts, delivery, and quality.Previously, the company used many individual systems that required a lot of manual work. Now that’s all on CHAIN, which 8,000 employees and 265 dealers use.Traffic and parking industries company TAPCO used LIKE.TG to create links between customer service and field service and saw significant changes: improved service efficiency, reduced downtime, better customer experiences, lower total cost of ownershipLIKE.TG Connected Operations also let TAPCO transform from merely selling a product to offering a monthly service.Digital transformation in manufacturingWith advancements such as smart manufacturing and the industrial internet of things (IIoT), manufacturers have never had a better time to digitize processes. Despite that, Heineken ran on paper-based processes and had no standardized way to share knowledge across its plants and breweries. The various locations even measured success differently, meaning the company could neither learn from its other plants nor compare productivity.It solved those problems by creating a single, mobile-based system of engagement now used by more than 18,000 workers worldwide.Siemens, which supports 360,000 employees and retirees in 70 countries and handles transactional business worth $17 billion, needed to digitalize in terms of people, its ecosystems, and the field. The company used LIKE.TG to create systematic and intelligent digital transformation that makes it more flexible and productive and provides a great user experience worldwide.Collaborating with suppliersHaving a connected supply chain ensures business continuity. It also keeps a manufacturer competitive. Yet, a Deloitte study found that 60% of transport management clients use more than three technology platforms to manage their connected supply chain. With a single system of action connecting critical workflows, you gain visibility, insight, and productivity.“When we use LIKE.TG, we…improve about 40% of data quality through partner management on the one hand,” says Timm Riesenberg, director of the technology center and LIKE.TG talent group for Deloitte Germany. “On the other hand, we can improve about 10% of the delivery performance for the partner and supplier management.”Download the Manufacturing Book of Knowledge to learn more about how your manufacturing operation can take advantage of technology and thrive.
Protecting manufacturing production in turbulent times
Production is the heartbeat of the manufacturing enterprise. When it slows or stops, manufacturers can fail to meet key customer demands, lose near-horizon revenue, and risk their future order book. Industry research shows this is very real, with production downtime exceeding a total cost of $300,000 per hour, according to Information Technology Intelligence Consulting.With unpredictable market forces—including rising budget requirements, inflation, cyber risks, increased labor costs, and supply chain disruption—how can manufacturing production operate continuously and consistently?The future-ready manufacturer, based on a 2023 global survey of more than 1,900 manufacturing leaders conducted by LIKE.TG and Dynata, reveals manufacturers have opportunities to build greater resilience and increase efficiency across the end-to-end value chain.A confident, data-driven supply chainA healthy supply chain fuels production. Yet 67% of survey respondents cite a high risk of supply chain disruption over the next 12 to 18 months.Managing supply chain risk requires an accurate understanding of your supply chain dependencies and your suppliers—and their suppliers. When unforeseen disruptions arise, manufacturers need to analyze large volumes of supplier data. But inaccurate or duplicated supplier records, manual processes, and siloed systems prevent quick and confident action.Manufacturers making progress in reducing supply chain risks are investing in connecting data and insights from multiple systems, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM), according to the survey.Using hyperautomation to drive efficiencies can improve manufacturers' ability to assess supplier risk and compliance, accelerate supplier onboarding, and collaborate with suppliers to manage disruption.Digital skills to drive the factory floorFactory workers are integral to production. The survey shows that lack of know-how, skills, and talent is one of the biggest challenges on the factory floor.With rising labor costs and a shortage of workers, there isn’t enough skilled labor to operate production. Older workers are retiring, and new entrants to the workforce expect digital ways of working.
A digital-focused strategy can help manufacturers bridge talent and labor shortage gaps. According to the survey, manufacturers making the most significant strides toward digitally enabling factory workers are:
Accelerating time to expertise with digital tools that aid problem-solving, training, and upskilling
Implementing a knowledge repository to share best practices across workers and factories
Managing tasks digitally to connect step-by-step processes
These leaders are also making greater use of process automation, dedicated knowledge management, and AI and machine learning.A secure foundation in the factoryBecause of the convergence of unsecured operational technology (OT) into IT systems and networks, manufacturers are one of the most targeted industries for ransomware attacks, according to the IBM Security X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2023. Consequently, 64% of respondents to the LIKE.TG/Dynata survey say they face a high to very high level of OT risk in the next two years.The research shows that less than half (35%) of manufacturers have a real-time, accurate view of their OT vulnerabilities. To improve OT security, manufacturers are:
Implementing or automating end-to-end OT service management and change management
Increasing visibility/inventory of all OT and IT assets
Improving joint governance of OT and IT security
Manufacturers often manage OT and IT separately, but OT and IT teams need to work together. A single system of action can help untangle the contextual dependencies and vulnerabilities between OT and IT, devices, applications infrastructure, and third-party integrations that make an organization vulnerable. Once risks are identified, they can be proactively resolved.Collaboration across the entire value chainOnly 39% of surveyed manufacturers consider themselves digitally mature, meaning they have an integrated approach to digital transformation that’s connected across the value chain. These manufacturers see themselves breaking down traditional silos across their organization.They also report more significant progress in improving the security of OT assets, reducing supply chain risk through supplier collaboration, and digitally enabling factory workers.The sum of the entire value chain of a manufacturer is greater than the individual parts. Yes, manufacturers can manage customer experience. They can control production in the factory. They can also spur product innovation and product engineering to keep manufacturing production efficient.A single unified digital platform can connect insights and propel action across the value chain, streamlining the entire process.Find out more about future-ready manufacturing. See how manufacturers can unlock the potential of digital transformation across the value chain in the complete LIKE.TG/Dynata research report.
