4 min

ServiceNow kicked off Knowledge 21, the annual ServiceNow event, today. The first day also saw several announcements, including the focus on verticals, which fits Bill McDermott’s management style.

McDermott’s leadership is known for two things. The first is to make acquisitions every year to broaden the portfolio. The second is to specialise in verticals. As CEO of ServiceNow, he has already indicated that he wants to specialise in certain verticals together with partners. This was immediately apparent during Knowledge 21, because the company is going to specialise in two industries: manufacturing and healthcare.

Also read: Nobody knows what ServiceNow does, or what it can do for you

Manufacturing

ServiceNow wants to make the manufacturing industry smarter with its Now platform. It has built an application on top of the Now platform, especially for manufacturing, called Operational Technology Management (OT Management). The purpose of OT management is to respond to the needs of the manufacturing industry. It should provide the critical technology to gain more visibility into the IT and OT processes so that it becomes clearer how systems operate and on what fronts they depend on each other. OT Management is also capable of detecting OT systems by itself.

In addition, it should improve the availability of systems with the help of this new technology. Workflows can play a major role in automating processes, also for OT systems.

Finally, ServiceNow thinks it can play a role in securing OT systems, to reduce risks and improve compliance. To this end, it has developed proactive and reactive security workflows.

ServiceNow works with partners

The rise of Industry 4.0 and COVID-19 has seen a sharp increase in investment in digital innovation and improving production facilities. To get the most out of these investments, companies want to use the data available at modern production facilities. Use the data for analyses to make production more efficient or even better and kick off workflows to detect deviations or undesirable behaviour.

Setting up specific industry solutions properly requires expertise, as does making good use of the available data. ServiceNow cannot do that alone, which is why it works actively with partners. Atos, Deloitte, Fujitsu and Infosys, among others, will work with ServiceNow to provide the manufacturing industry with OT Management.

The OT Management solution will be available in the third quarter of 2021.

Related: ServiceNow fully enters low-code market with App Engine Studio

Healthcare

ServiceNow also wants to play a bigger role in the healthcare sector with new and improved Healthcare solutions. The company has already taken its first step in this industry with the Vaccine Administration Management solution. This enables governments to keep track of the entire vaccination process. With this solution, ServiceNow is responsible for millions of vaccinations in the background. We get the impression that at the moment, it’s mainly smaller local governments that make use of the ServiceNow solution. Among others, a German federal state and Scotland are using ServiceNow’s Vaccine Administration Management solution. ServiceNow indicates that Vaccine Administration Management is a highly scalable solution. In Germany, 120,000 appointments were made for vaccination in the first two hours that the solution was online. At its peak, the solution was counting 5000 appointments per minute and 7000 page views per second.

Governments that are still having problems with the administration of vaccinations may want to turn to ServiceNow. They have a solution up and running. The solution has also been given several new features.

For example, the solution now offers the possibility of making appointments at the vaccination location for so-called ‘walk-ups’. People who come for a vaccination without an appointment. With COVID this is currently difficult, but with other vaccinations it is possible.

Also, call centre agents can now offer multiple time slots, instead of the next available time slot. There is now a bit more flexibility than in the beginning. It is also possible to reschedule or move appointments to other vaccination locations.

Healthcare and Life Sciences Service Management

The vaccination solution was just the beginning for ServiceNow; with the new solution, it wants to really change the healthcare sector. With Healthcare and Life Sciences Service Management (HLSSM), it wants to improve, automate and make more efficient workflows at the front and back of healthcare organisations. ServiceNow argues that this should improve the patient experience because the nurse or doctor will have more time for the patient.

As with every ServiceNow product, this solution is built on the Now platform. The ultimate goal is to enable innovation at every point in the healthcare chain through workflows and to integrate different systems. ServiceNow is thinking of healthcare providers, health insurers, pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment companies.

ServiceNow works within its platform with a Healthcare data model that includes a digital patient record. The company uses the FHIR standard for this. This is an internationally recognised standard for exchanging medical data.

HLSSM also has a 360-degree patient overview, which allows a care provider to directly view all the patient’s information without switching to other applications. In case of an emergency, this can be very helpful.

In addition, ServiceNow has already developed workflows based on its own accumulated knowledge that can be rolled out immediately to enable systems to communicate with each other and make healthcare delivery more about the patient than about administration and IT systems.

The biggest problem or hurdle we see for this solution is the fragmentation in the Healthcare industry. Standards and solutions often differ from country to country, as do the ways of working. The question is to what extent you can easily roll out an innovating system in a highly regulated industry. The near future will have to tell.

Availability

The Vaccination Administration Management solution is available from the ServiceNow Store, including the new features. The Healthcare and Life Sciences Service Management will be available sometime in the third quarter.