In a Knowledge24 interview, Tom Smith talks with:
- Jason Wojahn, global head of Cognizant’s ServiceNow Group and CEO of Thirdera, a Cognizant company
- Umeshwaran Muthiah, global offering leader of Cognizant WorkNEXT
The trio discuss the combination of Cognizant and Thirdera, GenAI use cases, and innovating to meet customer needs.
Highlights
Companies’ Synergy (00:45)
Muthiah leads Cognizant’s digital workplace practice from design to development to commercialization. Wojahn is co-founder and CEO of Third Era, which was recently acquired by Cognizant, and he’s now responsible for the ServiceNow business group at Cognizant. The companies together form one of the largest ServiceNow practices in the world with “extraordinarily deep” platform expertise. The goal is to bring Third Era’s value for ServiceNow at Cognizant scale for clients by service line, by industry, up to and including supporting the office of the CIO.
Cognizant WorkNEXT Benefits (3:57)
WorkNEXT is the company’s positioning for all its workplace services, enhanced with the power of the GenAI functionality coming from ServiceNow. The vision is to not just assist users and technicians when it comes to support for the workplace; it can replace 80% of human effort. There’s an augmented reality (AR) angle too: when you apply AI for support for different worker personas, users don’t have time to chat or use the platform; AR is augmenting the knowledge and the GenAI content in a three-dimensional model consumed by devices or wearables. A second use case involves technicians using AR to translate languages in real-time to get knowledge when they walk into a data center or when they’re troubleshooting an Internet of Things (IoT) or Operational Technology (OT) device. AR is the front end to connect what the users and technicians see to the systems in the back end.
Predictive AI Benefits (06:16)
GenAI is clearly going to transform the way people work, Wojahn says. In the user interface and design capabilities for ServiceNow, it might do a series of interviews to get roles and personas developed to better tune experiences on the platform. In general, an hour of interview generates about four hours of work to separate signals from noise and ensure data is aggregated to get the best experiences. The company is using GenAI to make that process more efficient. Example: A supervisor has a shift closure procedure; AI can predict it’s getting closer to closing time and adjust the user interface to present those workflows that matter most to them at that point in time.
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Customer Zero Perspective (10:22)
Cognizant applies the knowledge gained from its Customer Zero program to deliver value to customers. It uses ServiceNow for its 350,000 users. As a partner, Cognizant can build and experiment in its own environments, which Muthiah credits as a great advantage. With the Customer Zero programs, the company makes bold decisions to innovate and address values, such as cost efficiencies and better productivity, that it brings to customers.
“It’s good that we have this place where we can experiment with the newest and most emergent technologies,” Wojahn says. With so many new features rolling out with ServiceNow, running a consultancy in this space can be challenging, which is why having an environment to test in is so important.
Evolving with GenAI (12:50)
Thirdera’s name reflects a “third era of ServiceNow market inflection,” Wojahn explains. It has shifted to a multi-product on-cloud platform. Now, Cognizant is in the midst of digital transformation across the enterprise, a time when it has never been more important to be a partner in this ecosystem. “Bringing the depth and the weight and the scale that we now have together, along with the ability to get the industry-adjacent workflows, is the next evolution of the platform for customers,” he says. “Layering in the new and emerging technologies is the last mile of that effort.”
Looking Forward (16:58)
Cognizant is looking for industry-leading platforms. It also wants to continue pushing the abilities of the technology further. Can it be more predictive? Muthiah says he is looking forward to the innovative solutions stemming from this. Wojahn is excited about the ServiceNow platform, as it has the data model and blueprint for enterprise requirements.
