Syncing With ServiceNow: 10 things IT leaders need to know to drive ITAM success

The demands of modern businesses continue to reshape IT asset management (ITAM) beyond traditional practices and tools.

ServiceNow commissioned Enterprise Management Associates to survey 450 global IT leaders on the state of ITAM. Our report, “A business view of ITAM,” sheds light on the most critical aspects leaders need to focus on to deliver ITAM success.

Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Fred Reynolds
Co-host: Eddie McDonald
Co-host: Mike Sabia

Transcript

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Andy Whiteside: Everyone welcome to Episode 32 of syncing with service. Now, I'm your host, Andy Whiteside. I've got a full panel with me today. Guys, how's it going.

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Mike Sabia: Doing well.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: Going? Well.

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Fred Reynolds: Going great Andy.

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Andy Whiteside: Up to everybody all at one time. We were just chit chatting. The clips is happening partial clips where I'm at so couple of minutes late getting started, but nobody knows, because it's recorded. So I didn't even have to bring that up.

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Fred Reynolds: So I put a tardiness.

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Andy Whiteside: Sorry to let you know I was late, and you didn't know we were late, anyway. Hey, let me do the commercial real quick. If you're a service now, customer and other things. But service now specifically of this podcast

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Andy Whiteside: and you're not getting the value out of platform, Fred and Mike, and maybe Eddie and I were on a meeting a while ago. Massive customer bank.

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Andy Whiteside: who is getting ready to get rid of service now, and we're all like, no, don't do that, and they know, and we know, and service now knows they're not getting the service they need out of the partner they're currently working with. They're paying for one of the big, big consulting firms to charge them.

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Andy Whiteside: I mean, literally thousands of dollars an hour.

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Andy Whiteside: and they're not getting what they're looking for.

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Andy Whiteside: It's no exact science, but partners like us, who are more boutique ish and able to understand what customers looking for and connect the dots without trying to manipulate the system for greater gains. That's what we do. So if you're a service now, customer, or looking to be one, and you're looking for a partner.

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Andy Whiteside: partner, capital, PART. NER. Partner, that's us. And that's why we're here. That's why we do this. Podcast, so we can talk about things that you need to know about proactively doesn't cost you dime. This podcast is free. I think it's free, right. Fred.

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Fred Reynolds: It's really.

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Andy Whiteside: That's free. Okay? Good.

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Andy Whiteside: That's so. Going around the Horn, I got Fred Reynolds with me. Fred runs the the modern apps practice, which includes service. Now, Fred, what's one thing people need to know about you, as it relates to what's been going on the last. I don't know 6 months.

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Fred Reynolds: I'll tell you what.

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Fred Reynolds: I'm just so extremely excited, and we have so much going on, so much opportunities to talk to more and more customers. I mean, I'm just a side to fact that I'll learn every day about stuff, so I don't know. I don't need to put a pinpoint on one. I think we just have some. Really, you know, a lot of deals from small to large. And I'm really feeling excited. The fact that we're actually helping and making a difference and doing exactly what I think you created this company for Andy to bring partners and our vendors together and build those relationships.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah, with the customer in mind making sure the customer gets with it. I was gonna ask you, you know, coming from the corporate world where you dealt with partners, multiple partners I think I think Eddie's joke is he's the only partner you never fired. Does does this make sense

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Andy Whiteside: going back to your corporate days and looking back at it from that perspective, did you realize how screwed up it was.

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Fred Reynolds: No, I didn't. You know. It's kind of funny, like I was on a road last week, and it gone into service now office and and went to a event that we have with our customers. And honestly, the more and more I share my story and kind of where I was, and think about what Zinta is at the core. No, I mean I. My biggest regret is not doing this. 10 years ago, 11 years ago, Andy, with you, because, you know I I make the joke a Eddie's not the

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Fred Reynolds: only birth part. I didn't find what it was the person. It was a sales rep from a partner, because Eddie always invested in what I was trying to do, and I have stolen stuff from Eddie since he's been here. He always talks about being a consultant first. And that is the really important thing, because we're not just trying. We sell our vendors products and we sell our services. But it's really trying to help customers understand the value of what they need. And that's so incredibly important. And that's what I do find here, and that I really like about this. It makes it excited. That's what's been going on the last 6 months more than ever in my life is kind of seeing that value and helping people.

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Andy Whiteside: I'll hit you with my one question. I'll move on. What do you think? Our what do you think our investors think of that strategy.

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Fred Reynolds: We don't have any investors.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: I know the answer to that one this time.

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Fred Reynolds: How's it going.

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Andy Whiteside: Ready for up that. And look! That's that's the way business was done for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Customer first customer in mind good selling, good stuff, good services to people who need want them.

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Andy Whiteside: that's all. It takes.

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Fred Reynolds: Can I just share one more thing on that, because this isn't a little plug here, but it is just the the

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Fred Reynolds: that the attitude is integral, has recently we were awarded the partner of the year in our space for service now, and we gifted a pass that was given to us to give to a customer. A new opportunity. We gave it to somebody that we don't know if we're gonna win their business or not. And honestly, that's what I told service now, and that custom. It doesn't matter. Choose us or don't choose us. We're all about trying to make sure we do what's right for you and help you like that was really cool. And the responses I got back from like service now and then. We just like

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Fred Reynolds: that's really awesome. Right? That's actually how you feel. And I'm like, that's a hundred percent, how we feel. So.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah, they gave us.

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Fred Reynolds: Make it better.

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Andy Whiteside: They gave us something we earned expecting it, expecting us to spend it ourselves, and we paid it forward.

