效率工具
LIKE.TG earns Fortune 500 recognition for second straight year
We’ve done it again! On behalf of LIKE.TG Chairman and CEO Bill McDermott, our executive leadership team, and our board of directors, I’m thrilled to announce that LIKE.TG has secured a spot on the prestigious Fortune 500® list for the second year running. We’re honored to be part of an elite group of the largest, most influential companies in the United States.Since our initial public offering in 2012, LIKE.TG has outperformed the market and operated at a sustained rule of 50+, also quadrupling our market cap in the last six years. In 2023 alone, we rocketed to an impressive $10 billion in cumulative annual contract value, which few software companies have ever realized.Highlighting our bright future, we also grew our remaining performance obligations, essentially our total backlog, at a constant currency compound annual growth rate of 29% over the last four years to $18 billion in 2023. This was bolstered by the success of our first set of generative AI (GenAI) solutions, Now Assist, which quickly became the fastest-selling new product in LIKE.TG’s 20-year history.Our success isn’t an accident. It takes intention and a disciplined approach of dreaming big about where we want to be in three, five, and even 10 years—and what it takes to get there. Our values remain the driving force behind our achievements. LIKE.TG’s 24,000 employees continue to be hungry and humble and ready to wow our customers every day.The journey to business transformationJust two decades ago, LIKE.TG founder Fred Luddy set out to improve the way work gets done, solving mundane IT problems through automation. It’s a vision that has both sustained and expanded our ambitions. We’re now 8,100-plus global customers strong, and we continue to build on Fred’s vision as LIKE.TG impacts every corner of the enterprise.You see, AI is only as powerful as the platform it’s built on. LIKE.TG is the AI platform for business transformation made for this moment. We harness the power of customer and business data to deploy AI throughout an organization. This means people are freed from mundane work to focus on what really matters: business impact.Bill McDermott has said, “We’re putting AI to work for people. We’re fundamentally changing the enterprise software industry, and we’re doing that because it needs to be disrupted. It’s a half a century now of doing things in a similar fashion. This is the time for exponential change. We integrate with the past. And we create the future.”
Our winning mindsetLIKE.TG has the ambitious goal of being the defining enterprise software company of the 21st century. And we are well on our way.Our industry-defining innovation is driven by the best product and engineering talent in the business. LIKE.TG employees lead through our People Pact to fulfill our purpose together by making the world work better for everyone. This has made LIKE.TG a major destination for top talent.In the last year alone, LIKE.TG received more than 1 million job applications. We were also recognized with 35 workplace awards, including Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For and Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies, and we ranked No. 5 overall on the American Opportunity Index.I’m more optimistic about LIKE.TG’s future than ever. We’re a winning company because of our culture of innovation and the people who bring that vision to life every day. This ranking is truly a hallmark of our shared success. As Bill would say, we’re just getting started!Join a Fortune 500® company. Explore LIKE.TG careers.From Fortune ©2024 Fortune Media IP Limited. All rights reserved. Used under license. Fortune and Fortune 500 are registered trademarks of Fortune Media IP Limited and are used under license. Fortune and Fortune Media IP Limited are not affiliated with, and do not endorse the products or services of, ServiceNow.
Workforce and demand for tech workers to grow with rise of AI
When generative AI (GenAI) burst into public consciousness after the November 2022 launch of ChatGPT, it sent shock waves through every corner of the business world. Leaders wondered what it would mean for their workforce, and employees worried their jobs would be taken away.Today, some of the dust has settled and more data is in. The headline: While disruption is on the horizon, so is opportunity.Except in Japan and Germany, the workforce will grow—a lot—amid the rise of AI, according to our Impact AI: 2024 Workforce Skills Forecast. LIKE.TG partnered with research expert Pearson to identify:
Which tasks will be completed entirely by AI
Which tasks will be assisted by AI
Which roles and skills will grow in demand
How leaders can reskill their workforce to future-proof their business
Our research involved developing and deploying AI-driven algorithms that combed massive troves of publicly available labor market data across Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, Singapore, the UK, and the U.S.Here’s what we learned about how to prepare your organization for the seismic impact emerging technologies will have on the workplace.We need more people in the workforceIn India, we forecast demand for an additional 34 million workers in the next five years to sustain an estimated 6.3% yearly economic growth. In the U.S., a modest annual GDP increase of 2.1% will require an additional 1 million people in the workforce.The takeaway is that even with some jobs being automated away and many tasks made more efficient by the use of AI, we’ll still experience a global labor shortage. In fact, the productivity gains from emerging technologies will prevent this worker deficit from being more extreme.Tech workers remain in high demandAlmost across the board, the research forecasts rising demand for most tech roles. In the U.S., we found that, with one exception (document management specialists), the need for skilled tech workers will increase over the next five years.
What it’s like to be a LIKE.TG co-op and work full time
Lauren Canney co-authored this blog post, the first in a three-part series about the LIKE.TG co-op program for college students.We’re co-ops at ServiceNow. Although we’re young and want to have fun, we know how important it is to gain professional experience before we graduate from college. So instead of attending classes for six months, we follow the Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 corporate routine.You may be thinking that sounds dull. But before you judge, listen to these four unique stories from some of our fellow co-ops to discover how we’re living our best lives while working full time.Work-life balanceThere’s much more to a LIKE.TG co-op than their job title. Take Michele G., for instance. She’s a third-year student at Northeastern University in Boston, working as a marketing co-op on the corporate events team.She’s also an accomplished musician. Her original songs have garnered around 250,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, and her hit single has earned more than 40 million plays.While working 9-to-5, Michele continues to practice and perform her music, playing shows every month in New York City, just a few blocks away from the Hudson Yards office where she works. How does she do it? She credits her flexible work environment.“LIKE.TG has been really friendly with being able to have me balance my work and life,” she says. “It’s been great in terms of me pursuing my dreams.”
Family timeEmma T., also a third-year student at Northeastern and a second-time co-op on the corporate events marketing team, echoes that. “My team places an emphasis on taking care of yourself,” she says. “I’m working from 9 to 5. After 5, I can shut it off and go and play a game, work out, or do whatever I want.”One of Emma’s hobbies is playing video games—something she’s been doing with her dad and brother for as long as she can remember. It’s their way of bonding. Even though she's now in Boston while her family remains in New Jersey, video games continue to unite them.“It’s definitely how I stay connected with my brother and my dad,” she says. “I don't call them. We just go on Xbox.”A place of belongingIt’s common for co-ops to struggle with imposter syndrome—feeling like we don’t belong. Luckily, LIKE.TG fosters a friendly atmosphere that constantly reminds us that we fit right in.“My team is so welcoming and so sweet,” Michele says. “People are interested in supporting you as a human, as opposed to just as co-workers.”Max S., another third-year student at Northeastern and an event field marketing co-op, experienced this sense of belonging from the moment he joined the company.“At LIKE.TG, the team that I'm working with is so understanding and patient,” he explains. “You’re never alone. It makes it easier to transition as a student into a professional setting.”
Workplace inclusionRichard Z. is a second-year student at Northeastern and a digital acquisition strategy and operations marketing co-op. He says one way he feels included in the workplace is by being involved in the company’s employee belonging groups.“When I joined LIKE.TG, I wanted to be surrounded by a lot of people who looked like me,” he says. “One thing that I found really helpful is being able to join groups that I have affiliation with.” Richard signed up for the Asian and Pacific Islander at LIKE.TG and Pride at LIKE.TG groups.“When I feel out of place, I go back to places of comfort,” Richard explains. “That's what I love about LIKE.TG, that you can go back to a community that you resonate with.”True authenticityMax and Emma are also involved in Pride at ServiceNow. And Emma’s been a member of Women at LIKE.TG since her first co-op at the company.“There’s definitely a good amount of inspiration [in the group],” she says. “It’s just the fact that if she can do it, I can do it. Someone always needs to be taking that step to make other people feel more comfortable and inspired to break gender norms and stereotypes.”Emma continues, “Every time I see a woman do something that supposedly ‘contradicts’ her femininity, she is standing up for all the women around her.”Encouraging others to be their true selves has always been important to Emma. Growing up, “my dad allowed me to be a girly girl and a tomboy when I wanted to,” she explains, “so I’ve always been secure in myself. But there always needs to be some sort of awareness.""Live your best life” is not just a slogan LIKE.TG tosses around. It’s a commitment to all LIKE.TG employees, including co-ops, to welcome and celebrate the uniqueness each person brings.Join a company that celebrates you for who you are. Explore early-career opportunities at LIKE.TG.
