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CJ & The Duke breakdown several ServiceNow processes. Processes specializations are weighed by marketability, capability to be stand-alone expertise, and what extra skills you should have to specialize.
Authentic, Authoritative, Unapologetic ServiceNow commentary by Cory "CJ" Wesley and Robert "The Duke" Fedoruk
[00:00:00] Duke: All right, Corey, what are we talking about today?
[00:00:03] CJ: All right, dude. Today we're talking about the market viability of certain of ServiceNow skillset, right?
[00:00:10] Duke: So last episode we talked about what it takes to become an implementer and Corey and I really wanted to squeeze an extra section into that, podcast, but it was just too long. And so we're dedicating this episode to. just breaking down all of the process areas and seeing if it's a viable niche, if it's a viable enough on its own, and, uh, what else are we gonna throw in there?
[00:00:31] CJ: We're also gonna talk about what you need in this particular process area in order to be, in order to be a good implementer, So what we mean by is what kind of skills do you need?
Do you need to know how to code? Do you need to find somebody who knows this thing to teach you? That sort of thing.
[00:00:45] Duke: good point. And actually, if you haven't watched the last episode, there's gonna be link description below. Highly recommend you watch that first. but we're probably gonna repeat ourselves anyway and just say, for every process area, you need to know the actual process.
[00:00:58] CJ: Absolutely And then some of these, it's a little easier to know the process and there's a lot more information out there available to learn it. And for, uh, others, you, you're probably gonna have to find somebody, right? You're probably gonna have to find a mentor.
[00:01:09] Duke: Or you might have had to work in that industry before.
[00:01:12] CJ: Yeah. Or find somebody who does who's going to, download that knowledge for you. I mean, some of these things get really specific.
[00:01:18] Duke: Yeah. So we just browse docks, found a whole bunch of process areas and where you wanna start, Corey?
[00:01:25] CJ: Start with, uh, spm, AKA I tbm
[00:01:28] Duke: AK project portfolio management
[00:01:31] CJ: old school.
[00:01:31] Duke: Yeah, and application portfolio management. And, gosh, is safe in there too, I think.
[00:01:37] CJ: Is safe in there? I think safe is in there.
[00:01:40] Duke: I think so. I mean, it's just another way of doing big stuff, right? You break it up into agile phases and blah, blah, blah, blah. okay, so spm, I might go first on this one since.
[00:01:49] CJ: should definitely go first since you're an expert.
[00:01:51] Duke: I know a thing or two about. , yes, it is marketable, especially if you go back to our last episode and realize that if you've, if you've lived in a pmo, this is a no brainer. And I would say that the ecosystem is dying for people who can deploy SPM from a sense of, I know exactly how the tool works, but also walk into a PMO and say, Hey, you know how we go through all this drama when we need to do status reports while we do it this way Now. if you can speak the language and have familiarity with that, then yes, this is a marketable niche for certain.
[00:02:28] CJ: Absolutely. And that, but also, man, let me tell you, that's where all the value is, right? Like, being able to know how it works and the tool is great. Like a lot of folks know how it works in the tool, but being able to go in and speak the language that's like, you know, and again, right? Like if you listen to the last.
Episode, we kind of harped on that a little bit. We'll harp on that again, some more here,
[00:02:45] Duke: Mm.
[00:02:46] CJ: because it's super important. so let me ask this question now that we've established that is marketable, can it be a standalone skill?
[00:02:53] Duke: That is a great question, and I would say probably not for most. if you are exquisite at it, I mean real good, and go back and watch our episode on, testing for wisdom. and that might tell you if you are exquisite in it or not, but I, I would say it is standalone only if you came from a PMO world. Like, like I didn't come from a PMO world. I have one customer that literally calls me the PMO whisperer. I'm that good at it, but I, I, don't think I'd have enough steam to do this exclusively.
[00:03:27] CJ: Yeah, and, and I'd kind of agree with you on that, right? I think if you come from that world and you, you've been speaking that language like natively for quite some time. and you've onboarded yourself into the ServiceNow ecosystem. And now you speak the language of the platform too, I feel like, yeah, you'd have to be exquisite. Otherwise, I think you should probably wanna pair this with something else.
