ServiceNow Beefs Up Channel Program With AI Emphasis

‘I think the honeymoon on AI is over, and lots of customers are really demanding, where’s the return? We feel like for ServiceNow, we’re in a good position because of our single platform, single technology, single architecture, and the fact that we’re integrating the data, the AI, and the workflow into something that’s, relative to trying to build everything on your own, really easy to pick up and get to value,’ says Michael Park, ServiceNow’s senior vice president of global partnerships and channels.

ServiceNow Tuesday unveiled changes it said will expand its channel program, including the introduction of a new partner business value composer the company said will make it easier for its solution providers to help speed customers’ adoption of the latest AI technologies.

The changes to the channel program were officially unveiled at ServiceNow’s annual sales kickoff, held this week in Las Vegas, said Michael Park, senior vice president of global partnerships and channels.

“It’s our internal sales kickoff,” Park told CRN in an interview. “Traditionally, we invite partners. For a day in front of the conference, we make it a partner day. We call it the ‘partner kickoff.’ We’ll have about 1,000-plus of our partners there.”

Park said that 1,000-plus number refers to partner personnel, generally on the revenue side.

“Everybody likes to see Bill [McDermott, ServiceNow CEO],” he said. “We treat our partners in this capacity as if they’re an extended portion of our sales force, which is why we invite them. But we also tend to announce things that our partners need to know, and we record it and get it out. It’s just part of the regular cadence of our Knowledge conference, our GPES (Global Partner Executive Summit), and then our sales kickoff. We have a regular cadence through the year where we update, communicate, and drive incremental progression of what we’re trying to do.”

A big focus at ServiceNow’s sales kickoff this year will be on AI, Park said.

“Since last we met [at Knowledge], I think the honeymoon on AI is over, and lots of customers are really demanding, where’s the return?” he said. “We feel like for ServiceNow, we’re in a good position because of our single platform, single technology, single architecture, and the fact that we’re integrating the data, the AI, and the workflow into something that’s, relative to trying to build everything on your own, really easy to pick up and get to value.”

At the same time, ServiceNow knows it needs to continue scaling the partner program and the routes to market the company is driving, Park said.

“We need to continue to simplify and hit the ‘easy button’ on the programs we drive so it’s super easy and super clear for partners to understand where we’re going, and for them to get the tools and the support they need to execute in either a co-sell or a sell-through or an advisory motion with us,” he said. “I’m still convinced that done right, we will rewrite the economics for an AI-led partner ecosystem and how they make money even as some of the more traditional ways that they made money in the past go away or becomes disintermediated.”

This includes offering partners new certifications in different product areas, as well as bringing them the fruit of acquisitions, such as ServiceNow’s acquisition of agentic AI developer Moveworks, which has finally been approved now, Park said.

“We’ve got to activate the partners on it because it’s going to give them a fast track to adopting and deploying AI workflow transformation along with our platform,” he said.

ServiceNow will use the sales kickoff to discuss upcoming product releases and how they will impact partners, Park said while declining to discuss them in detail with CRN.

“Tech innovation is not slowing down,” he said. “What I see is we have some partners on the fence trying to still make business the way they have in the past and just waiting on the fence to see what happens with ServiceNow. But others are leaning in. And so you’re going to start seeing us simplify the programs and put more accountability and support on those partners who are investing. I’m expecting to see a strong separation between those partners that are betting on ServiceNow for AI and those that simply choose not to, which is perfectly fine. But we’re going to focus resources and investment and incentives and invest with those partners that actually want to take the job.”

Because it’s not possible to make everyone happy, ServiceNow will focus on accelerating the business of partners committed to it, Park said.

“This is all about speed, because things are going faster and faster, and AI is coming in a faster way as well, where multiple data sets are fueling the AI models,” he said. “The models are providing the inference, but the inference isn’t the answer. The inference is only giving the insight to drive the workflow, and the workflow is what we do well. So we have to build the ecosystem that way and continue to build their skill sets.”