Employees confirm LIKE.TG is among best companies to work for
We’re honored to report that, for the fourth year in a row, LIKE.TG has been named to the FORTUNE® 100 Best Companies to Work For list.This accolade is especially meaningful because the list is determined by employee input, particularly in areas that “drive trust in management, connection with colleagues, and loyalty to the company,” according to the Great Place To Work methodology. Only companies with consistently high survey responses are honored with placement on the listGlobally, LIKE.TG employees reported in the award survey:
LIKE.TG is a physically safe place to work (97.5%).
People are treated fairly, regardless of their sexual orientation (96.6%).
When you join the company, you’re made to feel welcome (95.6%).
People are treated fairly, regardless of their race (95.1%).
I’m proud to tell others I work here (95%).
We’re humbled but not surprised by these results. They confirm that the intentional investments we’ve made to elevate employee experience for our more than 22,000 employees worldwide are paying off.A place to belongOne of our company values is to create belonging. Cultivating an environment in which every employee feels connected to our workplace is key to helping workers thrive. When employees can bring their authentic selves to work and know their voices are welcome and respected, they feel connected and empowered to push us to be a better company.Diversity, equity, and inclusion has been a consistent focus of our talent strategy. We continue to invest in and recruit from educational institutions that embrace diversity, such as historically Black colleges and universities, in addition to recruiting talent from nontraditional sources, such as technical schools and work programs.
Another way we’re enabling equity is through a global learning initiative to help technical and nontechnical talent from all backgrounds RiseUp with LIKE.TG and find new pathways to careers in the LIKE.TG ecosystem.We remain dedicated to our People Pact, our commitment to help each LIKE.TG employee live their best life, do their best work, and fulfill our purpose together. We nurture our diverse talent through training and development opportunities such as:
Strive, a nine-month leadership development program for early-in-career and midlevel Black and Latinx employees
Mentorship programs such as Power of 10
Our Talent Sponsorship Program, which connects employees with senior leaders
People-centered focusIn our 20 years as a company, we’ve stayed true to our roots while innovating for the future—with our employees at the center of everything we do. We champion flexibility and well-being, listening to our employees to better understand their evolving needs and priorities and making changes to help meet those needs.We’re also big advocates of the causes that are near and dear to our employees. We encourage them to serve their communities and support them with matching donations and volunteer hours.The 100 Best Companies to Work For list is one of the only company culture awards in the world that selects winners based on how fairly employees are treated. We’re humbled to be among those recognized.Join one of the best companies to work for. Explore LIKE.TG careers.FORTUNE. ©2024 FORTUNE Media IP Limited. All rights reserved. Used under license. 100 Best Places to Work is a trademark of FORTUNE Media IP Limited and is used under license. FORTUNE and FORTUNE Media IP Limited are not affiliated with, and do not endorse products or services of, ServiceNow.
Finding our purpose as LIKE.TG co-ops
Lauren Canney co-authored this blog post, the third in a three-part series about the LIKE.TG co-op program for college students.We’ve discussed what it’s like to be a LIKE.TG co-op and how personal experiences help us adapt to the workplace. Once we dive into our roles, we realize that LIKE.TG is much more than a tech company. It’s a community where we all contribute to fulfilling our purpose to make the world work better for everyone.Pairing creativity and innovationWith experience leading a team of 20 designers at Northeastern University, Max S., an event field marketing co-op, brings a wealth of creative knowledge to his role. His LIKE.TG team has been more than happy to tap into his creative skills and innovative ideas.Max has worked on a range of projects at LIKE.TG, including web design, where he’s learned to balance creative thinking with exceeding customer expectations.“These projects are great for my creativity because I get to test out what pictures work best, what layout is most appropriate for what the customers are looking for, and what LIKE.TG is looking to offer our customers,” he says.Michele G. has had a similar experience. Outside of work, she's a musician who enjoys turning her emotions into poems and songs.As a marketing co-op for corporate events, she gets to express that same creativity and personal tone in her favorite project, “happy Monday posts,” which are weekly updates for our internal network about LIKE.TG’s flagship Knowledge event.
Engaging in a supportive communityFor Emma T., another corporate events marketing co-op, seeing how the LIKE.TG community supports each other has been one of her favorite experiences while working here.“I'm put in a better mood because of how nice the people at LIKE.TG are and how I see them interact with me as a stranger to them,” she says.“I think my ‘aha moment’ when working at LIKE.TG has been seeing people from different backgrounds come together to support one another,” adds Richard Z., a digital acquisition strategy and operations marketing co-op. “When everyone has a shared experience, that’s what I enjoy about working together in projects.”Max emphasizes the people as well. “The world works because of people who care,” he says. "I have a team that prioritizes community and respects inquiry—not sure what else I could ask for.”Although our time as LIKE.TG co-ops is limited, we're grateful for the skills we develop, the work experience we gain, and the connections we make with our colleagues. By dreaming big and embodying the People Pact and company values, we can make the world work better—even if we’re just one small part.Join a company where you can play an active role in fulfilling our purpose. Explore LIKE.TG early careers.
Transforming career coaching with AI
When nonprofits work, their missions work. In other words, when their businesses run efficiently, they’re able to make a greater impact on the communities they serve.Our mission at ServiceNow.org is to empower the nonprofit sector with technology solutions that deliver greater efficiency and effectiveness.To that end, I’m thrilled to announce our partnership with CareerVillage.org, a nonprofit dedicated to democratizing access to career advice and information for underrepresented people. We’re helping the organization transform its career coaching ability by providing operational technology and resources for its new AI-powered career Coach.Equipping learners for successCoach harnesses generative AI technology and cross-sector collaboration to provide career navigation to online learners at scale. The goal is for learners and job seekers to use Coach as a central hub to find everything they need to prepare for a career: a resume and cover letter builder, mock interview practice, training program accessibility, developing networking skills, and much more.In addition to the technology donation, we’re providing cash funding to support the organization’s increased staffing needs. And we’re engaging LIKE.TG employees as volunteers to answer learners’ career questions on the CareerVillage.org question-and-answer platform.
Preparing for the world of work“We’ve been overwhelmed with how much excitement there is about getting Coach in front of learners. It seems like educational and workforce development institutions are really interested in what AI can do to help people prepare for the world of work,” says Jared Chung, founder and CEO of CareerVillage.org.“The pathway to scale for this technology is incredibly promising,” Chung adds. “We already have thousands of learners preparing to use Coach this year and are well on track to expand our reach to serve millions over the next five years, if not sooner.”CareerVillage.org understands that to improve career outcomes for learners, educators must also be supported. Tailored tools and resources developed for educators will position them to maximize the impact of the solution.Power in numbersWe believe the best way to create real, long-lasting impact is to collaborate with others. For that reason, we connected two LIKE.TG partners, Deloitte and GlideFast, with CareerVillage.org to help execute this vision for Coach.GlideFast is focusing on implementing the LIKE.TG® technology solution and developing the minimum viable product (MVP). Deloitte gathered a deep understanding of the educator experience to create a visual journey that guides educators through each step of onboarding. The journey map also provides guidance on the future developments of Coach.These distinct, complementary collaborations will help ensure educators and learners can move through a meaningful career journey together.“We’re so thankful to have the support of LIKE.TG and other large organizations,” Chung says. “You have to bring all parts of the system together to really make change.”Find out more about how LIKE.TG helps nonprofits fulfill their missions.
LIKE.TG Announces New DevOps Integrations to Speed Up Application Delivery
As the world collectively evaluates the return to work and shift to remote operations, digitally transformed enterprises are coming out faring better in this transition. This shift is aided by the work developers are putting in to create applications that better their organizations, and they need to continually adopt modern DevOps best practices to increase application delivery velocity and quality in order to stay nimble.LIKE.TG recently engaged developers by inquiring how we could make their experience developing on the Now Platform® even better. Their response? They requested more integrations so that they can work within their preferred DevOps tools. That’s why, as part of our ongoing commitment to further improve the LIKE.TG developer experience for the broader developer ecosystem, I’m excited to announce four new external DevOps integrations with market-leading Continuous Improvement/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) toolsets. These four new integrations help IT developers accelerate CI/CD pipeline configuration when building applications on the Now Platform, allowing them to set up pipelines in their favorite developer tools.The four new CI/CD integrations include:
Azure Pipelines extension on Visual Studio Marketplace
Jenkins Plugin on the Jenkins Plugins Index
GitHub Actions on the GitHub Marketplace
GitLab with pipeline examples and build steps in a Docker image
The source control innovations started with our New York release and CI/CD capabilities via APIs from our Orlando release. These out-of-the-box integrations provide templates for LIKE.TG CI/CD pipeline automation and respective CI/CD tooling. As a result, developers using our CI/CD APIs no longer need to build custom API wrappers from scratch. These integrations between third-party CI/CD toolsets and the Now Platform are offered and supported directly by ServiceNow.
