2014: The Year of a Siebel Renaissance?

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.  , Title: Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

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Renaissance - a situation or period of time when there is a new interest in something that has not been popular in a long time.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Running down Siebel technology has been popular for a long time. Everyone does it. Competitors, investors, even parts of Oracle itself. There are a number of reasons this has happen:

• the product has not always been implemented right, 
• user acceptance has sometimes been slow,
•  the technology is complex and is designed to solve complex problems.

Finally Siebel technology, which is superb for office workers, has not always supported the field as well. In response to the product’s position in the market sales automation and customer relationship management (CRM) tools have been developed in the cloud. For many businesses, and especially small businesses, cloud solutions offer a better value than on premise applications. So is there really no role for Siebel in the future?

We content there is an important role for Siebel in the decades to come, especially in large organizations. For them, some of the disadvantages of the cloud outweigh the advantages. They include:

Cost – as with any buy/lease decision owning an application and running it yourself is going to be more cost effective in the long run. Although any exact analysis must be done on a case-by-case basis the breakeven point is often only a couple of hundred seats.

Risk – outsourcing applications eliminates some risks while increasing others. For example an organization must be concerned with the financial health of a cloud provider in a way it does not need to worry about an internal IT organization. By the same token building applications in the cloud is also placing responsibility for maintaining security on a provider which may or may not be a good idea.

Data transfers – moving very large amounts of information across the internet can be difficult.
Integration – although inclusion theory layer products hold some promise for new ways to integrate cloud based applications, most system integrators agree it is more difficult to connect products that are not owned by your company.

The bigger and more established the organization, the added number of systems that need to work together, the more data that needs to be transfer, the greater the risk, and the higher the cost.

Advantages of Siebel

In addition, Siebel has evolved as a product. New versions have come out every year since Oracle acquired Siebel in 2006 and more releases are planned until at least 2028. Two releases, a maintenance release in the spring and an enhancement release in the fall, were planned for 2014. The enhancement release in fall 2012 included some significant new functionality, most notably the Siebel Open User Interface (UI), which changes the top layer of the three-tiered architecture and allows the application to run on more devices and browsers and for the look and feel of the application to be customized. The new Open UI product has the potential to extend the useful life of many Siebel implementations and also improve new sales. Not only does the new interface open up new form factors (e.g. iPads, iPhones, Android, etc.), it also creates the possibility of completely changing the user experience.

Over the years, Oracle has added specific functionality for many industries, including pharmaceuticals, finance, telecommunications, insurance, utilities and the public sector.

Oracle Siebel has a strong analytics tool, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE), integrated into the product.

Many different levels and flavors of support are available both from Oracle and from third parties. Under its Applications Unlimited strategy, Oracle plans to provide ongoing enhancements and support to all of its application product lines beyond the delivery of Oracle Fusion Applications. Support is also available from third parties like Rimini Street, Eagle Creek Services, and Spinnaker Solutions.

Training for Siebel applications continues to be offered both by Oracle as well as by third parties such as Quilogy Services from Aspect.

Third-party products from vendors such as aMinds, Buzzient, CRMantra, Customer Systems, earthIntegrate, invisibleCRM, KNOA and Selectica are integrated or being integrated both into the most current version of Siebel as well as older versions.

Many of the world’s largest system integrators have very active Siebel practices, including Accenture, Deloitte, Cap Gemini, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL and Wipro.

Finally Oracle Siebel itself can be run in the cloud either by Oracle or by third parties.

Therefore we are predicting that 2014 might be the year of a Siebel Renaissance when the advantages of the product and its place in the computing is recognized as being permanent.