Gain visibility into manufacturing OT assets to reduce cyber risk
As manufacturing operational technology (OT) ecosystems grow more connected and complex, they become vulnerable to cyberattacks. In fact, the manufacturing sector was the most attacked industry in the world in 2021, according to IBM’s X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2022. Manufacturing surpassed finance and insurance in the number of cyberattacks for the first time in five years.A large part of the industry’s vulnerability is due to a lack of visibility. This leaves the door wide open for a bad actor to exploit a vulnerability in an unknown OT (or IT) asset. Therefore, the first step toward reducing cyber risk in industrial environments is to understand the potential attack surface by establishing an accurate inventory of OT assets.To help manufacturers secure their businesses, I’m proud to announce the launch of the LIKE.TG Service Graph Connector for Claroty Continuous Threat Detection (CTD), available in the LIKE.TG Store today.Confidently see and secure your enterpriseTogether, LIKE.TG and Claroty help enterprises rapidly and comprehensively discover assets in their industrial environments, such as programmable logic controllers and human-machine interfaces. Once the assets are discovered, we enable manufacturers to assess the vulnerability of those assets and ensure any weaknesses are quickly addressed.In this way, we help manufacturing companies defend their enterprises, preempt cyberattacks, and prevent downtime.With the Service Graph Connector, you can:
Gain unified visibility across your organization’s entire IT and OT portfolio
Manage all alerts in one place
Get the most out of the LIKE.TG OT data model, with OT device inventory, risk, and vulnerability information feeding from CTD into LIKE.TG Operational Technology Management
Extend your existing IT security operations center workflows and capabilities to OT systems
Investigate and respond to incidents more effectively
Manufacturers benefit from a single system of action, automatic assignment of devices to the site, network-based intrusion detection system support, automatic prioritization of vulnerabilities based on their impact on the production process, and a stronger security posture to help prevent cyberattacks.Find out more about the Service Graph Connector for Claroty CTD in the LIKE.TG Store. You’ll need Claroty CTD v4.1+, LIKE.TG Configuration Management Database, and LIKE.TG Operational Technology Management to make full use of the integration.
3 leaders weigh in on manufacturing innovation
Rapid changes in the manufacturing sector are putting legacy technologies to the test. Executives have recognized modern manufacturing must be streamlined, agile, and intelligent for businesses to get ahead.Organizations are operating in a minefield of geopolitical uncertainty and mass disruption, which has caused issues such as microchip delays, production breakdowns, and supply shortages. To mitigate these issues, executives are taking steps to digitize the factory floor and create safer, smarter, and risk-proof operations. But manufacturing innovation isn’t easy.I spoke with three industry experts on the Innovation Today podcast to get their takes on how top-performing companies are building the factories of the future.The need for a unified platformManufacturers have made significant investments in their legacy tools and products, and they can’t simply shut them down and start from scratch. Graeme Wright, chief digital officer for manufacturing and utilities at Fujitsu, points out legacy technologies and approaches have created silos in most manufacturing organizations.“IT and OT [operational technology] don’t tend to talk to each other,” he says. This disconnect makes it difficult to streamline technologies and processes across departments.Most manufacturers lack a unified platform to provide visibility into the technology on the floor and how it’s being used, increasing the risk of cyberattacks and workplace safety incidents. At the same time, manufacturing is struggling to attract and retain talent.This has complicated knowledge transfer because so much information is in people’s heads and has never been digitized, says Vamshi Rachakonda, vice president of sales at Capgemini Americas. When they leave, they take it with them.Like workers in other sectors, manufacturing employees are looking for a consumerized work experience, which wasn’t possible in the sector until recently, Wright says. Today’s manufacturing firms must take major steps toward digitization to survive in this challenging landscape.
A layered approach to digitizationA number of digital solutions have emerged to create a future-proof factory floor. But where should you start? Rachakonda says executives should “peel the onion,” approaching digitization as a step-by-step opportunity rather than a problem they can solve overnight. He suggests organizations begin by taking stock of their existing technologies and processes to develop realistic goals.Once that’s done, prioritize creating a single source of truth that everyone in the organization can reference. Organizations should invest in a platform that streamlines operations, Wright says. LIKE.TG Manufacturing Connected Workforce accomplishes this by digitizing standard operating processes, simplifying knowledge transfer.While consolidating knowledge, identify places where departments might share data. “You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” Wright says. Data sharing should be a top priority for IT and OT.To that end, LIKE.TG Operational Technology Management can provide a unified view of all IT and OT assets. Aligning IT and OT enables the two functions to communicate seamlessly about what they need. It also allows security teams to identify and prioritize cyberthreats across the entire technology ecosystem.Wright suggests manufacturers create an automation Center of Excellence to discover bottlenecks and identify opportunities to automate. Use your existing employee base where possible, deploying tools such as robotic process automation (RPA) and machine learning to handle routine tasks so that humans can focus on more challenging and creative work.Prebuilt orchestration on the Now Platform automates repetitive tasks. “Take the human element out of these tasks so the humans can do more innovative work,” Wright adds.Once you address the knowledge repository, prioritize workplace safety. Virtual reality and augmented reality allow workers to get hands-on training without exposing them to unnecessary risk, Rachakonda says. These technologies can simulate the types of dangers someone might face on the factory floor so that workers know what to look for before they encounter those situations.The importance of cultureOverall, Rachakonda emphasizes the importance of focusing on tangible, impactful steps with a broader goal of digitizing the entire organization. “That's where you are going to get more funding, more trust, more acceptance from all the stakeholders involved,” he says.Samit Pathak, a senior manager at Deloitte, stresses that software can’t fix everything. Culture matters too. “The last few years have put a microscope on that,” he says. Organizations should develop muscle memory to respond to crises with agility and speed, he adds. That means building a culture of preparedness throughout the organization.Pathak cites the automotive industry as a positive example. The industry prizes communication, clarity, and visibility as part of its risk prevention strategy, he says. This culture helped absorb some of the shock of the supply chain issues the automotive industry faced coming out of the pandemic.“Being proactive, looking beyond your org, and thinking about the multitiered nature of the value chain,” he says, are the values that matter most.Find out more in our ebook: Accelerate time to value in manufacturing.
