Welcome to our next session. I see this year we do, like, more the buffet style, which basically means there's going to be more movement than in the previous years, but I hope we're still okay. Gina, thanks for joining me.
Thanks for having me.
Let's start. It's funny because so much has changed in the last few weeks and months. So it's like, almost, I want to kind of take, like, the pulse from you as well to see, like, okay, how has... how's the last few weeks kind of played out for you guys? And there's, like, you know, the typical questions, like, post-election and what happened and etc.
Yeah.
Like, maybe just frame us a little bit, like, what have you seen?
Yeah. Great question. Not surprising. You know, from our perspective, the quarter has been shaping as we had expected, and we feel good about our guide that we gave in last quarter. Post-election and, by the way, you know, our pipelines are strong. We had really solid new logo pipeline generation Q4 for us also. We do a lot of our World Forums, which are kind of smaller customer events, and building pipeline has been good there. What I'd say post-election and I said this last week at one of the conferences, and I think you're hearing it a lot online in the news as well. You know, I think yesterday they talked about small business sentiment being the highest in three years.
Yeah.
Certainly the conversations that I'm having with industry analysts, whether it's Gartner or IDC, expectations for IT spending into 2025 seem stronger than last year. All of the CIO surveys are also talking about, as we're going into 2025, you know, a better IT spend environment. So I'd say from that perspective and the conversations that I'm having with customers, I'd say cautiously optimistic versus same time last year as we were entering into 2024. And some of that I think is post-election.
Yeah.
So as we're thinking about 2025, I'd say cautiously optimistic vis-à-vis where we were same time last year. Demand environment remains stable. At the end of the day, ServiceNow's platform and the ability to drive really strong productivity and efficiency gains, you know, has enabled us to do well even in an uncertain macro. And with t he cautious optimism heading into 2025, you know, I feel pretty good.
And then, I mean, if you think about it, there's the optimism when you're talking with clients. Is there, do you also see it already for you guys? And I don't want, like, Q4 specific or whatever commentary.
Yeah.
But as you look out, like, you know, is there, like, better pipeline generation or anything like that, or is it that's too early? Like, we shouldn't really think about it yet?
I mean, post-election, it's a little bit too early to talk about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The pipeline build, but I will say, in general, and we've talked about this externally in the past. You know, our pipeline generation from Knowledge back in May and the World Forums in Q 3 and Q4 have been strong. The attendance at these events have been really strong as well, and so from a pipeline perspective, heading into 2025 we talked about heading into Q4 and 2025. You know, we feel really good about where we are.
Okay. Perfect. And then a big part of our conversation we probably have to spend on GenAI.
No.
Yeah. I know. Another one. If you think about it, though, how do you like, where the world is changing so quickly at the moment. And I don't know how you on the corporate side kind of want to keep track on it and kind of see all this kind of evolving. But from your perspective, so we started off, you know, with the copilots, then now we have, like, the agents, etc. You guys, we're always kind of your starting point was much more holistic, actually, which is kind of nice. Like, but how do you see this playing out from your perspective?
I think Bill and I and the leadership team at ServiceNow have been pretty consistent in our messaging.
Yeah.
That we truly believe that GenAI is going to fundamentally shift how work gets done in the enterprise, and we've been investing in AI for years and years. One of the first acquisitions that we did in 2020 after Bill and I arrived at ServiceNow was a company called Element AI.
Yeah.
That was a company that brought in incredible talent in the space. The ability to invest in innovation and kind of be ahead of the curve, I think, has allowed us to take an approach where we're seeing monetization better than expected. Our Pro Plus SKUs I talked about in Q3 continues to be the fastest-growing new product introduction in our history. We talked about, you know, three and a half quarters out, and we have 44 customers paying us more than $1 million.
Wow.
Which includes six customers paying us over five and two customers paying us over 10, and so monetization looks good. Pricing. We talked initially when we launched that the expectation about price uplifts from our Pro Plus SKU would be around 30%, and that has been holding true, and so from our perspective, AI is absolutely going to fundamentally shift how work gets done, and ServiceNow's platform is uniquely positioned because we can sit on top of the application sprawl or data sprawl and really drive exponential productivity, and the differentiation that we have in that it's one platform across the enterprise, whether you're working in HR, IT, Customer Service, Legal, Finance, and that ability to harness the power of the better-together story, I think really differentiates us in an AI-enabled world.
If you have the customer conversations, how does that whole dynamic of P times Q playing out? You remember the analyst day? I think it was, like, two years ago, and we were like, "Okay. P tim es Q. P times Q." Like, in reality, like, how are customers thinking about it?
When the conversation first came up, we talked about when we first launched our Pro SKUs.
Yeah.