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Andy Whiteside: That doesn't happen it should, but it doesn't. I'm gonna go to Mike Savior. Real quick, Mike. You've come from the background of working for other partners. I guess, just in general in the in the month or 2. You've been here

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Andy Whiteside: biggest takeaway for you.

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Mike Sabia: I mean.

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Mike Sabia: but many of the things that Fred just mentioned, you know, talking about the fact that we don't have investors, that we can spend the, the, the effort where we need to that we don't have to pay for for multiple levels of management above us. That we can, you know.

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Mike Sabia: provide the service that we need at a reasonable and appropriate price. I think that everybody on this call knows that I'm a fairly transparent person. I like create solutions. And and you know, as as you were just saying, Andy, if if we're not the best match, if we're or for not, it'll be helpful. Then then then we'll find another great opportunity.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah, we we'll go find you a partner of ours. It's a partner of a partner that we know and trust is the right fit.

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Fred Reynolds: I love the fact. There's some on Mike. Real quick, like it's just been a great addition, is integrate. But his mentality, like he showed even over this weekend. Eddie and I, Mark, Mike, what takes you guys? Mike was like, hey, we need to make sure we get this done for this particular customer that wasn't asked before. This weekend's done so like you could tell Mike's even thinking about it, which I don't always want to encourage. Don't think about this all time on your own time in the weekend, but it just does show the the commitment, and if if Mike wasn't enjoying what he was doing. I don't think it'd be rather long more thinking about a customer that we need to do something for so.

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Andy Whiteside: Oh, long we I usually call those shower moments. But for Mike we'll call those lawn more moments.

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Fred Reynolds: Watching his wife cut the grass. I don't know how he obviously.

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Mike Sabia: I I my my eldest, is 12 now, and I need to get her to start my on the lawn this year. So it is apropos.

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Mike Sabia: I I usually woke up in the middle of night, you know, or in the morning, thinking about these rather than the shower. But but

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Mike Sabia: the point is taken.

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Andy Whiteside: I will tell you, multiple people have told me they do listen to these podcasts while mowing the grass. So maybe there is a tie in there somewhere.

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Fred Reynolds: Yeah, yeah.

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Andy Whiteside: Alright, Eddie Mcdonald, you've been on all sides of this and seen it done goodish

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Andy Whiteside: and baddish, and really bad, and somewhat good.

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Andy Whiteside: Your take on the model.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: So

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: it's it's such an interesting question, because it would be easy for me to talk about our skill set. Fred has assembled some of the rock stars in the industry that people have been here for decades or longer. I've worked with in the past like Mike and a number of our other architects. It would be easy for us to say how advantageous our rates are to our customers, because we don't have 10 tiers of managers that take a nickel off every deal. So we're very competitive.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: But for me, the takeaway for me is I've worked in small yeah boutique partners to global elite partners. What we do, what is special is our culture. It is this group of people, not just in the service now space, but across modern apps, across integra Llc. Or is across Syntegra, Gov. Or our our nonprofit.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: It's just something special, and I'm not trying to blow sunshine, Andy, for the folks that you've assembled. But there's something about working with the group of people that are not just always about the money. Let's make it about the customer. Let's take care of each other while we're doing it. The money will come. Success will come if we're doing it the right way, and that's biggest takeaway from me that will breed more loyalty for me than any zeros on my paycheck.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah. And the people who get the most benefit out where they realize or not is the vendor who needs that representation?

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Andy Whiteside: Alright. Let's jump into the blog for today. Let's see, Fred and Team, you guys brought this 10 things it leaders need to know to drive it am Itam success. Itam stands for it. Asset management this is from Brian Blackburn, from April first, 2024. I'm gonna just tee this up real quick by pointing out that

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Andy Whiteside: service now, like lots of organizations, is moving in all kinds of directions, going east-west in the on the platform, the workflows that they provide.

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Andy Whiteside: We get that. And we are all about, you know, other areas of the business, whether it's Spm or a Hrsd

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Andy Whiteside: other aspects within. It and outside of it. That we can help with the platform around. We also understand that there are a lot of customers that are struggling with the core what we call it star it asterisk where they bought service now. Yes, for help, desk, sick ticketing system, but they also bought it to run their it, and they've never accomplished that the way they wanted to across the spectrum of the it portfolio they offer.

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Andy Whiteside: and that's why we keep bringing this back to some of the more relevant it topics like like itam. Fred, I think you picked this blog. What was the main reason why you wanted to cover this one today?

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Fred Reynolds: Mike actually picked it. But let me just start here, and I want to start a little high level one. This particular blog has 10 things, and I think we could be on top of some of them in various places. But it asset management. Number one. It's extremely important, and I think, is a lot of companies. Don't put the focus in there, do a lot of stuff through spreadsheets. They manage their assets in all different areas, and I think the importance of this blog at the time ended up being now, and the real point is trying to make through some of this is the fact that it asset management is not just about traditional. It assets anymore.

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Fred Reynolds: This platform has become broad assets, has been defined in different ways and assets or different thing for some other company. So I think one, I like the fact. Mike selected this. I wanna make sure we put the groundwork into what asset management is. And then also within the service. Now, platform, there's a couple of different levels of that. It asset management. Might you keep me very solid here because you know this a lot more. But it's asset management is the base and one of the core things that comes with the platform and you get itsm.

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Fred Reynolds: But then there's also additional licenses like hardware asset management software asset management that comes with a lot more features and functionality to help you grow that. So.

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Fred Reynolds: Mike, just maybe expand that a little bit to make sure audience understands it. Asset management. And within the service. Now.