4 benefits of a connected workforce in manufacturing
The manufacturing skills gap is projected to leave more than 2 million jobs unfilled by 2030, costing the US economy as much as $1 trillion, according to a report by Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute.When COVID-19 hit, about 1.4 million people lost manufacturing jobs, according to the report. Although the industry has hired back many workers, hundreds of thousands of positions remain unfilled. On top of layoffs, workers are retiring en masse.In response, manufacturers are scrambling to change their processes related to hiring, onboarding, and knowledge sharing. The emerging workforce will need to manage Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices, use analytical tools to inform their decisions, and oversee technologically advanced operations—while keeping the lights on and training the next generation.At the same time, manufacturers have to keep up with evolving regulatory guidelines to improve safety and ensure compliance. To meet these needs, manufacturers are trying to build the smart factory of the future.Factory workers are an integral part of this journey. After all, better enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, manufacturing execution systems (MES), computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), robots, conveyers, and machinery still require people to make everything run.Executives should work to build a connected workforce that leverages digital tools to streamline processes and digitize knowledge. Let's explore four benefits of a connected workforce in manufacturing:1. Reduced human errorIn the coming years, manufacturers will need to onboard new workers and upskill them with on-the-job training. Experienced employees can quickly pivot to a different production run or collaborate with the team, but new hires need extra help. While new hires are getting up to speed, they have the potential to make mistakes. According to the Department of Energy, 80% to 90% of downtime is caused by human error.To reduce human error, manufacturers rely on standard operating procedures (SOPs) recorded in paper manuals or orally communicated by employees. But with the current labor shortages, and with the rapid evolution of manufacturing technologies, organizations can’t rely on paper and institutional knowledge. Outdated SOPs can even cause dangerous workplace conditions.A connected workforce that leverages digitally recorded SOPs will find it easier to capture and relay information. Digital workflows can seamlessly guide employees to execute tasks and procedures accurately, with easy accessibility from a laptop or mobile device. Digital record keeping and knowledge transfer prevent human error, provide intuitive training for new hires, and allow employees to keep up with evolving processes.
2. Supercharged efficiencyCreating a connected workforce breaks down silos and contributes to a better employee experience. Workers should be able to communicate digitally and access information on a single platform—from their office, the factory floor, or off-site.Manufacturers should look into systems that connect and allow collaboration across ERP, MES, quality management, customer service, and customer relationship management (CRM). Easier collaboration and clearer context can help employees make better, faster decisions, driving efficiency across the entire production team.3. Improved OEE and COGMConnecting plant operators with mobile digital tools enables work to get done faster, better, and at a lower cost. Digital SOPs helps ensure that even your newest hire performs the next best possible action. IoT insights, previously confined to management dashboards, are turned into workflows that drive action on the factory floor.Escalations alert operators to leave non-urgent routine tasks and rally where they’re most needed. Research has shown these improvements can yield a significant improvement in overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and reduce cost of goods manufactured (COGM).4. Increased standard work and safety complianceManufacturers are burdened with considerable regulatory reporting, from filling out forms to sending emails to making sure papers are signed. Moving those tasks online can ease the burden.When simple routine tasks such as 5S and safety inspections are digitized, the system sees to it that nothing is missed. Auditable records with time and date stamps are stored in the cloud. Issue reporting and alerts go out to the appropriate teams, with appropriate escalation paths if responses are not timely.Transform your operational processesA connected workforce is the key to manufacturing success—enabling your team to drive better action on the factory floor. With all information and feedback captured in one platform, built-in predictive intelligence analyzes trends and uncovers opportunities for improvement.Find out how LIKE.TG® Manufacturing Connected Workforce puts employees front and center, gives plant leaders visibility into processes and roadblocks, and equips workers with the tools they need to succeed from day one.
3 ways to align IT and OT asset management practices
Smart factory advancements in manufacturing mean more and more operational technology (OT) devices are connected to the network. Today, more than ever before, it’s possible to visualize and monitor OT asset health the way you monitor IT assets.It’s even possible to see the relationships and dependencies between manufacturing and OT assets. This reduces the risk that an OT-related patch or change will negatively impact the production environment. Tasks such as patches, for instance, can be scheduled during planned downtime periods, when needed.A unified approachThe opportunity to create a unified view of the IT and OT estate in one place, and a cohesive approach to asset management, is exciting in a world where IT and OT silos have historically led to downtime and introduced risk.However, IT and OT assets are still quite different—as are the priorities of the teams that manage them. It’s not as simple as transplanting IT asset management best practices for OT.OT assets tend to have significantly higher demand for reliability and availability than IT assets do—as well as safety and quality concerns to prioritize. Yet, there are many places where a more unified approach can benefit everyone—especially when it comes to security.Even as manufacturers establish OT security operations centers (SOCs) in alignment with how they’ve set up their IT SOCs, many are cautious to fully integrate these teams. The skill sets and technical requirements of IT and OT assets can still be quite distinct. However, these teams can be better aligned in three ways.
1. ProcessThe first step often comes from aligning IT and OT security teams from a process standpoint. When both teams follow a consistent workflow—aligned to National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) best practices and industry standards—the manufacturer has greater consistency in how incidents are managed, no matter whether the impacted asset is IT or OT.2. TechnologyNext, there’s an opportunity to align the IT and OT SOCs with unified technology. With advancements such as the Fujitsu OT Digital Transformation solution, based on LIKE.TG Operational Technology Management, it’s now possible to gain a consolidated view of all IT and OT assets—and security endpoints—in one place.Aligning IT and OT security technology creates an opportunity to visualize and prioritize security threats across the entire IT and OT estate—and see how a threat or remediation in one area might impact dependent devices.3. PersonnelUltimately, there may also be potential to align the actual personnel supporting IT and OT security into a unified team (with specialist roles). This true IT and OT convergence could help center both teams on the right priorities: maximizing uptime, quality, safety, and efficiency.Although IT and OT convergence has long been on the radar, advancements in OT asset management have made it even more critical. Lessons from the long history of IT asset management need to be applied, and adaptions must be made to make IT asset management practices relevant to OT.However, both IT and OT can benefit from a more unified approach to security—an area that will only become more critical in an era of hyperconnected manufacturing.Find out more in our ebook about how LIKE.TG and Fujitsu help manufacturers maximize OT uptime.