Back in 2018, which was our initial foray into AI and machine learning capabilities and the platform, we actually saw suite expansion because the productivity gains were so great.
People wanted to go more broader in the enterprise. And so the conversations that we had initially about P times Q, we felt pretty strongly that, regardless, as long as we're providing value for our customers, we will be able to monetize such that the value that we give to customers, we keep a small piece of it. And that has remained. And so a year out, we haven't seen any seat compression. The pricing uplift of 30% that we had expected a year ago is holding true. And at the end of the day, we've been really focused always. It's ServiceNow's history of driving conversations about pricing. It's all about value.
We're a value seller play, and the conversations with customers have gone really well when we can say, "The lion's share of the value is going to you, and we're taking a slice of it because we're investing in all the innovation that's allowing that value." And so those conversations continue to go well.
Yeah.
And we continue to see, I think, really strong results as a result.
And have you, when you used to work this out, is that kind of, like, something where you kind of had a little bit of guardrails on to make sure that you're delivering the value, or was this kind of available for all the clients straight away?
When we talked about pricing in our perspective of how we wanted to price, we did it very similarly to when we launched our Pro SKUs. Really understanding that value proposition and giving 90-ish percent to the customers and keeping 10 for us. So that was kind of the guardrails. We did a lot of studies on the value creation, and that's been holding true. Now, we've been pretty firm on not over-discounting because we truly believe we're driving very significant incremental value, and that has helped us ensure that the pricing remains strong.
Yeah. Then, if you think about it now, the other big debate, and it's more like, it's not a ServiceNow question. It's like a bigger picture CFO question that comes up a lot now: outcome-based pricing. You know, like, "Because I'm adding so much value to you, and so I need to do I want to kind of participate. I don't know how I measure it for every client, etc." You know? Like, how do you think about it? Is that like, to me, it feels like the holy dream. It's offered all the time, and every kind of few years it comes back up again. And yes, you could monetize even more, but how do you yeah. How's the discussion for you guys going? I'm sure you can talk about that.
Yeah. Of course, we talk about that, and I'm certainly get a lot of questions on it as well. You know, in our current Pro Plus Now Assist, so that's our GenAI SKUs.
Yeah.
We actually have a hybrid model, right? It's seat-based, and you get a certain number of tokens. And then if you're over-consuming, you need to buy more tokens. And so this is the way that we have initially thought about monetization. And customers really like that because to switch automatically to outcome-based and consumption-based to figure out how to measure that is really complex and complicated.
Yeah.
It's also hard to predict and budget and forecast for customers. So the hybrid approach right now has made a lot of sense, and customers have leaned in and really, I think, appreciate that. As we think about where the market's going on outcome-based pricing, as you say, that's a conversation that comes up every several years.
You can imagine that we're always focused on how we're monetizing and pricing for our customers. How do we simplify, make it less complex, but at the same time allow some predictability and forecastability for our customers as well as ourselves? So with Amit coming on as Chief Product Officer and COO, he has a depth and wealth of pricing and packaging experience. So his perspective is going to be helpful and unique as we evolve the model.
You can expect that ServiceNow, as we always have been, had been really focused on value for customers. As long as we're driving value for customers, I'm not worried about how the pricing models will continue to evolve.
Yeah. Okay. And a number of kind of it's more a CFO question, but also kind of very relevant to you. You started a few years ago with that journey of more price differentiation with the different you know, with the Pro SKU.
Mm-hmm.
Enterprise SKU, etc. How do you think this will evolve for you in terms of, like, what is over-differentiating on the price versus, like, what's the right mix for you? Like, where are you on that journey?
I'd say it's continuing to evolve, right?
Yeah.
I think one of the ways that we've continued to grow our top line is the differentiation and the incremental capabilities. I think a couple of years ago at Financial Analyst Day, it might have been two, we talked about before Pro Plus was even in production, we talked about Standard, Pro, and Enterprise and the expected penetration and the fact that we expected at that point that Standard, about 20%-25% of folks would still be on Standard.
Yeah.
You know, that hypothesis is shifting in an AI-infused world. And so as we think about, you know, the number of SKUs and how we price and the product uplifts that we're getting, I come back to value. You know, as long as we're providing and driving value for our customers, we're going to continue to evolve how we think about our product portfolio, our pricing, but what I come back to always is that ServiceNow is so well-positioned because of the innovation that we've been driving for years and years to take advantage and to really help customers drive exponential value as they think about how work is going to happen in the enterprise, you know, two, three, five, and 10 years from now.
Yeah. Okay. And then, I wanted to shift gears a little bit. So, I was. I'm kind of dating myself now, but I was kind of part of the IPO for ServiceNow. And back then it was like, "Oh, yeah. ITSM and ITOM and stuff." Now it's a much broader platform game. How do you think about the next opportunity for you guys? You know, we've done. We're doing HR. It's like a very big, you know, element of the authoring customer platform is coming. How do you think, you know, where are you going from here?
