The colour palette of connections was logically laid out in the stars.
Ex-SAP CEO Bill McDermott left the German softwarehaus after many years to lead ServiceNow. Once a favourite at the SAP Sapphire user event, McDermott’s New York keynote drawl would now have to wait until he was called as an SAP partner speaker.
But the blue connection is not lost. ServiceNow’s VP of innovation Chris Pope balanced McDermott’s move by a departure of his own, which sees him now fill the role of chief innovation officer (CIO) at Sapphire Systems, an ITOM/ITSM and ERP company with specialist skills in SAP, Infor, Automation Anywhere and yes, ServiceNow.
Pope will initially focus on accelerating the growth of the firm’s ITOM’s Managed Service portfolio [ITOM as a Service].
Digital operating platform
He will also see his remit extended across the Sapphire Systems group to develop its vision centred around digital operating platform services.
Vince DeLuca, CEO, Sapphire Systems is clearly happy. He is on the record with upbeat commentary using terms like ‘digital thinking and transformation’, ‘harnessing innovation’ and actions that will ‘consolidate positioning’.
How Pope translates those no doubt worthy thoughts into actually working with engineers, C-suite mavericks and a variety of real-world users to help the company expand its work as a digital operating platform provider will (arguably) be the really interesting part.
“The majority of my experience centres around working with CIOs and digital transformation leaders to understand their vision, challenging traditional thinking to push boundaries and creating innovative, creative solutions which allow them to do things in new and different ways,” said Pope.
Straight-talking tech
Already known for his straight-talking stride, engaging approach and his ability to humanise and clarify even the lowest level granular technologies, many in the industry may be looking forward to Pope defining what it really means to provide a digital operating platform.
