ESG Management Solution – Vasant Balasubramanian, ServiceNow

This is Textron TV. Hi everyone. Welcome to another techstruck TV segment.

I'm happy to have a Friend of techstrong TV he's been on here before. I want to introduce you to vasant and I try really hard on his last name. It is one of my most challenging ones, but I actually usually do a decent job vissant balasubramaniam good All right, but I call him vasant Versace in case you don't know is with service.

Now. I'm gonna let him introduce his title and his background vasant. Welcome back.

Thanks for being here. Why don't we start with a little bit of who is the son? And pleasure to be here again.

I'm basant balasubramanian is Alan got that exactly. Correct? I am the general manager for our service now is risk and ESG Solutions, and it's a pleasure to be here.

Absolutely, and you know for certainly you got a headed to service there always come up with good backgrounds and stuff that that are on target as we can see behind you. The big news is the new the next platform release of service now, it's been out it's called the Tokyo release and It's as always chocked full chocked full of new features and and great things for the user base to use. We were lucky enough.

We we did a previous interview with another GM it service now Mitchell actually on my team did where we we kind of did abroad overview of Tokyo and all of the great things in there. But today we wanted to really focusing on what's in Tokyo in terms of the risk business unit in ESG, which I I'm assuming he's right in your sweet spot, so I almost feel though that we need to do something though. Maybe someone hasn't seen that prior interview if you Mind the Sun a quick minute or two kind of broad.

Tokyo overview and then let's dive into the risk. Stuff in the you know stuff for people who are interested in that absolutely. So Tokyo big release, right?

So we continue to innovate strongly across the board. So service now remember being fundamental to the driving business transformation digital business models across the board service now has been rolling out a range of capabilities strengthening existing capabilities as well as innovating in a whole bunch of new areas. So the obviously the area we're talking about today is around ESG and we'll get deeper into it but a few other areas that are interesting are supplier life cycle management, which is really relevant for managing suppliers and onboarding on boarding the rest of the life cycle Enterprise Asset Management, huge trend on our Hardware asset management area, but then managing all kinds of Enterprise that's across the board.

I will also connect the subsequently to an ESG point of view because they're all relevant also from any SG point if you so broadly a punch of black form Innovations around Security in the platform. We're really looking at this across the board and saying customers coming and asking us for a range of things that we're saying customers. We're helping you navigate all of your complex business challenges across all the different Industries yet and all the different business models customers are driving across the board and In Tokyo connecting them to what is good for the planet that for people and good for business.

So that's okay. Excellent. Alrighty, and thank you for that.

But let's dive in now though. Let's really do a little deeper dive. In into what's in here regarding risk and ESG and and kind of your, you know.

your sweet spot That's me. So for today what I wanted to spend honestly most time was talking about the ESG release and that that's where the the big talk track for. tokyos, so I'm going to say a second to just set the context for environmental social and governance, right ESG and it is an extremely hot topic right now and most people have Psgated they've heard about it systemability is important.

It drives purpose. And of course boards talking about it. Regulators are talking about regulation is either on the way or it's already there.

Now the nice thing about environmental social and governance is it turns out to be as I said earlier. It's not just a feel good thing. It's it is something that we do that is good for people and the planet and it is good for business and not to forget that and it is good for business.

So it's really about saying how do you put both of these together and make the best possible decisions that includes sustainability includes social aspects, but then also balance that the business priorities and what's good for the long term, right? And that's why it's important companies with high ESG ratings tend to do well over the long run. Therefore it is a business imperative which is why everyone's saying hey, that sounds great.

We love companies that do well that are thinking about the long term have sustainable business models because the climate is changing and they're working with their people making sure everyone's in a good place and it's a diverse Workforce and it's well governed environmental social governments. If the company does this guess what they're also a better business because you do well over the long run that is easy. Absolutely.

Okay. I know that was by the way that's definition and explanation of ESG. I've heard.

Go ahead. So with that in mind now if you look at what servicenow does. We are helping companies transform digitally for all the new business all their business models and be that digital transformation platform for companies in the future period right?

This is who we are and this is what we're driving. With that we said hey ask for helping our customers do that. How great would it be if we bacon environmental social governance into everything that they do across the board and help them be successful with this?

Right. So our philosophy on ESG is help our customers activate ESG. This is not just about telling the story or doing anything or another thing.

It's about how do you think about holistically and be successful with it? so that's approach to it. Now.