Yeah. You know, I think one of the things that has been unique about ServiceNow and has been part of the reason why we've been able to be so successful is that innovation has come from where customers have pulled us, right? So we started out in IT. It actually started if you go back to Fred's initial pitches; he was building a platform that could help anyone in the enterprise drive automation and get their work done better, faster, and more efficiently. But back then, no one really understood what the platform was. And so they said, "What's the use case? How do we use this platform?" He was in IT, so he built an incredible use case in IT.
Yeah.
And then we brought in outside of ITSM and into ITOM. But then customers were looking at this incredible platform saying, "What we're doing here in IT could be replicable in HR. Can you build me custom out-of-the-box applications for HR?" So we went into HR. Same thing with customer. And then, of course, "Oh my gosh, this platform can be utilized to drive and build applications anywhere within the enterprise."
And that's where Creator and Platform came from. And so the continuation of that platform and one better-together story has, I think, really been a differentiator for us. And so if I think about, you know, I get the question a lot about our core. Our core continues to remain really strong because we continue to innovate. So we have Risk and Security that are big businesses within IT. We have customer. We have HR continuing to do extremely well. Creator. We've talked in Financial Analyst Day about the continued opportunity in front office, right?
Yeah.
So we've been really successful. We talked about customer being greater than a billion in ACV about a year ago now, and so we've got a right to play in that space, and those customers that have been with us along the way are pulling us into front office, right? So we introduced Sales and Order Management three quarters ago, doing very well, and so the ability for us to continue to innovate in customer. It's a large TAM for us, and we've demonstrated a right to play there, so that's an exciting continued opportunity.
Yeah.
Back at Financial Analyst Day, we talked about OT. The landscape for OT is about three times the size of IT, and they're about 15 years behind in digitization there, and so that's a great opportunity that we've sized at, you know, billions of dollars. ERP workflows we've talked about as well.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
And so, again, it's all about the uniqueness of the one platform that really can drive that productivity and automation across the enterprise. So there's lots of opportunities that we continue to remain focused on. Those are probably the big ones.
Yeah, and then we haven't even talked about industries. Like, can you talk a little bit of what you do there in terms of more verticalizing the solution? Because that's another big step. Yeah.
I think especially as you think about use cases specific to industries like financial services, telco, manufacturing, so many of them are similar, and so how can we build robust bundling of solutions that really help address use cases specific to industries? You know, our public market SKU has been really successful for.
Yeah.
For us, and so again, it's all about how can we understand what is priority for our customer? How can we understand the best way to get them to value for automating processes throughout their organizations? The more we are able to be very specific in industries and how we can help them, the more successful we continue to be.
Yeah. I mean, in that respect, also, if you think about the new administration and the drive for more efficiency, I mean, there must be, there's a land of opportunities for you guys there, you know?
I've gotten that question a few times in the last couple of weeks, as you would imagine. You know, our public sector total business, so not just federal, public sector, we've talked about being at about 10% of our revenues.
Yeah.
And federal being a majority of that, we've been very successful in the federal space in the last several years. It's one of our fastest-growing verticals. And the reason we've been successful is because we've really helped many of these federal agencies drive better productivity, efficiency, and digitization. And so if there's even more focus on efficiency and digitization, who are they going to trust?
Yeah.
The ones that they've been working with or brand-new folks?
Yeah.
And so we actually think it's a great opportunity for us. Our federal business is extremely strong, run by one of the best teams in the company. And so we're really excited about the opportunity that continues for federal. And that's before you even talk about state and local and public sector.
Yeah.
Which, as I talked about, federal is the largest piece of the public sector. There's a lot of opportunity, state and local and public sector outside of the U.S., that we're just scratching the surface on. And everything that we've done in federal is replicable outside of federal space and state and local and public sector internationally. And so federal is one piece of it, but public sector more broadly certainly remains a really strong opportunity for us.
And is that, like, from? We always think, like, "Oh, yeah. But you should have been there, like, a long time ago." Is that, how is that, how should we think about, like, having the resources or the focus to kind of go there? Like, it feels like local is something that hasn't really been, like, in the focus areas, like more federal, fixed federal or, or work not fixed.
It's bigger.
Yeah.
It's bigger.
Yeah.
So people talk more about the things that are bigger. But our state and local business is very strong and doing very well. It's just on a smaller scale.
Yeah.
Right now.
Yeah.
Then public sector outside everything we've kind of start big in the U.S. and then go broader. So, as you would imagine, public sector outside of the U.S. right now and certainly over the last several years has been a key focus area.
