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It will take a virtual village

It will take a virtual village

Steve Wilson
Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Steve Wilson is former VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, leading the business theme Digital Safety and Privacy. His coverage includes digital identity, data protection, data privacy, cryptography, and trust. His advisory services to CIOs, CISOs, CPOs and IT architects include identity product strategy, security practice benchmarking, Privacy by Design (PbD), privacy engineering and Privacy [or Data Protection] Impact Assessments (PIA, DPIA). Coverage Areas: -  Identity management, frameworks & governance-  Digital identity technologies-  Privacy by Design -  Big Data; “Big Privacy”-  Identity & privacy innovation Previous experience: Wilson has worked in ICT innovation, research, development and analysis for over 25 years. With double…...

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In "We are hopelessly hooked" (New York Review of Books, February 25), political historian Jacob Weisberg canvasses the social impact of digital technology. He describes mobile and social media as “self-depleting and antisocial” but I would prefer different-social, not merely for the vernacular but because the new media's sadder side is a lot like what's gone before.

In reviewing four recent contributions to the field - from Sherry Turkle, Joseph Reagle and Nir Eyal - Weisberg dwells in various ways on the twee dichotomy of experience online and off.  For many of us, the distinction between digital and "IRL" (the sardonic abbreviation of "in real life") is becoming entirely arbitrary, which I like to show through an anecdote.
 
I was a mid-career technology researcher and management consultant when I joined Twitter in 2009. It quickly supplanted all my traditional newsfeeds and bulletin boards, by connecting me to individuals who I came to trust to pass on what really mattered.  More slowly, I curated my circles, built up a following, and came to enjoy the recognition that would ordinarily come from regular contact, if the travel was affordable from far flung Australia.  By 2013 I had made it as a member of the “identerati” – a loose international community of digital identity specialists.  Thus, on my first trip to the US in many years, I scored a cherished invitation to a private pre-conference party with 50 or so of these leaders. 

On the night, as I made my way through unfamiliar San Francisco streets, I had butterflies.  I had met just one of my virtual colleagues face-to-face. How would I be received “IRL”? The answer turned out to be: effortlessly.  Not one person asked the obvious question – Steve, tell us about yourself! – for everyone knew me already.  And this surprising ease wasn’t just about skipping formalities; I found we had genuine intimacy from years of sharing and caring, all on Twitter. 

Weisberg quotes Joseph Reagle in "Reading the Comments..." looking for “intimate serendipity” in successful online communities.  It seems both authors are overlooking how serendipity catalyses all human relationships.  It’s always something random that turns acquaintances into friends. And happy accidents may be more frequent online, not in spite of all the noise but because of it.  We all live for chance happenings, and the much-derided Fear Of Missing Out is not specific to kids nor the Internet.  Down the generations, FOMO has always kept teenagers up past their bed time; but it’s also why we grown-ups outstay our welcome at dinner parties and hang out at dreary corporate functions. 

Weisberg considers Twitter’s decay into anarchy and despair to be inevitable, and he may be right, but is it simply for want of supervision?  We know sudden social decay all too well; just think of the terribly real-life “Lord of the Flies”. 

Sound moral bearings are set by good parents, good teachers, and – if we’re lucky – good peers.  At this point in history, parents and teachers are famously less adept than their charges in the new social medium, but this will change.  Digital decency will be better impressed on kids when all their important role models are online.  

It takes a village to raise a child. The main problem today is that virtual villages are still at version 1.0.

Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Marketing Transformation Marketing B2B B2C CX Customer Experience EX Employee Experience AI ML Generative AI Analytics Automation Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Growth eCommerce Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps Social Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Chief Customer Officer Chief People Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Marketing Officer

How Ensono Used Workday Finance And HR Cloud To Innovate And Save Money

How Ensono Used Workday Finance And HR Cloud To Innovate And Save Money

R "Ray" Wang
Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

R “Ray” Wang is the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and blogs at www.raywang.org. His ground-breaking best-selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray's new book about Digital Giants and the future of business, titled, Everybody Wants to Rule The World was released in July 2021. Wang is well-quoted and frequently interviewed by media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, and Bloomberg. Short Bio R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He…...

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One Integrated, Global System For Finance And HR Delivers Business Success

This case study examines Ensono’s experience implementing Workday’s HR and Finance enterprise applications in the cloud. Ensono provides infrastructure management services for global companies. Ensono delivers next-generation IT solutions and helps organizations plan for optimized, future infrastructures. By implementing Workday, Ensono was able to save millions of dollars by replacing many software systems with just one system, and received many other tangible benefits.

