ServiceNow has just announced its latest set of financial results which demonstrate strong growth across all metrics. Its Q1 2022 revenues were $1.72bn representing 26 percent growth compared to the same period last year with net new contracts valued at $1m or more increasing by 41 percent. Subscription revenues grew by 29 percent while current remaining obligations were up nearly 30 percent at nearly $5.7bn.
Gina Mastantuono, CFO at ServiceNow, said: “Q1 was another fantastic quarter of execution. NNACV growth accelerated year‑over‑year, driving the fastest Q1 growth we’ve seen since 2018. While enterprises are navigating a complex macro environment, our ability to continue delivering strong results exemplifies the resiliency of our business and the mission‑critical nature of the Now Platform.”
During Q1, ServiceNow delivered the latest release of the Now platform – San Diego – to help companies accelerate productivity and digital transformation with modern design and expanded hyperautomation tools. In addition, following the 2021 acquisition of Lightstep, ServiceNow took a major step on its mission to extend Now Platform capabilities beyond observability with the launch of Lightstep Incident Response.
Other highlights on the quarter included the launch of its Centre of Excellence for Accessibility which will create more equitable experiences for ServiceNow employees and customers along with the release of its annual Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Global Impact Reports, showing strong progress, a refined strategy, and new leadership dedicated to making meaningful and lasting change.
However, despite stellar numbers, new product releases and great customer wins, there is another metric that is likely to be overlooked by many – but which paints the clearest picture of ServiceNow’s trajectory – and that is its ability to hire in a market that is woefully short of digital skills.
When Bill McDermott took the helm ServiceNow employed less than 10,000 people. Today it announced its 18,000th employee with many more to follow in the short term. At a time when the world is short of resources and tech companies across the globe are clambering over each other to attract new talent – ServiceNow seems to be immune to the same challenges as its peers and is able to identify, recruit and retain the talent it needs en-masse.
During this evening’s earnings call, McDermott encapsulated the recruitment successes by saying, “the world wants to work with ServiceNow”, and that play on the corporate strapline seems to be true – the brand is not just resonating with enterprise customers it’s also capturing the imagination of sales leaders, R&D specialist and marketing experts.
The lack of skilled resources is the greatest challenge for all enterprise tech vendors: SAP needs close to 100,000 more people in its eco-system to deliver on its commitments. Salesforce estimates it needs even more than that – where are these people going to come from? Efforts to attract younger generations into tech are woefully inadequate and the merry-go-round of established resources moving from one traditional vendor to another serves only to push the problem from one ecosystem to the next.
ServiceNow’s brand, underpinned by a rockstar CEO and a culture that is as authentic and purposeful as you will find, is winning the hearts and minds of grads, managers and C-suite execs. Whilst new products, tech innovations and burgeoning sales books are all great boasts – the bottom line is that all businesses are dependent on their people to deliver – and that has never been more poignant than in today’s disrupted, distributed and brave labour market.
Ask any CEO what is their greatest asset and you should always get the same answer. ServiceNow’s success and brand isn’t just winning customers – it’s winning employees too – and in today’s scarce talent pool that is far more valuable than the next big deal.
