Constellation Connected Enterprise 2017: Day Two Recap

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Chris Kanaracus is managing editor of Constellation Insights.  Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members.  Prior to joining Constellation, Kanaracus spent seven years covering the enterprise software industry for IDG News Service, where he frequently broke exclusive stories with a focus on end-customer issues. Kanaracus has also held various managerial and reporting roles at newspapers in New England since 1998. Twitter: @chriskanaracus , Title: Big IdeasConstellation Insights Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members. ...

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Constellation's Connected Enterprise 2017 event continued on Thursday at the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay, with a series of panels and special guests exploring the implications of emerging technology from a variety of industry perspectives. Here's a look at some of the brightest ideas shared onstage.

The future of retail, customer service and personalization:

Today, the key to customer service is delivering it before it's even requested. Comcast understands now more than ever what is happening with its customers, said VP Martin Marcincyzk. The cable provider's instrumentation lets staff know things like when customers are running speed tests because their connections are slower than they'd like. "Instead of them calling us, we can fix it behind the scenes," he said. "Our first goal is to self-heal the network. If we can't, then we want to go out and provide some self-service options for them to fix it on their own."

Meanwhile, MGM Resorts is in a unique position, in that it delivers a common service—hospitality—but in multiple locations and experiences across its Las Vegas properties, said Steve Schnur, executive director of merchandise planning and retail systems: "We have a different customer in every property every day." One might be there for a conference, another for a casual leisure vacation, and a third for a wild bachelorette party, Schnur noted. "Understanding who is there and why they're there is important to me." 

An MGM retail store has flippable shelving. On a given morning, as trade show attendees stream toward a keynote hall, a shelf may hold pastry and coffees. But at night, as revelers head out to clubs, those same shelves might be flashing an array of mini liquor bottles. "You have to get the supply chain to understand who the guest is," Schnur said. "It's different every day, it's different every week."

Government 2.0:

Historically, government services have been delivered on a local level, agency to citizen in a human interaction-driven manner. In the digital age, that's not always the case, noted David Bray, executive director of the People-Centered Internet. ""The world we're going to is one where geography might be moot," said Bray, a former CIO at the Federal Communications Commission. The packet latency between Washington, D.C. and a midwestern state is seconds, "not four days on horseback," he said.

As governments move more services online, however, it's important to take all citizens along for the ride. "There is a lot of bias when it comes to technology and data," said Teresa Shea Booher, program analyst at the National Institutes of Health. "With older Americans, health is one of the biggest costs we have," Shea said. While telehealth is rapidly coming into vogue, "are older people using it," she asked. "No they're not. How do we get those people to understand and adopt it?"

Government could also learn something from the consumer web when it comes to e-services, Booher added. "It would be great to have Yelp reviews for government offices," she said. "There's something to be said about public-facing feedback. If people say you suck, you're going to want to do something about it."

Big data, bad decisions:

The rise of big data analytics has given enterprises a powerful toolbox for running operations, serving customers and coming up with new business models. But tools are inanimate objects that still require savvy thinking, as Tricia Wang, CEO of Sudden Compass said during a keynote. "Companies can often succeed at innovation but still fail miserably at decision-making," she said.

Consulting firms often perpetuate the idea that innovation can simply be bought, and that's a dangerous notion, she added: "The idea of throwing more resources at innovation is seductive, because it's like saying innovation at the end of the day is a transaction, something you can purchase."

While corporate R&D spending is now $680 billion annually, other statistics show that ROI on R&D spend is on the decline. "It seems like no matter how much we pour into innovation we keep falling short," Wang said.

The self-driving era's potential:

It would be a mistake to view self-driving vehicles as merely a means toward convenience, in the view of Evangelos Simoudis of Synapse Partners. Simoudis has authored a new book in which he lays out a series of implications for autonomous vehicles, such as new OEM business models for predictive maintenance, intelligent feature packaging and tailored financing; connected services for intelligent road infrastructure, public transit, hazard and disaster mitigation; and fleet services, with dynamic freight pricing, driver behavior analysis and other offerings.

Over-the-air software updates for autonomous vehicles will deliver far more than bug fixes and new platform features, Simoudis noted. OTA also means new opportunities for commercialization, such as the enablement of one-time features and capabilities, whether for consumer vehicles or commercial fleets.

Autonomous vehicles are close to reality. You can expect the presence of them on highways in certain locations sometime next year, said Andrew Dondlinger, VP and general manager of connected services at truck and engine manufacturer Navistar. Human drivers will have a role in an autonomous trucking world, such as by handling last-mile deliveries after autonomous trucks arrive at regional depots after long highway drives, he added.

The future of marketing:

"Marketing and marketers are at the forefront of digital transformation," said Loni Stark, senior director of strategy at Adobe. "It's driven by individual behaviors. The challenge is how to be more relevant and personal, to be able to deliver the right content to a person at the moment they need it."

In exchange for real value, consumers will engage with brands at a deep level, noted Sameer Patel, CEO of marketing automation startup Kahuna. "You're willing to tell Uber where you live and where you are now," he said.

Going forward, marketing is neither an art or a science, but rather a craft, Patel added. "It was an art when we didn't have the science, and you couldn't say whether it was wrong or right," he said. "We swung to the other end of pendulum when it became data-driven."

Today, effective marketing is all about taking the answers generated by digital systems, while using one's wiles and instincts to create the best customer experience, Patel said. "The best marketers will be craftspeople."