Ensono, which was part of Acxiom, is now a standalone infrastructure management partner. Formerly known as Acxiom IT, it selected a new name to cement its identity as a company capable of supporting clients well beyond the mainframe. The name Ensono is a derivation of the Zen concept “enso”, which refers to strength and creativity, and the Italian expression “in sogno” which means “in dreams.” Ensono’s culture is based on looking at challenges from many different angles to arrive at unprecedented solutions and make unexpected connections. As Acxiom IT was rebranding itself to become Ensono, signifying its commitment to be innovative and to deliver on the brand promise, the hybrid IT solution leader also wanted to solve some internal challenges

Learn how Enson saved $1 million a year through consolidation and elimination of legacy systems.

Click here to purchase the report

Your POV.

Are you ready to transform your ERP? Do you expect cost savings from an upgrade?  Will the shift to the cloud be in your future?  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

Please let us know if you need help with your Digital Business transformation efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

  • Developing your digital business strategy
  • Connecting with other pioneers
  • Sharing best practices
  • Vendor selection
  • Implementation partner selection
  • Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
  • Demystifying software licensing

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy,stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website. * Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions.  However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Copyright © 2001 – 2017 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.

Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience

The post Research Summary: How Ensono Used Workday Finance And HR Cloud To Innovate And Save Money appeared first on A Software Insider's Point of View.

 Future of Work Next-Generation Customer Experience Innovation & Product-led Growth workday Leadership Chief People Officer Chief Experience Officer

Oracle CEO Mark Hurd Weighs In on HCM, Cloud Competition

Oracle CEO Mark Hurd Weighs In on HCM, Cloud Competition

Chris Kanaracus
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 Insights

Oracle CEO Mark Hurd is generally a quotable guy, and came across no differently this week at Oracle's HCM World conference during keynotes and a session with press and analysts. Hurd took on a range of topics, from Oracle's philosophy around the HCM market to how it's competing with the likes of Amazon Web Services for infrastructure workloads. Here's a look at some of the highlights.

If you thought Oracle was only going after enterprise and midmarket customers with its HCM cloud, you'd be wrong, according to Hurd. In fact, "there is no customer too small we can't reach" with HCM cloud, he said during the opening keynote. Oracle's HCM cloud is growing three times as fast as its next closest competitor, he added, although not specifying whether that was Workday or SAP.

Oracle is learning how to do HCM better by that old standby: Dogfooding its own products. The company has 140,000 employees now and recruits about 20,000 per year. It's a highly complex process made harder by the fact Oracle is seeking out top technical talent in high demand, Hurd said. It also places great emphasis on training, particularly given the sizable numbers of workers it's been recruiting straight out of college.

Training extends to the management layer as well, in a crucial way, Hurd added. "People don't typically leave companies. They leave managers." There are 18,000 managers at Oracle today.

As a result, Oracle is battle-testing its HCM suite as much as any company could, he said. However, as he noted: "[HCM] is not an app. It's a strategy, it's a process."

Going back to the early days of Fusion Applications, Oracle has pushed a "co-existence" strategy, wherein customers with ample on-premises software implementations are encouraged to adopt cloud-based, complementary modules at their own pace. Hurd continued this messaging at HCM World, noting that PeopleSoft 9.2, which was initially released four years ago, saw many customers choose to undergo the on-premises upgrade. But those same customers have been adding cloud HCM apps to their mix, he added.

Oracle has been seeing HCM deals come together as add-ons to its cloud ERP sales, Hurd said. Fifty percent of Oracle's cloud ERP customers never had an Oracle ERP system before, and the deals are largely being driven by CFOs, he added.

While the event focused on applications, Hurd discussed Oracle's foray into IaaS (infrastructure as a service) during a session with analysts and press. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that while Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google collectively had more than $31 billion in capital expenditures last year, of which the bulk presumably went toward data center development. In contrast, Oracle had $1.7 billion in capex last year. 

Asked about the disparity, particularly when one considers how far behind those IaaS market leaders Oracle is at present, Hurd replied 

"It's an such an interesting thesis that whoever has the most capex wins," he said. Oracle's Gen2 data center infrastructure is so efficient that Oracle doesn't need to build out as much raw data center real estate as the competition, Hurd contended.

MyPOV: Hurd's job is to drive Oracle cloud sales and with HCM, the messaging needs to de-emphasize technical matters and focus on business value. Judging from Hurd and other Oracle executives' presentations at HCM World, they are succeeding.

It was also notable how much Oracle put HCM customers, and not corporate spokespeople, on the stage to discuss their projects. Oracle even launched an HCM customer innovation award program at the event, honoring dozens of companies spanning a wide variety of industries. Underscoring the human element, Hurd noted how important customer references are when it comes to HCM sales. "Customers would rather buy from another customer than from us."

