ServiceNow announces new platform with ESG emphasis

ServiceNow has released the latest Now Platform: Now Platform Tokyo. Learn what the platform offers in ESG features now.

Today, ServiceNow is launching the new version of its Now Platform called Now Platform Tokyo. The Now Platform already has a reputation for automating tasks that increase operational efficiencies across industrial backgrounds. With this new release, the company has expanded its focus to employee and customer experience as well as sustainability goals.

Among its highlighted features, the emphasis on ESG (environmental, social and governance) management is the most compelling. It has the potential to help businesses align with important global and industrial initiatives for increased social and environmental responsibility.

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A quick look at ServiceNow Now Platform Tokyo features

The Now Platform Tokyo offers many new features to its users while also refining existing features of the Now Platform. These changes came in response to customer calls for more risk management support as well as more agile supply chain, asset management and sustainability data for various business use cases. With an early look at what this platform offers its users, these appear to be the most valuable new and improved features in Now Platform Tokyo.

SEE: What is ESG and how does it apply to my business? (TechRepublic)

Environmental, social and governance management

Although ServiceNow’s Now Platform was able to support generalized governance tasks before the Tokyo release, Now Platform Tokyo offers ESG-specific management features. This allows users to manage all of their ESG goals and data in one platform, not only improving overall ESG performance but also better preparing for various compliance audits.

ServiceNow is partnering with several professional services firms, including RSM, Deloitte, DxC, KPMG, Fujitsu, LTI, Mindtree, NTT and Emissionsbox, to optimize its ESG solutions and ensure the Tokyo Platform reaches the right pools of prospective users.

Specialized ESG features within the platform include the following:

• Carbon accounting
• Greenhouse gas emissions calculations
• First- and second-line user experience support for ESG data requests
• Singular, end-to-end approach to ESG management

Supplier lifecycle management

Supplier lifecycle management (SLM) is one of the most important digital-first initiatives of the new platform. Instead of suppliers sticking to their traditional approaches for supplier communication and tracking, ServiceNow users can migrate from disjointed email and spreadsheet management to a more unified platform.

The Tokyo release makes self-service support and workflows possible, ensuring that suppliers get real-time support for their needs, from onboarding to the end of a major product delivery run.

Important SLM features found within the Now Tokyo Platform include:

• Case management support
• Embedded productivity
• Third-party intelligence integrations

Enterprise asset management

Enterprise asset management (EAM) is a crucial strategy for optimizing the management of supply chains and business assets across industries. The Now Tokyo Platform particularly emphasizes EAM automation across the full lifecycle of business assets, helping users to improve strategic business plans, get better visibility into their assets through improved inventory management and lessen both risk and operational costs.

SEE: Companies that value environment outperform peers (TechRepublic)

User and customer experience management

A major part of this new release is its emphasis on personalized user and employee experiences. The platform aims to improve experiences with the following platform features:

• Manager Hub: Employee journey and request and resource management at the managerial level
• Admin Center: Native application recommendations and self-service features for system administrators
• Issue Auto Resolution for Human Resources: HR case management, self-service content for employees, and natural language understanding for data analysis and content delivery

Operational trust and security management

In an effort to better unify and strengthen platform security and trust, the Tokyo release works with the ServiceNow Vault to increase privacy and security controls over business-critical applications. Key features of ServiceNow Vault include:

• Native platform encryption
• Flexible key management
• Data classification and anonymization
• Code validation
• Support for security log experts

Why the Tokyo release matters for ESG initiatives

The Now Platform Tokyo provides users with a number of new features that increase the platform’s self-service and user lifecycle management capabilities. ESG management is one such feature that not only simplifies data management goals but also helps businesses to meet evolving customer and investor expectations.

Vasant Balasubramanian, vice president and general manager of risk and ESG at ServiceNow, explains how the Tokyo release helps users to achieve new business goals related to ESG:

“ServiceNow’s ESG offerings, included in the Now Platform Tokyo release, go beyond a narrow focus on specific ESG domains to more holistically addressing, measuring, governing and reporting on ESG across the enterprise. This helps organizations meet immediate stakeholder and regulatory expectations while establishing the right foundation for success with ESG over the long run.”

At a time when global regulators and customers alike are starting to care more about the ethical and sustainable operations of enterprises, it is the ESG management framework of Tokyo that promises the most interesting value-adds for users. But more than that, it is the ease of use offered by the new ESG management features that make this release a reasonable self-service way to manage ESG goals for the future.

According to Edua Dickerson, vice president of ESG and finance strategy at ServiceNow, it is the automation at the core of the Tokyo release that makes ESG possible and sustainable.

“Good governance helps turn ESG efforts into concrete action. This is especially important right now, while companies are working through how to balance purpose and profit,” said Dickerson. “ServiceNow’s ESG solutions help companies to do well by doing good. We use our own tools internally to automate what would otherwise be a very manual ESG data collection and retention process.”

Now Platform Tokyo is available to all users now. For more information about the new ServiceNow Now Tokyo Platform release, visit servicenow.com.