ServiceNow APAC president on the biggest shift he’s seen in the channel

Adrian Johnston at the ServiceNow Partner Forum also thanked partners for helping the vendor hit a billion dollars annually in revenue.

The pace of change in the IT channel industry has been the biggest shift that ServiceNow APAC president Adrian Johnston has seen over the past year.

Speaking to the audience at the ServiceNow Partner Forum in Sydney, Johnston said the pace of change is impacting both partners and the market as a whole.

He noted that it is a challenge for both partners and ServiceNow.

“The expectation is that the customers and the people that we speak to in the market expect that we know all the latest stuff,” he said.

“We know about all the latest language models, we know about all of the security requirements. We know about all of the stuff, and it's a big challenge.

“It's that compression of time is only accelerating, and puts a lot of pressure on everyone.”

ServiceNow recently made a shift to have fewer managed partners as it overhauled its partner program in early 2025.

Johnston said that has allowed ServiceNow to go “deeper” with their partners.

“It allows us to invest more with you, whether it's enablement, whether it's co investment or marketing, training,” he said.

“For us that is super important that we have a deeper set of very capable partners that allow us to be highly successful with our customers, but probably more importantly, for each of you to be very successful and continue to scale.”

APAC outlook

Looking at the APAC region, Johnston said it is the fastest growing region for ServiceNow globally.

He thanked the company’s partners for helping them get there.

“That is a huge kudos to everyone in this room that has helped get us to that point. We're now just over a billion dollars (US) from revenue annually, which is phenomenal. The business is growing at over 40 percent and only accelerating year on year,” he said.

“That wouldn't have been possible without the support of everyone in the room, and you know a huge thank you to everyone there.”

Johnston said the total addressable market is roughly US$7-8 billion for ServiceNow in this region.

But, he noted that the recent cyber acquisitions of Armis, Moveworks and Veza will make that 10 times bigger towards the $80 billion mark.

“It provides a tremendous opportunity for everyone in the market,” he said.

“Then you think about the opportunity to have agentic capability running within our core TX workflows for example that many of you are involved in.

He added, “Think about the industry capabilities that we have, whether it's in the CRM area, whether it's in the telco, whether it's in the public sector, whether it's in financial services.

“There's a tremendous opportunity for the partners and t's only possible with the support of everyone in this room.”