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Future of Work Tech Optimization Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer

Google's New Approach for Machine Learning Focuses on User Privacy, Efficiency

Google's New Approach for Machine Learning Focuses on User Privacy, Efficiency

Chris Kanaracus
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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Doug Henschen
Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Doug Henschen is former Vice President and Principal Analyst where he focused on data-driven decision making. Henschen’s Data-to-Decisions research examines how organizations employ data analysis to reimagine their business models and gain a deeper understanding of their customers. Henschen's research acknowledges the fact that innovative applications of data analysis requires a multi-disciplinary approach starting with information and orchestration technologies, continuing through business intelligence, data-visualization, and analytics, and moving into NoSQL and big-data analysis, third-party data enrichment, and decision-management technologies. Insight-driven business models are of interest to the entire C-suite, but most particularly chief executive officers, chief digital officers,…...

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Constellation Insights

Google researchers have come up with a method for machine learning that tackles two of the technology's biggest pain points to date: End-user privacy and device and network resource consumption.

It's called Federated Learning, and while still in the labs, could have a profound influence going forward. Here are the details from Google's official blog post:

Federated Learning enables mobile phones to collaboratively learn a shared prediction model while keeping all the training data on device, decoupling the ability to do machine learning from the need to store the data in the cloud. 

It works like this: your device downloads the current model, improves it by learning from data on your phone, and then summarizes the changes as a small focused update. Only this update to the model is sent to the cloud, using encrypted communication, where it is immediately averaged with other user updates to improve the shared model. All the training data remains on your device, and no individual updates are stored in the cloud. 

Careful scheduling ensures training happens only when the device is idle, plugged in, and on a free wireless connection, so there is no impact on the phone's performance.

Google is testing Federated Learning in Gboard, the Android keyboard. Gboard offers up suggested queries to users, and Federated Learning captures whether the user accepted the suggestion. It stores and processes this information locally. 

Google notes that Federated Learning, while innovative, presented new logistical challenges to overcome:

[I]n the Federated Learning setting, the data is distributed across millions of devices in a highly uneven fashion. In addition, these devices have significantly higher-latency, lower-throughput connections and are only intermittently available for training.

These bandwidth and latency limitations motivate our Federated Averaging algorithm, which can train deep networks using 10-100x less communication . The key idea is to use the powerful processors in modern mobile devices to compute higher quality updates than simple gradient steps. which excel on problems like click-through-rate prediction.

Google has thought through the potential benefits Federated Learning has for end-users quite thoroughly. It uses an aggregation protocol that requires 100s or thousands of users to have participated in an update before a server can decrypt the information, meaning no person's data can be exposed on its own.

There's much more detail in Google's full blog post, which is well worth a read. Here's a graphic illustrating Federated Learning's architecture (credit: Google).

 

One of the biggest challenges in machine learning is the task of collecting enough data to drive accurate predictions and decisions, and Federated Learning is aimed squarely at that target, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Doug Henschen.

Data federation, of course, is nothing new as a concept, but by applying a federated approach to machine learning training, Google is cleverly side-stepping the challenge of having to move data to one, centralized location for training, he adds. "The data-movement alone is a big challenge, and once centralized, data storage and analysis is a big expense." 

"This federated approach to training machine learning models seems to promise multiple advantages: eliminating data-movement requirements, taking advantage of remote computing capacity, and side-stepping privacy and security concerns all while delivering more accurate predictions thanks to the use of more data in the training process," Henschen says.

That said, there are tradeoffs, such as how long it might take to train a model, "but Federated Learning is a novel and promising approach to a big stumbling block to predictive success."

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Data to Decisions Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer

Beyond the Seat: Future of the Ticketing Marketplace

Beyond the Seat: Future of the Ticketing Marketplace

Russell Scibetti
Founding Editor, The Business of Sports
The Business of Sports

My name is Russell Scibetti and I have an extensive background in sports business, including CRM and database marketing, interactive and digital marketing, social media, corporate sponsorships and activation, and applied market research. From 2007 to 2014, I worked for Arizona State Athletics, Comcast-Spectacor (Philadelphia Flyers) and the New York Jets to manage and implement CRM, database marketing, market research and other technology-based sales and marketing initiatives. In 2014, I joined KORE Software as their VP of Product Strategy, where I am responsible for the strategic vision, planning and development of the KORE ProSports Ticketing, Sponsorship and Suites/Premium software products. I earned my MBA in Sports Business from the W.P. Carey…...

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I was really excited to participate on a panel at this year’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference discussing the future of the ticket marketplace. The other panelists included:

  • John Abbamondi: Executive Vice President – Ticketing, Suites & Hospitality at Madison Square Garden
  • Jamie Brandt: Vice President, Sales and Service at the San Francisco 49ers
  • Jodi Mulkey: Chief Technology Officer at Ticketmaster
  • Zach Long: Chief Marketing Officer at PrimeSport
  • Patrick Rishe (moderator): Director, Sports Business Program at Washington University in St. Louis

We covered a wide range of topics over the course of the hour, including ticket pricing, product mix, creating personalized experiences, retention modeling, leveraging data for sales, and much more.

