As the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, improving the customer experience is critical. Nowhere is this more important than in the healthcare industry, where increased engagement can lead to better patient outcomes. “Pairing digital technologies with human coaching and clinical care can offer a dramatically better patient experience through personalized attention, on-demand access to support, and automated reminders,” explains a Workflow article.

When measuring the success of large-scale transformations—particularly in the technology space—it’s natural to look at hard metrics, such as cycle time, mean time to recovery (MTTR), and so on. In IT, for example, hard metrics are what we do all day long. But within any organization, change is ultimately personal. In my experience, relying exclusively on hard numbers often leads you to ignore the human side of transformation, and sometimes even action the wrong things.

Organizations across all industries are investing in digital transformation to unlock new levels of innovation, agility, and productivity as they look to adapt to the new world of hybrid work. According to Gartner, worldwide IT spending is projected to reach $4.1 trillion by the end of this year.1 However, many organizations are still struggling to identify where to start as they race to modernize systems of record and digitize operations.

Lisa Wolfe, product marketing director at ServiceNow, co-wrote this blog. The stream of global disruptions these past couple of years has not only put business continuity plans to the test, but has also tested the ability of organizations to simply survive. To operate at the “speed of a digital business” and to endure the next wave of unexpected change will require peripheral vision—the ability to help predict and fix issues before they impact employees or the business.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations have realized the importance of proactively managing risk and security to build resilience and to emerge from a crisis stronger. These best practices and tools can help you shift your risk management program into high gear.

The new world of hybrid work requires creative ways to engage with customers and employees no matter where they’re located. To answer that call, we’ve launched the ServiceNow Messaging Service to provide a seamless experience from issue to resolution. Built on integration with the Twilio platform, ServiceNow Messaging Service makes it easy for ServiceNow users to integrate SMS and WhatsApp into digital workflows using the Now Platform.

Small and large businesses alike are looking toward the future and are hoping for the economy to reopen as quickly and smoothly as possible. High vaccination rates will be key. The world’s biggest workflow challenge to convert vaccines into vaccinations has brought employers to the front line to drive the pandemic response effort. With more employers and governments now requiring employee vaccinations as a condition of work or office reentry, employee access to vaccines will become critical.

COVID-19 has impacted every industry, but perhaps none more than healthcare and life sciences. From how and where healthcare is provided to the speed of developing and administering vaccines, there has been massive disruption to the way healthcare and life sciences organizations operate. But the crisis also provided unprecedented opportunities to reexamine and transform.

The 2021 Now at Work Digital Experience included a series of regional events with locally relevant topics and featured leaders from the business, government, and sports communities. Guest speakers, industry luminaries, partners, and customers sharing their success stories joined in the worldwide movement to workflow a better world.

The Seattle-based cloud services engineering team at ServiceNow has cultivated a culture of creativity, risk-taking, and problem-solving—despite the weight of their work being deployed at a global scale across some of the most complex regulated markets.

Technology teams have long sought to innovate more quickly to deliver better experiences to employees and customers. These teams often have to tab between hundreds of tools to make it happen, slowing progress and increasing risk, complexity, and cost. This complexity has the downstream effect of negatively impacting employee and customer experience due to manual processes, information silos, and disconnections.

The pandemic accelerated digital transformation across all industries, exacerbating Australia’s tech skills shortage. Research from RMIT Online identified a need for 156,000 new technology workers in Australia, with 87% of jobs now requiring digital skills. This skills gap is set to cost the economy $10 billion in lost growth by 2025 in technology, media, and communications alone.

Over the past decade, the world has experienced remarkable changes and unprecedented challenges. Every year sees a sharp increase in natural disasters driven by a global rise in carbon emissions, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Mass protests have underscored the need for a more inclusive society and workplace. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of business continuity. As global citizens, we have the responsibility to leave the world better than we found it.

Around the world, more organizations are championing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives to help create a more sustainable, equitable, and ethical world, build stakeholder trust, and drive ESG impact and business value. There’s a good reason: ESG drives better business outcomes—and it makes the world better. For many, meeting ESG goals is a challenge. That’s because ESG spans a lot of different types of activities across the enterprise.

Government agencies had to adapt to a rapid increase in demand for services in 2020. They also had to adjust to a remote workforce. Many found themselves picking up the pace of their digital transformations and trying to modernize during a global health crisis. Perhaps above all else, many learned the importance of using the right digital tools, platforms, and services. They still have a long way to go.

Business disruption can happen any time, especially when you least expect it. That’s why it’s critical to have a business resilience plan in place. “We define organizational resilience as the ability to maintain performance in the face of environmental, political, social, cyber, and other disruptions,” explains ServiceNow Chief Financial Officer Gina Mastantuono in the Workflow Quarterly Fall 2021 issue.

The longer the pandemic stretches on, the more convinced I become that innovation is the key to recovery. And I’m not alone. McKinsey research found more than 90% of executives “expect the fallout from COVID-19 to fundamentally change the way they do business over the next five years.” Yet, many organizations are focusing less on innovation in an effort to minimize risk, save money, pursue safe opportunities, and bolster their core business, McKinsey reports.

The biggest business story of last year was how suddenly and completely the COVID-19 pandemic changed the ways we work and live. Organizations had to look at how they operate, adjust to a hybrid workforce, and further embrace digital transformation. ServiceNow has been at the forefront of the employee experience awakening. As new challenges emerge, our platform is perfectly suited to respond quickly to market-shifting events so that your workforce can stay productive.

When I started as a data engineer almost 20 years ago, I designed, developed, and implemented a worldwide sales reporting system for my employer using an enterprise data warehouse. Using analytical packages, my team drove quantifiable sales by transforming the way our company leveraged data. Even at the start of the millennium, it seemed obvious that studying analytics was a game-changer.