NOWServiceNow, Inc.

ServiceNow sells a platform that automates a company's internal processes — tickets, approvals and service delivery.

Starting from IT service requests, the company extended the same mechanics to human resources, legal and finance: one system for tickets, approval routes and working procedures. The product is sold to large organisations by subscription, takes a long time to deploy, and then embeds itself in processes deeply enough that replacing it becomes a multi-year project.

That gives revenue two characteristics: very high contract renewal, and growth driven less by new customers than by expansion within existing ones. Investors read the net expansion figure as the primary indicator of business health.

The current direction is AI assistants that resolve requests without a human and are sold as a higher subscription tier. The risk is price: the platform is expensive, and when budgets tighten customers postpone expansion, which shows up in growth immediately.