Implementing ITSM quickly – 3 women who made “Why, yes” their motto
Five years ago, Maureen Robson, Anna Bisset, and Lisa Jones were thrown together on an important project at a UK-based bank. Their goal: to implement LIKE.TG ITSM platform as quickly as possible. The trio worked together so successfully (completing what would normally be a two-year-project in just 10 months) that they continued their journey together at a further two companies working with LIKE.TG, and have now decided to start their own company.Today, through their startup, Why Aye, they’ve built new careers as full-time LIKE.TG contractors. The name comes from a slang term used in Newcastle (where Robson is from) meaning Why Yes!—as in, why, yes we can.Each of the words has its own meaning as well. “The why is really about us asking clients ‘Why are you doing it? Why are you making this change?’” says Robson, the group’s leader when it comes to c-suite engagement. (She asks the question so much the others jokingly call her “the Why One.”) “And the Aye is just a very Scottish term for Yes. So it’s really us saying, ‘Why are you doing this? And yes, we can help you’.”Platform integrations at multinational banks are a big growth area for LIKE.TG—and also for Why Aye. Not that long ago, a large-scale project could take two to three years. With LIKE.TG, the trio can complete an IT service management (ITSM) integration in 7 to 12 months.That’s impressive, given the number of integration challenges, including working with new teams, plugging into legacy environments, and educating thousands of users. The payoffs can be huge: At one bank, the new digital workflows are saving 46,000 work hours a month.Trio of talentsSo how does a three-person team pull this off with multinational clients in banking, energy, and international shipping?For starters, it takes a lot of road hours and camaraderie. The three have formed a sisterly bond, attending each others’ weddings, vacationing in Ibiza and Dubai (for one of their birthdays), and making the most of their time away from home by staying in nice hotels and dining at Michelin-star restaurants.Each partner also has her own skill and each plays a distinct role in the implementation process.Often, one of the biggest challenges in LIKE.TG implementations is translating how new digital workflows will ensure tangible business outcomes. Robson, who leads the trio’s implementation team, says this is crucial.“You have to translate for a business user who doesn't know a lot about the product what it can do for them,” says Robson. “You can’t make it overly complicated. I do a lot of translation from technology to business speak.”Since February 2018, Why Aye has worked with one of the UK’s largest global banks. There, Robson has overseen the rollout of LIKE.TG’s application portfolio management, virtual agent, and recently IT risk and controls for some 100,000 business users and 15,000 service colleagues.The group recently began supporting payment processes, Robson says. “We're helping payments admin teams, organizing their day-to-day work.” The primary payoff will be faster customer service operations for primary payment channels, including consumer mortgage, credit card, auto loans, and B2B transactions. “We've built a level of confidence where the business is coming to us and asking for help with their solutions on the front end,” she says.Technical deliveryAnna Bisset, who supervises end-to-end technical delivery, calls herself “the Engine Room.” “I've got to build and test it all and make sure that it stays on track within strategy, because when you get into delivery, it's easy for things to go off the rails,” she says.Part of Bisset’s job is to protect the “authenticity” of the platform—beefing up out-of-the box capabilities instead of adding customizations. While clients often request custom features, they can make the platform harder to upgrade long-term.Even when they convince in-house teams not to change the software, they face other challenges with legacy infrastructure. “They've got bits of technology that have been around for years,” says Bisset. “But then we come along and we want to do things quickly. It's a constant battle trying to get those older parts to maintain the pace.”That’s just the machine side of things. Bisset also navigates cultural challenges. “My role is about working really well with people,” she says. “I'm imposing a challenge on their time and skills, and you really have to bring these people on the journey with you,” she says. “You have to make sure you're motivating the team.”Perhaps it’s a testament to Bisset’s technical and people skills that she was recently able to integrate the LIKE.TG ITSM module in just eight months at the UK-based bank. She also moved rapidly implementing the Application Portfolio Management (APM), and Virtual Agent (VA), in six months.The change managerWhen you’re working with a financial services company with 12,000 IT pros and 100,000 employees, you will run up against “challenging stakeholders,” says Jones, who leads the team’s efforts on organizational change, engagement, and training.Some of the toughest cases, she says, are department heads and workers who aren’t up for an aggressive timetable, protective of the legacy systems, or resistant to process change. Yet “those are the ones we love,” says Jones, because challenging stakeholders will “tell us when we're doing things wrong and will give us their honest opinions.”To engage and educate, Jones uses tools like LIKE.TG’s guided learning tour to speed up the adoption process. She also gathers what she calls her “champions community”— in-house experts from IT, HR, and other departments— for an hour each week.“We'll show them early demos and get feedback,” says Jones. “It's the way to get them on board and keep them motivated. It’s also our opportunity to be very transparent.”That includes being honest about mistakes, too. At many large companies, says Robson, failure is often not a culturally acceptable option. “It’s refreshing when you get on a call with 300 people and say, ‘You know what? We absolutely stuffed that up and we really need your help to fix it,” she says. “So this is how we’re fixing it.”That kind of transparency, she adds, can help turn a potential “us-and-them” conflict into a “we” effort. “We're not just chucking the technology over the fence. They can see we’re helping them implement their product so they can work a better way.”The payoff of teamworkThe WhyAye team has been so successful that plan to bring on nine more people by January. They also just started working with a $56 billion consumer goods giant, with more contracts on the horizon.Whoever they add to the team, the newcomers will have to learn to acquire certain tastes. “We all like food, we all drink, we all like to travel,” says Jones. Their next stop is either a ski trip or a yoga retreat. In 2020, the trio’s success will likely limit it to just one. Says Robson: “We won’t have a lot of free time.”