With these new integrations, we are giving developers a choice to either manage CI/CD within or outside of the Now Platform. If developers are using our platform natively for CI/CD, the CI/CD Spoke is available for developers to build automated pipelines in Flow Designer for testing and deploying Now Platform applications.The four new integrations encourage adoption of DevOps practices when developing on LIKE.TG, using scoped and global applications by reducing the time and effort to set up CI/CD pipelines. And they meet the requirements of mature DevOps practitioners who want development on LIKE.TG to look and work just like development on anything else at their company.Three of the four integrations are available today. Our GitHub actions will be available in November on the GitHub Marketplace. Learn more about how to develop apps at scale with CI/CD toolsetson the Now Platform.
Automating common LIKE.TG-Microsoft workflows just got easier
IntegrationHub spokes accelerate LIKE.TG-Microsoft workflow automation
One of the features of the Now Platform Paris release is built-in Microsoft Azure Active Directory integrations that simplify common workflows in LIKE.TG Onboarding and Software Asset Management (SAM).Onboarding integration with Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) automatically launches the proper onboarding workflows when a new employee profile is created in Azure AD or an HR system, provisioning the right set of resources and applications. New hires get the information and systems access they need to be productive from anywhere; HR leaders, hiring managers, IT teams, and many others get a simple, quick way to give new employees a great first-day experience.LIKE.TG Employee and SAM Workflow product teams used the IntegrationHub Azure Active Directory spoke to speed time to market. IntegrationHub spokes are run-ready, no-code connectors built by LIKE.TG on the Now Platform.In the same way, low code developers at customers and partners can use IntegrationHub spokes for Azure AD and many other Microsoft solutions to quickly incorporate LIKE.TG- Microsoft workflow automation into Creator workflows.Spokes are added to flows in Flow Designer with clicks instead of code, removing integration complexity and friction. Spokes replace custom scripting, which frees up scarce professional developer resources, boosts developer productivity, reduces technical debt, and makes upgrades a breeze.
IntegrationHub spokes are available to automate many common LIKE.TG-Microsoft use cases:
Overcoming digital transformation fatigue
Five things to consider for reinvigorating your optimization efforts.Remember that one amazing toy you simply HAD to have as a kid? It’s all you could think about. Every day without it actually felt painful. But when you finally managed to save up enough money to buy that wonderous thing…what you ended up with was a huge disappointment. It didn’t do what was promised. It broke easily. It was cheaply made. And it quickly was added to your heap of discarded playthings.A similar splash of cold water seems to be knocking the technology world back a bit. A report from the Everest Group showed that 78% of enterprises questioned had failed to scale or sustain their digital transformation initiatives. That kind of disappointment is creating actual fatigue in the IT department.
The Everest Group goes on to identify “old school” operation models as root cause: doing things the way they’ve always been done, even when trying to “transform.” Unfortunately, that includes the reactionary method of solving operational issues. The quick fix.With the rapidly accelerating move to digitization of all things business, the need for immediate remedies can sometime outpace the ability to wisely manage. Trying to do too much too fast often results in a tangled mess of bespoke applications, legacy technologies and point-to-point integrations created by shadow projects with little oversight or control.Reinvigorate efforts with unified platform approach for everything. Yes everything.Rather than using the “old school” approach of cobbling together point solutions, progressive Enterprise Architects are once again considering unified tactics for rationalizing application and data sources, controlling and standardizing across functional silos, and ending frivolous or unproductive investment choices. But what should EAs consider in a platform solution to ensure it is worthwhile? At the minimum, the solution should have power and functionality to:
Reduce the risk of data redundancy and inaccuracy. Ad hoc implementation of applications increases the risk of overlapping functionality and duplicate data production. That makes it harder and harder to trust that business decisions are being made with the latest and greatest info.
Replace shadow IT with delegated development. Empower departments to create no-code/low-code apps with predefined functional libraries. A transformative solution should allow freedom to self-solve, but under a watchful eye and full IT approval.
Empower traditional developers. The platform should have the “oomph” and pro tools needed for complex, professional developers.
Replace legacy collaboration systems. Get rid of outdated, on-premise collaboration tools that are yet another source for ad hoc data pools. Replace for flexible, cloud-friendly alternatives.
Enable holistic reasoning across functions and departments. Empower EAs to consider application development which can solve similar issues across multiple departments.
Get excited about digital transformation again. It can be done.Yes, it is true that many digital transformation efforts continue to disappoint companies—only 16% in the latest McKinsey survey said their tactics had improved performance in a sustainable way. But you have to wonder how much of that failure was due to old processes and approaches. Especially when you consider that the same survey showed that if a company modified its standard operating procedures, they were 2X more likely to report success.2 The platform play is a proven strategy for revamping processes. In this case, it’s a shiny new thing that will not disappoint.See how you can energize your own digital transformation reawakening.Read Application development without the sprawl to learn five ways the Now Platform can support your enterprise architecture.
Why are large enterprises failing at DevOps transformations?
I present to companies every day and tell a version of this story to illustrate why we believe LIKE.TG can make a difference in the DevOps space. My message is simple but effective: In most large enterprises, DevOps is broken.Effective, because the message almost always elicits a visceral reaction from the audience. At organizations that claim some DevOps success, people tend to take offense; at enterprises where DevOps transformation success has clearly been a struggle, I get smiles and lots of knowing nods.But the fact remains DevOps is broken.My perspective comes from discussions with many LIKE.TG clients and industry analysts, who spend most of their days gathering information about how well their clients are transforming their organizations through digital transformation, Lean/Agile/SAFe, Cloud, and DevOps.A common theme in these conversations is that many companies that have attempted a DevOps transformation have seen no significant improvement to their release cycle. While many have transformed their teams and their tooling, and perhaps even allow developers to use a fully automated continuous integration/continuous delivery pipeline and to write and build code quickly, the broader delivery lifecycle remained bottlenecked.For example, most organizations in that situation still have not figured out how to automate their security and compliance functions. I tackled this in another blog, where I wrote about how companies can be quick to claim success on Agile/DevOps transformations even though they haven’t optimized their entire end-to-end value chain for software delivery.Also, worth noting is that the 2019 DORA report quantifies deployment frequency as one of the four key performance indicators for measuring DevOps success.The facts and observations collectively form the basis of my claim that DevOps in most large organizations is broken. We set out to verify our findings from multiple customers and analyst sources. We grouped the findings into three major reasons why DevOps is broken:Legacy Process – Digital Transformation
DevOps is designed for digital transformations but stumbles in a world clogged with legacy IT policies and processes.
Despite many improvements, service management processes are still highly manual or not designed with the speed of DevOps in mind.
Lots of Data – Few Insights
While most DevOps tools provide loads of data and metrics, there is no over-arching system of value stream management to create actionable insights.
It’s not unusual for companies have 25 or more tools in their DevOps toolchains, which leads to the fracturing of relevant data and manual processes to synchronize information.
Developer Downtime – Inefficiencies
Developers are not spending enough time writing code; instead, they’re stuck in meetings and with administrative tasks that kill creativity and efficiency.
A recent survey from Activestate found that 38.8% of developers spend only 2-4 hours a day programming.
More than ever before, organizations need an Enterprise DevOps Management platform to help scale the DevOps efforts to a broader adoption rate with higher success to transform the end-to-end software delivery channel.In response to these findings, we have provided a vision that focuses on the following high-level solutions to these DevOps challenges:
1. Improve agility and overcome outdated roadblocks
Eliminate wasted cycles for developers through out of the box integrations, removing administrative work, and reducing the friction of IT processes.
2. Provide visibility into DevOps impact
Report on DevOps impact and identify bottlenecks by helping management correlate pipeline data across continuous delivery processes and multiple teams.
