What if those partners that are scrambling for fill billable roles on projects could “borrow” them from those with non-billable bench?
The cost of this inefficiency runs in the billions (my back-of-the-napkin is > $5B annually) as we consider the direct costs of non-billable bench, coupled with the indirect costs that under-utilization and over-utilization incur not only to ServiceNow partners, but ServiceNow customers and even ServiceNow itself. For context, ServiceNow’s reported fiscal 2025 total revenue was about $13.28B.
While it’s not currently possible to quantify all ~1450 partners’ benches vs. talent shortages, there is no doubt that a more efficient reallocation of bench across partners would greatly reduce perceived labor/talent shortages and greatly reduce this unnecessarily high financial burden on everything ServiceNow.
Most partners that find themselves scrambling for resources are doing things “the old way”, which means:
a) We’ll hire more FTEs and hope we can keep them busy when this project need ends;
b) We’ll try to find an agency contractor or freelancer that fills the gap;
c) We’ll try to find another partner that has this expertise;
d) We’ll take a swing at the project need with some bench, even though that bench does not have the experience/expertise to perform that work. “It will be a great learning experience…”.
Most partners that are dealing with bench are also doing things the old way:
a) Hang on to those non-billable resources, patiently waiting for that sales pipeline to rescue them while the profitability of that practice slowly erodes.
b) Reduction in force or “lay-off”, which means those valuable resources that were invested heavily in now likely get absorbed “for free” by another partner.
The above scenarios happen far too often every single day in the ServiceNow partner ecosystem.
ServiceNow is keenly aware of these challenges because they directly impact ServiceNow’s bottom line. All of these challenges have negative consequences to include unnecessarily high services/implementation costs (inflating ServiceNow TCO), quality and CSAT issues which can lead to less/slower ACV-driving software sales and even de-books.
I recently posted about ServiceNow taking steps to encourage more partner:partner collaboration by establishing a means for partners operating in subcontractor mode to receive 3C credit for the projects they participate in (see the latest version of your partner program guide for details).
I’ve also discussed the “why” in terms of why ServiceNow partners are more likely to need to collaborate and why, strategically, they should.
Today I’d like to explore the logistics of “how” ServiceNow partners collaborate/subcontract with each other in such a way that a) it’s easy and b) it’s safe.
I’ve organized this by the Top 4 objections that I hear from ServiceNow partners concerned about partner:partner collaboration.
1. Why would I help my competitor be successful? Don’t I need my competitors to fail so I can succeed?
2. How can I trust my partner? Won’t they steal my IP, my customer or my employees?
3. How can I quickly engage another partner without Legal bogging us down?
4. How do I handle the friction-causing complexities of contracts, billing and invoicing?
1. Why would I help my competitor be successful? Don’t I need my competitors to fail so I can succeed?
Look, this isn’t a boxing match where one party’s success is dependent upon another party’s failure. The ServiceNow ecosystem consists of many partners that are operating wildly healthy, growing businesses. However, no partner has optimized billable utilization, quality and quantity while ensuring they are fully enabling customer journeys and ServiceNow’s strategic objectives.
The ServiceNow ecosystem is a growing, thriving and evolving entity that is better served by partners that exploit synergies vs trying to avoid inadvertently helping each other out.
Do partners often compete for the same business? Of course. But are there many scenarios where partner:partner collaboration on a project would be in the best interest of all parties? Absolutely!
Every ServiceNow partner faces the same challenges of trying to operate as leanly as possible while meeting all their other objectives regarding growth, quality, etc. No partner has completely optimized their partner:partner collaboration. At best, they operate with a few trusted partners, with “few” meaning that the widest net is not always cast when trying to map the right resources to the right opportunity at the right rate at the right time.
Billfly is a purpose-built platform that enables all ServiceNow partner subscribers to anonymously post their short-term job needs (skills gaps) for other ServiceNow partner and freelancer subscribers to submit their resources to. It casts the widest possible net in a confidential and democratized manner so that all parties get a fair and equal shot at getting assistance on projects or getting non-billable resources productive.
2. How can I trust my partner?
Trust is a big factor when partnering with anyone for any reason. Throw in the fact that we’re talking about partnering with a potential competitor, trust anxiety becomes magnified. This is especially true in the areas of Confidentiality (don’t steal our IP!), Non-compete (don’t steal our customers!) and Non-solicit (don’t steal our employees!).
