Advertisement

The cloud is the 'pervasive computing theme of the 21st century': ServiceNow CEO

ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott joins 'Influencers with Andy Serwer' to discuss ServiceNow’s company culture and the importance of digitization.

Video Transcript

ANDY SERWER: I hear people like yourself and other people in enterprise software, SaaS software, B2B software, you've got to make it exciting, Bill, right? Because it's, by definition, maybe not so exciting. So can you talk about that-- how you energize your employees and your customers.

BILL MCDERMOTT: I think the idea, first of all, is you have to have a great culture. And we have to help customers build their great culture. But we have to have a great culture too. And our culture is really based on innovation and building something that never existed before. And the world that I see is a world that I call dantotsu, meaning better than the best. So--

ADVERTISEMENT

ANDY SERWER: What kind of word is that?

BILL MCDERMOTT: That is Japanese. And it means basically better than the best. If we're already the best platform in the business, how do we get better? How do we make our customers get better? And what's unique about our platform and why I do think it's super exciting, it's one platform that can single thread business across an entire enterprise-- all functions of the business.

So it is a great unifier, in a sense, because some people have very powerful chief information officers. Others have chief digital officers. Others have chief people officers. Others have these wonderful data managers. But to have one platform that single threads all of those powerful relationships to deliver great experiences is Super exciting to us.

And our customers more and more realize that IT is not just supporting the business, it has actually become the business. Your product is the digitization of your service. And ultimately, the cloud is the pervasive computing theme of the 21st century because it simplifies everything.

Everything's on the mobile. Everything's beautiful and easy to use. These experiences have to be magnificent. And we have to turbocharge them by speaking the language of our customer and helping them take care of their customer. A lot of people talk B to B, B to C, B to B to C-- I talk business to people.