The video does require a paid subscription to content from 42 Analytics, but there is also a 14 day free trial option, so I hope you check out the panel and many of the other videos posted from this year’s event.

Digital Business Distributed Business and Technology Models Part Three; Distributed Services Business Management

Digital Business Distributed Business and Technology Models Part Three; Distributed Services Business Management

Andy Mulholland
Andy Mulholland
Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Andy Mulholland is Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on cloud business models. Formerly the Global Chief Technology Officer for the Capgemini Group from 2001 to 2011, Mulholland successfully led the organization through a period of mass disruption. Mulholland brings this experience to Constellation’s clients seeking to understand how Digital Business models will be built and deployed in conjunction with existing IT systems. Coverage Areas Consumerization of IT & The New C-Suite: BYOD, Internet of Things, IoT, technology and business use Previous experience: Mulholland co authored four major books that chronicled the change and its impact on Enterprises starting in 2006 with the well-recognised book ‘Mashup Corporations’ with Chris Thomas of Intel. This was followed in…...

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Digital Business takes place within distributed network-based ecosystems using interactions in the form of various ‘Services’ to create Business value and revenues. The ability to dynamically orchestrate a set of Services involving various partners within the Business Ecosystem brings the requirement for a new kind of ‘Middleware’. Distributed Service Management ensures that partners in orchestrated Business Service activities have their individual transactions recorded and settled as necessary.

Previous parts of this series started with an examination of the Business activities and actions of an Enterprise, followed by part 2 defining the need for a new kind of dynamic infrastructure. In part 3a the need for a Distributed Services Technology Management is explored to introduce this part 3b adding the Distributed Services Business Management. (It is recommended to read the parts sequentially from Part 1, though a brief overview is included in the summary at the end of this part).

Blockchain Technology is seen as the most likely solution to providing Distributed Service Management, hence the recent wave of interest in the topic. However knowledge of what Blockchain Technology is, and how it can be applied, to Digital Business is generally poor. Bitcoin tends to be seen as Blockchain, whereas it is a specific implementation using aspects of Blockchain technology.

There is considerable development being devoted to develop Blockchain Technology to create Distributed Ledger implementations that will provide transactional synchronization across a Distributed System, or Business Ecosystem, without requiring any single, or centralized control. There are some significant issues that have to be addressed that lead to some experts expressing concern as to the level of enthusiasm for Blockchain as the basis for Distributed Ledgers, and in particular IoT.

Consider a Smart City example where its many businesses and consumers interact through many Smart Services and how that creates a complex web of commercial settlements. The intention is that new developments of Distributed Ledger will ensure all financial settlements, and possibly other forms of transactions, are recorded across the community with out the need for a central brokering Service operated by the City.

There are some serious issues to be addressed in the development of Blockchain based Distributed Ledgers for wide spread use. As well as the usual constraints relating to scale and operational speed there is a complicated core issue around the issuing and management of the secure ‘keys’ that lie at the heart of the technology.

Owners of any part of the value chain covering Sensors, Services, Resources, Assets and general Infrastructure all require a reliable trusted shared decentralized service to record transactions. Smart Services has been widely used as a term to describe the Business value offered in these systems, but the underlying technology is correctly called Distributed Apps, (Dapps), in recognition of the distributed, or shared, nature of its operating environment.

AirBnB currently uses the familiar technologies of the Internet + Web, but has a stated ambition to develop their Service as a fully functional DApp to allow global levels of scale and interactions.. Other popular Smart Services are likely to migrate into DApps over time to extend their business value propositions, and scale.

The role of a Distributed Ledger, (which is itself a DApp), is to provide a decentralized trust model that prevents fraud, or assumption of control, by allowing all participants to ‘check’ every transaction. (Note that an expert on the detail of Blockchain technology would wish this term to be expanded into much greater detail). The term ‘every transaction’ means between all members of the specific business ecosystem book every transaction, even if not a direct participant in the current transaction.

A Distributed Ledger would treat each IoT Device, or set of Devices that correspond to a chargeable business Service element, as a Node with its own version of the common Distributed Ledger. Whenever a pair, or group, of such IoT Devices/Nodes carry out an interaction, ending in a transaction, all registered Nodes are provided with a copy. A distributed consensus algorithm leads to shared agreement on the legitimacy of the latest transactions and the overall state of the network At which point all Nodes will update their copy of the Distributed Ledger to include the new transaction.

