ServiceNow 2021 Updates: Our Experts’ Platform Predictions for Businesses

Five NTT DATA leaders shared seven ServiceNow predictions for 2021 –and how they shape the future of technology and the world of work.

In 2021, companies will be driven towards their ‘digital destiny’, meaning they will adopt cloud-based solutions more quickly and shift more of our daily work towards the cloud than ever before.

With the International Data Corporation reporting that businesses are expected to invest nearly $7 trillion in digital transformation between 2020 and 2023, our experts predict that we’re in the middle of a crucial transition period as we move towards a more digital world.

As you can imagine, this year’s pandemic and spikes in remote work have only further expedited this process. IDC also notes that by the end of 2021, 80% of enterprises will put a mechanism in place to shift to cloud–centered infrastructure and applications twice as fast as before the pandemic. In short, more companies will move even faster to cloud-based solution in 2021 and beyond.

While it may seem out of their area of expertise, ServiceNow has been extremely responsive this year to COVID-19, particularly with their free COVID-19 response apps and their hyperfocus around a safe return to work. After driving a number of releases and initiatives around these concerns, we predict ServiceNow will continue working on this priority well into 2021.

What exactly will this look like? We expect ServiceNow to focus on things that are workflow driven, for example, the distribution and manufacturing of the vaccine. More specifically, we believe ServiceNow will expand their COVID-19 response apps and updated pandemic protocols, to track and measure vaccine distribution for employees as they start returning to work at an office.

Proof of that acceleration can be seen in our COVID-19 survey from earlier this year, where 40% of respondents indicated that their digital transformation had accelerated in some capacity. We all felt the full weight of digital in 2020, whether as an employee, consumer or even as a parent.

In 2020, companies planned, designed, delivered, measured and evolved net new digital capabilities at the drop of a hat. With this, frontline heroes, health care workers and retailers have set a new pace for digital transformation, breaking the previous, marathon-long journey into what feels like a mile-long sprint. There’s no argument around the increasing importance of digital in all aspects of our lives but we predict digital transformation’s largest accelerator is this new expectation around speed and agility.

Compared to 2018 and 2019, ServiceNow has significantly ramped up its partnerships and acquisitions. We also predict to see a lot more partnerships from ServiceNow across the board with services partners, technology partners and customer partners like the NBA.