One of the challenges that manufacturing companies have is point solutions—they have so many of them, and they have many legacy ways of working.
Amid ongoing geopolitical tensions, shifting trade policies, and uncertainty around rising tariffs, manufacturers are navigating a more complex and uncertain operating environment than ever before. As a result, the pressure to digitize and drive efficiency has intensified—making the automation of Manufacturing Commercial Operations (MCO) a strategic imperative for resilience and growth.
Strategic acquisition: To bolster its MCO offering, ServiceNow recently acquired Quality 360, a solution that was developed by IT services provider Advania. Advania built Quality 360 specifically to assist its manufacturing customers who were using the ServiceNow platform. The acquisition represents a significant step in ServiceNow's commitment to empowering manufacturers with proactive, data‑driven insights to address end‑to‑end quality issues while cutting down on operational costs and risks.
Krister Olsson is International Sales Director at Advania, and Elliot West is Head of Application Development, Transformation & Automation, also at Advania. We spoke to them about Quality 360—what the solution does and why ServiceNow chose to integrate it into its MCO offering.
"Quality 360 completes the manufacturing commercial operations offering in a significant way," Olsson explains. "MCO is built on customer service management, taking in quality cases and enabling action on quality issues. We believe it's a core process for ServiceNow's manufacturing vertical."
Addressing industry fragmentation: The acquisition aims to solve long standing challenges in manufacturing: "One of the challenges that manufacturing companies have is point solutions—they have so many of them, and they have many legacy ways of working," notes West.
Olsson reinforces this observation: "Sometimes they're world-class and sometimes they operate like they're in the 80s, depending on which department or which part of manufacturing you're examining. Quality is a complex process that we believe is often overlooked."
ServiceNow's platform approach offers a solution to this fragmentation. "ServiceNow can be the dominant platform for manufacturing companies to handle all quality cases," Olsson states. "You can also integrate it with risk management and strategic portfolio management to get the full picture around quality."
The increasing uncertainty is actually a positive trend. Companies, organizations, and individuals need to make decisions regardless of uncertainty. Digitalization is here now. They need to take action.
Improving quality through AI: The acquisition's value is significantly enhanced by ServiceNow's AI capabilities, which can help transform quality management processes. "With ServiceNow's quality AI capability, machine learning makes root cause analysis much easier for large manufacturers," says Olsson.
West elaborates on the AI applications: "It can happen in two ways. One is through generative AI. The ability to summarize actions that have taken place on a quality issue and reduce the back-and-forth between R&D and support teams is going to be incredibly useful."
He adds, "The other approach is using AI for similarity analysis. Identifying which products are causing the most issues, predicting future problems—that kind of analysis is going to be absolutely paramount."
Knowledge management also stands to benefit: "When you solve an issue in a certain way, you want to ensure that if it happens again, you follow the same practice. By adding an AI layer, you can have knowledge articles automatically written by the AI," West explains.
Future outlook: Advania, having developed Quality 360 without the initial intention of selling it to ServiceNow, plans to continue its focus on the manufacturing vertical. "We will continue to operate in this space and develop new applications, not in quality specifically, but within this region and vertical," says Olsson. "We work with many well-known Swedish global companies like Scania and Assa Abloy. This represents a strategic position for us."
Uncertainty can't stop progress: Both executives note that uncertainty is becoming the new normal in terms of geopolitics and even AI, requiring decisive action from organizations.
"The increasing uncertainty is actually a positive trend," Olsson states. "Companies, organizations, and individuals need to make decisions regardless of uncertainty. Digitalization is here now. They need to take action."
West concludes with a cautionary note about data readiness: "People are realizing they need to get their operations in order. You need to get your data structured properly because without that foundation, you'll never be able to take advantage of all this impressive technology."
