Cloud automation company ServiceNow Inc. is targeting the new era of hybrid work that’s fast becoming a reality for many firms in the post-pandemic world, announcing a massive platform release today with dozens of new features and capabilities help organizations adapt their business models.

ServiceNow says the global economy is currently expanding at its strongest post-recession pace in more than 80 years. To help companies deal with that reality, the Now Platform Rome release provides tools to establish more agile work environments quickly, the company said, helping customers scale up automation and application development and better deal with employee fatigue.

The Now Platform is a cloud automation service designed to help enterprises automate parts of their business that involve service delivery. It also helps companies streamline information technology operations such as assisting employees with setting up their work computers and finding cybersecurity issues. Not least, it provides features for specific departments within an organization, including human resources groups.

Employee focus

A big part of today’s update revolves around making workers happier. The Rome release comes with a new, unified “employee experience platform” featuring an Employee Center that serves as a kind of digital command center for hybrid workforces. Users can quickly and easily find personalized information, complete tasks, request and get help across information technology, human resources, facilities, legal and procurement departments from a single location.

The idea, ServiceNow says, is to help reduce the complexity and time it takes for employees to get the assistance they require from their organization. It can now curate information and services into dynamic, personalized topic pages, making it easier for employees to find what they need. The Employee Center will also integrate with Microsoft Teams.

Within the Employee Center, the new Employee Journey Management tool is meant to help guide company staff through cross-departmental journeys such as onboarding, work transitions and leaving the company. In addition, HR teams can use it to personalize resources, plans and needs for each employee without any coding required.

ServiceNow says these employee-focused tools will be essential for companies to tackle fatigue among workers, noting that 3.6 million Americans quit their jobs in May 2021 alone. The key, the company says, is to help employees find a better balance in the hybrid work world.

Analyst Phil Carter of International Data Corp. said he believes it will be necessary for organizations transitioning to hybrid work to make employee experiences more frictionless and efficient, with a strong focus on collaboration and engagement to drive greater productivity.

“Simplifying the employee experience will be vital in achieving this, making sure employees have access to work solutions in one place, from anywhere, and in multiple ways,” Carter said. “We anticipate that ServiceNow’s new solutions will offer more resources for employees in an effort to make their lives easier for a new era of work.”

Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. told SiliconANGLE the most critical challenge enterprises face in the pandemic world regards employee processes, as workforces have become more mobile and distributed than ever before.

“It makes sense ServiceNow, which claims to be the workflow company of everything, is taking a closer look at employee interactions,” Mueller said. “ServiceNow understands the hybrid work use case and is bringing all of the necessary functionalities and capabilities to make it happen to the table. As with all new software releases, enterprise executives should apply a little caution before jumping in with both feet.”

Automation

As always with ServiceNow, there’s a big focus on automation with any new release and Rome is no different. The company stressed how the shift to hybrid work, combined with talent shortages being felt at many organizations, is demanding greater automation. The key to this automation, ServiceNow said, is to focus on freeing up workers from more mundane tasks so they can focus on more pressing projects that drive business value.

Keeping that imperative in mind, ServiceNow said its new Automation Discovery tool identifies the top ten opportunities for automating work using its various applications in a staggering 180 different areas. ServiceNow has dozens of different apps, such as its Virtual Agent, Auto Routing and Agent Asst apps, to help with hundreds of employee tasks.

Also on the automation side, the new Health Log Analytics enhancements make use of ServiceNow’s ITOM Predictive AIOps tool to help detect information technology problems and automate their resolution, even before they occur, the company said.

Another addition in the Rome release is the new Mobile App Builder service that makes it easy for developers to quickly build and deploy mobile apps for iOS and Android devices via a single interface, with guided experiences for users. Meanwhile, customer service teams will benefit from ServiceNow’s series of Customer Service Playbooks: Focused Layout, which is meant to help customer service agents deal with various common requests and issues faster and more effectively.

Industry Solutions

Finally, ServiceNow has added a number of new Industry Solutions in the Rome release that it says are purpose-built to help organizations in a range of key industry segments.

The new Manufacturing Connected Workforce solution, for example, is a set of tools to help manufacturers digitize with maps and visual guides of their systems and processes and create better standard operating procedures to help ensure efficiency and compliance.
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ServiceNow’s Financial Services Operations solution meanwhile gets three new apps. They include Client Lifecycle Operations, a tool for onboarding new customers, Complaint Management for handling customer complaints, and Treasury Operations for services such as ACH payments and wire transfers.

The company has also added enhancements to its telecommunications, healthcare and life sciences industry solutions.

ServiceNow said the Rome Platform release is available starting today.

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