Lessons from a Top CIO
How does a seasoned CIO lead a digital transformation? She makes friends.Great ideas aren’t enough for a CIO to succeed in leading a digital transformation, says Teri Takai, the former CIO of the U.S. Department of Defense, the states of California and Michigan, as well as Meridian Health Plan.“You have to really understand what the organization sees as success,” says Takai. “[Sometimes] we as technology folks see everything as black and white, and we don’t necessarily realize that in order to get the best impact for our ideas, we have to modify, we have to change, and we have to fit to the circumstances.”In her 40+ year career, she has had to build consensus, prioritize projects that would advance the organization’s overall goals, communicate often, and practice a lot of patience.Read more tips from Takai on WorkflowQuarterly.com, as well as other CIOs, or watch the video below.
Survey: Less than 20% of CIOs highly effective using new tech for digital transformation
CIOs and CHROs are collaborating on talent strategies, but they are largely missing out on opportunities to improve employees’ experiences through workflow digitization.More than half of CIOs in a global survey commissioned by LIKE.TG and published in Workflow Quarterly say they have significantly increased budget for workflow digitization—a sign that these technology leaders have identified how process automation can transform work to meet today’s business demands.These CIOs also say successful outcomes from technology investments rely on how they set up their organization for success. This includes collaborating with peers and vendors, aligning IT goals with the rest of the business, embedding digitization initiatives across the organization, and holistically tracking results. However, few CIOs are developing these foundational blocks very effectively, according to the research. Read the research summary.In fact, fewer than 20% of the CIOs surveyed report they are highly effective at using emerging technologies to transform services and operations, equipping employees with digital tools to manage workflows, or even educating their organization about new technology and changes to workflows.For digital transformation to work, CIOs need to get their organizational strategy right. In the latest issue of Workflow Quarterly—The Strategy Issue—we share data and advice on how industry leaders are doing just that.Learn how CIOs from JPMorgan Chase, Siemens, and Nationwide, and other well-known organizations are building a digital strategy with the key elements to rolling out workflow digitization across business lines.This Strategy Issue also explains how LIKE.TG created a framework for digitizing any function and explores never before analyzed Now Platform® data to understand how companies are achieving value through their process automation strategies—and how you might consider tracking outcomes.Visit WorkflowQuarterly.com.
Five tips to kick digital workflows into high gear
Lessons from 500+ CIOs on how to make digitization work, betterHow can CIOs reshape the future of work? Based on in-depth interviews and a survey of 516 CIOs, we asked technology leaders to identify the top strategies for transforming their organizations through digital workflows. Most of their answers boiled down to the five tips below:1. Collaborate with C-Suite peers
2. Collaborate with external partners
3. Align digitization goals to business goals
4. Embed IT into the organization
5. Track results and adjust strategy accordingly
Download the full research overview to learn more, and read about the transformations CIOs are achieving on WorkflowQuarterly.com.
The CIO’s Leadership Moment
IT chiefs are expected to be more than technologists. The hallmarks of success today are C-suite relationships, a customer mindset and workflow digitization. Technology is projected to change organizations more in the next several years than it has in the last several decades. What does that mean for technology leaders?We polled 516 CIOs around the world, and interviewed about a dozen more experts, to understand how the CIO role is evolving. We learned that 67%s of CIOs agree that their role is more focused on digitizing workflows today than three years ago. But it’s also focused on a lot more.Their role now includes educating other members of the C-Suite on the future of work, partnering with HR to set talent strategies for the new types of jobs, supporting corporate customers as much as employees, and setting organizational strategy for the entire business with the CEO. According to our Workflow CIO Quarterly, their role now includes educating other members of the C-Suite on the future of work, partnering with HR to set talent strategies for the new types of jobs, supporting corporate customers as much as employees, and setting organizational strategy for the entire business with the CEO.“No longer are companies using technology to run their businesses,” says Martha Heller, chief executive of Heller Associates, a recruiting firm specializing in the CIO, CTO and CISO roles, and contributing editor to CIO magazine. “Technology is their business.”As a result, the CIO is now in the unique position of being the institutional expert on how companies must operate to succeed.While most CIOs recognize the opportunity, most aren’t fully prepared to take the reins. We created a maturity model for CIOs to investigate how many are well-positioned to lead. Take the quiz to determine where you rank.