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Fred Reynolds: platform.

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Mike Sabia: Yeah, I, I thought this was a good topic. For today, you know, in some of our most recent podcasts, we've talked about, you know new releases, or Gen. AI and or Jen AI again. But but these are still fundamental things, and Fred's point, you know it. Asset management comes with the Itsm product, which, of course, is also included in Csm, but

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Mike Sabia: and and it, you can store your hardware assets. You can store, store your software assets. And and that's important. You you'll be able to be tactical. You're able to, you know, know where you're going. You're able to understand who owns what, how it's used, but the additional products, this off to asset management pro, and that the hardware ass management pro take it a next step. The hardware asset management.

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Mike Sabia: Nope

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Mike Sabia: takes it above to talk about. You know the the model normalization or the whole life cycle automation. So if you're going doing decommissioning and and all the workflows associated with it. That's not part of the base product. The base product does a good job of of storing what you want, but adding it up and adding that extra logic into it is part of ham pro you also have asset inventory where you could.

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Mike Sabia: Where in the basic product. You could use your mobile device to scan a, a, a serial number or an asset tag. It's as you receive it. But with hardware estimates pro. You can start doing ass inventories where you can go into a storage room and start scanning, and maybe take Blunch and go back and scan it again, and make sure that all your assets are where you expect to be, where you're able to, you know. Provide the visibility to your.

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Mike Sabia: you know. Asset manager. On, on, where we are, what assets are, and need to be deprecated, or where there are in that deprecated life cycle, or as one of the topics of these tents mentioned. What are the inherent risks? So in a healthcare industry might have biomed and pile med devices are actually a a a threat to security of the platform. If that device is not kept up to speed or has a security hole.

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Mike Sabia: then that can impact your organization and asset management. Just excuse me, asset management is not just what you have, but making sure it's healthy, accurate, and useful.

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Andy Whiteside: So, Mike, I'm sure, based on what I'm reading ahead. We're gonna get into this. But I, my neighbor, does asset management. And the first time I met him I was trying to connect the dots between it asset management and asset management, and what I really came away with is the product that he currently works with does, you know, does assets like, you know, cars, trucks.

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Andy Whiteside: things you'd have on a shelf somewhere. Medical devices potentially. And whereas service now started in the realm of it asset management, but has moved into the world of asset management across the entire business, not just what it is, managing and supporting.

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Mike Sabia: Right what they call enterprise, asset management.

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Andy Whiteside: Enterprises. Okay, great. Alright. Let's let's run through the topic to make sure we don't miss any here. But the first one says, number one. I I, Tam, has become a strategic, imperative.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: So before we start to comment on this, I think it's important to notice that this blog post is a little bit different. It's not about solutioning. This is this is saying, the quiet parts out loud. These are the things that organizations need to do. They need to focus on, to take action on. So you know. Strategic, imperative. Yes, I mean, as Mike just said, this enterprise assets from cloud to hardware, to business services. All of these assets.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: It's not being addressed. It's as these initiatives are not strategic right now, which is why it has to become strategic.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah, well, and and so when integrous start implementing service. Now, a couple of years ago, I'm like, why are we doing this? Well, we just for security, we can't secure what we don't know we have. I was like, Well, what are we talking about? Secure? And the guys like everything like, oh, okay, I get it.

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Andy Whiteside: Yep.

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Andy Whiteside: So I think what Eddie just said. Kind of covers number one. But Mike, any additional thoughts to.

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Andy Whiteside: You strategic.

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Mike Sabia: You know, 1520 years ago people thought of it as an expense, and

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Mike Sabia: good businesses businesses are growing. Think of us of it as core to their business. And now we have to start thinking about your assets. It's core to your business, not just hey, what happens to be there, or or, you know, is.

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Mike Sabia: you know, how can I track it back? But actually having it be useful, have the correct assets, knowing what you have, what the security holes are where you're going. The the the accuracy, the the uniformity, the the usefulness of that of those assets is becoming more more important.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah, I I think what I'll do here Mike, I'll since you picked this block I'm gonna run through these with you. And then, Fred, Eddie, chime in over the top for things. You think we need to round out each topic.

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Andy Whiteside: Anything on that first one you guys want to comment on.

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Fred Reynolds: No, I think that's good covered.

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Andy Whiteside: Alright. Number 2. Itm must speak the language of the business. I'll add overall business. The entire business. I should use the word the as it's meant to be used. Mike, you wanna cover this.

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Mike Sabia: Well, some of these same things we just spoke about minimizing security risks. Doing some of the audits. But there are, you know 5 things listed here. In addition to I just mentioned, import employee productivity opt in optimizing your spend level of automated processes. Each of those things is really your utility.

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Mike Sabia: where if a company, a customer of ours comes and says, Hey, we want to do harder estimate pro or software estimate pro, we're gonna ask, hey, what are you trying to accomplish? What's your imperison imperative? What's your business objective? And then how can we make sure the product meets those? Not just oh, we're gonna implement. Yeah. And these are the 5 topics is the Kpis that we need to know. You know, where are they coming from? Where do they need to go? And and how do we measure it as we do? An implementation.

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Fred Reynolds: I think what's important here from it must speak the language of the business right? Business owners. What they mostly care about is their metrics. Your Kpis might just mention Kpis. And when you look at that in these areas, you talk about security, risk right?

