Bulletins

Bill McDermott reunites with Qualtrics

A deal with ServiceNow also highlights Qualtrics's growing independence.

Bill McDermott reunites with Qualtrics

The initiative is intriguing for enterprise watchers.

Image: ServiceNow

Free from SAP's constraints, Qualtrics is launching a new suite of products with ServiceNow aimed at helping enterprises better gauge and use employee and customer feedback.

The initiative is intriguing for enterprise watchers for another reason: It brings ServiceNow's Bill McDermott and Qualtrics founder Ryan Smith back together. Combined with ServiceNow's workflow management software, the joint offerings could enable IT teams to better poll employees on how satisfied they are with internal applications.

In 2018, under McDermott's reign, SAP purchased Qualtrics for $8 billion, the largest deal in the company's history. McDermott left to be ServiceNow CEO in 2019.

Then, in 2020, former SAP co-CEO Jennifer Morgan departed, leaving a major vacancy in U.S. leadership for the German software firm. Smith pushed for a change and Qualtrics underwent an IPO in January that valued the data analytics firm at $24 billion; SAP still retains a controlling stake.

Joe Williams

Joe Williams is a writer-at-large at Protocol. He previously covered enterprise software for Protocol, Bloomberg and Business Insider. Joe can be reached at JoeWilliams@Protocol.com. To share information confidentially, he can also be contacted on a non-work device via Signal (+1-309-265-6120) or JPW53189@protonmail.com.

servicenowqualtricsbill mcdermott
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