[00:03:48] Duke: Yeah.
[00:03:48] CJ: right. So, what kind of skill do you need, in order to do this, is a low code, no code thing, or is this a pro code thing?
where are we at on.
[00:03:56] Duke: I'd say the more codes, you know, the better. Not that you're gonna be doing a whole bunch of code, but it's a very complex machine underneath. Right. So, especially when you're talking about. The way time cards interface with projects and project tasks and resource plans, which also interact with cost plans.
All of these things can affect each other, and it's kind of like a Plinko machine. You put the ball bearing in it at the top of the machine, it hits all those pins. You don't know where it's gonna end at the bottom sometimes. And so the more you, the more you know about code, the more you can interrogate the many, many layers of script include in there to figure out exactly how it works.
[00:04:37] CJ: Yeah, man. I'll tell you, this is why I don't work with this particular, process.
[00:04:41] Duke: yeah.
[00:04:42] CJ: my first, uh, introduction to this, like, as it migrated to like the ITBM world from, ppm. It, it was that, it was just so baked. On the under, on the underside of it, right? there's just like scripting clue after scripting, clue with business rules and all these things like is an engine under this thing.
And if you don't know how this engine is working, it's almost impossible to tune it. and I didn't want any parts of it. I got out
[00:05:09] Duke: Yeah. I wouldn't say it's absolutely necessary to be a dev. It's just that the more dev skill you have, the faster you'll be able to get to a point where you can explain the real complex stuff.
[00:05:22] CJ: Right.
[00:05:23] Duke: I'm not even saying complex in a bad way. It has to be complex just because there's so many variations in the way you can, deploy a resource plan, measure costs, interface time cards into determining, did it actualize or not.
There's just so many different ways you can pull that off. And so it, complex by necessity and is complex in the code. So anyways, don't wanna beat that dead horse. Yes, it takes some technical finesse as.
[00:05:46] CJ: There you go. All right, so let's move on to the next one here. What we got, Duke.
[00:05:50] Duke: Well, I'm gonna, shift the order here and go to one that you are certified in. Let's talk about, um, ham sandwiches.
[00:06:00] CJ: Oh man, I go ham.
[00:06:04] Duke: Sandwiches a ham.
[00:06:11] CJ: Thank you. Thank we All night. . For hardware asset management. , is it marketable? I'd say it is. You know, and it's funny, uh, one of the folks that I know, uh, Matt Baron, right? , he's just posted something on Twitter talking about asset management and kind of, and his post really just underscores the importance of it, right?
And, and one of the things that I added to it was that, in a world where we're mostly virtual or partially virtual, it's a lot hard. To actually keep good accounting of what assets you own, Because laptops don't just exist in a physical office anymore, right? They exist sometimes at home, right?
And sometimes those aren't laptops, sometimes they're still desktops or printers or what have you, right? And so keeping track of that stuff, and ensuring that it comes back to the company when folks, go through the employee life cycle and depart will save a ton of money. so if you ask me is, is ham a marketable skill?
I'd say yes, absolutely. What do you think, Duke?
[00:07:08] Duke: It's a no brainer for me. Absolutely it is. and the more you look into ham or even just asset management in abstract, the more obvious it is that there's piles of money waiting to be saved with this and , I'm not gonna go through like a whole asset manager's field here, but asset manager is like an umbrella term for a whole bunch of other processes.
Everything from request to receiving to invoicing, to, like where is it located, right? And, and then disposal, recycling, destruction, all that stuff. It's all under one big umbrella. And every one of those processes has its own outcomes and. Thinking about disposal alone, how many licenses of software do we have on there that we can re, Is there like super secret data in there so that it must be disposed by destruction and not recycling Is just risk and money. And so it's
[00:08:04] CJ: hear that
[00:08:05] Duke: Go ahead.
[00:08:06] CJ: now? I'll say, You hear that? Money, money, money, money.
[00:08:10] Duke: So. I think it's one of those apps that's really easy to implement, run for three months and say, look at the dollar value.
[00:08:18] CJ: Yes.
[00:08:18] Duke: if you gave it enough thought at the start, you can come up with like definitive rolling accumulations of, Aren't we glad we did this?