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Fred Reynolds: Service now gives you a platform allows you to have dashboards and and metrics around these things, and they're very important. That's how you measure success. That's how you see, if you go in the right direction, and that's why I think it's important to have a unifying platform like service now, for all the assets across, because

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Fred Reynolds: assets may live and may be different things across the business unit because it may need some. It assets. It may need some other assets that complete a service or product, that they're trying to deliver. So it's very important for to be able to, when it says, speak the language. I think it's able to make metrics and report out on what they're trying to measure, what they're trying to to manage.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah, you're covering the whole landscape of the business and giving the data, giving the information back.

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Andy Whiteside: That's needed the way it's needed and want, and.

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Fred Reynolds: And you have to have a platform that can unify that information and present it versus things being in silo products or niche applications.

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Andy Whiteside: Well, I think that's what this next phone talks about. I'm not sure but it says, this should be a no brainer, but it needs to be stated. Number 3. Success starts with accurate asset information. Mike.

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Mike Sabia: It it? It's true. You know a scene to be is only as useful as it is accurate, and you could, you know, add some assets in there, and then maybe you'll keep one up to date because you have to, but then it becomes stale or becomes you know it. It's not confirmed as being accurate. Or maybe, is there some information that is missing from it? Ultimately, if you want it to be useful, you have to make sure it is.

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Mike Sabia: It is.

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Mike Sabia: It's accurate, and and that means populating it on a routine basis using the health dashboard to identify assets that have not been updated or touched in X number of days.

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Fred Reynolds: And you started this off by saying, This is a no brainer. The funny thing is, although it seems like a no brainer. This is where a lot of customers companies struggle absolutely struggle. Even in this article, says, 33% of organization consider the completeness of accuracy. Other asset management to be outstanding only 33. And yet people think this is extremely important to manage their business with. So people still absolutely struggle with that. And we see that from our customers today. The starting point is, what's to help the year. Cmdb, look like, how are you managing your assets?

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: Yeah, that's we had a couple of calls about that today. I mean, of course, service now has service. Now, discovery discovery with a capital d. That can reach out and populate your seem to be with, and also use sccm. But we also have a partnership with tanium, which is like service. Now, discovery on steroids. So there are a number of different options to pull accurate repeatable data into your seem to be.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah, when you guys do our what we call micro assessments, he's free complimentary assessments. Cmdb, health is one of the top things you're talking to customers about. I think.

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Fred Reynolds: Always something that comes out. Those assessments where we talk about there seem to be the help, and usually Mike and other architects give them some good nuggets to say, Hey, this is what we saw, and here's some next steps to trying to make sure you get that in the health of your state. So yeah, I don't think we've had an assessment we've seen. Oh, yeah, that all looks perfect. It's just not there. Even large enterprises are not there.

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Andy Whiteside: Alright number 4. Here, security, as always, is a major priority.

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Mike Sabia: Yeah, you know.

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Mike Sabia: I I mentioned the example of of biomed where maybe a biote device has a security hole and therefore somebody could get into network.

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Mike Sabia: But it's not just biomed devices. It could be your networks. These switches know how old are your devices? Are they supported, and service now can can help you identify that? Then same thing on the software side is this a a software that has a critical patch? Is it something that's not supported. Is it something that there's a newer version you need to consider going through up to for security reasons.

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Andy Whiteside: And it.

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Mike Sabia: Businesses. Security is is a main driver of a lot of the it improvements that are out there.

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Fred Reynolds: So one thing I'm saying out of security, too, like

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Fred Reynolds: everybody knows what they were today of 9 11 but I also know where I was today that, like the ransomware, hit everybody in these companies. You remember that with a big ransomware virus went out. It was just like from from a managed service business. That was a nightmare. But the good thing having a platform like this to be able to identify your assets, and what could be affected right away like. That's how you remediate a lot of this type of security risk in that way.

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Andy Whiteside: Well, Fred, I would say yes. At 1 point I could have said that, but now it happens so often, and you know I might probably be fair to say that every device more than more than 6 months old without an update is vulnerable. Well, they're all vulnerable, but likely to have been exploited.

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Fred Reynolds: True these days, and I'm saying, like the very first one I mean, it had to be what maybe 8 years ago, at this point where that ransomware went out and just started taking everybody down right it it made us understand the vulnerability of that, so that could fall like that. So agree.

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Andy Whiteside: Number 5. Here is itam maturity benefits from a platform approach. Mike. Were they covering there.

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Mike Sabia: It. It's many of the same things we've just talking about, you know. If you want to be mature business, you need to have it be part of the business. You want to be mature business, you have to have it be part of the business, not just something that is thought of a a as an extra. It's something that you need to have maturity around. You need to have the data coming in. You have to have governance about

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Mike Sabia: how you ingest data, how you monitor that data with the dashboards

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Mike Sabia: as be a platform approach, not just an extra thing. You consider

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Mike Sabia: cancerous. No.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: Yeah, that's.

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Mike Sabia: So pane of glass, you know.

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Mike Sabia: provides this along with Spm. And Hrsd. And all the other capabilities of service. Now into a a single view of your organization.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: It's it's interesting that they led this topic with, you know, companies are better position and navigate the complexities of digital transformation with itm maturity.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: You know, organizations that don't have a 3 year digitalization plan are already behind the 8 ball. Then those that don't have like you said your seem to be populated with accurate information, or that much farther away. So

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: digital transformation and accurate assets absolutely run hand in hand.

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Andy Whiteside: Alright number 6 here diverse a asset. Types are being managed together. I think this kind of comes back to the platform conversation, but I think maybe it ties ties in several of the conversations we've had so far, Mike.