As always, you’ll want to make sure these trust areas are explicitly called out in your contracts/sub-contracts.
Billfly addresses these areas for our subscribers as follows:
a. We provide template MSAs and SOWs that are tuned to subcontracting so the above areas are addressed. These are completely optional but at minimum might serve as a means to beef up your existing contracts.
b. Uniquely, while Billfly is not a party to contracts between subscribers, the Billfly Subscriber Agreement binds subscribers to honoring Confidentiality, Non-compete and Non-solicit obligations between parties. This means that if a party decides to violate these terms, Billfly can (and most likely will) terminate the offending party’s subscription and access to the platform. My hope is that Billfly becomes such a valuable tool in a typical partner’s resource management toolbox, they’ll not make poor, short-sighted decisions that lead to their loss of this valuable resource.
In short, Billfy provides the content but also adds an additional, powerful enforcement layer. Key areas of concern that were traditionally addressed bilaterally are now trilateral on the Billfly platform.
3. How can I quickly engage another partner without Legal bogging us down?
How often have you experienced a Legal review of an agreement resulting in “yep, that’s perfect as-is, no revisions needed!”. In my personal experience running a ServiceNow practice for 12 years, I think I can say just about zero. And every time that attorney or analyst marks up even one word, it goes back to the other Legal department for yet another round and the Legal ping-pong continues until everyone is either so exhausted with the process they give up/given in, or the deal simply dies on the vine.
The above is an absolute killer in the world of subcontracting and many a deal dies in Legal. For subcontracting and partner collaboration to be effective in the ServiceNow ecosystem, it must move with speed and agility, and Legal harmony is a must-have.
Legal is absolutely critical and here at Billfly I certainly have our attorneys author and review our contracts. However, if your company determines that partner:partner collaboration and subcontracting will be an explicit, deliberate part of your business strategy, then Legal should be proactively engaged in the partner collaboration planning process and policy/guardrails should be established accordingly.
Almost everything in business is based on calculated risk and risk can almost never be completely mitigated away. So, if key areas of concern can be mitigated with reasonable and proportional liability caps, insurance requirements and other factors in advance, much time can be saved.
At Billfly we do provide standardized contracts, but we will soon be introducing the notion of “Fastract”, which means that subscribers can review and approve the standard contracts in advance. Once approved, subscribers are enrolled in Fastract and receive a special badge signifying their participation. This means that any jobs posted will show this designation, and any resources submitted to these jobs where that partner is also enrolled will also show this designation. As subscribers review job postings and contemplate assigning their resources to job postings, they’ll be able to factor this criteria into evaluating matches. If a particular job post by a Fastract subscriber is urgent, one can assume that they will prioritize those resource submittals that are also Fastract subscribers so as to eliminate the legal friction associated with a custom contract.
Bringing together key business and Legal stakeholders strategically to align on particulars of subcontracting and risk mitigation will drastically impact the success of any partnering posture. Legal mitigation must be proportionate to the risk! I’m no lawyer but there has to come a point where the juice is simply not worth the squeeze if we’re going to have two highly expensive Legal departments trying to completely indemnify each other for a $20k deal.
4. How do I handle the friction-causing complexities of contracts, billing and invoicing?
I’ve covered contracts above and organizations that are thoughtful, serious and strategic about partner collaboration will take advantage of Fastract where possible, else employ specialized practices and tools to accelerate proactive Legal review and approval of contracts executed via Billfly.
Billing with Billfly is also as simple as weekly timecard submittals on-platform and leveraging the platform to roll these timecards into monthly invoices from Sub to Prime. Prime pays Sub via normal company accounting practices. Billfly invoices Prime a small percentage of Sub billables to collect the Billfly fee, which is the only fee related to Subscriber use of the Billfy platform.
Final Thought
Partner:Partner collaboration in the ServiceNow ecosystem has gradually moved into the realm of business imperative given the technical breadth/depth of the platform coupled with the broadening and deeper degree to which organizations across all industries and domains increasingly rely on ServiceNow-enabled solutions.
Partner:Partner collaboration is certainly not a requirement for every partner for every project or every scenario. It is however a key means to optimize outcomes for many partners for many projects and scenarios, and today that path is not taken enough due to the friction points I’ve discussed here. I hope I’ve offered some practical business advice that can be applied with or without Billfly and hope that if you are a partner not subscribed to Billfly today, that you’ll consider it as the first ever partner:partner collaboration solution.