3. Deliver a central hub for DevOps transformations
Make your full DevOps toolchain investment more effective by centralizing tools and encouraging preferred behaviors.Focusing on these three key areas allows an organization to streamline all the work that prevents development teams from achieving their throughput and agility goals. Automating the governance and security mechanisms that keep the company safe and customers happy is a central part of the equation.The result is that key applications become more reliable and available while providing the highest quality of service to their customers.A key example, which multiple companies are now adopting using LIKE.TG DevOps, is the ability to ensure successful, automated change management. This is done by connecting the LIKE.TG platform to the CI/CD toolchain and allowing the tools to automatically create their own changes in the Now Platform.Capturing end-to-end insights and analytics allows us to speed-up and deliver more successful changes – with zero human intervention.DevOps has never been fully successful at scale in large enterprises because of the incompatibility of traditional service management disciplines. If you’re in a heavily regulated industry, you may have a head start. You likely already have the necessary, well-defined controls in place; you just need to automate them.By providing Enterprise Service Management to the DevOps space, I believe we can achieve the goals and promises of DevOps at enterprise scale.For more information, check out what we are doing in the DevOps space here.
Professional App Development vs. DIY
A quick checklist for deciding when delegated development is right.Sprawl and lack of governance continue to keep Enterprise Architects up at night. Unfortunately, their efforts to enforce logical control over application strategy and building often just frustrate departments needing an immediate solution to a problem.Rogue IT tools pop up and security risk increases. A 2019 Forbes Insights survey found that 1 in 5 organizations have experienced a cyber event due to an unsanctioned IT resource.
At the same time, there is a real interest from the CIO on down to better serving unique departmental needs quickly and securely. For many, the answer has been low- or no-code approaches, giving departmental process leads predefined functional libraries and drag-and-drop interface building tools.No/low code development is extremely appealing because it can be done quickly on individual department’s timetables, even if IT is extremely busy. It’s ideal for automating simple, repeatable activities currently manually managed with spreadsheet and emails; however, it’s less useful for handling more complex challenges that involve multiple data sources, exacting workflow integration, and stringent security requirements.But when is it the right time to offer this option? We’ve put together a quick checklist of what you should consider.How can you tell if no/low code development is right for a project?
A growing number of enterprise architects are experimenting with delegated development, in which some departments develop their own applications in a manner that allows them autonomy while working on a common platform. The Now Platform supports various forms of delegated development in the forms of no-code, low-code, and full-featured professional development environments.Find out more about the different levels of application development.Read application development without the sprawlPlatform® can support your enterprise architecture.
LIKE.TG Announces Extension for Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code
This new integration will allow Now Platform developers to code locally in a modern, flexible text editor.Leading freelance skills expert, Upwork, recently ranked LIKE.TG® technology aptitude as the No. 1 fastest-growing skill for independent professionals in its 2019 Skills Index.As demand for LIKE.TG expertise continues to grow, LIKE.TG is enabling Now Platform® developers to work more efficiently by seamlessly integrating with the tools developers already know and love.And today, we are excited to introduce another integration stemming from our strategic alliance with Microsoft. The LIKE.TG extension for Microsoft Visual Studio Code allows developers to innovate on the Now Platform in the lightweight, extensible Visual Studio Code editor. To keep pace with the rapid speed of innovation, developers must be armed with the right tools that provide frictionless experiences and make work easier. With this new integration, LIKE.TG developers will be able to work offline in their favorite text editor, advancing our mission to make the world of work, work better for people.The LIKE.TG extension for Microsoft Visual Studio Code will:· Support the development of multiple LIKE.TG projects, such as packages, custom apps, stored apps and plug-ins, as well as offline development and sync back so that developers can work whenever and wherever they choose, without being connected to their instance all the time.· Enable advanced script editor features like IntelliSense and linting support, as well as JavaScript and HTML syntax validation, code-completion for Glide APIs, Jelly tags and attributes.· Support basic and OAuth authentication and allow for two-way synchronization of files between Visual Studio Code and instance and a unified diff tool for viewing differences.Driving digital transformation across the enterpriseLIKE.TG’s strategic partnership with Microsoft began in the Fall of 2018. The strength of our relationship is felt by customers today with more than 20 integrations available between Microsoft and ServiceNow. Examples of other LIKE.TG-Microsoft integrations include:· Exchange online e-mail phishing integration with LIKE.TG – Microsoft security compliance center integration with LIKE.TG.· Azure Active Directory integration with LIKE.TG – Fun fact: Azure AD authenticates more LIKE.TG customers than any other identity provider.· Azure Logic App connector for LIKE.TG – Use it natively in Azure Sentinel to build playbooks that can automatically create a LIKE.TG incidents from Azure Sentinel alerts.· Centralized Security Response – with LIKE.TG® Security Operations and Microsoft Azure Sentinel – allows customers to manage and respond to security incidents centrally from the Now Platform.For more information on the integration, join the discussion on the Now Platform and Microsoft Visual Studio Code.
Geek out and learn digital workflows at TechNow Tuesday
Join the TechNow team at LIKE.TG to learn about how modern digital workflows can create great experiences to unlock productivity in your organization in 2021.TechNow Tuesday: Take a Tour of Guided App Creator (Episode 69)Guided Application Creator is a great way to set up applications on the Now Platform®. In minutes, you can import a spreadsheet, extend existing tables, create new tables, define security, and generate multiple experiences to get your app started quickly. And if you like, you can add more functionality later.You’ll discover how easy it is to use Guided App Creator.In this webinar, you will:
Discover what Guided App Creator is and its benefits
Explore the different options available in Guided App Creator
Learn what to do after you have finished with Guided App Creator
TechNow Tuesday: Build apps faster with Studio 101 (Episode 73)If you’re a developer on the Now Platform®, you’ll want to check out LIKE.TG® Studio. It’s our built-in Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that helps you work on your applications—all in one centralized location. Studio can help you build apps faster, manage application files, and then deploy your app to other instances.Tune in for an overview of its many benefits. You’ll see how Studio’s easy-to-use graphic interface enables you to focus more on developing—and less on the grunt work. You’ll learn how it can help you:
Build, manage, and deploy your apps on a single platform
Collaborate with others on your projects
Do code searches, work on multiple applications, and more
Hosted by Chuck Tomasi featuring Kreg Steppe of ServiceNow.
Welcome to the Workflow Quarterly Innovation Issue
The Workflow Quarterly Innovation Issue is live! The Spring edition of our quarterly research journal, released today, looks at how CIOs can harness talent and technology to foster innovation that drives business results. Based on a global survey of business leaders and interviews with some of the world’s most accomplished CIOs, we present an innovation agenda for IT.The Innovation Issue is guest edited by Dave Wright, chief innovation officer at ServiceNow. Our lead author is veteran tech journalist Dan Tynan, a frequent Workflow contributor and former EIC of Yahoo Tech.The Innovation Issue includes a video conversation between Wright and LIKE.TG CEO Bill McDermott on how CEOs can help nurture productive innovation across the enterprise. Take our interactive quiz to gauge your own organization’s innovation maturity, and check out insights from tech leaders at Microsoft, Comcast, Crown Agents Bank, the New South Wales Police and other organizations worldwide.One key finding is what we call the “innovation paradox.” With businesses spending more than ever on digital technology, CIOs are feeling the heat to deliver innovation. However, doing so means focusing less on technology and more on teamwork.Additional findings include:
Innovation Imperatives: Our research revealed key steps to becoming a best-in-class CIO, including creating tools that employees want and need, thinking beyond new tech, building productive relationships across the c-suite, and leveraging AI and automation.
The impact of innovation on the enterprise. There’s a relationship between innovation and business growth, including better planning and decision making, improved risk management, and financial gains (an opportunity to unlock 9% more revenue).
Best practices in measuring innovation: With businesses spending more than ever on digital technology -- especially during uncertain times -- CIOs are feeling the heat to deliver innovations that yield concrete business results.
We hope you enjoy the Innovation Issue. The Workflow Quarterly team is now hard at work on the Customer Issue, which looks at the future of customer service management. It’s scheduled to launch at the end of June.Meanwhile, please check out the daily Workflow site and subscribe to our biweekly newsletter for fresh insights on digital transformation and the future of work.