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Mike Sabia: Yeah, E. Exactly the the it ma asset management, or you know what are your other devices that you need to maintain? I I've worked at a partner where they had to worry about

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Mike Sabia: railroad engines like the the the engine that was pulling a train. That's that's a Ci. And and you know, when it's been updated, is it accurate, you know, when it was maintained?

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Mike Sabia: you know what what software is on that on that device you have to look beyond just the it to every asset that supports your company.

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Fred Reynolds: And I think it just closely couples with the one before that right that platform approach. If you don't have a platform and a platform approach that can handle the diverse types of assets, you know. Then you you're not going to be able to move forward.

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Fred Reynolds: Everything's trending.

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Andy Whiteside: And I love that you brought that part of everything's trending. It's going that way, whether it's somebody in my my spectrum of people

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Andy Whiteside: was talking about. IoT devices and getting those secured that comes up every 6 months or so. But honestly, the topic never really should go away.

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Fred Reynolds: Right yup.

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Andy Whiteside: Number 7. Here Itam and thin Ops collaboration can be beneficial.

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Mike Sabia: If you have a lot of assets, are there out there? Are they being used? Are they being used appropriately, you know? Are you have servers there that are that are low, optimized or low used or don't have a particular services attached to them is is what's the financial impact to that.

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Mike Sabia: It's that whole single pill pane of glass that we've been talking about.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: Especially around the software asset management piece of financial operations. They go hand in hand, cause, you know, implementing service. Now, software asset management pro, typically will save you 10 to 12% on your software. Spend your first year and 4 to 5% year over year after that. So absolutely asset management and financial operations run together.

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Mike Sabia: And there's a great there's a number of studies that service now can

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Mike Sabia: help a customer generate in order to justify that Roi, you know.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: Yeah.

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Mike Sabia: On those your where you are, your usage, how you're tracking or not tracking it today, the number of devices, what are your expected savings, and you know, service service. Now, software as management pro is is not free. It has cost to it, but it has that savings.

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Fred Reynolds: And I think when we made the change, and most companies made a change to start moving into the cloud, or being a hybrid solution, especially hybrid a a lot of the it. People didn't have a way of managing what was in the cloud, the assets in the cloud, the scale of what's happened in the cloud. And so they were over spending because they didn't really have a good handle on the consumption of the cloud. So you have to have something like this. So you can actually get the information that the utilization from the cloud and have that the way she can manage it.

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Fred Reynolds: That definitely was something that in my previous role we had to really think hard and about starting to move into a hybrid cloud solution because we didn't have the tools in place at that time to manage cloud type solutions.

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Andy Whiteside: Well, next topic, we move away from things that are in the cloud to that that legacy. Esg motion, where we've got all this stuff junk, if you will. Even laying around. I literally have 50 laptops in my office right now that I'm in the process of converting to chromebook, so I can give them away to nonprofits. Yeah, that's been an ongoing saga for companies forever

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Andy Whiteside: goes back to that spreadsheet. And in a in a I don't know. Maybe some type of asset allocation thing that that you threw them out the door, and somebody noted for them hopefully. And you, you know. Hope nothing was on those that can't be the the, you know. Plan going forward. How does this impact? Esg for number 8. Here Esg is top of mind.

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Mike Sabia: I mean what you were just mentioning about

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Mike Sabia: information on those devices when you have an asset and you're decommissioning, and you need to show proof to your auditors that it has been received by the decommissioning company, and they've they've they've provided you paperwork to certify that they did the corporate business.

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Mike Sabia: Not necessarily Esg specific, but but it's still important. You know, what is your whole disposal process. But then, you know, at the Esg environmental social and government aspect. On top of that, you know. Is it being, you know, thrown in a landfill? Is it being recycled? And that

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Mike Sabia: is something we should at least consider. You know, it would be nice to be able to say, Hey.

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Mike Sabia: give it to you. I don't wanna worry about it, but if you want to be a steward of the of the earth, and you want to share your with your share owners, or at least your customers, who are wanting to have a a, a great

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Mike Sabia: a a company, and a partner that is interested in making things the way they should be. These are things you have to consider.

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Fred Reynolds: Well in the governance piece of this is really important, because, depending on what type of certifications you hold in a company that you have to maintain. I mean, just like

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Fred Reynolds: the asset tracking or incident management. I mean

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Fred Reynolds: managing this from a governor's perspective is easy for tracking and showing and being audited.

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Fred Reynolds: So it's a really important piece to show.

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Andy Whiteside: Well, it. It becomes imperative that you'd be able to do this at some point.

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Andy Whiteside: Itam continues to expand beyond it assets. I feel like we've covered this, but this must be a different take on it, Mike will cover it.

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Mike Sabia: it. It's very much similar to what we've been talking about. You know. It's mo more than just it. How does it embed ourselves in our daily operations, you know. When? When does that asset need to be acquired? When does that asset need to be used? When does that asset need to be assigned to a person or or decommissioned

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Mike Sabia: and enterprise. Asset management is, as it says, ripe area for providing your it's it tools and processes to make sure that you're following the processes that that the government and and your customers expect.

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Mike Sabia: Yeah.

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Andy Whiteside: Well, yeah. And I I love that you brought up first the government piece. Okay? Fine. But it's the you know what your customers are expecting of you as a partner of theirs without a proper it. Asset management program platform. You really can't be successful there.

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Andy Whiteside: Alright Mike, number 10 on the list. Here is automation between automation and AI. We're hearing those terms constantly these days. How does itm prepare a company to be successful with automation?