Quips: #CES2014 Preview - Trends In Digital Disruption For Consumers Center Around Mass Personalization At Scale

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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Consumer Trends Often Lead The Enterprise Space

The Consumer Electronics Show begins Tuesday, January 7th, 2014 in Las Vegas.  Dubbed consumer tech's largest event, Constellation expects to see a few big things for #CES14.  In fact, digital disruption is alive and well.  The five forces of consumer tech: social, mobile, cloud, big data and video converged early in the consumer space and has commoditized faster than ever.  Consumer tech often showcases what the art of the possible will be for the enterprise.  Five big categories for CES embody this digital disruption for consumers:

1. Wearables go mainstream. The self quantification movement has gone from geek to chic fashion. Major fashion brands and pharma tech companies scramble to get the latest designs out.  Products range from smart watches, to bio monitoring devices, and to fitness tracking. Purpose built, these consumer devices will be the stars for CES this year.
2. Internet of things drives data driven personalization at scale. The machine to machine and automation market is seeing a boost from home automation in lighting, entertainment, and security. The big push is to put sensors to create data driven products that can not only improve personalization but improve context and relevancy on devices.  The result will be smarter homes, smarter cars, smarter buildings, and lots of big data business models harnessed by the vendors.
3. Video gets cheaper and better faster. 4K TVs go mainstream and price points drop.  Expect more and more OLED and lower price points. The Koreans have an edge here but don't be surprised if someone else comes from out of the blue.  Integrated video with home entertainment and traditional PC's are creating new form factors like Steambox in the living room.
4. Maker movement expands accessibility. 3D printing and imaging improve in accessibility. The goal is to drive down price points, improve access, and drive up the ecosystem. Expect new business models to emerge that will enable more local production and mass personalization at scale.
5. Robotics revolution. A host of consumer grade robotics enter the market.  The current wave cover hard labor automation, telematics, artifical intelligence, connected experiences, and simulated human relationships.  As cognitive computing improves, expect robotics to take advantage of these improvements to improve the overall interaction and self-learning.

The Bottom Line: Mass Personalization At Scale Is The Unwritten Theme of CES2014

The low cost of sensors and computing power now enable data driven personalization at consumer scale.  The data behind mass personalization will enable context which will drive relevancy in the overall customer experience.  This is the dawn of the data driven consumer tech and data driven customer experience era.  CES 2014 attendees looking back will realize that the digital disruption in 2014 came from sensor enablement, creation of bigdata business models, and the launch of mass personalization at scale.  Expect the next stage in convergence as wearables tie back to sensor and analytical ecosystems in IOT, that then enable video, to create things.  Ah, you see you do get it!

Disruptive Technology Companies: Filemobile

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.  , Title: Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

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Filemobile offers a disruptive technology that goes beyond its niche in on-line media. The company, based in Toronto, Canada, at one level allows its clients to gather, curate, publish, and promote user generated content. At another level the company has developed an Inclusion Theory Layer product complete with mobile device support, API's, authentication, and an SDK that could be used to develop new business models.  Filemobile clients currently use the cloud based technology organize and assemble user-generated content primarily to build brand  or encourage customer engagement. The company reports seeing a lot of growth in internal intranet uses. A few have even begun experimenting with more disruptive ways to take advantage of the technology.

CablePulse 24 (CP24), a Canadian cable and satellite television channel focusing on local news from Toronto and Southern Ontario, used the geo-location features of the product to identify and solicit on-the-spot reporting from viewers during  the Southern Ontario Tornado Outbreak of 2009,  the largest one day flurry of tornados in Canadian history.  CP23 was able to scoop larger, better funded competitors and  break the station's viewership record in the process.

 Source: Flickr

The company's Inclusion Theory Layer product is called Media Factory. It was built from the ground up to handle different media formats in large quantities while also providing flexible workflows for moderation and publishing. Given the right API's there is no reason it could not be used with enterprise systems such as SAP or Siebel to build mobile composite applications.

Privately held, Filemobile clients include Gannett, Wall Street Journal, ABC, and Fox News, Life is Good, Tim Hortons, JC Penney, Farmers, Honda, and Fischer Price.

A good contact at the company is Marc Milgrom who can be reached at + 416 642 652 or at [email protected].