As there are so many versions of the ledger being maintained and compared separately fraudulent interactions are, dependent on the quality of the Distributed Ledger implementation, somewhere between very difficult and impossible. However there are several practical difficulties around scale; firstly the number of nodes and the size of the ledger; secondly the number of transactions equating to the frequency of updates. As a comparison the Bitcoin Blockchain deployment provides ledger updates roughly every ten minutes, introducing significant latency for real time applications, and volume is limited to no more than five entries per second.

The scaling issue currently sets requirements for brand new DLT developments. Expectations are that for initial IoT deployments it will be possible to achieve acceptable operating parameters. The Business Services ecosystem covering a Smart City would be expected to operate with an acceptable number of nodes and transactions in its early years.

The development of Smart City, other IoT business networks and DApps are all driving the requirement for suitable Distributed Ledger solutions. By their very nature Open Source would seem to be an attractive proposition. Two Open Source projects; Ethereum and Hyperledger, have successfully attracted support and build sizable community support though their focuses are different.

Ethereum founded in 2014, supports an eclectic mix of activities, often with crowd funding, where the focus is on DApps that require the decentralized transaction architeure. The Ethereum name will often come into a conversation of Blockchain, or DApps, but the community is not aimed at supporting large-scale IoT requirements for Distributed Ledger solutions. A sample of Ethereum projects can be found here.

 

The focus of HyperLedger is distinctly different, aiming to support the broader needs of IoT Distributed Systems that can be served by Blockchain based technology. The HyperLedger Explorer core project defines its mission as; ‘the fabric is an implementation of blockchain technology that is intended as a foundation for developing blockchain applications or solutions. It offers a modular architecture allowing components, such as consensus and membership services, to be plug-and-play. It leverages container technology to host smart contracts called “chaincode” that comprise the application logic of the system’(sic).

HyperLedger has significant support from well-known industry names, both Business users as well as Technology Venders. Premier Members include; Accenture, Airbus Industries, Deutsche Bourse, Fujitsu, IBM, Intel and JP Morgan. (A full membership list can be found here).

There are four HyperLedger projects underway that contribute in different ways to making Distributed Ledgers a reality for commercial operations; Blockchain Explorer, Fabric, Iroha, and Sawtooth Lake. Summaries of each project and its aims can be found here. It would seem that Hyperledger Fabric is destined to become the most significant in 2017 with its stated aim;

Fabric is an implementation of block chain technology that is intended as a foundation for developing block chain applications or solutions. It offers a modular architecture allowing components, such as consensus and membership services, to be plug-and-play. It leverages container technology to host smart contracts called “chaincode” that comprise the application logic of the system.

IBM aims in 2017 to accelerate the Hyperledger Fabric project by recruiting and supporting an Ecosystem of Developers who will be offered various IBM provided Facilities. This ambitious plan highlights the value in understanding the details which can be found in a Constellation post, Why IBM’s Blockchain Plans Make Sense,.

Clearly effective decentralized transaction management using Blockchain Distributed Ledger technology is a highly important part of the development of Services based ‘Trading” Business Networks. However, this has become, thanks to the coverage on the topic, the most visible element in the overall challenge of building, operating and maintaining a new generation of de-centralized systems.

 

 

Summary; Background

This is third part in a series on Digital Business and the Technology required to support the ability of an Enterprise to do Digital Business. An explanation for the adoption of a simple definition shown in the diagram below to classify the technology requirements rather than attempt any form of conventional detailed Architecture is provided, together with a fuller explanation of the Business requirements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part 1 - Digital Business Distributed Business and Technology Models;

Understanding the Business Operating Model

Part 2 - Digital Business Distributed Business and Technology Models;

The Dynamic Infrastructure

Part 3a – Digital Business Distributed Business and Technology Models;

Distributed Services Technology Management

 

 

New C-Suite Innovation & Product-led Growth Tech Optimization Future of Work AI ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI Analytics Automation B2B B2C CX EX Employee Experience HR HCM business Marketing SaaS PaaS IaaS Supply Chain Growth Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology eCommerce Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP Leadership finance Customer Service Content Management Collaboration M&A Enterprise Service Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Operating Officer

Betterment Tosses Desk Phones and Moves to Cloud Communications

Betterment Tosses Desk Phones and Moves to Cloud Communications

Cindy Zhou
CMO
Level Access

Cindy Zhou is a practicing CMO.  Prviously, she was Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research covering Digital Marketing Transformation and Sales Effectiveness. With over 18 years of practitioner experience in corporate marketing, product marketing, product management, and sales operations, Zhou has spearheaded marketing transformation at multiple technology companies. She advised Constellation’s clients on strategies to light-up demand generation, prove revenue contribution, and maximize sales productivity. Prior to joining Constellation, Zhou was Global Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales Operations at BackOffice Associates, a global provider of data quality and information governance solutions to the Fortune 1000 and SAP SolEx partner. Before…...