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Mike Sabia: So one of the things, and it's a little bit of a stretch from here is the fact that when you have

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Mike Sabia: Cis which use assets and they have events happening. Then you can proactive and identifying issues before they crop up. And if you have a a, a lot of stuff out there, and you're not sure what where it is or where it isn't the commission process, or how secure it is.

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Mike Sabia: that's troublesome, and machine learning, and AI come in there to assist, and some of that automation is not necessarily AI driven.

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Mike Sabia: I mentioned before in the hardware asset management that it adds those additional workflows to facilitate those processes. But to to have machine learning to say, you know, where are these servers living? What's the use of it? What are some of the things that you need to be aware of? AI and machine learning allow you to have those insights without, you know, going in and and digging in through yourself.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah.

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Andy Whiteside: Pretty comments on Freddie, Fred comments on automation.

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Fred Reynolds: No, I mean, the automation is key. I mean, automation is is how you drive a lot of efficiency and you get rid of them mundane task, and you get rid of human error. So I mean, I think even when it comes to asset management, I mean, it's a must.

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Fred Reynolds: and I must have so.

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Andy Whiteside: I know we had our internal management call today. We're still plugging away, implementing more and more service now, internally, and the answer keeps

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Andy Whiteside: keeps coming back to efficiency and automation internally as integral. So we're not only a reseller and an integrator and a Msp, we use this stuff.

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Fred Reynolds: But the great thing, Andy, is all that's coming from the users and and the business units. Right? That's that's the great thing. It's not. It's not leadership. It's not our modern apps. Practice pushing for that adoption is to is to use it asking for it. That's what I love about it.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah.

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Andy Whiteside: hey, Eddie, you've been quiet a little bit on this automation. How does it relate to what you're seeing within customers?

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: Well, what the funny thing about automation is it's even it leads with is no longer just strategic. It's part of every conversation we have. It's it's how can I? How can I route this ticket without touching it? How can I get an alert without sending an email? I mean, it's not only you know what service now is is primary function is a massive workflow engine.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: but the automation is just. It's our everyday lives. Even here at my house. It's like, how can I automate this little thing that I'm doing? It's just part of our vernacular now, and automation around it is just the next logical step.

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Andy Whiteside: It's it's everywhere. It's it's around our personal life. It's around our corporate life.

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Andy Whiteside: And even if you're not trying to automate things. Things are getting automated

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Andy Whiteside: around you for you as part of some platform who knows? Service now is likely to be behind lots. A lot of those.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: Yeah, a a really easy one is like, I'll go turn on the TV, and I'm automatically logged in to certain, like Hulu or Netflix. It's that one level of automation, knowing that this is the the the IP address for this TV. And it lets me log in. That's a simple little piece of automation that makes my life easier because I won't have to do my ridiculous, long, personal email.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah, absolutely. I ran into that last night, and when it works, which most of the time it works great. I had a situation last night where one of my devices was off the Wi-fi, and that automated hit a button process. Everything just works unbelievably frustrating. But most of the time, even when traveling it makes life so much easier.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: Yeah, absolutely.

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Andy Whiteside: I I think that actually brings up a topic where a lot of the vendors that we work with, we're not working with customers. Necessarily we are. But we're working with our vendors to help them use service now for these processes that they're implementing like we just talked about with automation of some type of authentication or enabling a device, them helping customers with service now is something I found interesting that we I didn't expect to have happen, but we're starting to see it. The more we bring it up with our vendors.

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Andy Whiteside: like Fred. You got a couple of scenarios going on now, where you know we're we have vendors that we work with every that are becoming customers.

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Fred Reynolds: Went on, mute. Yeah, that's absolutely the truth.

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Andy Whiteside: Yep.

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Andy Whiteside: Well, Mike, what did we? What do we miss that we should have covered.

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Mike Sabia: I think we covered a lot.

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Mike Sabia: I think we do it a good job of of highlighting some of the elements that are important to itm. And I I would just want to add that if a customer comes to us and says, Hey, I want to

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Mike Sabia: do more with my scene to be. I wanna do more with the asset management. I wanna do more with my hardware assets, my software assets. We have that ability to come with you. Talk about what you want to accomplish it, why, you want to accomplish it. Meet those those imperatives and and objectives, and then come with the solution and then come up the solution to answer that rather than say, Hey, we're gonna implement, Sam, pro

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Mike Sabia: right? We we always need to to look at that value emphasize the customer, help them so to their bosses. You know, somebody has to sign that that paycheck. We don't want to just give up a price. We want to help you justify it. Help you be able to explain why it's important and and the value will get out of it.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah, I've seen you guys do that a couple of times where? Yes, customer could buy something additional. But wait a minute. What are you trying to accomplish? Couldn't you just do that with what you already have? That's again the opportunity for us to be a real partner, not only for the customer. But in the long run for the vendor cause we wanna position stuff that people can use, and, you know, free up money to buy the appropriate things later.

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Andy Whiteside: Well, gentlemen, thanks for the time, and look forward to have another conversation with you guys 2 weeks from now.

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Mike Sabia: Think it's.

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Eddie McDonald - XenTegra: Tammy, thanks. Guys.

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Fred Reynolds: Good Buddy.

WEBVTT

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Andy Whiteside: Hello, everyone welcome to Episode 5 of moderation drinking, and Host Andy White. So I've got Sam Meter with me, Sam. How's it going.

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Sam: Good Andy great to be back with you.

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Andy Whiteside: You were just talking a minute ago about how busy you are with your your rental business it is what it's April April eighth here, so I can only imagine what things generally look like for you.

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Sam: Yeah, a lot of spring break. People are traveling and today's a crazy day with that eclipse. So who knows what's going to happen?

