ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Does our data strategy need to be aligned, and what about the security, et cetera. So the positive side of this is that we are seeing good demand, and on the cautionary side is, we will work with our customers. They are learning. Like Bill said, the four customers who leaned in and bought our products on the last day of the quarter, but as we move forward, we’ll work with these customers, and as we get a couple of quarters under the belt, we will be able to tell you how this is looking versus Pro. So Pro Plus versus Pro.

Sanjit Singh: I appreciate the additional thoughts, CJ. Thank you very much.

Bill McDermott: And Keith, one thing to keep in mind is Pro is the necessary stepping stone to Pro Plus. So, from a shareholder value creation standpoint, it’s plus-plus.

Sanjit Singh: Well noted. Thanks Bill.

Bill McDermott: Thank you very much, Keith.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from John DiFucci with Guggenheim.

John DiFucci: Thanks for taking my question. And Gina, thanks for all the detail around cRPO. That’s really helpful in understanding that metric and I know we’ve talked about this in the past, but I mean that it’s helpful. My question is really around the federal business, which is really — it’s been really strong for at least a year more than offsetting any commercial weakness when it happens like maybe a year ago or so. And just adding to what — at least what I think is surprising commercial strength as cash sort of hit on that in periods like this quarter. I guess my question is, how sustainable is that federal business in regards to new ACV, which it sounds like it just continues. It’s like the energizer bunny, it just sort of keeps on giving.

Bill McDermott: Yes. John, I’ll start off and then let Gina give you some of her color as well. But our federal business, as I said, had the biggest quarter in ServiceNow’s history with 75% year-over-year growth in NNACV, and we had 19 deals that were more than 1 million, including three over 10 million with the US Air Force as the third biggest deal in the history of ServiceNow. And what we’re seeing is across all areas, federal agencies are really looking to consolidate contracts, point solutions, the messy middle, and they really want to standardize on a platform with a core set of products that they can grow with. And our GenAI offerings, for example, are really reinforcing our ability to help accelerate their transformation journey, and they’re seeing really tremendous opportunity in GenAI on our platform.

And we’re already seeing early adopters show an interest in domain-specific models, which offer better security, as CJ said, and we’re working with some agencies that I can tell care a lot about security. So I think it’s really a tribute to ServiceNow’s engineering and the way ServiceNow runs our cloud and the manner in which we care for our customers at a deep technical level and they know that they can count on that. And every agency where we’ve done business is highly referenceable and they’re telling our story to other agencies for us. It’s really a beautiful force multiplying situation. But I want to leave you with one thought. We’re only getting started. With federal, with state, with local, the business transformation that’s going to go on in the next decade across all of those categories will play beautifully into our growth agenda, and we’ll continue to service it with 100% customer satisfaction.

We are fired up with what we’re able to do to transform government and make it run like a best run business.

Gina Mastantuono: The only thing, I would add, and Bill, fantastic answer. The only thing, I would add, John, is that, this is durable demand. The Federal agency’s digitization agenda is only growing, and the success that we’ve had at Federal, we absolutely have the ability to replicate that outside of the US and public sector around the world.

John DiFucci: Thank you very much.

Gina Mastantuono: Thanks, John.

Bill McDermott: Thank you, John.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from Mark Murphy with JPMorgan.