Yeah. Okay. I can imagine that. Yeah. And then, so, shifting gear a little bit, so as the CFO, when you took over, the thing was like, "Okay. This is a well-run company." And you kept delivering well-run, well, you know, kept delivering on this with kind of better margins, better cash flow margins, etc. Can you talk a little bit about that, you know, how you kind of get that mix right between growth and margins?
I think ServiceNow has been really disciplined in how we think about growth and profitability forever.
Yeah.
And so, you know, best in class, top line, you know, at our scale, with best in class margins has been a key focus area for Bill and I since day one. There's inherent leverage in the platform because we are one platform, one data model, one architecture. So when you're innovating and spending R&D dollars, that innovation, that those incremental capabilities go across platform. So there's unique leverage built in there. 85% of our new business comes from existing customers.
So there's inherent leverage in the sales model, which allows me, as we go into new markets like federal, public sector, Japan, India, allows me to take some of that leverage, reinvest it back, while at the same time, accreting margins to the bottom line as well. And so we've always been focused on that balance of it's not growth at all cost, but profitable growth. Part of it is because the inherent leverage in the model, and part of it is discipline that the company has always had. You know, just adding more resources doesn't always make for a better company.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And so the ability to really scale without getting overly complex and without losing that agility has been a real key focus for Bill and I.
Okay. Perfect. And then, I mean, how much of that you came from a different business in a way, like, that wasn't sorry to, if I insult, your previous company. Like, it wasn't like this high-margin software business, but you always had to be more disciplined. Did that help you as you came over?
I think it's one of the reasons why, why they wanted me for the role, right, and so I, yes, my previous job, 7% gross margins, $50 billion top line. There's huge risk. Talk about a complex model, and that ability to scale and be really smart about disciplined investment. I think that's part of it.
Yeah.
But I think inherently that has been in the DNA of the company because the company was always built like that. Just making sure that we were continuing to be disciplined as we scaled and really understanding what scale means and what it takes to scale profitably and smartly, I think my background certainly served that purpose.
Yeah. And then, last question on that topic. So now, if we are maybe kind of getting into better times, and there's obviously then kind of things that you need to think about, almost pre-invest, like sales capacity, you know, because a sales guy needs like nine to 12 months to get productive, etc. How do you think about that as we maybe are thinking about recovery in terms of that, that mixture and does it need to change? How do you kind of tune that?
Yeah. Well, we talked about that in Q3. We talked about the fact that sales and marketing headcount growth was reaccelerating in back half of 2024.
Yeah.
And you saw that in Q3. And I talked about that continuing into Q4. And yeah, I think one of the great things about the ability to continue to be agile is that the plan we put in place in January is never the same come February and March. And so the ability to, when market dynamics are shifting, to dynamically shift the hiring model and the go-to-market leverage, I think is really important. And so you'll continue to see us do it.
It's why I think we were able to not do layoffs in a time when many, many were because we were able to quickly pivot once we saw dynamics shifting the other way. And so what I'll tell you is that if opportunity is there, you'll continue to see us invest smartly and disciplined. The opportunities that we see in front of us, whether it's, you know, six months or 12, five, 10, 10 years from now, we will position ourselves well to take advantage of that.
Yeah. Okay. Perfect. And then, in the interest of time, last question for me is like, and it's more, as you think about growth and the market expanding, you think about more about M&A as well. Now, Bill surprised us all because, like, the expectation was when he joined, well, we knew him from SAP. He bought, like, a lot of businesses. But he's been driving that organic message for quite a few years now. A lot of things happening in industry. How do you think about this M&A dynamic?
Yeah. I mean, Bill was pretty, pretty transparent about how he's thinking about M&A, as I have been from the get-go. And we've been very focused on driving customer value. And we've been able to drive significant customer and shareholder value organically for a number of years. We've also done a number of tuck-in acquisitions, talent acquisitions. I talked about Element AI earlier, many each and every year.
You'll continue to see us do that. We've also continuously said we wouldn't be doing our jobs if we weren't looking at other larger transformational types of M&A, but our hurdle rates are high because we've been able to really drive such strong organic growth. Our focus, first and foremost, is always, if we do any acquisition, how is that going to drive customer value? Because if you're not driving customer value, you're not going to drive shareholder value.n What I'd say, our strategy hasn't changed. We don't need M&A to hit the targets that we've put out there in front of us.
Yeah.
But if there's the ability to accelerate top-line growth smartly by driving real customer value and shareholder value, we wouldn't be doing our jobs if we weren't looking at it. So in a nutshell, no change in how we've been thinking about things.
Perfect. Hey, and I see your time's up as well. So that's actually a very good closing statement.
Thanks so much, Raimo.
Thanks for coming.
Appreciate the suggestion.
Thank you.
Thanks very much.
Good to see you again.