Signed a technology partnership agreement with ServiceNow for the integration of "UPWARD" and "Now Platform".

(Head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Ryusuke Kaneki; hereinafter "UPWARD"), whose mission is to "Innovate the Last Mile at the Worksite," announced today that it has signed a partnership agreement with ServiceNow Japan GK (Head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Masatoshi Suzuki; hereinafter "ServiceNow"), which provides the "Now Platform", as a technology partner on March 23, 2023. (Head Office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Masatoshi Suzuki; hereinafter referred to as "ServiceNow"), a provider of the "Now Platform," as a technology partner. Through this partnership, the two companies will seamlessly link customer touchpoint information obtained from field sales and field service through UPWARD to the "Now Platform," which enables enterprise digital workflows to be built on a single platform. In addition, UPWARD will be able to provide new functions that have been refined for on-site UX (user experience) to "Customer Service Management (CSM)," which integrally manages and optimizes customer service and its processes. In addition, UPWARD will be able to provide new functions that have been refined for on-site UX (user experience) to "Customer Service Management (CSM)," which integrates and optimizes customer service and its processes.

Background

UPWARD provides "UPWARD" as a sales engagement service that transforms CRM into on-site sales force, and has supported the digital transformation approximately 400 sales companies, mainly major corporations. Using "UPWARD," salespeople can report their activities through smartphones and tablet terminals without any burden by using UPWARD's unique technology of "automatic stay log detection" (patented *1), and customer touchpoint information is stored in the CRM platform and visualized on a map. In addition, customer touchpoint information is stored in the CRM platform and can be visualized and utilized on a map, enabling optimal next actions to be taken. In addition, there are cases, mainly in the manufacturing industry, where "UPWARD" is used for field services such as providing after-sales service to customers and maintenance work, and there are also customer needs to integrate and utilize data from multiple customer touchpoint. This time, we found an opportunity in the "Now Platform" provided by ServiceNow and the "Customer Service Management (CSM)" framework as a platform to utilize customer touchpoint data collected from field operations. The partnership agreement was concluded to deliver the value of UPWARD more effectively to salespeople who are in contact with customers on a daily basis, rounders who conduct market research, and field service operations that perform maintenance and upkeep, going beyond the traditional CRM domain.

Partnership Overview

In January 2023, UPWARD joined the "Build Partner Program", one of the partnership programs operated by ServiceNow. In the future, UPWARD will promote the development of services and app that promote digital transformation starting from field operations through the collaboration between UPWARD and the Now Platform. (Examples of future development functions) When sales and rounders visit a customer, problems or irregularities that need to be addressed are linked from "UPWARD" to ServiceNow's "Customer Service Management (CSM)" and automatically reported as a "case," leading to immediate investigation and countermeasures for the problem. The work performed by CSM is sequentially shared to "UPWARD," contributing to improved productivity and customer satisfaction both onsite and among internal staff. Product information (FAQs, specifications, troubleshooting, etc.) managed by "CSM" is linked from "CSM" to "UPWARD" whenever necessary, enabling rapid information sharing from in-house to on-site salespeople and field service personnel and realizing preventive maintenance.

About "ServiceNow" and "Customer Service Management (CSM)

ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) creates new, value-added work that only people can do. The company's cloud-based platform and solutions provide digital workflows that create a superior experience and increase productivity for both employees and businesses. The company also advocates Customer Service Management (CSM), a concept that orchestrates activities between customers, customer service, middle-office staff, operations teams, back-office departments, and IT groups in order to respond quickly and thoroughly to customers' various questions and requests. (CSM) as a way to orchestrate activities between customers, customer service, middle-office staff, operations teams, back-office departments, and IT groups. For more information, please visit https://www.servicenow.co.jp/.

Yuji Kitahara, Executive Officer, General Manager, Alliance Business Division, ServiceNow Japan G.K., comments

ServiceNow Japan is pleased to announce its partnership with UPWARD. The ability to quickly understand the situation in the field and to provide appropriate feedback from within the company to the field has been a challenge in the digital transformation the last one mile. We are confident that the integration of our strengths in digital workflow and field sales and field service operations through the collaboration of the two companies' products is in line with our philosophy of "Customer First" and will enable us to provide even better services to our customers. We will continue to strengthen our technical support in order to accelerate the development of the linked app so that we can deliver concrete services to our customers by the end of 2023.

Masaki ishida, executive officer, coo, business group general manager, upward co.

We are honored to join ServiceNow's Technology Partner Program. UPWARD's mission is to "Innovate the Last Mile in the Field" and we have been enhancing our functionality with a focus on the UX of field sales. We look forward to delivering value to field services through our integration with the Now Platform, which will enable us to digital transformationthe entire field operations.

Note 1: UPWARD granted patent for "automatic detection of stay log " (announced on October 29, 2021)