What does that actually translate into in terms of bits and bytes? First we released in Tokyo. We're in general availability because the product had been available in control board of Market earlier, but in general availability, we released an ESG management product.

What this does is it helps connect a bunch of different things across the board to bring ESG to life. So what it does is it helps you? Set goals and targets every company sensible to Target.

So it helps you set goals and targets for ESG. I want to get to Net Zero by 2030. Okay, sounds great.

That's your goal. I want to be carbonization Net Zero by 2030. I want Renewable Power sources by 2023.

Okay, that's another Target. Sounds great. What are the metrics what are the measures for it?

Okay, sounds great. She can collect data on the system and third what sustainability professionals and this is who is targeted for primarily sustainability professionals Global impact teams. How do you now report on this?

Everybody has an annual impact report? That talks about their goals. So it's now has great annual impact report that talks about everything that we are doing for ESG.

And show all of this comes together to produce that report along with several standards like Gris as the Etc. so the core of the solution is that now this in addition to it connects with several other products like Risk Management like portfolio management and project management. Because we have goals and targets you go.

Okay, that sounds great. How am I going to bring it to life? How do I know?

that that I'm existing this what are the budgets for it where the people for it? But guess what you need project in portfolio management to do that and service now has a very mature Market leading project and portfolio management product. So we connected this New Year's management the project and portfolio management.

second as you're doing collecting data as you're spending ESG Investments across the Enterprise. What is the governance for it? Are we doing the things that we said?

We should I really doing that how validated is the data? Are we thinking about our risks from a climate change Point issue? Are we do we have data centers in places that are flood Chrome?

Um, that is a climate risk. Do I have crops? Am I a manufacturer whose sources agriculture crops from a region?

That is just going to be dry in 10 years or five years. Well, that better start thinking about California. I I live in California and you bet we're thinking about how patterns change growth here.

So if I'm not thinking about that as a business, I'm not doing my job. And so this management is a great product for us to be thinking about those which is also a market leading product or service now. So between these three is G management portfolio and project management and integrated risk management.

We established what we call an ESG Command Center. And this solution helps customers put their arms around ESG across the Enterprise. I love it.

You know, I mean you're saying you're in California. I'm here in South Florida. We have a different problem flooding.

Right, Miami not just when it rains if we get a good high tide. Oh very floods. We're seeing here.

I you know, we're near the water. We're seeing all the local the municipalities now putting in if you redo your Seawall, if you got to make it a foot and a half or more higher than it was and and this of course is all big. Big news a big changes.

So I think increasingly it's so funny because at the same at the same on one hand, we talk about digital transformation out of this side of our mouth but digital transformation isn't just about the digital. It's using it's using digital. To help us better manage the real world the physical world and this is this is an issue.

So, you know anyone who says, oh, I'm not involved in a digital thing. We're brick and mortar where the Stop stop you are software is eating the world already. We all have to be doing and thinking along lines of digital transformation.

So I think this is huge. Just a little just find a little housekeeping normally if you're a service now customer you get the new release. And this ESG?

Platform or a module is built in it's not like an add-on or something. Right? It's open.

It's available to all service now customers. Yes, so just like in your other service Mount products. It's a product on the service now platform and that is always been unique about service.

Right? It's a single platform on all products are built on the same platform. So you choose to figure out which of the products you buy and turn on on the platform, but it's all in the same platform.

Love it. Excellent. It's available now.

It is available now as of yesterday so big day yesterday. Absolutely is Matt David son? I want to thank you for coming on you've done it.

You did a great job here of nailing this down. I appreciate it. We hope to see you again soon.

Let's I mean, I know you guys you big releases but let's not wait to the big release keep us posted. There's so much going on in this ESG space right now. It's so Dynamic it is it is that yeah.

This is this can easily be a long conversation, but it's exceptionally exciting. Space and the potential for who service now is while we drive transmission across the board. This is what's exceptionally.

It's exciting for where we are today is we as service now get to be able to solve not just a problem or a second problem. We help look at it holistically. Through digital transformation.

I love what she said. By the way, this is transformation is not about bits and butts. It's about how do you transform your business fundamentally friction orders are anything else so knowledge and to do that while you're thinking about long term sustainability people and your governance love it.

So right absolutely. alrighty Go check it out Tokyo release servicenow. We're gonna take a break on Tech strike.

We'll be right back.