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Imagine this: You are an IT manager newly hired into one of the fastest-growing companies disrupting an entire industry. Your workforce is highly mobile, but the phone system is desk-based with complicated codes to perform simple tasks like transferring calls. User frustration is high with dropped calls and you need to fix it and fast. This is the story of Betterment and the topic of my new case study report, Toss the Deskphone: Betterment Uses Dialpad to Modernize Communications.
 
Betterment is a company at the forefront of the FinTech disruption as an early pioneer of Robo-advisory investing. The company grew rapidly from an eight-employee startup to currently a mid-sized company with over 200 employees and managing over $8 billion in Assets Under Management (AUM). The problem was their communications system was a PBX-based solution that was expensive and a mismatch for a highly mobile workforce not always stationed at their desks. Betterment’s Technology Operations Manager, Mike Bongardino, went through an extensive evaluation process and decided that moving to a native cloud communications solution could support their mobile workforce, scale alongside the company as they continued their meteoric growth, and require minimal administration support. Betterment chose Dialpad, a cloud-based unified communications provider that offered a flexible, scalable, and multi-device friendly solution to free their team from complicated desk phones and saw savings of over 60 percent.
 
Image source: Dialpad on multiple devices
 
Native cloud communications provide mobility, scalability, and cost effectiveness for companies and we at Constellation see more companies making the switch over the next several years. The ability to integrate call activity with CRM solutions for improved customer tracking is another key benefit. For CIOs and IT professionals considering moving their traditional phone systems to cloud-based solutions, the case study report contains five key factors to consider, lessons learned from Bongardino, pitfalls to avoid, and overall recommendations on how to plan for the move.
 
Constellation clients can download the full report or an excerpt can be accessed here. Drop a comment below and let me know if you’re planning to move your organization’s communications platform to the cloud.
Future of Work Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth Data to Decisions New C-Suite Marketing Transformation Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity SaaS PaaS IaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service Chief Customer Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Executive Officer

'Vigilante' Malware Brickerbot: Not the Answer for IoT Security

'Vigilante' Malware Brickerbot: Not the Answer for IoT Security

Chris Kanaracus
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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Steve Wilson
Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Steve Wilson is former VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, leading the business theme Digital Safety and Privacy. His coverage includes digital identity, data protection, data privacy, cryptography, and trust. His advisory services to CIOs, CISOs, CPOs and IT architects include identity product strategy, security practice benchmarking, Privacy by Design (PbD), privacy engineering and Privacy [or Data Protection] Impact Assessments (PIA, DPIA). Coverage Areas: -  Identity management, frameworks & governance-  Digital identity technologies-  Privacy by Design -  Big Data; “Big Privacy”-  Identity & privacy innovation Previous experience: Wilson has worked in ICT innovation, research, development and analysis for over 25 years. With double…...

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Constellation Insights

Last year, the IoT botnet Mirai was used in a number of high-profile DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks, taking advantage of hundreds of thousands of insecure Linux-based IoT devices. In recent weeks, a new strain of IoT malware has emerged, with a different and potentially dangerous new purpose. 

Dubbed Brickerbot, the malware seeks out vulnerable Linux devices, accesses them and then executes a series of instructions that corrupts storage, disrupts Internet connectivity and inihibits kernel operations, rendering the device useless, or "bricked." Brickerbot works much like Mirai, scanning for devices that still have their default user names and passwords.

As Mirai's effectiveness underscores, far too many end users simply forget, don't know how, or don't care to take the simple security step of changing their devices' defaults. 

Security firm Radware discovered Brickerbot in March, when the malware targeted devices in a honeypot Radware maintains for security research purposes.

Since then, speculation has centered on the motivations of Brickerbot's author or authors. One popular hypothesis finds Brickerbot to be a form of vigilantism. In other words, by proactively destroying unsafe devices, the likes of Mirai will be inhibited. 

Brickerbot's creator(s) haven't publicly stated their motivations, and it's possible their intents are solely malicious. But if vigilantism is the goal, that's inexcusable, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Steve Wilson. 

"Some hackers have god complexes," he says. "The very words 'white hat' and 'black hat hackings betray a blurred morality where one way or another people take the law into their own hands."

"Who makes the judgement that a device is insecure? It's not black and white," Wilson adds. "Where is the risk assessment that a vulnerable device that might malfunction is worse that a bricked device that will actually malfunction?"

Indeed, as a post on Network World notes, applied unchecked malware like Brickerbot could have fatal consquences:

Imagine driving down the road and having your car’s computer bricked. ... At some point, lives will be lost and people maimed. An uncontrolled botnet seeking to protect us all from badly designed devices will brick the wrong one—or dozens of them.