[00:08:26] CJ: Absolutely. This is one of those that is really clear, dotted line value, right? Or straight line value, right?
Like from the implementation of the process to dollar. And if you're doing, like you said, Duke, if you're doing your job right, like in three months time, you can show like a green number to some folks about the, the impact that you
[00:08:45] Duke: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:46] CJ: is, that by itself makes this like ultra marketable.
[00:08:49] Duke: But standalone.
[00:08:50] CJ: I'm not sure. I hesitate to say yes, but I also don't wanna say no. I feel like. A good asset management person could probably make it, I feel that way. You know, when you look at hardware asset management, software, asset management, and all the various subsystems, To kind of underpin that, stuff like contract management and the financial aspects of this and disposal, like you mentioned, like I feel like.
you could probably make a killing there. Just doing this by your, by yourself, especially if you know it well.
[00:09:25] Duke: I have to agree. And the more you are an asset manager first and a service now person, second, the more true that is. Like I know a lot of people that know how asset management works on service now, but every time you get into a room with somebody who's like a legit asset manager, Before they're servicing, like everybody just leans forms like,
[00:09:47] CJ: Yeah.
[00:09:48] Duke: cause they always, they're always coming up with like these super profound stuff.
And
[00:09:52] CJ: Yeah.
[00:09:53] Duke: Without repeating the last episode all over again, this is, this is one of those, if we had to scale them, I think has hardware asset management is one of those ones where. the Service Now component of it is almost, less important.
[00:10:08] CJ: I'd agree with that. I'd also say too, that this is one of the, the parts of the system where I feel like the, implementation of the process on the platform really matches closely with implementation of the, of the process in the real world. Like you said, Duke, if you are an asset manager who comes to the ServiceNow platform and picks up that tool set, you'll be very well. So
[00:10:29] Duke: Now is there any like, Yeah,
[00:10:31] CJ: I think you can get back with those one on low code. I don't think you need pro code skills for asset management. there's some flows there that you gotta tweak out, you know, and, and you can, I mean, that's flow designer, that's all.
It's a lot of like configuration stuff around their condition builders and list selectors and, you know, slush buckets and things like
[00:10:49] Duke: Yeah, let's just call it like you have to be a platform, builder.
[00:10:52] CJ: yeah, I think you, CSA is probably sufficient.
[00:10:56] Duke: this really overlaps with csa, but I would say you'd have to have like a lot of experience in reporting because why do it if you're not, say like, why do exquisite disposal if you're not saying Here's the money we recouped, or here's all of our certificates of destruction.
[00:11:11] CJ: Yeah. And that goes back again to talking the language of the business, right? Because this is all business value focused.
[00:11:16] Duke: Okay. I mean, we might as well do software asset management now that we're here.
[00:11:23] CJ: absolutely marketable. Absolutely marketable and maybe even marketable to a certain, to a, to a greater extent because software is eating the world Right. to quote, Mark Andreessen. Right. and I, and
[00:11:35] Duke: else, all good software becomes hardware or is it the opposite?
[00:11:38] CJ: is, is the opposite. All good hardware becomes software. and we, we've seen that to quite a, quite a degree already.
And I think, you know, my implementations of of, of, um, Sam. , I felt like the most business value that was generated was generated there because most people don't know what they have. And once you start knowing what you have, then you can actually make decisions based on what you have. And that's powerful.
That's a huge unlock for business, Sometimes businesses scale way beyond their skis, right? And they're just trying to catch up. I mean, you got a ton of Excel spreadsheets out there and you're just trying to put these things together and figure out where you're, It's not gonna work all that well, right?
But you start getting, you get a sound process in there, and you start figuring out, what software you're got, what software, more importantly, what software you're not using. that's the unlock there. oh my God, we've got like a thousand licenses over here costing us 50 grand a month, and we're, we haven't implemented one of them.
That's big problem. It happens.
[00:12:30] Duke: Can this stand alone?
[00:12:31] CJ: Yeah. I, but I would pair it with ham, honestly.
[00:12:34] Duke: Yeah, that, that's actually a good call out cuz it's just like, yeah, I could stand alone. But if you could do Ham and Sam together, then you're like the definitive asset management resource.