Getting Social with Siebel #4: Can I support other CRM Platforms

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.  , Title: Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

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By Richard Napier

At Buzzient we believe that you should not be tied up in multiple platforms for Social Engagement just because you have different departments or different platforms. For example, if your outbound marketing happens in Salesforce, and your helpdesk uses NetSuite, or your Italian operation uses another CRM.

Question 5 : Can your Social Engagement platform co-exist and be CRM vendor neutral?

At Buzzient, we think that is a fundamental rule – why should you need to have multiple systems. It’s all about the customer! Pick up some of the core documentation on the Buzzient resources area,

This post originally appeared in the On Demand Education Ltd. Blog

The Snapchat data breach

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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Yesterday it was reported by The Verge that anonymous hackers have accessed Snapchat's user database and posted 4.6 million user names and phone numbers. In an apparent effort to soften the blow, two digits of the phone numbers were redacted. So we might assume this is a "white hat" exercise, designed to shame Snapchat into improving their security. Indeed, a few days ago Snapchat themselves said they had been warned of vulnerabilities in their APIs that would allow a mass upload of user records.

The response of many has been, well, so what? Some people have casually likened Snapchat's list to a public White Pages; others have played it down as "just email addresses".

Let's look more closely. The leaked list was not in fact public names and phone numbers; it was user names and phone numbers. User names might often be email addresses but these are typically aliases; people frequently choose email addresses that reveal little or nothing of their real world identity. We should assume there is intent in an obscure email address for the individual to remain secret.

Identity theft has become a highly organised criminal enterprise. Crime gangs patiently acquire multiple data sets over many months, sometimes years, gradually piecing together detailed personal profiles. It's been shown time and time again by privacy researchers (perhaps most notably Latanya Sweeney) that re-identification is enabled by linking diverse data sets. And for this purpose, email addresses and phone numbers are superbly valuable indices for correlating an individual's various records. Your email address is common across most of your social media registrations. And your phone number allows your real name and street address to be looked up from reverse White Pages. So the Snapchat breach could be used to join aliases or email addresses to real names and addresses via the phone numbers. For a social engineering attack on a call centre -- or even to open a new bank account -- an identity thief can go an awful long way with real name, street address, email address and phone number.

I was asked to compare the theft of stolen phone numbers with social security numbers. I surprised the interviewer when I said phone numbers are probably even more valuable to the highly organised ID thief, for they can be used to index names in public directories, and to link different data sets, in ways that SSNs (or credit card numbers for that matter) cannot. 

So let us start to treat all personal inormation -- especially when aggregated in bulk -- more seriously! And let's be more cautious in the way we categorise personal or Personally Identifiable Information (PII).

Importantly, most regulatory definitions of PII already embody the proper degree of caution. Look carefully at the US government definition of Personally Identifiable Information:

      information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual's identity, either alone or when combined with other personal or identifying information that is linked or linkable to a specific individual (underline added).

This means that items of data can constitute PII if other data can be combined to identify the person concerned. That is, the fragments are regarded as PII even if it is the whole that does the identifying.

And remember that the middle I in PII stands for Identifiable, and not, as many people presume, Identifying. To meet the definition of PII, data need not uniquely identify a person, it merely needs to be directly or indirectly identifiable with a person. And this is how it should be when we heed the way information technologies enable identification through linkages.

Almost anywhere else in the world, data stores like Snapchat's would automatically fall under data protection and information privacy laws.  Regulators would take a close look at whether the company had complied with the OECD Privacy Principles, and whether Snapchat's security measures were fit for purpose given the PII concerned. But in the USA, companies and commentators alike still have trouble working out how serious these breaches are. Each new breach is treated in an ad hoc manner, often with people finessing the difference between credit card numbers -- as in the recent Target breach -- and "mere" email addresses like those in the Snapchat and Epsilon episodes.

Surely the time has come to simply give proper regulatory protection to all PII.

