The final day of this week’s ServiceNow Knowledge 2014 event at the Moscone Center in San Francisco saw SiliconANGLE’s theCUBE co-hosts Jeff Frick and Dave Vellante welcoming Dave Schneider. Schneider is the Senior Vice President for Worldwide Sales and Services for ServiceNow. He discussed the focus of ServiceNow going forward and shared the sales strategy employed in pursuing and signing new clients to the platform.

Reflecting on the previous two days, Vellante commented that it was exciting to see the ServiceNow sales team walking around being visibly pumped up. “That’s great to hear,” stated Schneider. “But I want to know my customers are pumped up, too.” Vellante assured him that, too, was the case. “You can tell the enthusiasm is there and is building momentum.”

Schneider claimed what he enjoyed most about the Knowledge events was having the opportunity, in one space, to meet with so many customers. “We get to identify common issues that we then can innovate on,” he said.

Watch the interview in its entirety here:

Turning the topic to ServiceNow’s worldwide market strategy, Vellante brought up the fact that ServiceNow CEO Frank Slootman has been touting their goal of pursuing advancement among the Global 2000. “What does that mean from a go-to-market standpoint and the type of staff you have to bring on,” he asked.

“Global 2000 is a target,” replied Schneider. “But we are also looking at mid to large size companies. We have an equal focus on organizations that have Enterprise service problems. We can impact companies of various sizes.”

On this front, ServiceNow is going head to head with several well funded competitors. Vellante inquired if Schneider sensed ServiceNow was still having to deal with a level of skepticism from potential clients due to this fact.

“In Enterprise software, you have to justify why you are making an investment,” Schneider said.  “That being said, we have a process where we introduce our prospects to our customers and get out of the way. We have so many customers that have seen profit that their experience minimizes some skepticism.” Schneider went on to explain that once potential clients see their platform they buy into the notion that ease of use is not only desired but, with the ServiceNow platform, ultimately a reality.

Addressing another area that has been a sticking point for Cloud adoption thus far, Frick asked Schneider if they were encountering resistance based on the points of Cloud security, Enterprise readiness of the product and uptime issues.

“Those are all critical things. It’s not helpful to have a service that is not available,” said Schneider. “In IT service, it has to be highly available. We don’t have the luxury of being able to close down for the weekend.” This has led ServiceNow to produce creative ways in which they build their Systems of Record. “We are going to great lengths to secure our Cloud and I would argue that we do it better than our competitors,” he said.

ServiceNow is equally creative in their sales strategy within the corporate structures of potential clients. “It is a bit like dating,” Schneider offered. “You have to talk to a lot of people to find the right date. Of course, the IT professionals are important to talk to.” ServiceNow also aims to show value to a company’s CIO and other Executive staff. Once the company can see their IT department as a center for innovation and value rather than as a necessary cost, they are far more amenable to the idea of implementing the ServiceNow solution.

For this and other interviews conducted on SiliconANGLE’s theCUBE, be sure to visit the SiliconANGLE YouTube Channel.

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