[00:12:44] CJ: Absolutely.
[00:12:45] Duke: Right. And why not kill both those birds with one stone,
[00:12:49] CJ: Yep,
[00:12:50] Duke: right? Cause it's all like at some point On the ledgers, it's money.
Hardware's money, Software's money. And so how do we best, I don't know, can you depreciate capital investments in software?
[00:13:02] CJ: Man. Almost above my hat,
[00:13:04] Duke: Yeah, that would be a great question for a software asset management expert,
[00:13:09] CJ: Absolutely right. And, and, if you're gonna be a software asset manage management expert, you should know that, right? So those are the things where we, when we say, speaking the, the language of the business and the questions that you're gonna ask, that's probably one of them, right?
So you should know the answer to that,
[00:13:22] Duke: I, I had this conversation today actually. in every other context across the enterprise. When you say asset management, you're talking about people with a financial background.
[00:13:30] CJ: right?
[00:13:31] Duke: Assets is a financial term. It's not a technology term.
[00:13:35] CJ: Right.
[00:13:35] Duke: And it's not a construction term, none of that.
It's a financial term. but I think there's so many people who just get assigned the role in it. Hey, you're the asset manager now. they learn how to use the tool, but they don't think of these things as financialized things anyway. Sort of gonna
[00:13:51] CJ: No, no, man. No, it's a good point. Good point, man. Good point. Good point. Because they get assigned, they get labeled an asset manager, but asset manager. But what they're really, what they really are is an inventory manager. , And I said that's a difference.
[00:14:03] Duke: Yes.
[00:14:04] CJ: so to be clear, right, like you, you said like an asset manager, man, asset manager is a financial position.
It's absolutely true, right? And if you're just managing, boxes on shelves, Or, laptops in cubes, right? Like you're an inventory manager, that's a difference, right? Like, and the processes, the expectations should be. So ensure that if you're going into this and proclaiming yourself as an asset manager of some sort hardware or software, right?
That you have that, that holistic understanding of the financial aspects of this particular process too, Or you're just an inventory manager.
[00:14:36] Duke: it is the number one thing I learned about asset management. What is an asset? Whatever finance tells you as an asset,
[00:14:43] CJ: Absolutely. Whatever finance cares about is an asset
[00:14:46] Duke: is fi If finance is depreciating mice, then you worry about mice becoming assets.
[00:14:51] CJ: Along this vein, Duke, I'm gonna, actually go a little bit outta order here too, and let's bring in CMDB because I feel like it relates a little bit as well,
[00:14:58] Duke: mental note here though, we gotta get a really badass Ham Sam person on.
[00:15:03] CJ: Yeah, we should absolutely. but cmdb right and, and the reason I want to bring that in is because there, there is some relationship to, you know, Sam Ham and cmdb. Typically these items, while they're managed as assets on one side of the ledger, are managed as configuration items on the other side, right?
And so there's a little bit of, um, there's a little bit of synergy there. And so what do you, think, Duke? Is it marketable
[00:15:29] Duke: Yes, with a, with an asterisks. Um,
[00:15:32] CJ: Okay. Asterisks. All right. Now, Now we getting juicy.
[00:15:36] Duke: it is proven marketable. you could still go on to job sites and find ServiceNow CMDB rules everywhere. And the market also has this terrible mishmash of like a CMDB process. Owner can also be our cndb person in ServiceNow.
[00:15:52] CJ: Yep.
[00:15:52] Duke: then there's this whole idea that, customers just say, Oh, put CMDB on my deployment plan.
They don't have anybody internally who's gonna manage the M part. And vendors just come in, turn discovery on, and there's your 7 million, uh, cis quote unquote.
[00:16:09] CJ: So.
[00:16:10] Duke: So it's marketable in the sense that if you can do it right and get value super marketable and the asterisks there is, since you're there, why not be a csdm expert?
Two,
[00:16:21] CJ: Yeah,
[00:16:21] Duke: since Csdm, correct me if I'm wrong, basically is the really abstract layer of the cmdb, but they're all cis is.
