ServiceNow is a leading US-based software company that offers a cloud computing platform to help companies manage digital workflows for enterprise operations. It employs 17,000 people worldwide and logged revenues of $5.9billion in 2021, meaning its customers account for almost 80% of the Fortune 500.
Challenge
In 2018 Gemma Davies, now Head of Global ABM and Executive Marketing, spearheaded an ambitious ABM programme to shift market perception of ServiceNow from an IT ticketing tool to a value-based, end-to-end digital transformation platform.
Gemma recognised that “a small number of strategic customers were going to drive a significant amount of long-term revenue growth,” so she looked for ways to service and support these customers centred around their imperatives. A key part of the strategy was to become a long-term trusted advisor by building strong relationships with c-suite executives.
Approach
A model of cross-functional collaboration was applied with members of different teams from the business involved in the steering committee to establish the new customer-centric ABM programme.
- Establishing ABM regional centres of excellence in Asia Pacific, Americas and EMEA, plus a global PMO to ensure consistency and innovation.
- Evolving the ABM governance structure so that 100 accounts were treated as a ‘market of one’ while a further 1,000+ accounts received lighter touch imperative-led ABM.
- Tight cross-functional relationships established to drive organisation-wide ‘outside-in’ customer focus.
- Global ABM Lead headed up Executive Engagement to increase relationships, loyalty and advocacy.
Results
- Increased pipeline, revenue and average contract value.
- Significant lift in advocacy.
- Demonstrating innovation and relevance led to new contract wins, for example, in NHS Scotland, where the agile Now platform helped them to develop and deploy a vaccine management solution in just six weeks.
- Four-fold growth in the ABM programme since 2018.
Read a full description of this ServiceNow case study in Account-Based Growth by Bev Burgess and Tim Shercliff, published by Kogan Page.