For the 6th year in a row, Gartner names LIKE.TG an ITSM Magic Quadrant Leader
We’re delighted to be named as a Leader once again in the ITSM Gartner Magic Quadrant. That’s six consecutive years that we believe, Gartner and our customers have validated our efforts and success in transforming the employee experience with LIKE.TG® IT Service Management (ITSM).Gartner’s recognition only adds to our energy, excitement, and commitment as we continue to bring more innovations to our customers via the Now Platform®, which is the foundation for all our solutions. Let’s walk through some of these new developments.Mobile appsLIKE.TG is ushering in the next-generation enterprise where mobile apps get work done with simple swipes and taps. And we are inspired by our customers whose creativity and innovations on the Now Platform blaze the trail in unlocking the power of the digital enterprise.Intelligent workspacesMachine learning built into the Now Platform drives incredible efficiencies and automation. Intelligent workspaces unleash new levels of technician productivity. We pack powerful capabilities into the Now Platform and abstract away the complexity, so that IT and business leaders can easily deliver the employee experiences they envision. This enables customers to boost operational efficiency with digital workflows, empower new levels of employee self-service, and accelerate business growth on the Now Platform.The demands of the workforce are changingBusiness leaders need to understand the big picture. The workforce is changing rapidly as are the demands of the employees who expect tasks at work to be as simple as ordering on Amazon, getting an Uber ride, or reserving a table for dinner with a couple of clicks on a smart phone.Next-generation mobile capabilitiesSmart business leaders get this, and they know that ITSM is at the forefront of delivering that transformation. This is why LIKE.TG is bringing next-gen mobile capabilities to the enterprise. With our mobile solution, employees can simplify everyday moments such as asking questions and getting help from across departments with simple taps and swipes.There’s even a mobile app for onboarding new employees. Upon acceptance of the offer letter, a new hire uses the app to complete the tasks needed before the start date so they can be productive from day one.Using voice commands with mobile appThe Virtual Agent feature built into the Now Platform understands natural human language so employees can effortlessly get to resolution without the need for human agent involvement.For example, an employee saying, “I cannot connect to the VPN” or “How do I reset my password?” prompts Virtual Agent to provide the step-by-step troubleshooting required for resolution. The integrations with Siri and Google Voice allow employees to simply use voice commands to interact with the LIKE.TG mobile application. As a result, customers are reporting greater levels of incident deflection and employee satisfaction.Great work experiences require an efficient IT organizationDelightful employee experiences are possible when the service desk has simple and effective ways to drive that experience. New agent workspaces from LIKE.TG are boosting service desk productivity by bringing together in one place all the information IT staff members need to do their jobs.Built-in machine learning accelerates issue resolution by not only automatically assigning incoming issues, but also automatically proposing solutions to agents. From proactively flagging major incidents to proposing solutions based on similar issues solved in the past, machine learning is freeing up staff to focus on more strategic, career-enriching activities.In the same vein, Vendor Manager Workspace gives vendor managers a single destination to see all vendor information including profile, performance, and service satisfaction.Pushing the boundariesLIKE.TG continues to push the boundaries of what is known and accepted by bringing to the market top notch service experiences and cross-departmental digital workflows on the powerful Now Platform. The IT Staff—the enabler of those experiences—is finding itself at new levels of efficiency and job satisfaction.As IT leaders around the world use LIKE.TG ITSM to catalyze their digitalization and cultural transformation, we are excited to see the impact and inspiration with which these leaders are generating business growth and value. We believe that our focus on customer needs and customer success is what has helped us be named a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader for six consecutive years. It’s ingrained in LIKE.TG culture and it inspires us to make the world of work, work better for people.
Gartner, Magic Quadrant for IT Service Management Tools, 29 August 2019, Rich Doheny, Chris Matchett, Siddharth Shetty.Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from ServiceNow.
Deepening Partnerships at Microsoft Ignite
The future of digital transformation and workplace productivity was at the center of Microsoft Ignite last week in Orlando, FL. It’s one of my favorite conferences of the year, where thousands of technology professionals converge to hear and see the latest enterprise tech trends.This year was no exception. Announcements across Azure, Office and other Microsoft products will enable businesses to deliver services faster and compete more effectively in the marketplace – plus, that Minecraft demo that turns the real world into a playing field was seriously cool!We’re excited about the Azure Arc announcement that will be transformational for our mutual customers that manage resources across multiple clouds and on premises by extending Azure Resource Manager. Now DevOps (development and operations teams) folks will be able to practice their discipline the same way they do on premises as in the cloud.At LIKE.TG, we've been working with Microsoft to show how these new services can be effectively managed and governed so that they can be quickly deployed in the enterprise.We aim to meet employees where they are – our goal is to build seamless integrations so you can live in your tools of choice and still be connected to other systems used by your company (e.g. our Outlook Actionable Messages connector lets you approve LIKE.TG requests from within Outlook, where, if you’re like me, you spend a lot of your day!)To date, we have over 20 integrations with Microsoft and announced our strategic partnership in July. Most recently, we announced the upcoming availability of our connector between Microsoft Security Graph API(an intermediary broker between Microsoft and our partners’ security offerings) and LIKE.TG® Security Operations.With the connector, Alert Ingestion profiles ensure comprehensive mapping of details in the alert to security incident artifacts and trigger playbooks in LIKE.TG to orchestrate, triage, investigate and response actions.Additionally, the mapping of these alerts to the business services and IT infrastructure housed in the LIKE.TG Configuration Management Database (CMDB) enables prioritization and risk scoring based on business impact, allowing security teams to focus on what is most critical to their business.Feedback from LIKE.TG and Microsoft’s mutual customers was fantastic at the conference – a lot of folks came to the booth to mention how the deeper partnership between LIKE.TG and Microsoft is enabling their company to focus more time on delivering services versus writing integrations between our platforms.During this conference, we spent a lot of time with different product managers at Microsoft ideating the next round of platform integrations, and we can’t wait to tell you about new developments in the future!