IoT device manufacturers, eager to get their products to market as quickly and cheaply as possible, bear much of the responsibility for the current threat landscape.

"I am outraged by the parlous state of IoT security," Wilson says. "It is appalling that devices which never were computers are foisted on consumers with unapprehended complexities and inadequate computer security. We need to see action on the part of consumers, to demand proper security.  Consumer affairs regulators need to act to ensure device quality is fit for purpose. Manufacturers need to be held accountable for damages caused by faulty products."

"The last thing we need is vigilantism," Wilson says. "By all means expose, names and shame culpable product companies but don't take the law into your own hands."

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Tech Optimization Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Chief Information Officer

Microsoft Makes Bet on Kubernetes with Deis Acquisition

Microsoft Makes Bet on Kubernetes with Deis Acquisition

Chris Kanaracus
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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Holger Mueller
Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

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Constellation Insights

Microsoft is building out its capabilities for the popular open-source container orchestration platform Kubernetes with the acquisition of Deis. Here are the details from a blog post by Microsoft EVP Scott Guthrie:

Container technologies let organizations more easily build, deploy and move applications to and from the cloud. With this increase in agility and portability, containers are helping to make applications the new currency in the cloud. At Microsoft, we’ve seen explosive growth in both interest and deployment of containerized workloads on Azure, and we’re committed to ensuring Azure is the best place to run them.

To support this vision, we’re pleased to announce that Microsoft has signed an agreement to acquire Deis – a company that has been at the center of the container transformation. Deis gives developers the means to vastly improve application agility, efficiency and reliability through their Kubernetes container management technologies.

We expect Deis’ technology to make it even easier for customers to work with our existing container portfolio including Linux and Windows Server Containers, Hyper-V Containers and Azure Container Service, no matter what tools they choose to use.

The Deis team will join Microsoft and its technology will remain open source, Deis CTO Gabriel Monroy said in a separate post:

Over the years, we have worked hard to be open, reliable, and dependable open source maintainers. From our new home at Microsoft you should expect nothing less. We will continue our contributions to Workflow, Helm, and Steward and look forward to maintaining our deep engagement with the Kubernetes community. 

Kubernetes originated from Google, which donated the project to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation in 2016. It has thrived as an open-source project, moving toward becoming the industry standard for container orchestration. Microsoft's move to acquire Deis comes just a couple of months after Kubernetes became generally available on Azure Container Service (which also supports the Docker Swarm and DC/OS orchestration tools).

Buying Deis is a good move by Microsoft, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller. "It's no longer enough to just support Kubernetes. It's also important to provide the best Kubernetes experience. Deis is bringing those tools and the experience to develop more. 

"I'd expect Deis to remain open source, but Microsoft will have to walk the balance between differentiation and open source contribution," Mueller adds.

Deis had been acquired by PaaS vendor Engine Yard in 2015. That connection wasn't mentioned in Microsoft's announcement, nor the purchase price revealed. 

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Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer

Learnings from the Adobe Summit - It's all about the "Experience"

Learnings from the Adobe Summit - It's all about the "Experience"

Cindy Zhou
CMO
Level Access

Cindy Zhou is a practicing CMO.  Prviously, she was Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research covering Digital Marketing Transformation and Sales Effectiveness. With over 18 years of practitioner experience in corporate marketing, product marketing, product management, and sales operations, Zhou has spearheaded marketing transformation at multiple technology companies. She advised Constellation’s clients on strategies to light-up demand generation, prove revenue contribution, and maximize sales productivity. Prior to joining Constellation, Zhou was Global Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales Operations at BackOffice Associates, a global provider of data quality and information governance solutions to the Fortune 1000 and SAP SolEx partner. Before…...

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I attended my first Adobe Summit held in Las Vegas a few weeks back along with 12,000 other attendees. The stunning opening videos were a visual feast for the eyes (I expected no less considering the company's creative talent) and the main theme was the launch of the new Adobe Experience Cloud. Adobe’s primary message centered on customer's experience and everyone is a brand ambassador for their organization. The new umbrella Experience Cloud then reorganized Adobe’s various solutions into 3 primary Clouds:
 
  • Marketing Cloud - Campaign, Experience Manager, Target, Social, and Primetime
  • Analytics Cloud - Analytics and Audience Manager
  • Advertising Cloud - Media Optimizer (Demand Side Platform, Search, Dynamic Creative Optimization) and TubeMogul
Image Source: Adobe

In my opinion, this is a stronger message and go-to-market strategy for Adobe as the Marketing solutions previously appeared detached from each other. Customers expressed some confusion on which solutions they needed to accomplish their objectives. The re-alignment of the solutions by cloud provides cohesion and better packaging of the offerings.
 