[00:16:28] CJ: Yeah. Csdm and, God, I shouldn't say this out loud, right, But I'm Csdm is, so, so difficult.
[00:16:38] Duke: Yeah.
[00:16:38] CJ: I get it right? Like it's this whole holistic abstract layer of how everything in the surface now, , instance, kind of relates back to each other. for, you know, improved reporting and tracking things of that nature, right?
Like, you know, I can, I can find like where my business service is and the applications and track that back to like the underpinning cis, you know, from a foundational layer and, and all that kind of stuff. And I could do service offerings, all that. That's all great. I get it. It's super hard, like to execute on that, value proposition.
If you are a c Csdm expert, we would like you on the show,
[00:17:14] Duke: Yeah, I haven't tried it to be honest. I sat through one csdm workshop put on by another partner, and it was like, it was decent, , So I don't know. I mean, getting back to the prime question, is it marketable? It is marketable already, and you don't have to be good at it
[00:17:28] CJ: Yeah, exactly.
[00:17:29] Duke: but that's bad for the ecosystem.
You know what I mean? Like withs, thousands of ServiceNow seem to be people out there that come in, go through the motions, and you have all these giant, huge discovery jobs and massive sprawling configuration management databases that the customers really don't understand what it's doing. yes, it's marketable, but please, for heaven's sake, if you're gonna do it, do it right.
[00:17:51] CJ: Yeah.
[00:17:51] Duke: me what that means. Cause I knows.
[00:18:04] CJ: For those not in the loop. The open secret is the Duke does not do the cmdb.
But no, seriously, I mean, all of that, all of that, Duke, that's all super, super, on point there. Yeah, it absolutely marketable. please be good at it.
[00:18:22] Duke: Yeah, the tech skill you might have to have, because again, the market is just trying to mishmash this all into one job is no discovery. And if you're gonna know discovery, that's. I would say it's like, it's not like developer hard, but it's hard. It's technically hard, you know what I mean? It's hard in a different kind of, it's like a different way to develop probes and sensors and network protocols and.
[00:18:44] CJ: it's the holistic it, knowledge, right? the generalized IT knowledge that you need to have that makes discovery, , something that's, semi difficult, right? because you gotta know what a, what a router is, a switch is and, and all other kinds of IT equipment that actually lives out in the ecosystem, You need to know what a server is, right? You need to. connect to the cloud and scan the cloud and what kind of, how those virtual instances look when they come back and what ram and, you know, processor and all that kind of stuff. Like does, and, and so not everybody in the service now.
world knows that stuff, right? Especially if you came from application developer background. I've learned that in my years of it, is that you know, I was a bit naive when I started, I thought application developers were like the pinnacle, of the IT person.
They absolutely knew what was inside the box, and, and I found out that most of them didn't. Right. So
[00:19:30] Duke: Yeah, it's a, it is for sure a different technology skill for sure. A different dile. Yeah.
[00:19:35] CJ: Yeah. So keep that in mind.
[00:19:36] Duke: All right. let's go with, B CDR
[00:19:40] CJ: Explain that one to me. What is b cdr? Is that business continuity? Uh, disaster recovery. All right,
[00:19:46] Duke: sure. It is
[00:19:47] CJ: Su that one out. Sweet Do I think that's marketable, Two years ago I would've thought that was marketable. when the pandemic hit and everybody's working from home. And to me that's like disaster recovery at that point, right? Like nobody's in the office, nobody's, you know, I'm thinking, okay, man, this might be a big deal.
, business continuity, right? Like keeping things going. I just don't know that it ever coalesced around it the way that I thought they would over the last two years. And so for that one, I'd say I would not invest in it. I'd say it's not market.
[00:20:26] Duke: I'll answer the second question. I don't think it's standalone. Like, I don't think you can make your living going, consult to consult on Bcdr consulting yet. I think anybody who has a shot at doing it would be, again, those people who ate slept b breathed that process like they were a B CDR person before they were ever service Now people, those people might be able to make a go out of it, but they're gonna make a go outta converting people from solutions that preexist.
This is not a zero to Service Now space. This is a, we're moving from our old Bcdr solution to service now.