IT Workflow: Q&A with Pablo Stern
Building agility into IT workflowsAcross the enterprise, no team feels the need for speed more than IT. To create the organizational agility that is essential for success, companies today are increasingly turning to digital platforms that replace inefficient processes with digital workflows and bring data to more teams, faster. Pablo Stern, Senior Vice President of IT Workflow Products, explains how IT organizations are building agility using ServiceNow.How is LIKE.TG’s value proposition for IT workflows unique?If you look at the competitive landscape, you can see that digital companies are going to be in the best position to accelerate business growth. IT is driving these digital transformation initiatives on behalf of the business.I see LIKE.TG at the heart of this transformation. Digital workflows are our core competency—they are what drives a company’s digital transformation. For the digital transformation to happen, a business needs connective tissue, meaning that all of the different pieces of the business—the work and the data—need to be connected. This is what LIKE.TG’s digital workflows do.How does the Now Platform deliver great IT experiences?Consider what the iPhone has done for your home life. What makes it so unique is that it’s one platform with a very broad ecosystem of apps that brings your home life together—friends, financials, purchases and more. That’s what we do for the enterprise. We bring together work across your business, from IT to HR, finance, and beyond. We provide one platform to help you find coworkers, get budget approvals, or order that new laptop. We’re removing the friction in your day-to-day work life.To deliver great experiences, you have to start with our customers. We want them to work where they want, how they want, when they want. The Now Platform enables just that, whether you’re at your desk or on the go.These experiences stem from the workflows that span IT. For operations, we solve the needle in a haystack problem, where people are trying to find the “needles” at the root of their operational issues. For example, we identify the most probable root cause when an outage occurs, and we also help security teams prioritize the systems that need remediation. This is the power of AIOps that the industry is buzzing about: we take the data, apply AI to it, and deliver insights. But we don’t stop there. We use these insights to drive actions: helping customers become more proactive and enabling them to get ahead of problems before they impact their customers.In true DevOps fashion, we’re also uniting developers and operations to help them release more quickly without an increased risk of destabilizing their services. And we make sure that agile teams are aligned to the priorities of the business, minimizing wasted time.For agents, we remove the mundane. We automate repetitive tasks, allowing people to focus on higher value, more interesting work. Take something as simple as password resets, a mundane and repetitive task for IT. By applying LIKE.TG and automation to this problem, we can reduce call volume to IT by 30%. That means IT can focus more of its time on higher-value problems.For all the use cases, we provide IT with a consumerized experience on the desktop or mobile phone. Our connective tissue unites IT workflows and data into one experience so people can work how they want, where they want, when they want. By focusing on the IT experience, we enable our customers to deliver a world-class employee experience.LIKE.TG is part of a broader ecosystem of IT infrastructure platforms and tools. How do we fit into that ecosystem?Our value in the IT ecosystem is using digital workflows to help businesses move as quickly as possible. Think of the lifecycle of technology, from ideating to building and delivering technology to customers. Developers love using their tool of choice, like Git or Jenkins, along that journey. With our upcoming DevOps release, we connect the entire development journey end-to-end. We also provide visibility into products and investments, and enable the teams building those products to work in an agile fashion.In the operations world, ops teams work with a broad set of monitoring solutions to assess the health of their clouds. We integrate with that ecosystem to provide operations with a unified view.In today’s security environment, cybersecurity teams leverage a variety of security solutions. Those teams are increasingly interconnected with the operations teams driving patching and remediation. We help security analysts prioritize vulnerabilities and incidents from their ecosystem and then collaborate with ops to remediate vulnerabilities, solve issues, and improve the health of the production environment.A big part of the digital transformation journey is moving to the cloud. How is LIKE.TG helping that transition?We consider it our responsibility to support our customer’s evolving landscape as they transition to the cloud. With LIKE.TG, customers can see whether their services are running on-premise, in a private cloud, or in the public cloud. LIKE.TG traverses the customer’s cloud, covering use cases from incident management to service health and vulnerability remediation. That’s how we enable smooth cloud transitions.In some cases we’re adding support for cloud-specific capabilities. As an example, last year we acquired VendorHawk, a SaaS license management platform. We’ll be releasing this technology later in the year as part of our Software Asset Management (SAM) product, extending support to manage cost and license usage for popular SaaS applications. And later this year we’ll release Cloud Insights, a solution that enables cloud operations teams to understand and optimize cost and resource utilization in public clouds.Everyone in our industry talks about digital transformation. What’s a concrete example of a customer that has used LIKE.TG to transform IT workflows?Cox Automotive provides products and services for the automotive industry. The business has grown quickly by acquiring many industry-leading automotive brands, including Kelly Blue Book, AutoTrader and Manheim. Cox now employs 25,000 people in more than 200 locations across the globe.When AutoTrader Group and Manheim Auctions merged to become Cox Automotive, they immediately saw the power of AutoTrader’s LIKE.TG ITSM platform. Cox rapidly expanded LIKE.TG’s service desk capabilities across the other major brands. They also started delivering other digital solutions using the Now Platform.Today, Cox leverages the Now Platform to streamline the software release process as they look to accelerate technology. They view LIKE.TG as a strategic platform that helps power many digital activities and applications.