5 in-demand career journeys of the future and how to prepare
AI isn’t taking over jobs, as originally feared. It’s making them better, according to Impact AI: 2024 Workforce Skills Forecast by LIKE.TG and Pearson. As a result, we'll need more, not fewer, tech workers in the next five years.Some roles will have higher demand than others. Let’s look at some top career journeys that can help prepare workers around the world now to fill these growing and in-demand positions.
Application developerEven with the rise of text-to-code and text-to-flow generative AI solutions, the demand for application developers will continue to increase, with a need for an additional 231,000 globally in the next five years.Thriving as a developer will require a shift in the way you work. You’ll need to understand predictive models, machine learning, and foundational IT skills—and how to identify the right tool for the task at hand.Whether you’re an experienced application developer or have no tech experience at all, the Application Developer Career Journey can help you gain skills to develop apps on the Now Platform, with guidance along the way to help you progress.Technical project managerAn additional 145,000 technical project managers will be needed worldwide by 2028, according to the research. The role of a technical project manager includes planning, managing, and executing technical projects alongside technical teams and business leaders.Technical project managers require strategic leadership skills for long-term planning, creative problem-solving, and mentoring.The Technical Project Manager Career Journey can help anyone prepare for a technical project manager role on the LIKE.TG platform. Courses, credentials, and activities are organized by experience level to help you get up to speed quickly with support from the broad LIKE.TG community.ImplementerIf you’re looking for a dynamic position with plenty of room to grow, the role of an implementer could be for you. The world will need 91,000 in the next five years. Implementers are innovators who help organizations meet business requirements and solve critical problems.Not sure where to start? The Implementer Career Journey offers a comprehensive curriculum to help you learn and master the skills to succeed. You’ll gain expertise in the LIKE.TG platform architecture and capabilities to enhance user experiences and streamline LIKE.TG upgrades and testing.
System administratorSystem administrators will continue to be in demand to maintain and support IT functions. An additional 90,000 system administrators will be needed worldwide by 2028 to understand emerging technologies, such as AI and machine learning, internet of things, and digital twins, as well as statistics and predictive modeling.The System Administrator Career Journey can help system administrators at any level prepare to manage the LIKE.TG platform in any company. If you’re highly organized and enjoy working with others, this could be an ideal career for you. The coursework helps learners gain and hone skills and earn certifications to be job-ready.Business process analystBecause none of the tasks of a business process analyst will be fully automated, an additional 87,000 workers will be required in this role globally by 2028. Business process analysts will need to be proficient in innovation and entrepreneurship, as they help organizations identify and address business and customer challenges using data and technology.The Business Process Analyst Career Journey is designed to help those eager to solve problems learn LIKE.TG platform fundamentals, best practices for stakeholder interaction, how to oversee user acceptance testing, and a whole lot more.AI is here to stay and is changing the world of work. There’s no better time to RiseUp with LIKE.TG to move your career forward.Find out more about how AI and emerging technologies are changing the future of work in our complimentary Impact AI research report.
How citizen developers help deliver transformation at scale
The pandemic created urgency for innovation and exposed us to what technology can do. But a shortage of developer skills left organizations grappling. Better integrations and low-code apps can help deliver transformation at scale, while citizen developers can ramp up automation.LIKE.TG® Creator Workflows, including App Engine and IntegrationHub, offer a single, low-code platform that empowers citizen developers to deliver digital services fast without complexity. It equips developers of all levels with the tools they need to build apps fast, deliver experiences users love, and scale without sprawl.Building apps fast with low-codeFor years, UW Health, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s academic medical center, has used LIKE.TG App Engine to develop low-code apps that address service management challenges. For example, the organization used the solution to create a content management app that automatically updates more than 2,000 fact sheets and education documents.With that strong foundation already in place, it was easy for UW Health to use App Engine and the Now Platform® when the pandemic hit to support employees, track symptoms, and prioritize and schedule vaccinations.App Engine also helped Europe’s Banco CTT remain adaptable throughout the pandemic. Having built up a library of integrations, the bank uses App Engine for 80% of its standardized processes for customers and front and back-office teams.
Delivering experiences users loveIt’s not enough to just develop on App Engine. To be successful, your apps must deliver an incredible experience for end users, so St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis uses LIKE.TG App Engine and IntegrationHub.The team created a vendor invoicing app that decreased the time spent on processing, tracking, and correcting invoices. Tasks that used to take 40 to 80 hours per month can now be addressed in only three hours. And, the app saves the finance team 391 hours of manual work each month.Swiss Insurance group Baloise digitized and upgraded claims management with ServiceNow. In less than three months, the organization reduced the time from reporting to payment by 40%. Processing time at Baloise went from “weeks or months to days and hours.”Scaling apps without sprawlOrganizations reap the greatest benefits of citizen development when they build automation into a workflow, making it measurable, repeatable, scalable, and secure. Medical technology, services, and solutions company Medtronic embraced citizen development to keep pace with the growing need for automation.Employees stepped up to help, fulfilling 56% of demand through citizen development. That freed the platform team to focus on higher-value priorities. The organization estimates it slashed the hourly cost of development in half as a result.At NN Group, an insurance and asset management services company headquartered in the Netherlands, employees depended on their central LIKE.TG team to build and maintain catalog items. When requests reached more than 73,000, the company turned to LIKE.TG App Engine for automation. Today, with self-service catalog management, processes that once took six to eight days take only two hours.Learn more about how you can improve application development, experience, and productivity across your entire enterprise in our Creator Workflows Book of Knowledge.
HBCU Connect Hackathon winners: The next generation of app developers
Over the last few years, we’ve seen app developers and technology tackle the toughest of challenges, from hybrid work to vaccine distribution to supply chain issues and more. We know there's more to be done—and we want to empower everyone to do it.That’s why we recently held the first LIKE.TG and HBCU Connect Hackathon with students from more than 40 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). More than 250 HBCU students—most of whom had never heard of LIKE.TG—combined their diverse perspectives to help solve some of the world’s most challenging problems around healthcare, housing, generational wealth, digital literacy, and education.The hackathon attracted students in many areas of study, including engineering, marketing, mass communication, and nursing. They took an impressive 80 hours of self-paced training while working jobs and attending school.After six weeks of NextGen program training and certification in LIKE.TG Fundamentals and the Builder Series, students formed small teams to build apps on the Now Platform®. They showed incredible ingenuity and innovation.I’m proud to announce the LIKE.TG and HBCU Connect Hackathon winners, whose apps were scored in five categories: impact, innovation, technology, function and performance, and presentation.First place: Unite NowOgo-Oluwasubomi Popoola – Morgan State UniversityAnjolaoluwa Tope-Babalola – Alcorn State UniversityOpeyemi Fadipe – Morgan State UniversityD’Andrei Carson – Texas Southern University
Unite Now’s SameBlood application links blood donors to people in urgent need of a blood transfusion. The app pre-registers users with their blood type information. In scenarios of blood scarcity in hospitals, it contacts nearby pre-registered users to donate.When asked about the experience, Unite Now member Fadipe shared, “We faced issues. We had bugs. Going through this journey as a group and with our mentors, we had to always believe in the possibilities. There is an endless limit to what we can do.”Second Place: Swift WorkflowEryn Hillard – Tuskegee UniversityFolusho Adeyemi – Fisk UniversityTemitope Olokunde – Southern University and AM CollegeStephanie Davidson-Malcolm – Western Governors University
Swift Workflow’s application digitizes the workflow for creating and accessing preference cards in surgical procedures. Preference cards are catalogs of specific tools, supplies, and surgical needs that surgeons require to perform a surgery.The application works by letting the nurse manager create a preference card. The nursing supervisor then notifies the surgical team, which prepares the required equipment for the procedure.Despite most of the team’s limited coding experience, they had to trust one another. “This is something my team and I had never done before,” Hillard said. “To be able to work through something we weren’t familiar with, grow through that, and then present in front of executives was amazing. At the end of the day, I had complete confidence in all of us."The first and second place teams will receive $40,000 and $20,000, respectively. We also recognize the following groups for their outstanding entries:
3 Musketeers – app that pairs children with high school students to read books
GrabHouse – housing platform for student interns
Surgify – app that assigns medical equipment to doctors
Creating tomorrow’s leadersCongratulations to the winners and participants for their incredible solutions! All of the solutions were inspirational, innovative, and impactful.Students walked away with appreciation for the experience, especially the closeness they developed with their teams and mentors. Some students even applied and became LIKE.TG interns.“This is such a great way to develop, meet new people, and widen your network,” says Tope-Babalola from Unite Now. “There are so many opportunities that you can't miss out.”