[00:20:56] CJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:20:58] Duke: And so it'll be people who would like not only to understand the language, but understand , the technologies that have supported it traditionally and move them into service now and tell the story about why this disappear.
Those are the people that are gonna make it.
[00:21:09] CJ: Okay. building on that, then I'd say the skill you need here, most of all, is you need to know this industry. Like you need to be a, a, B, C D R person. You gotta speak the language, Because your customers are going to be people who are speaking the language, like companies that are doing this thing, And that take it seriously enough to invest in it on the ServiceNow platform. they probably have some knowledge around it.
They probably got a person who is doing this stuff, right?
And, and that, and that person speaks a language, they're expecting their counterpart on the ServiceNow side to speak as.
[00:21:41] Duke: Yep.
[00:21:42] CJ: I'm gonna say that that's probably like the most needed skill there is to actually know the language of what your counterparts are looking for.
[00:21:49] Duke: Some bright points on this though. ServiceNow did acquire a company that did nothing but B cdr and they basically built a, a prototype on ServiceNow and not too much longer, ServiceNow bought them. And another one, secret sauce, at the second FR devcon hackathon. James Neil, Joel Olives, myself and Jason McKee built an application for business continuity and disaster, recovery workflows.
And Fred Ludy was there and told us that when he decided what to build on service now so we can get investment, he was stuck between Bcdr and I sm.
[00:22:23] CJ: wow. Okay.
[00:22:25] Duke: I would say there's still, there's still glimmers of hope for that one for sure.
[00:22:29] CJ: All right. So yeah, maybe in the.
[00:22:31] Duke: like with ransomware attacks and just like new cyber attack angles and stuff like that . I think there's a SecOps angle into Bcdr.
[00:22:38] CJ: See, you took that one right, right out of my mind, man. I was thinking the same thing as, you know, transition into SecOps would be a good, process to hit from B cdr because I do feel like there is like a, a connection there, there's an angle, maybe not as a standalone B CDR person, but maybe a SEC op person who also has B cdr, I can see that being a marketable set of skills. But, SecOps itself, right? Do we think that's marketable? I think, is probably one of the most marketable skills you can have right now.
[00:23:05] Duke: SecOps. Yeah, I'd agree. And I, I think I'm seeing a lot more of it just in feeds and job posts. Nothing but my guts here, but I have the, I have a feeling that SecOps is a, great niche. but this one feels like it's just another one of those cases where, They want somebody who understands the world, not somebody who just understands how it pulls together on service now.
[00:23:30] CJ: Yeah,
[00:23:31] Duke: But Somebo, again, speak the language. Just do the whole last episode again, But there are a few people in my connections list that are, Exploring SecOps as post-secondary or, or something. Right. But their initiates in the SecOps world and they've got familiar with the ServiceNow tool and they still get the looking for work sign up.
So this one is unfortunately, just another example where the experience they're looking for is somebody who's familiar with the SecOps world. Sorry, I keep like repeating myself over and over here, but.
[00:24:03] CJ: No, no, you're absolutely right on this. So from my experience, what I've seen is that the experience necessary here is to have that real world set ops experience, right? With the, tools that exist outside of service. Now, because this is, this one is very implementation, heavy. So, I'm sorry.
Integration heavy, right? So there's a lot of connecting with external, SecOps tools and pulling data onto the platform to get the insights into service now, right? That's what a lot of SecOps is, and you need to be familiar with those external tools so that you can understand like how they work So this is one where I think it's marketable. I think the skills that you need to achieve this, Are, have experience in the, the global kind of ecosystem, and be able to speak the language of the folks that are in that ecosystem, right? Because it is a different language from incident management.
[00:24:53] Duke: Yeah, it's a killer niche. if you haven't been a ServiceNow admin and you are, have worked in the, in the security ecosystem and just like get your csa, to jumpstart your SecOps knowledge and you'd be golden. It's a golden, golden, golden, niche.
[00:25:07] CJ: agreed.
[00:25:09] Duke: HR
[00:25:11] CJ: Oh, hr. We should have my buddy fill on here. hr. Is it marketable? Hell yeah. . I don't have anything else to say on that. Hell yeah. It's marketable.