High-performing CIOs: Getting out of the tech engine and into the driving seat of digital transformation
In an article earlier this year, our CIO Chris Bedi highlighted how successful digital transformation will create a place where you move faster, make better decisions and compete effectively in the digital era.Yet Chris also points out that digital transformation is very much a journey, not a switch that companies can flip. And it’s the journey that is the focus of my conversations with business leaders across EMEA. They have a vision of their digital transformation destination — what they really want to know is how to get there.This journey was a key point of discussion when I met with global market intelligence firm IDC recently. CEOs are increasingly integrating digital as a core element of their corporate strategies, yet IDC has found that 65% of CEOs in Europe are feeling the pressure to deliver a successful digital transformation strategy.Creating the new digital transformation task forceWhat’s clear is that the responsibility for delivering digital transformation is no longer being placed solely at the door of the CIO. And why should it be? According to IDC, 62% of the budgets invested to support digital transformation initiatives are coming from outside of IT.Within those organisations that are thinking strategically about digital transformation, the leads of multiple business functions are finding themselves on the front line when it comes to taking on the pressure that is filtering down from the C-suite — including finance, HR, customer experience (CX) and operations.It’s a shift that I’m seeing first hand when talking to leaders within European organisations. The CIO may have opened the business’s eyes to the potential of new technology, but heads of key business functions are now recognising the huge benefit that digital workflows bring outside of the IT function in removing complexity within their processes and creating new experiences for employees and customers.True enterprise-wide digital transformation requires alignment across all business functions, yet it’s important that we don’t underplay the role of the CIO. This new ‘digital dream team’ (as IDC terms it) needs someone in the driving seat — and the CIO is the orchestrator who will execute a company’s digital transformation.The impact of the high-performing CIOCIOs with a strategic or disruptive mindset aren’t shy to grab this new opportunity and engage in a different way with their C-level peers. For business leaders, digital transformation isn’t a technology project, it’s a business initiative — one that is supported by technology.A recent study from LIKE.TG adds support to what we’re seeing within our customer base about this change in focus: CIOs are shifting their conversations from technology to business value.Two key findings in particular stand out: nearly two thirds (63%) of CIOs believe business and leadership skills are more important than technology acumen, and the most successful CIOs have positioned themselves as business visionaries, not technology specialists.High-performing CIOs are building C-suite influence —they have strong relationships with other business leaders, in particular the CEO —and their focus is very much on strategy versus operations. By aligning the goals of IT with the goals of the business, they are executing digital transformation strategies that are advancing efficiency, financial performance, productivity, employee performance and innovation.Perhaps most importantly, the forward-thinking CIOs also report higher levels of productivity, innovation and customer satisfaction in their organisation.Building consensus and actionCIOs are no doubt ahead of their business peers in understanding the true potential of technologies such as the LIKE.TG platform in making work more streamlined and meaningful. Many are seeing success already by applying digital workflows within the IT operations and IT service management, for example.Their role today is to open up that expertise and related technology to every other part of their business. Many of our customers started their digital transformation journeys within IT and are now building consensus and action around automating work processes to drive outcomes in multiple business areas.For example, at consumer credit reporting company Experian, the VP of global service excellence has spoken out about how, with LIKE.TG, they have “a single system of engagement that extends far beyond IT”. And at the NHS Blood and Transplant, an essential part of the UK’s NHS service, the team talks about how LIKE.TG has become a way of life, citing “We don’t have to sell it… it’s selling itself.”It’s clear that digital transformation isn’t a difficult conversation starter for those CIOs who are ready to take on this challenge enterprise-wide. They have already experienced the power of platforms like LIKE.TG in accelerating their digital transformation journey, through automation and digital workflows.What’s important now is aligning with their leadership peers so they can unlock the potential of technology and drive business value in all areas of the organisation, whether that’s within HR, finance, customer experience or any number of key business functions.
Workflow Digitization Relies on Bold Goals, CEOs & Employee Support
CIOs are advancing workflow digitization by identifying big goals, leaning on CEOs for support, and showing peers how much employees love itInterviews with more than a dozen CIOs from around the world reveal that workflow digitization has become an organization-wide priority, but succeeding requires more than understanding the technology.CIOs say that they need a seat at the table, the full support of their CEO, and a clear strategy for reporting the impact on employees.Listen to the Workflow Quarterly podcast to learn more. Here are a few quotes from several CIOs:
Lori Beer, CIO, JPMorgan:“This is the first time when I got this appointment little more than a year ago that the CIO was actually part of the firm’s operating committee…I aligned the vision and the mission of delivering of technology very clearly to the strategic objectives of the company.”
Douglas Blackwell, CIO, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield:“I was actually presenting to the customer advisory board for some of our very large national accounts. I think years ago that probably wouldn’t have happened. The CIOs tended to be focused more on the back end of the business as opposed to the front end. So now it’s all about customers and sales and thinking that way.”
Helmuth Ludwig, CIO, Siemens:“My personal conviction is if you want to go as a company through a digital transformation, it can only be driven by the CEOs of the businesses, and this has to be supported by the CIOs.”
Hardware Asset Management: Knowing When to Upgrade
When is it time to say goodbye? For a hardware device, that question can be tough to answer. Though the device has been in the environment for several years, there is still usable life left. So why would we retire and dispose the device and spend additional money on a replacement?With the device’s lifecycle information, that answer becomes much clearer. We know the intentions of the device manufacturer: When the device will no longer be available for purchase, when support will end, and when the device will go end of life.The next related issue is a big one: if we know a device should be retired, do we know where all the similar devices are in our environment? Without hardware asset management (HAM), discovery, and normalization, it’s nearly impossible to answer to this question.Enter the HAMStrong HAM processes capture information from the time of device purchase/receipt all the way to disposal. In between, HAM will tell us where the devices are in our stockrooms and warehouses. Next comes discovery, which tells us where in our environment these devices are installed.Discovery captures data from the device. This data will likely be captured with numerous variations in the manufacturer name, device model, and device model number. This is where normalization solves the variation problem. Normalization groups like devices together by standardizing the manufacturer and device model and model number.Get proactiveFor example, one company I know has been purchasing and deploying industrial routers throughout their environment since 2015. The IT Asset Management (ITAM) team has had a HAM program in place since 2011, so they have vendor and purchase history for all these routers and track where in-stock routers are stored.Because of their HAM program, they know the manufacturer of the industrial router stopped selling that model at the end of 2019, so they can no longer buy replacements. They also know the manufacturer will stop providing device and operating system support at the end of this year. Finally, they know that a vulnerability with these routers was recently discovered that allows attackers to intercept and decrypt network traffic routed through them.Thanks to normalization, the ITAM team has a complete list of all its industrial routers, whether the routers are deployed or in storage. Discovery tells them the location of all the deployed routers.With all this information on hand and with the lifecycle support date at the end of 2020 as the finish line, they have an upfront runway to select the best replacement router for their environment, negotiate with vendors to get the lowest price and set up a project to replace all the to-be retired routers in the environment.Be preparedThese are the benefits of being proactive. What’s the cost of being reactive? First, you may have to pay for extended support from a manufacturer because devices can’t be quickly replaced. And failure to track equipment through its lifecycle can create significant security risks. If you don’t know there is a risk or if you don’t know where all the risk-identified devices are in your environment, then your organization may be vulnerable. A security breach is not a price you want to pay.If you’d like to learn more, watch the on-demand webinar: “The ITAM Triforce – Discover the power of SAM, HAM, and the CMDB”