EXFO Partners with ServiceNow to Transform Telecommunications Industry with End-to-End Network Visibility

QUEBEC CITY — December 17, 2020 — EXFO Inc. (NASDAQ: EXFO, TSX: EXF), the communications industry’s test, monitoring and analytics experts, today announced it has joined the ServiceNow Partner Program to jointly address the digital transformation needs of communications service providers (CSPs). By bringing its industry-unique topology modelling solution, Nova Context, to the ServiceNow marketplace, CSPs can align and integrate disparate data systems, optimize data accuracy, and establish relationships between network, service, and subscribers to power automation and deliver a seamless, proactive customer experience.

By providing a ‘single source of truth’ with dynamic topology and federated inventory, EXFO and ServiceNow will empower CSPs with uniform, seamless visibility and data integrity across multi-domain, multi-technology, multi-vendor networks and systems. Nova Context can be rapidly deployed and easily configured allowing operators to unify and automate data systems in a matter of weeks¹, overcoming the typical years-long process.

ServiceNow customers and partners can now integrate NOVA Context into their ServiceNow solutions to help solve vexing operational challenges that would otherwise be slow and inefficient without an integrated, aligned data model. Nova Context has increased data accuracy to over 98% at tier-one CSPs and has helped increase automation efficiency from 50-60% success rates to over 90% in nationwide U.S. deployments.²

“To survive and thrive in today’s environment, CSPs must deliver a robust, proactive customer experience while automating service assurance. Visibility across the network is critical to make this a reality,” said Rohit Batra, head of telecommunications, media & technology product at ServiceNow. “By combining the deep industry expertise of EXFO with our service-aware CMDB, digital workflows, and advanced automation capabilities, we are providing the visibility that these organizations need in order to digitally transform and meet the needs of the modern customer.”

“By working with ServiceNow, we are empowering CSPs to realize their goal of digital transformation. Enabling them to simplify the migration and management of siloed legacy, current, and future data estates into the ServiceNow Now Platform, and, importantly, ensuring that the data is accurate and reconciled,” said Claudio Mazzuca. Vice President, Strategic Partners and Alliances at EXFO. “The combination of EXFO’s Nova Context network modelling solution and ServiceNow’s platform provides unique capabilities to address the complex business process and data requirements of digital transformation at speed and scale.”

About EXFO

EXFO (NASDAQ: EXFO) (TSX: EXF) develops smarter test, monitoring and analytics solutions for fixed and mobile network operators, webscale companies and equipment manufacturers in the global communications industry. Our customers count on us to deliver superior network performance, service reliability and subscriber insights. They count on our unique blend of equipment, software and services to accelerate digital transformations related to fiber, 4G/LTE and 5G deployments. They count on our expertise with automation, real-time troubleshooting and big data analytics, which are critical to their business performance. We’ve spent over 30 years earning this trust, and EXFO employees in over 25 countries work side by side with our customers in the lab, field, data center and beyond.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and we intend that such forward-looking statements be subject to the safe harbors created thereby. Forward-looking statements are statements other than historical information or statements of current condition. Words such as may, expect, believe, plan, anticipate, intend, could, estimate, continue, or similar expressions or the negative of such expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events and circumstances are considered forward-looking statements. They are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements due to various factors including, but not limited to, macroeconomic uncertainty, namely the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on our employees, customers and global operations, including the ability of our suppliers to fulfil raw material requirements and services and our ability to manufacture and deliver our products and services to our customers; the effects of emergency measures related to isolation periods for individuals in affected areas, lockdown restrictions imposed by national governments on businesses in countries where we operate and have employees, and limitations on travel to attract new customers and serve existing ones; deteriorating financial and market conditions as well as a potential recession; trade wars, and our ability to successfully integrate businesses that we acquire; capital spending and network deployment levels in the communications industry (including our ability to quickly adapt cost structures to anticipated levels of business and our ability to manage inventory levels with market demand); future economic, competitive, financial and market conditions; consolidation in the global communications test, monitoring and analytics solutions markets and increased competition among vendors; capacity to adapt our future product offering to future technological changes; limited visibility with regard to the timing and nature of customer orders; delay in revenue recognition due to longer sales cycles for complex systems involving customers’ acceptance; fluctuating exchange rates; concentration of sales; timely release and market acceptance of our new products and other upcoming products; our ability to successfully expand international operations and to conduct business internationally; and the retention of key technical and management personnel. Assumptions relating to the foregoing involve judgments and risks, all of which are difficult or impossible to predict and many of which are beyond our control. Other risk factors that may affect our future performance and operations are detailed in our Annual Report, on Form 20-F, and our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Canadian securities commissions. We believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable based on information currently available to us, but we cannot assure you that the expectations will prove to have been correct. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. These statements speak only as of the date of this document. Unless required by law or applicable regulations, we undertake no obligation to revise or update any of them to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date of this document.

For information:

Vance Oliver
Director, Investor Relations
(418) 683-0913, ext. 23733
vance.oliver@exfo.com

CCgroup, for EXFO:
Wilf Collins
+44 7719 989 444
Chloe Pope
+44 7741 242 227
exfo@ccgrouppr.com

 

^{1 EXFO analysis of customer Tier 1 deployments.
2 EXFO analysis of customer Tier 1 deployments.}