Impactful Customer Stories on Digital Transformation - Adobe shines with big B2C brand customers sharing their digital transformation stories. Standouts included T-Mobile and the NBA. T-Mobile’s SVP of Digital, Nick Drake, gave an energetic keynote on the journey transforming their website with Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). Drake stated that by keeping the focus on customer experience on their website and reducing the amount of time/clicks needed to order products (previously up to 81 clicks), find assistance, etc. Their new website powered on AEM saw a 485% conversion improvement. One key takeaway from Nick’s keynote for Marketers to take note - instead of forcing their existing processes into the website design, T-Mobile put design and experience first then adapted their processes accordingly. Seems like a small step, but the number of companies I talk to that try to force-feed their existing process then end up with less than desirable results is more than you think.
 
I also had some one-on-one time with Adobe customer Franke, a global kitchenware company with over $2b a year in revenue. Franke worked with their agency One-Inside, to build an immersive virtual experience to showcase their products using AEM. Franke CMO Renato Di Rubbo is helping the company transition from traditional marketing tactics such as catalogs and showrooms to now digital experiences to broaden their reach. He called Adobe, a “great technology partner” enabling their marketing transformation.
 
Product Enhancements - Sensei and Integrations of Marketing + Creative Cloud - From a product perspective, I was pleased to see more cross-cloud integration between Adobe’s Creative and Marketing Clouds. Marketers can now launch Dreamweaver within Adobe Campaign to create and edit emails, landing pages, and other web assets. Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) DAM now integrates with Creative Cloud to auto-identify and sync content. Sensei, Adobe’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) solution launched at the MAX conference last year, had a prominent showing at Summit as well. With Sensei, images from AEM can be analyzed and tags automatically applied for improved asset organization and management. AI solutions have the potential to improve the marketer’s workload with intelligent segmentation, automating next best offers, help track marketing campaign attribution, and optimize marketing budget, which I believe is the direction Sensei is heading. However, most of the customers I talk to at the conference are still confused on what is available in Sensei today beyond the image processing capabilities demonstrated. There is an opportunity for Adobe to help customers better understand the technology by providing additional marketing use cases.
 
Cross-Channel Marketing - In my Mobile Marketing Best Practices for CMOs report, I included the statistic that nearly 60% of US adult mobile device users own more than one device, of which 28 percent own three devices or more. In turn, the ability for marketers to deliver a cross-channel customer experience has increased in urgency. One of Adobe’s solutions to address the cross-channel marketing problem is their Cross-Device Co-op, an initiative launched in 2016, which pools the device data of customers that opt-in to the program. The Co-op allows member companies to leverage their collective non-personally identifiable data for improved digital advertising campaigns. The program has been steadily growing over the past year according to the Co-op product team, with about 30 customers currently participating in the free program.
 
Deepening of the Microsoft partnership - AEM is now offered on the Microsoft Azure cloud hosting platform and integrations between Campaign and Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM connects the marketing and customer lifecycle data. CMOs with an eye on marketing campaign ROI can benefit from the Adobe Analytics and Microsoft Power BI integration. I asked Adobe SVP Suresh Vittal if we might see a Sensei + Cortana AI partnership a la Einstein + Watson. Apparently, those discussions have begun.
 
Final thoughts - The newly branded Adobe Experience Cloud provides improved cohesion on Adobe’s go-to-market strategy. Customers are accustomed to a suite based approach and the organization of the formerly individualized products makes it easier for customers to understand and buy by-the-cloud. AEM is one of the top Web Content Management platforms and the Microsoft Azure announcement will help customers speed up their go-live for faster time-to-value. I particularly enjoyed the “Sneaks” session with the company’s technical talent showcasing their ideas on future marketing features. The Virtual Reality ad replacement and AI journey demos were two standouts and offered a peek into what might be included in Adobe’s future product roadmap.
 
Lastly, as a marketer that has attended several events at the Venetian over the years, Adobe takes the prize on creativity and incorporating the “fun” of marketing into the event. The visuals, customer keynotes, and educational sessions showcased Adobe’s influence with CMOs and marketers and made for an enjoyable conference.
 
For more, view a Storify collection of my tweets from the #AdobeSummit below:
 
 
Marketing Transformation New C-Suite Innovation & Product-led Growth Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Future of Work Data to Decisions Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity adobe Marketing B2B B2C CX Customer Experience EX Employee Experience AI ML Generative AI Analytics Automation Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Growth eCommerce Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps Social Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Machine Learning business SaaS PaaS CRM ERP Leadership LLMs Agentic AI HR HCM IaaS Supply Chain Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration IoT Blockchain finance M&A Enterprise Service Chief Marketing Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Operating Officer
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