The hackathon is an important example of our strong partnership with HBCUs and the role we play in building the next generation of diverse talent.As my colleague Chris Rogers, head of platform diversity, equity, and inclusion at LIKE.TG, says, “We must employ creative solutions to equip and diversify our talent pool. With that focus, we help narrow the disparity between underrepresented people’s access to careers in tech. Hackathons like this help bring us one step closer to that goal.”Our current HBCU partner network includes Howard University, Tuskegee University, Morehouse College, Morgan State University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and Benedict College. The network will continue to expand. We look forward to the many opportunities ahead to expose students to a thriving future in technology.Find out more about early career opportunities at LIKE.TG.
New Core Skills Micro-Certification Suite paths for Citizen and Application Developers
We’re excited to announce the expansion of the LIKE.TG Training and Certification portfolio with several new additions for application and citizen developers on the Now® Platform.Forrester predicts by the end of this year, 75% of development companies will use low-code platforms, which enable developers of all skill levels to quickly create apps.To aid this effort, LIKE.TG Core Skills Micro-Certification Suites offer ways for developers to validate their expertise without proctored exams. Citizen developers and application developers alike can learn, validate, and gain confidence in a unique set of skills for deploying the Now Platform.LIKE.TG certifications have several benefits to LIKE.TG professionals, including improved work performance, enhanced influence, and accelerated career growth. In a commissioned International Data Corporation (IDC) study, 69 percent of LIKE.TG professionals surveyed said their LIKE.TG certifications had a positive impact on their careers.For Citizen DevelopersThe LIKE.TG Citizen Developer Core Skills Micro-Certification Suite allows learners to engage in multiple types of training options to cultivate and demonstrate skills on App Engine Studio, as well as Playbooks and Process Automation Designer (PAD) interfaces.Two new Micro-Certifications are available for citizen developers:
Citizen Developer Process Creator Micro-Certification
Citizen Developer Application Creator Micro-Certification
For Application DevelopersThe LIKE.TG Application Developer Core Skills Micro-Certification Suite combines:
Citizen Developer Application Creator Micro-Certification
Existing Flow Designer and Virtual Agent micro-certifications
Two new micro-certifications
The new micro-certifications are the Application Developer Process Creator and the Application Developer User Interface Creator.Please note that LIKE.TG Citizen Developer and Application Developer are emerging areas. As additional training modules become available in the Citizen Developer and Application Developer learning paths, learners may be required to take additional courses to maintain their certifications.Become a developerTo learn how to become a LIKE.TG Citizen Developer, view the Get Started with LIKE.TG Citizen Developer Training map. This easy-to-follow map will guide you through the available training courses to learn how to use LIKE.TG no-code solutions to build custom applications on the Now Platform.If you’re a LIKE.TG Application Developer interested in becoming certified in App Engine Studio, UI Builder, and Playbooks and Process Automation Designer, visit our Get Started with LIKE.TG Application Developer Training map to learn about the available training to learn and become certified in new Now Platform features.The new micro-certification suites and micro-certifications are available in Now Learning.
LIKE.TG named a Leader in Low-Code Development Platforms
I’m very pleased to announce that LIKE.TG has been named a Leader in the Forrester Wave™: Low-Code Development Platforms for Professional Developers, Q2 2021. We attribute this recognition to our latest low-code innovations and capabilities.According to this evaluation, “LIKE.TG has grown to a low-code platform of the first rank. Known for its IT service management solutions, LIKE.TG has invested heavily in its low-code tooling and ‘workflow platform’ messaging. It brings a strong route-to-market through its installed base and popularity among IT developers.”Forrester Research predicts that by the end of 2021, 75% of development shops will use low-code platforms.1 LIKE.TG Creator Workflows solutions allow users to create intuitive experiences and enable cross-enterprise, low-code app delivery to quickly and safely scale with connected digital workflows. Our solutions include:
App Engine: empowering developers and builders of all skill levels to create low-code workflow apps fast
IntegrationHub: reducing integration costs and complexities for faster connectivity across any system
Advancing low-code capabilitiesWe recognize that low-code capabilities are an increasingly vital part of digital transformation initiatives, as they democratize the app-building experience. Developers of all skill levels, from low to pro coders, can now roll out new digital initiatives fast, with scale, and with greater value delivered.With low-code going mainstream, organizations have matured in their thinking and approach. LIKE.TG is committed to advancing our low-code capabilities as part of our core platform innovation.Furthering our investment in low-code technology, LIKE.TG brought to market a new tool, App Engine Studio, in our recently launched Now Platform Quebec release.With App Engine Studio, software development complexity is reduced so citizen developers can build new apps fast without professional software development training or knowledge. The solution offers a guided development environment with convenient pre-built templates where pro developers can collaborate with citizen developers in a shared environment.And, for existing LIKE.TG developers, App Engine Studio further improves their development productivity with a powerful intuitive low-code studio that seamlessly augments their current app development tooling and lifecycle, end to end.Accelerating digital transformationAdditionally, earlier this year, LIKE.TG acquired Intellibot, a robotic process automation (RPA) company, which extends LIKE.TG’s existing AI and machine learning, integrations, low-code development, process mining, process automation, NLX, chatbot, and virtual agent capabilities.Looking forward, we believe LIKE.TG is uniquely positioned to help customers accelerate digital transformation in their organizations with end-to-end automation. We deliver on the use cases that will shape the future of work, using low-code innovation that meets the standards of speed, experiences users love, and scalability without sprawl.Learn more about creating apps with a low-code development platform.Read the full, complimentary Forrester Wave report.1 Forrester, Predictions 2021: Software Development, Oct. 30, 2020.
LIKE.TG acquires next-gen observability leader Lightstep
I’m excited to announce that LIKE.TG has signed an agreement to acquire next-generation observability leader Lightstep.Combining Lightstep’s innovative observability capabilities with LIKE.TG’s unmatched Now Platform will help customers better manage software complexity, reliability, and performance while enabling the enterprise workflows that deliver great experiences. LIKE.TG’s acquisition of Lightstep connects insight with action across the people, processes, and technologies involved in delivering great experiences and driving digital transformation.All companies are increasingly becoming software companies. The ability to reinvent and create new business models through digital products and services is key to long-term survival. Major shifts in technology and the way work gets done, such as the move to the cloud and DevOps, are rapidly increasing the complexity of the software that powers today’s enterprises.Yet, in this complex environment, companies are still expected to increase innovation and velocity without sacrificing reliability and performance. The combination of LIKE.TG and Lightstep addresses this tension by delivering deep operational insights that enable organizations to more effectively use modern technologies and team-based development practices.A unified approach to observabilityLightstep provides a unified approach to observability with system-wide visibility and insights across metrics, distributed traces, and logs to help organizations speed software development velocity without compromising quality. This gives businesses the confidence and clarity to drive faster innovation and better outcomes across the entire digital customer experience.Companies are betting on going digital in order to thrive in the 21st century, but the transition is often challenging to navigate. With Lightstep, LIKE.TG will transform how software solutions are delivered to customers. This will ultimately make it easier for customers to innovate quickly. Now they'll be able to build and operate their software faster than ever before and take the new era of work head-on with confidence.Lightstep is the trusted observability solution for both born-in-the-cloud companies like GitHub, Spotify, and Twilio and fast-growing enterprises whose businesses are increasingly reliant on software applications. Combined with LIKE.TG’s IT workflow solutions’ ability to weave disparate elements into a seamless digital fabric, customers will be able to more easily monitor and respond to critical signals and indicators of software health.