The challenge for ServiceNow is that partner capacity for getting new certifications is only keeping up with the company’s growth, Park said.

“It needs to actually move beyond our own growth in order to catch up to the capacity gap we have,” he said. “And so a big part of the discussion [at the kickoff] will be if you want to grow you got to drive adoption because adoption in this world of AI is what proves the value, and that’s what expands the business. Whereas I think my predecessor was really more focused on driving net new revenue, I feel that will come. We need to take the revenue we’ve sold and drive the adoption, because the adoption creates confidence, it proves value, in a time now where customers are suspicious about the value of what AI can deliver. That will then create net new business.”

One program ServiceNow is discussing at the sales kickoff is streamlining the incentives the company provides across the deal lifecycle, Park said.

“We are expanding our strategic investment fund,” he said. “We’re setting a new market development fund in front of that for demand gen. We will provide help from the SIP (strategic investment fund) funds. And then we have reseller fees and incentives for deployment. When I came into the job, there were 14 different incentive models. We now have four.”

ServiceNow has over the last six months been investing in new AI-powered tools, and is this week unveiling its new partner business value composer, Park said.

“It’s an AI-powered tool that’s going to enable partners to generate business value assessment decks literally in minutes,” he said. “They feed in the use case. The AI will catalog against customer use cases that were previously deployed, map and model based on historical data that has been used to drive AI, and create a generated BVA (business value assessment) the partner can use to start driving the engagement and discovery process with their customer.”

The aim is to help partners get more repeatability in how they quantify customer value and strengthen the executive discussion around ServiceNow AI, Park said.

Another initiative introduced at the sales kickoff was simplifying partner membership fees, Park said.

“We’re going to roll out a single program membership fee across all the partner types,” he said. “We’ve got too many versions right now. It’s so complicated. Let’s just do one.”

With the single partner fee, Park said no partners should see an increase in their costs.

Other changes to ServiceNow’s partner programs include moves to take some of the frictions faced by ISV process and a push to start using the ServiceNow platform to administer the workflow automation for application management services or IT outsourcing services where up to 95 percent of the cost structure is on the personnel side, he said.

“They’re feeling a ton of pressure right now with AI agents coming in and displacing a lot of human work,” he said. “So we think we’re in a unique position to help them accelerate their own business transformation using the ServiceNow platform.”

Andrew Paolino, a general manager in the U.S. office of Konversational, a Dublin, Ireland-based elite-level ServiceNow channel partner, told CRN that he looks forward to going to the vendor’s sales kickoff conference.

“It’s a lot of networking,” Paolino said. “It’s often very difficult to get the people that you need to meet in one place. And what’s powerful about the sales kickoff conventions is that you can run right down the list who you want to meet. These people may be located all over the place in the U.S., but they happen to be in Las Vegas over the course of one week. Next week is about networking. It’s about figuring out what joint opportunities are there, where we can add value to ServiceNow from a sales and services standpoint, and vice versa.”

For Paolino, the biggest move he sees from ServiceNow is the company doubling down on its partner ecosystem and making changes that really benefit partners.

“We’re really excited in particular about the partner business value assessment calculator construct that they’re launching,” he said. “It’s historically been very difficult to produce documents that describe a business case as powerfully as ServiceNow themselves do it. As we go to market in the field, having the tools the ServiceNow account executives also have is a real benefit, and under Michael Park’ leadership, we’re excited to see that beginning to happen.”

Paolino said he has seen a lot of positive changes since Park took over the global channel lead last May.

“Because of his marketing background and because of the fact that he’s operated at several software companies before, as a super general statement, Michael’s leadership style is much closer to field sales than ServiceNow has historically been from a channel perspective,” he said. “That’s super positive, because oftentimes the challenge in my seat is the connective tissue between a partner like us and ServiceNow is the channel, and often the channel has actually not done its job. I think with somebody like Michael Park and the folks Michael is bringing in, and some of the KPIs that he’s measuring his people against, have really aligned the ServiceNow sales teams directly with the ServiceNow partners like us, and that’s been really refreshing.”