[00:25:22] Duke: I think so too because you gotta think ServiceNow built HR because they were looking at all the custom tables, everybody was building in their instances and said, Yeah, a lot of people are building hr. Let's build that too. And it was one of the first kind of non-IT TSM things right out the gate.
[00:25:35] CJ: Yeah,
[00:25:36] Duke: I'm not.
Another thing about HR that I've noticed, and I don't know if you have too, is I find a lot of customers have a strong desire to split the team , at the HR point.
[00:25:47] CJ: Yep. Agreed.
[00:25:48] Duke: let's put Sam Ham, SecOps, grc, all the catalog, all the, I tsm, all on the ServiceNow admin team. And then it's like, let's do HR two.
Let's put that stuff in the HR side. We have our own ServiceNow admin. I've never understood why that is. But I see it all the time, and it kind of underscores the idea that it is both like a serviceable niche and a standalone niche.
[00:26:12] CJ: Absolutely standalone. Totally agree with you on that. And I think the nature of the split is due to the conf confidential nature of the, of the stuff that exists in hr. Right? And so they want more control over that person. they want that person on their team, right? they want them reporting up through the same HR stack as everyone else. And I think that's where it comes, from, but absolutely marketable, Absolutely standalone, marketable And probably, one of the things in the, in the, ecosystem, I say that's most marketable right now.
[00:26:40] Duke: most marketable really
[00:26:41] CJ: Yeah. Well, one of, one of them. Yeah.
[00:26:44] Duke: side skills.
[00:26:45] CJ: Man, I think you could do this on low code, to be honest. But, you know, don't take my word for that. I'm like you with the cmdb. I completely avoid HR
[00:26:53] Duke: Yeah.
[00:26:54] CJ: I think you could possibly get away with, low code on this one. , I think some of the tools lend their self that way, but I do know that, Pro Code does benefit the implementation. I'm not sure, Don't, don't take what I say is authoritative here.
[00:27:08] Duke: I'm gonna go back to my SPM answer, right? You can go in with a low code, sort of configure only mentality, but I think given that split, And the fact that, you know, the HR tool is great, but it doesn't cover absolutely everything in hr. So they're probably gonna want you to build, but you're gonna be the only person on the team,
[00:27:24] CJ: Nia.
[00:27:24] Duke: I think that it lends itself to the stronger builder you are, the better you are at hr. So combine HR with, go as deep as you can,
[00:27:32] CJ: Yeah.
[00:27:33] Duke: know what I mean? And, and, and take it from that angle. So I'd say it's just,
[00:27:37] CJ: Proco.
[00:27:38] Duke: Yeah, well, every, every step you take towards pro code is just one more, grain of salt in the seasoning.
One more, tablespoon of gravy on the potatoes. , it only does you better. So that's my thoughts on that. I mean, we're just gonna say this over and over again. You gotta know the lingo, but you also gotta know what keeps those people up at.
it is not another itts app.
[00:27:58] CJ: exactly. It's not another itsm, right? , the conflicts are different, right? the problems are different. So you gotta know, what they're trying to deliver, their audience is different. they want different things. It has folks who want to get back up and running like as soon as possible, HR has folks who. in a crisis when they're, when they're looking to utilize the services. Right. It's, it is, it's different
[00:28:20] Duke: And it all has to be super secret too. this information can't just be out there.
[00:28:24] CJ: and it's gotta feel super secret,
[00:28:26] Duke: Yeah,
[00:28:27] CJ: right? Like it's
[00:28:28] Duke: like it's in ServiceNow, a user can look at the list of users and find out information about other users,
[00:28:34] CJ: right.
[00:28:35] Duke: right In the requested for list view. If, if the mobile phone number's there, you can see it. But with HR it's like profile information. and I don't know what kind of stuff is on an HR profile, but I imagine stuff like how many strikes, are you paying alimony? How much your wages being garnished? Like that stuff that's just kinda none. Your bigness, right?
[00:28:55] CJ: Yeah. even if it's not there, what's the first thing you thought was there? stuff you didn't want other people to see.
[00:29:01] Duke: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay.
[00:29:05] CJ: right? So it's that, it is that perception of safety that you gotta think about too.
