ServiceNow had no shortage of announcements to make at its annual internal partner kickoff event in Las Vegas.
Among those announcements were an updated partner program and a new channel champion.
ServiceNow’s New Channel Chief
First, the digital workflow management software developer announced its new channel chief. Erica Volini took the stage at the annual event as the company’s new senior vice president for alliances and the channel ecosystem.
Volini joined ServiceNow in August of 2021 as senior vice president of global alliances and partner ecosystem go-to-market operations. Before that she served 23 years at Deloitte.
Volini takes over for David Parsons, who held the position for over four years.
“He’s taking on a new role focused on expanding the partner ecosystem through new investments,” Volini said. “It’s part of a newly-created ecosystem venture organization.”
ServiceNow’s Updated Partner Program
Volini then took the opportunity to unveil the company’s newly updated partner program, with a multi-year vision designed to support what the company sees as a $500 billion market opportunity. The redesign of its partner program includes a new Partner Development Fund, a co-funded investment program for qualifying partners.
The program will also feature distinct “modules” that partners can choose to participate in: Build, Consulting & Implementation, Resale, and Service Provider. The company asserts that these modules will allow partners to better align with the unique roles and routes-to-market within the ServiceNow ecosystem.
Finally, the company will offer an updated partner experience, with key experience enhancements including an improved partner portal and an improved “partner finder.”
The new ServiceNow Partner Program will be available for all partners beginning March 6, 2023.
Volini commented on the updated program:
"The vision for ServiceNow partners is that they should be treated as co-creators of value, and as co-pilots on our journey to becoming the platform for digital business. Our reimagined Partner Program creates unbounded opportunity for partners to expand and collaborate with ServiceNow well beyond where we can go alone. We are investing in partner success, championing their expertise, and giving them flexibility to drive exponential value with our platform."
ServiceNow’s M&A Plays
This news comes just four months after ServiceNow announced the acquisition of Era Software. While the financial terms of that deal were not disclosed, Era had raised $15.25 million the year before and raised about $22 million in total since its founding.
The Era acquisition was aligned with the company’s Lightstep acquisition of 2021, which had some implications for unified IT service management (ITSM) and application monitoring. Even though ServiceNow was seen to have moved beyond the traditional ITSM market as it emphasized workflow automation across finance, HR, SecOps, and other operational departments. This latest partner program update appears to further support that initiative.
The combined Era-Lightstep solutions were expected to accelerate “ServiceNow’s path toward unified telemetry (logs, metrics, traces),” the buyer said at the time.
