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🐂 NOW — Company Profile (Educational)

Educational site, not investment advice. Market cap / stock price / quarterly numbers change quickly, so we don't write them. Use SEC + Yahoo Finance links below to check current data.

📌 Basic Info

Field Value Source
Primary business Enterprise IT workflow / ITSM SaaS leader — Now Platform + AI agent (Now Assist) embedded in employee workflows 10-K FY25
Founded / HQ 2003 (as GlideSoft, renamed 2006) / Santa Clara, California, USA wiki
CEO Bill McDermott (joined 2019/11, former SAP CEO) DEF 14A 2026
Primary listing NYSE: NOW —
Fiscal year Calendar year (Jan 1 - Dec 31) SEC EDGAR

💡 Real-time market cap / share price / RPO / Now Assist ACV: see SEC primary + IR links below

🏭 Industry Chain Coordinates (Part 1-C6 framework)

Upstream (Who NOW depends on)

Supplier What flows Key dependency
MSFT (Azure) / AMZN (AWS) Primary IaaS (NOW runs on hyperscalers) multi-cloud
OpenAI / Anthropic / in-house training LLM models (Now Assist backend + embedded GenAI workflows) API + some in-house training
Snowflake (SNOW) / various SaaS vendors Data integration (Now Platform cross-system orchestration) ecosystem partnerships

Downstream (Who depends on NOW)

Customer What flows Concentration
Fortune 500 + global enterprises (across industries) IT workflow / Service Operations / HR / customer service long-tail diversification; top customer ARR share limited
U.S. + global governments Government IT workflow + ITSM government vertical is a growth engine
Large financial institutions Risk + compliance workflow high-margin vertical

Competitors

  • ITSM (direct): Atlassian Jira Service Management (TEAM) · BMC Helix (PE-owned) · IBM (IBM) · Cherwell
  • AI agent / Workflow: CRM Agentforce · MSFT Copilot Studio · startups (Sierra / Decagon)
  • HR / People workflow: Workday (WDAY) · SAP (SAP) SuccessFactors · Oracle (ORCL) HCM
  • Cross-enterprise platform concept: CRM Platform · MSFT Power Platform

💼 Business Model + Value Capture (Part 1-C7 lens)

  • Revenue mix: Subscription ~98% / Professional Services ~2%; by region: NA ~60%+ / EMEA / APAC; by vertical: IT ~50%, employee + customer + risk etc. comprising the long tail
  • Gross margin: GAAP ~78%+; non-GAAP operating margin 30%+
  • Pricing power: Per-seat + Now Assist add-on; multi-year commitments from top enterprises — strong
  • Replacement difficulty: Very high — customer cross-system workflow integration (CMDB / ITSM / HR cross-platform) means 5+ year switch

(For quarterly cRPO growth / Now Assist ACV / customer count, see latest SEC 10-Q)

🏰 Moat Assessment (Part 3-C2 Buffett 5-step lens)

Type Strength (0-1) Reasoning
Brand 0.7 In enterprise IT circles, ServiceNow = ITSM standard
Switching cost 0.9 CMDB + deeply integrated cross-system workflow, 5+ year switch
Network effect 0.5 Store + ISV ecosystem + developer community (weaker than CRM)
Scale + cost 0.7 Global enterprise IT sales network + Now Platform across verticals

Total: 2.8 / 4 → very strong moat (similar to CRM but more IT-focused vertical)

⚠️ Key Invalidation Triggers (Part 3-C5 anti-thesis lens)

Monitor; if triggered, re-evaluate thesis:

  • Trigger 1 (quarterly): cRPO YoY growth < 15% (historical ~20%+)
  • Trigger 2 (event): Major customer publicly switches to MSFT Power Platform + Copilot
  • Trigger 3 (annual): Now Assist ACV growth below expectations — AI agent paradigm underdelivers
  • Trigger 4 (medium probability): Per-seat → outcome-based pricing transition stalls
  • Trigger 5 (low probability): MSFT deeply bundles Power Platform + Copilot Studio with Azure top customers → NOW loses IT decision-making

📚 SEC Primary Public Filings (DYOR)

Live quote: Yahoo Finance NOW

Educational · Numbers change, the method does not · Make investment decisions based on your own research + risk tolerance