ServiceNow today announced the latest release of its workflow automation platform. With this, the company is emphasizing a number of new solutions for specific verticals, including for telcos and financial services organizations. This focus on verticals extends the company's previous efforts to branch out beyond the core IT management capabilities that defined its business during its early years. The company is also adding new features for making companies more resilient in the face of crises, as well as new machine learning-based tools. Dubbed the'Paris' release, this update also marks one of the first major releases for the company since former SAP CEO Bill McDermott became its president and CEO last November.

Companies that do right will be the ones that win. The greatest challenge of our time is getting technology into everyone's hands regardless of their economic condition. Reskill workers, give women a fair shot with fair pay and senior opportunities, and hire differently abled people. This is how SAP CEO Bill McDermott characterized winning companies in the digital economy. Unabashedly bold and big, his ideas made a lot of sense as he chatted with William Lewis, CEO of Dow Jones, during a video interview just days away from SAP's biggest customer event, SAPPHIRE NOW 2018.

"My eye was cut in half," McDermott said of the 2015 accident at his brother's home that has required 13 surgeries. "It required thousands of stitches to put it back together." Two years later, he replays the incident in his mind and mulls if he could take it all back. It has only made me better, more self-empowering," he reflects in a board room at a luxury hotel here. "I appreciate every moment, on a deeper emotional level.

CEO Bill McDermott predicted that over the next five to 10 years machine learning, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality will increasingly come to the fore: "I think very strongly that intelligent applications will fundamentally change the way you do work in the enterprise and the way you collaborate with your trading partners outside of the enterprise," he said. McDermott went on to say that machine learning has the capabilities to help businesses make more informed decisions around how they can better serve their end-customer. "We need the system to tell us what to do," he said. "Based on algorithms of that data and inputs that are in that data bank, we need to be able to advise you on the next step for your sales cycle, who you should meet with, and what the expected outcomes are, and what the level of probability would be on you striking a deal." At the same time, McDermott said the appeal of using machine learning as part of business processes is that it will "liberate workers."