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Andy Whiteside: Are those scenarios tying it back to the podcast? Here are those scenarios where you're like man. I just wish I could go have like a 6 pack after the day. I just had kind of thing.

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Sam: Well, you know that we get so busy here with maintenance upkeep and rotating our guests in and out. Now, our housekeeping staff.

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Sam: That was the old me, you know, when I'd have a hard day I did reach for a 6 pack, and that was just the start of it. So now, I've got my other options just less alcohol or non alcoholic options. Just bill and relax. Yeah.

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Andy Whiteside: I can imagine. That's that's when things like work, stress or like we're talking about today corporate events or events you attend. Let me let me share my screen here.

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Andy Whiteside: The the blog that you wrote that we're reviewing is called entitled Less Alcohol. At events, Sam, is this intended to be about corporate events, or.

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Sam: Yeah, it really touches on both. So

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Sam: I've been to a couple of events recently. Some were planned. Some were just sort of ad hoc gatherings, and you know, with the general trend

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Sam: in society of people drinking less. I was sort of struck by you know what people provided or didn't provide. And you know, with.

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Sam: we've talked about this before the the growth in dry January, the sober, curious movement, and my launch, you know, in February of moderation. February.

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Sam: There just is a general te a general trend out there of people consuming less alcohol.

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Sam: I did some research, and and Nielsen IQ. Is, you know, the largest

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Sam: consumer Information company in the world, the Nielsen ratings on TV. And they were, they were just saying across all sectors age. Wise, demographic. There's just been less alcohol consumption. In fact, I've got a friend who's a wedding planner

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Sam: and she does High End weddings. You know the the company she works so they don't touch it. If it's not a half a million dollars or higher, and she routinely gets flown around in these corporate jets to do these high powered weddings in Beverly Hills or Mon. You know the Hamptons, but she's just noticed as well that you know there are, continued requests for non alcoholic options, even in the alcoholic drink space mocktails or

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Sam: non alcoholic beers, wines, things like that. And so there's just a general trend out there, and kind of wanted to bring that to the forefront, as people begin hosting things or doing things parties more in the summer, whether you're hosting or attending. I think these points resonate.

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Andy Whiteside: Is it awareness of the issue, or are they replacing the intoxication with a different, with a different form?

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Sam: Well, it's it's interesting, too, cause what? What my friend said about weddings, if that they and the many estates have now approved marijuana

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Sam: for recreational use or medical use. And there's been some, you know, literally on the menu of things with cannabis in it. And so that just speaks to what's going on in society.

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Sam: But I I can't really say if people are, you know, replacing one with the other. I just think that

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Sam: our our message here is just part of the general trend that people are seeking ways to drink less alcohol. Be they true? You know, non alcohol, beverages, or beverages that were traditionally like beers that have no alcohol in them.

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Andy Whiteside: I. I have a weird, weird way of looking at this. So let's let's see if you agree, disagree, or see value in my argument here. It is one thing back in the day to consume, and then find your way home in many cases by driving these days there's no excuse to drive, because there's so many ride shares which makes it a no brainer for you to get home that way. But those actually cost money, irregardless of whether you, you know, get away with it or not.

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Andy Whiteside: Is there any logic to the fact that now there's a now there's a measurable cost to the finding your way home, scenario being where it might not have been.

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Sam: I've done some work with the mothers against drunk driving, and I I've seen the statistics, and it it is. It is the paradox. The number of drunk driving incidents and fatalities have actually gone up

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Sam: in the last 5 years.

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Sam: At the same time there's been an explosion of availability of ride sharing uber lyft and the like.

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Sam: You would think that that, you know, people would avail themselves of those options. But you know, you know. Sometimes the cost gets in the way. Sometimes ego gets in the way, and that, that's one of the interesting things you you. There's so many options out there, but still people continue to drive drunk, impaired.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah, it hasn't really had the impact

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Andy Whiteside: that you would have thought it would logically have had.

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Andy Whiteside: it's interesting for sure. You got a mention here of Charleston, and specifically King Street in that area with.

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Sam: Yeah. So that's this is interesting. As this trend continues, we're seeing retail stores open up with a specific focus of non alcoholic beverages and you know a. Every. Every city has their famous street of bars and parting. So you have.

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Sam: you know, Bourbon Street, New Orleans, Rush Street, in Chicago. Those are places I've been. And then

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Sam: King Street in Charleston is the known place where all the cool bars are. It's where all the college students go. It's just a real big party scene. But on that very street.

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Sam: in 2,022 a woman opened up a store called, Say, I believe that's how it's pronounced SECH, EY, and it's the French word for dry, and she only sells non alcoholic drinks

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Sam: beers, wines, hard liquor spirits. And we've talked about this before. As an aside. But one of my future podcast is gonna touch on some of the non alcoholic beers. There's a wide variety now, most large brewers. Have them. There's a couple

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Sam: brewing companies that specifically do non alcoholic beer athletica is one, and they're probably one of the best

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Sam: but this store has had just an explosive growth right in the heart of the bar party scene of Charleston and that says a lot. If that if a store like that can really take off and thrive, and we're seeing that more and more across the country.

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Andy Whiteside: Are they serving like what I would call live drinks, so like, are they pouring, or are they just selling.

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Sam: We do have tastings and such, but mostly they're selling. You know the non, how alcoholic beer by the 6 pack or the the spirit list by the bottle. It looks, and it looks and feels like a traditional liquor store packer, store package store, whatever you call it. It's just that everything on the shelf is is non alcoholic. It's it's really, really quite a place.