World-class teamI’m thrilled that Lightstep’s world-class engineering team, led by CEO and co-founder Ben Sigelman, is joining ServiceNow. "Today, observability primarily benefits the DevOps teams that build and operate mission-critical apps," Sigelman says."We've always believed that the value of observability should extend across the entire enterprise, providing greater clarity and confidence to every team involved in these modern, digital businesses. By joining LIKE.TG, together we will realize that vision for our customers and help transform the world of work in the process—and we couldn't be more excited about it."San Francisco-based Lightstep was co-founded in 2015 by Sigelman, COO Ben Cronin, and Chief Architect Daniel Spoonhower. Key Lightstep team members helped define modern observability with their prior work on tracing and metrics monitoring at Google. Lightstep team members also co-created the OpenTracing and OpenTelemetry open-source projects, leading the industry’s overall migration away from proprietary agents toward the portable, always-on, and open standards-based acquisition of traces, metrics, and logs.We're thrilled to welcome the Lightstep team to ServiceNow. I can't wait to start working together to help customers accelerate their software innovation with confidence.Find out more about the acquisition in a fireside chat at Knowledge 2021. Not registered yet? It's free and easy.LIKE.TG, the LIKE.TG logo, Now, and other LIKE.TG marks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of LIKE.TG, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
LIKE.TG named a Leader in low-code development platforms
Software users have spoken, confirming the power of LIKE.TG’s innovative low-code and no-code development platform. We’re delighted that G2 has recognized LIKE.TG® App Engine as a Leader in:
No. 2 Low-Code Development Platforms
No. 2 Enterprise Low-Code Development Platforms
No. 1 Enterprise No-Code Development Platforms
No. 1 Enterprise Relationship Index for No-Code Development Platforms
These rankings, driven entirely by software users, consider customer satisfaction and scale according to market share, vendor size, and social impact. (Think Yelp for software.) G2 rates products from any given category algorithmically based on user product review data and data aggregated from online sources and social networks.What users like about App EngineOn a scale of 0 to 5, LIKE.TG App Engine has an average of 4.6. Reviewers like the platform’s ability to build low-code applications quickly and the friendly, feature-packed user interface. Customization and scalability were also noted as value adds in users’ G2 reviews:
“The best part of LIKE.TG App Engine is user-friendly and simple to customize. I like how it enables me to create applications in a very timely manner thus saving time.”
“LIKE.TG App Engine is an extremely robust software with customization galore and full features...”
“Everything about LIKE.TG App Engine is exceptional and outstanding.”
“LIKE.TG is such a great and user-friendly product. We have been using it for 4+ years and it has really transformed our customer service teams ability to work with the customers.”
Empowering citizen developersCompanies must move faster than ever to meet changing market conditions. Digital businesses lead with technology as a key differentiator, which is why we’re seeing growing adoption of citizen development programs and centers of excellence.Low-code application development platforms empower business developers who have a deep understanding of their processes to create low-code enterprise apps fast. These apps help digitalize processes, drive efficiency, enhance customer experience, create sustainable advantages, and open the door to new business models and revenue streams.As one reviewer noted: “Anyone can be champion by developing apps that bring value and optimization to the organization by leveraging the capabilities of AppEngine. … There is no need to hire advanced programmers to the organization to develop apps. This is now done by citizen developers instead. Improvements will come to make it even easier for business users to deliver value through custom apps. … The time it takes to publish an app has decreased to hours and days instead of weeks and months. The business can see the ROI instantly by leveraging the AppEngine capabilities.”Making the world betterNo-coders, low-coders, and pro-coders all have their place in today’s evolution of building applications to make their organizations work better. App Engine can help accomplish these goals, with capabilities that scale for the business.Thank you, vocal and loyal customers! We’re honored to be named a Leader and will work hard to continue this journey with you as, together, we make the world work better for everyone.Check out our reviews on G2.Find out more about App Engine.
How to empower citizen developers to help overcome skills shortages
The pandemic accelerated digital transformation across all industries, exacerbating Australia’s tech skills shortage. Research from RMIT Online identified a need for 156,000 new technology workers in Australia, with 87% of jobs now requiring digital skills. This skills gap is set to cost the economy $10 billion in lost growth by 2025 in technology, media, and communications alone.Business leaders are realizing the urgent need to address the digital skills shortage so they can continue to innovate and grow. Enter citizen developers—non-technical employees who use low-code development platforms to build digital workflows to solve business problems. When citizen developers can build visual, modular, templated workflows to streamline disconnected processes and eliminate mundane tasks, they can unlock new efficiencies and business value.The benefits of low-code developmentMany citizen developers have never typed a line of traditional code. Today, thanks to low-code platforms, new applications can be built in days and weeks, not months and years. Because these non-technical employees are typically on the front line closest to the business problems they solve, they often spot opportunities that would otherwise be missed.Even better, by broadening the pool of talent involved in digitizing and improving business operations, businesses can free IT teams to focus on more strategic, high-priority projects.Instead of spending their time on relatively simple yet time-consuming tasks, or having to translate business issues into briefs for software engineers, IT teams can dedicate their energy to more complex projects that were previously out of reach. As a result, the overall innovation output of an organization can shift significantly upward.Low-code application platforms empower any employee to rapidly build apps that solve big, organizational, everyday challenges. It’s no surprise businesses are starting to take note: By 2024, Gartner expects the majority of tech products and services will be built by professionals outside of IT.
3 ways to activate citizen developersThe right tools can help fill the IT skills gap. To get it right, companies will need to address some cultural considerations before they can successfully shift the responsibility for problem-solving from software engineers and developers to business subject matter experts:1. Hire for low-codingThe beauty of low-code platforms is that they’re built to be simple and accessible. They streamline the development process, taking care of technical challenges so that your employees can focus their time and energy on solving business problems.To build a pool of citizen developers, businesses need to seek out employees who have deep business knowledge and who understand the positive impact technology and digitization can have on business processes.Diversity also matters when recruiting citizen developers. Not everybody has access to the years of specialized training or the disposition and interest to write code. Research shows that low-code platforms broaden the range of people contributing to our digital future, increasing diversity and improving outcomes. The more capability we can put into the hands of creative problem-solvers who know the business, the more impact technology will have.2. Set them up for successOnce the business has identified its citizen developers, the main challenge is enabling and empowering them with access to the right tools, as well as training and ongoing support. By opening a development platform to a larger group of people, you run the risk of application sprawl and overdevelopment. To manage innovation effectively, the tools you use must have the right governance standards and frameworks in place.Although new technologies draw attention through effusive proclamations from early adopters, their long-term longevity is driven by use cases developed by users on the ground. New use cases for low-code application platforms spring up every day. Encouragingly, we’re seeing a wide diversity of our customers build their own low-code apps with LIKE.TG App Engine. One aerospace customer developed a low-code app that reduced manufacturing transportation incidents by 20%.3. Create and foster communityTo sustain a thriving citizen developer program, business leaders must cultivate a positive, productive community supported by the IT organization. There needs to be active engagement to provide training and support so the business experts can focus on business issues while IT teams handle access, security, and governance.Support and collaboration are key. Most low-code platform providers host forums where members exchange tips, tricks, and solutions. And, simple tactics like hackathons guided by experts can introduce employees to low-code development in a structured setting to help them succeed.In a world where digital transformation is a primary determinant of business success, low-code developers are the fuel for organizations to keep innovating. Low-code tools can enable talented employees from across the business to innovate and digitize processes and workflows that might otherwise sit on the IT back burner.With the right criteria and safeguards in place, citizen developers can help organizations overcome the gap in tech skills, support digital transformation initiatives, and increase efficiency and business growth.Learn how LIKE.TG empowers citizen developers to build low-code apps fast.