[00:29:08] Duke: Should we roll off on another one or,
[00:29:10] CJ: Yeah, let's talk about legal. Why, Why not
[00:29:13] Duke: I mean, in, in some expects it's not fair for us to evaluate this right now cause it's kind of a fresh new, , platform. , but I myself have had two legal apps that I had to build. Sorry. Well, three legal apps that I had to build and they were like doozies too. They weren't just Oh, both catalog, I man, drop 'em to this table.
One of them was just like hyper complex approval like you wouldn't believe. another one was interaction with external counsel. Um, but smack in the middle of somebody else's workflow, So it was like a compliance workflow that had this legal component and the legal had to talk to outside legal and it all had to ha happen on one app.
so I feel like there's, tons of workflows that they deal with. There is tons of money there. I guess the real thing is, does ServiceNow offer anything different than. The modern legal department has an app for already and at a better price, and we don't know that.
[00:30:07] CJ: No idea, really. Right. I think, is it right? Is it marketable? I don't know. So I got a general opinion on. You know, ServiceNow apps, I think they, they tend to get them right eventually, right? But unless it's something that you absolutely need, like right then and there, I tend to avoid the v1, right?
I tend to avoid recommending v1, ServiceNow apps, to my clients. and that's only because V2 is not incrementally better. It tends to be exponentially better. there's so much customer feedback that comes in on v1. it's like the old adage in the IT world where it says, when Microsoft releases a new version of Windows, you never, you never install the new version of Windows when it first comes out, right?
Like you wait for service pack one. This is kinda like the same thing with me for, certain apps. So with legal, right? Like I think as it matures, we'll we'll start to see the value there. I don't know enough legal stuff, But as you said, Duke, you've built like three, humongously complicated like, you know, legal apps.
So I think this one, you know, is, has some potential to be marketable.
[00:31:08] Duke: It's definitely not a standalone though, and that's, it's kind of like one of those paradoxes, right? is it just that they're waiting for somebody to be expert enough in it, for it to kind of like gain some steam or what, and it's extra, extra complicated because, who's gonna be a stickler for the language and the what keeps us up at night more so than legal, like who,
[00:31:27] CJ: Right, right.
[00:31:29] Duke: precision is basically 90% of that whole domain, main
[00:31:35] CJ: no, absolutely right. it's all about the precision. Precision. And. all about liability and it's all about all kinds of things that it typically doesn't wanna, like, you know, have fall on his shoulders, right? It's all about the stuff. We go to them for
[00:31:48] Duke: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:50] CJ: When I start thinking about the stuff that legal wants to do, I start thinking about the stuff that, you know, that it goes to legal and says, Hey, like, help us out.
Give me, gimme a shield for this. Like, people are asking questions and so, I don't know where I was going with that, but, , what kind of size skills do you think we need here? What kind of skills do you think we, we need to implement legal and ServiceNow.
[00:32:07] Duke: I don't think there's any technical side skills.
[00:32:10] CJ: Okay.
[00:32:11] Duke: I think it's just a case of being familiar with their ways of working.
[00:32:15] CJ: So then would you say probably when this, app is mature, technically minded like paralegal, this might be like a great place for somebody like.
[00:32:23] Duke: For certain. Yep. I would, I would absolutely think so. we talk about knowing the language and stuff and a, I think a paralegal is that perfect target for if this goes big. Cause they know the language. They know what keeps people up at night. They could speak from authority and they're even remotely technically inclined.
They could configure the Service Now option.
[00:32:44] CJ: agreed. I think those are, are the folks who would probably be most beneficial, , to looking at this. I think that's where we leave it.
[00:32:50] Duke: Yeah, we're a 45 minutes to record folks, so I know there's a lot of stuff we didn't talk about. Let us know if you want an episode two on this, and maybe we could talk about not only the remaining processes, but some of the technologies as well.
[00:33:00] CJ: and yeah, and maybe if there's anything, any of these that are specific right, that you wanna know more in depth, maybe we can get a, a guest expert on, and we can deep dive into it
[00:33:08] Duke: Yeah, for sure. Leave a comment wherever you see this.
[00:33:12] CJ: later.
[00:33:12] Duke: right.