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Andy Whiteside: So, Sam, is this blog intended to be towards the drinker or the provider of the drinks.

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Sam: Well, it's both actually and one of the things I was looking at was.

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Sam: if you are

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Sam: going to an event.

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Sam: have some awareness or some planning either request or bring some non alcoholic options. But if you're hosting an event, and I did some research on corporate event, newscom. They've got some best practices, and I know you've you know, hosted a corporate event.

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Sam: and there they talk about some best practices. If you're doing an event that has alcohol as a corporation, whether you have your employees or vendors there they lay out some specific things. These are some best practices where

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Sam: it, you know at the very least. If you have a policy, write it down, put it in the corporate handbook of what your policy is on alcohol. Do you allow drinking at corporate events? Do you not allow drinking? If so, what does that look like? And just as long as that's written down, and I know most corporations have that kind of thing, and I'll throw it back to you for for your companies. Zen, take or do you have anything like this that that sort of guide you

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Sam: and has evolved over time.

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Andy Whiteside: I think it's been mostly common since. I'll tell you. I was on a vacation last week, and the very first night I got a call from

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Andy Whiteside: one of my employees that another employee had drank themselves into oblivion and was unresponsive.

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Sam: Jeez.

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Andy Whiteside: It's top of mind, no doubt.

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Andy Whiteside: Do we have it in our corporate handbook? I I don't know if we actually have an official statement in there or not. It's really been left up to common sense, which you would think would be enough. But it's not.

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Sam: Right?

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Sam: Well, that that again. So there's a lot of companies revisiting

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Sam: that issue, as you know, could could be one step

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Sam: further with this employee you mentioned, had they chose to get behind the wheel, and what could happen next? And that exposes the company to some liability. So putting putting it down in a corporate handbook. It seems to be a a good idea. They also talk about shy away from hard liquor, just for obvious reasons. That's a speedier path to get a inebriated. So stick with beer and wine. If you're hosting a corporate event,

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Andy Whiteside: I went to my son, and I went to a local brewery of the day just just for one drink and you know the the beers that were on the list behind the bar were 7, 8, 9, 10% alcohol volume, I mean by

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Andy Whiteside: it was shocking. And and they didn't didn't taste like it at all. They they tasted like a beer.

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Sam: Yeah, they I you know I grew up, you know, in the seventies and Budweiser and Miller everything was 3 up 4 point something. And now you can go in any place and get a 7 abb. Or 8, and it's like having 2 beers and one right. That amount of alcohol.

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Andy Whiteside: Used to drink in low alcohol beer. You drink it like you drink those which is pretty.

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Sam: You know I'll hit you like a freight train.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah.

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Sam: So yeah, try in general, shy away from hard liquor. If you're hosting a corporate event, that's what they say. Beer and wine stick with that, and of course provide some non alcoholic beer options. Always a good good thing. Seems to go hand in hand. If you got food in your belly. You're gonna have less of an impact with your alcohol intake. So always provide food.

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Sam: And then, you know, I've been to a lot of these events, too, where you know, as an employee or vendor, you walk in. They give you 2 tickets, or they give you a hand stamp like it's a bar limit that to what seems to be the industry standard of just 2 and then also there, they talk about making it. An actual cash bar, so that employees have to pay for their drinks. And of course that's one way to curb drinking when people have to reach into their own pocket and pay for it.

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Sam: And then this is an interesting one to ask your employees volunteers for designated drivers, so that there'll be dedicated staff who who does not drink, and they're there to help people get home safely, or as a company subsidize a certain amount of a rideshare situation or higher vehicles. I I read one article where a company actually did that. So there's there's ways and means to

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Sam: kind of still have fun but limit the exposure of risk both for the employees and the company. And of course you know my favorite. This is the tool that I use is the first round, last call challenge coin that I created. That still is a tool I use today. That limits your intake to just 2 alcoholic drinks

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Sam: a day, and if you carry that with you at a an event, the baseball game or corporate event, or wherever you're gonna stand a better chance to stay out of trouble.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah, hey, Sam, on, add one we do this quite often, because we do conferences out of town and stuff that you know. Plan to stay, plan to stay local to wherever you're gonna be enjoying yourself.

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Sam: Right? Right? The hotel or whatever. Yeah.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah.

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Andy Whiteside: okay. Sam.

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Andy Whiteside: Any other things you'd want to cover, as it relates to events that you didn't cover.

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Sam: Well, it's really just like anything. With a little planning you can still have fun and be safe. And again, whether you're hosting or attending seek out some options that will limit your intake or give you some relief if you do so.

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Sam: I think a lot of this is just like you, said common sense, but

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Sam: lot of well intended people, and you know, with their I saw an article about a CEO who got, you know, pulled over for a dui last month, and it doesn't matter. Your demographic. Everybody's at risk for that kind of thing.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah. Well, luckily it got pulled over before something worse happened.

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Sam: Right.

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Sam: right.

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Andy Whiteside: So a tick, a ticket, and the legal fees is nothing compared to the the negative. They could come out of it short term and long term for everybody involved.

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Sam: Right, right.

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Andy Whiteside: Well, Sam, I appreciate the time, as always, and good message to get out. Certainly a valuable, a valuable message, for you know my network, your network. And just people in general, especially, you know, generations that haven't

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Andy Whiteside: haven't had all the experiences and and the luck that you and I've had along the way to allow us to still be here.

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Sam: Yes, indeed. So yeah. Well, thanks for having me and look forward to chatting again next month.

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Andy Whiteside: Absolutely. Thanks.