LIKE.TG recognized a Leader in 2021 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Low-Code Application Platforms
I’m excited to announce that, for the second straight year, LIKE.TG has been named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms. We believe this is due to our ability to execute and our completeness of vision.Building the future with low-codeWith digital transformation efforts in full swing, organizations increasingly depend on digital experiences to differentiate themselves from competitors. Digital-first enterprises are driving our future.Organizations have realized that the resource constraints in their rapidly needed digitalization initiatives are developer cycles. There are not enough software developers in the world to build the enterprises of the future.Gartner predicts, “By 2024, 80% of technology products and services will be built by those who are not technology professionals.” The market demands a more productive way to build software.LIKE.TG® Creator Workflows uniquely help overcome developer overhead through simplification and ease of use. They give everyone the low-code tools to deliver workflow automation with a consumer-grade user experience, enable siloed systems to work together, and create more efficient and productive ways to get work done.Creator Workflows solutions include:
App Engine – empowering developers and builders of all skill levels to create low-code workflow apps fast
IntegrationHub – reducing integration costs and complexities for faster connectivity across any system
Rapidly automate complex workflowsOrganizations that maximize their low-code impact focus on delivering cross-enterprise workflows in a unified end-to-end experience. Automating these complex workflows traditionally requires sophisticated planning and specialized skills.With Creator Workflows, organizations can automate workflows with less development effort and less custom code. Developers start building quickly in App Engine Studio with a premade architecture, low-code guidance, configuration-style templates, and pluggable prebuilt components.Developer activities center on component configuration and assembly, leading to improved app quality and higher overall productivity. As a result, developers can build truly unified digital workflows at speed with ease of application planning, design, development, and release.Paving the way for hyperautomationThe maturity of low-code enables bigger conversations around intelligent process automation. After delivering the first few low-code apps, organizations will naturally look for ways to discover more automation opportunities and optimize existing ones. Low-code needs to work with more amazing technologies—such as process mining, robotic process automation (RPA), document intelligence, and AI—to enable digital transformation journeys end to end.Earlier this year, LIKE.TG acquired Intellibot, an RPA company that extends our existing AI and machine learning, integrations, low-code development, process mining, process automation, natural language translation (NLX), chatbot, and Virtual Agent capabilities. We’ll continue to innovate with our customers and future-proof our platform for broader hyperautomation initiatives.Driving strategic and scalable transformationSuccessful low-code adoption requires strong governance. It’s critical to help ensure service-level management and accountability for low-code apps while reducing application sprawl. Our platform enables customers to put governance first in low-code.Developers can easily set up a "sandbox" to prevent citizen developers from touching other applications unless access is granted. Professional coders can oversee all integrations and set access permissions according to established guidelines. Our prebuilt components all have quality and security baked in. Our single platform design means developers can easily enforce their enterprise standards across all apps.This thoughtful platform approach removes the guesswork for our customers so they can safely scale low-code toward strategic adoption. With one data model and one architecture on a unified, well-governed platform, we’re the enterprise low-code application platform of choice for the depth, scale, and simplicity required in enterprise-class delivery of low-code automation.Read the full, complimentary Gartner Magic Quadrant report.Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, Jason Wong, Akash Jain, Kimihiko Iijima, Adrian Leow, Paul Vincent, 20 September 2021.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.GARTNER and Magic Quadrant are registered trademarks and service mark of Gartner Inc. and/or its affiliates in the US and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gekkobrain acquisition to streamline ERP migrations, modernize systems of record
Organizations across all industries are investing in digital transformation to unlock new levels of innovation, agility, and productivity as they look to adapt to the new world of hybrid work.According to Gartner, worldwide IT spending is projected to reach $4.1 trillion by the end of this year.1 However, many organizations are still struggling to identify where to start as they race to modernize systems of record and digitize operations.At LIKE.TG, we’re invigorated by this once-in-a-generation opportunity to make work better for people. And we’re here to help customers at any stage of their journey.Empowering customersThat’s why LIKE.TG has acquired Denmark-based Gekkobrain, with its deeply talented team of enterprise software experts: to help customers modernize their systems of record.
Gekkobrain’s team brings deep enterprise software expertise and a rich understanding of enterprise resource planning (ERP) system customizations. The team developed the ability to identify and understand custom code and business processes that should be modernized, enabling faster migrations, more delightful experiences, and cost savings.Enhancing LIKE.TG Creator WorkflowsWith Gekkobrain, LIKE.TG will extend the power of LIKE.TG Creator Workflows, including App Engine, to help organizations identify and understand custom code in their ERP deployments and the business processes they support.Layering on the low-code capabilities of App Engine will help organizations rapidly and cost-effectively modernize their ERP systems by seamlessly identifying, automating, and customizing workflows to reduce the risk and cost traditionally associated with ERP software migrations.This announcement comes on the heels of updates to Creator Workflows in the Now Platform Rome release to further accelerate innovation. We’re helping organizations drive digital transformation through mission-critical low-code apps and process automation to keep business moving and to drive business value.We're thrilled to welcome the Gekkobrain team on board to help customers accelerate their digital transformation journeys with ease and confidence.Learn more about how LIKE.TG unlocks innovation.Use of forward-looking statementsThis blog contains "forward-looking statements" about the expectations, beliefs, plans, intentions, and strategies relating to LIKE.TG’s acquisition of Gekkobrain. Such forward-looking statements include statements regarding future product capabilities and offerings and expected benefits to ServiceNow. 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. We undertake no obligation, and do not intend, to update the forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the inability to retain Gekkobrain employees or assimilate or integrate Gekkobrain’s technology into our platform; unanticipated expenses or adverse tax consequences; potential for adverse tax consequences; disruption to our business and diversion of management attention and other resources; and potential unknown liabilities associated with Gekkobrains’s business. Further information on factors that could affect our financial and other results is included in the filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time.1 Gartner® Press Release, Gartner Forecasts Worldwide IT Spending to Reach $4 Trillion in 2021, 7 April, 2021. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Service quality and the rising need for enterprise SRE
In its DevOps 2021 survey of global IT professionals, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) found that 95% of organizations with highly successful DevOps initiatives were predominantly decentralized and purposefully becoming more so as fast as possible (see Figure 1).This decentralization of development and DevOps teams is making site reliability engineering (SRE) both critical and difficult to achieve.
Figure 1: Current organizational models. Source: EMASite reliability definedSite reliability crosses domains running the enterprise gamut from code to customer and everywhere in between. Developers code new applications and features. DevOps speeds those innovations into production. IT operations keeps the infrastructure and systems running.Theoretically, they all work together to deliver great service to employees and customers alike. Unfortunately, human nature undercuts that theory: When something is everyone’s business and no one’s job, it doesn’t always get done.When done right, however, and laser-focused on IT service reliability, SRE asks and answers these questions:
What is the minimum level of service a user will find acceptable for any given task, at a not-to-exceed cost that makes sense from a business point of view?
How can a specific level of service reliability be quantified, monitored, and enforced?
What are the earliest and best indicators of any possible service degradation?
How can automation eradicate repetitive, manual tasks that waste time and add no value?
This question-and-response cycle is iterative and endless, always moving in the direction of improved reliability through automation.The automation connectionThe modern drive to automation is increasingly paired with advances in AIOps. Recent EMA research found that AIOps and automation—although technically distinct sets of technologies—are inextricably linked in organizations that are highly successful in their AIOps initiatives. Not surprisingly, those organizations also report:
The highest return of value relative to cost
Success in digital transformation
Superior levels of IT operational effectiveness and IT service quality
When asked to rate the top three capabilities most important in an AIOps solution, SRE groups selected:
Observability/end-to-end visibility of logs, metrics, and traces
Self-learning problem-solving (machine learning (ML))
Hyperautomation/the ability to automate complex processes across domains
Real-time accuracy of the configuration management database (CMDB)/content management system (CMS)
All of these attributes require the unifying reach of a platform to create visibility of applications, services, and microservices across the enterprise.Powered by enterprise-spanning platform technology and practices, enterprise SRE exerts a multiplier effect on individual team productivity. Decentralized IT teams are transformed into efficient parts of a unified organizational whole, with no disruption to their autonomy, speed, or effectiveness.Benefits of SRE adoptionSRE adoption provides a business-defined balance of IT innovation at speed and scale with service reliability and cost. In addition, it offers numerous other predictable benefits and outcomes:
Total cost of ownership plummets when reliability is considered early and designed into applications and services.
End-user experience is made visible and actionable with service that’s as reliable as necessary for customer satisfaction and retention, but not more reliable than it needs to be.
IT organizations have an automated basis for data-driven, fact-based decision-making.
Product development, DevOps, and IT operations all perform faster and more effectively.
When business agility and stability depend on IT, SRE impacts revenue growth.
The people connectionAs always, the catch is people. Enterprise SRE requires a paradigm shift in how IT operations works with the rest of the enterprise world. It’s a recalibration from break/fix to optimization. Although it’s a change that benefits all stakeholders, it’s nonetheless a change.Economies of scale and the advantages of artificial intelligence (AI), ML, and innovative human initiatives such as enterprise SRE cannot be achieved in fenced-off domains of independence. Cross-domain thinking, cooperation, organization, and practices have to precede cross-domain processes and automation.Consider starting with modernization of your incident handling processes. This practical integration can be relatively painless and return high value for the effort. Service management and operations both benefit when IT leverages AI/ML to automate incident and event handling processes.Learn more in our Enterprise SRE: service reliability ebook.LIKE.TG, the LIKE.TG logo, Now, and other LIKE.TG marks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of LIKE.TG, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.