Top 3 things to look for in 2014

pending

Guy Courtin was formerly Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research covering Matrix Commerce and how the Internet of Things drives the evolution of commerce.  Guy has over 15 years experience in the technology space and specifically in the supply chain space. Most recently he was the Vice President of Research at SCM World. Where he focused on the service providers that empowered supply chains. Prior to SCM World, Guy held numerous senior positions. He was responsible for product marketing at RSi, a retail supply chain solution provider. There managed RSi’s go to market strategy around their leading cloud based supply chain solutions. He also spear headed Progress Software’s supply chain group. Where he was responsible for driving revenue and market share as well…...

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When it comes to the supply chain space and solutions, there are three trends I am looking for in 2014:

• Software providers will strive to offer full supply chain solution suites. Mega vendors such as SAP, Infor and Oracle have been ahead of this game, just by their sheer size. A growing number of service providers such as JDA and Logility will continue to push in this direction –looking to offer their own supply chain solution platform.  Practioners will seek service providers that can address larger and more inclusive supply chain challenges, rather than simply optimizing pieces of the overall puzzle. They recognise that optimizing parts of the supply chain can often times lead to unintended consequences in other parts of the supply chain. This does not mean that software providers that do not offer a full end to end solution will fall out of favour. These bolt-on solutions will continue to allow for targeted supply chain problems to be addressed. However, these solution providers will have to continue to demonstrate how their solution will be interoperable within the overall supply chain solution network. If you are already engaged with a mega vendor, lean on them to understand how their solution suite can address your larger supply chain issues. When it comes to vendors with smaller solution footprints, ensure that they can seamlessly tie into the solution ecosystem.
• Expect innovation from the non-usual suspects. Innovative solutions as well as thought leadership will not come only from best of breed providers or consultants, but also from such sources as 3pls and contract manufactures. These players will bring their unique perspective to the supply chain, and drive innovation and thought leadership from the manufacturing and transportation position….think about 3D printing from your contract manufacturers like Flextronics or Jabil and how they are applying this technology and how that innovation can impact your supply chain. Or how your logistics provider like DHL, FedEx or UPS will drive aspects like same day delivery or multi-channel retailing. Other logistics providers who can empower you to drive your supply chain into emerging marketing such as the likes of Agility or Imperial Logistics. Innovation in the supply chain had become more democratized; do not hesitate to look to all your service providers for innovative thinking.
• It will not be about big data but about actionable data. The notion of large amounts of accessible data will not diminish, on the contrary the amount of data we have access to for our supply chains will only continue to grow. But the vendors that are equipped to provide actionable data is going to be more important than big data. For example vendors such as IRI and Neilson can already provide large quantities of consumer data. Other business intelligence vendors have the ability to take massive data to cleanse and harmonize data. But practioners need to look for the vendors that are focusing on identifying that actionable data. To borrow a phrase from a conversation with SAP – “the haystack keeps getting larger and larger, and you are still looking for that needle” Solution providers will start focusing on identifying the actionable data, rather than just big data. Just because we can start looking at every last piece of data does not mean we should be doing so. Solution providers that offer the intelligence to find the key pieces of data within that haystack will be the ones that gain in relevance.  Companies like Zyme are focused on the hi-tech space will be able to give companies like Barnes and Nobles a better understanding of what data they need to be aware of for products such as the Nook tablet. Work with your service providers to go deeper than just looking at big data – understand what types of data they are comfortable with and what industries they have deep knowledge of.

2014 should be another interesting year in the space…but then again isn’t every year that way?

David Schwab Joins FusionOps Board of Directors

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.  , Title: Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

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David C. Schwab, who  co-founded Scopus Technology and served as Vice President of Sales until it was acquired by Siebel Systems, has joined the board of FusionOps. FusionOps is a “domain-based” Business Intelligence (BI) company that brings together cloud, Big Data, and a user-friendly interface to provide insights into supply chains. 

Built in the cloud, FusionOps provides users with pre-built metrics, tickers, and analytic reports. Business users can also fine-tune existing reports, to create new analytics, and drill down into the details. In addition, the product includes collaboration and social networking features. The company currently serves a diverse set of industries including: apparel and sportswear, mining, medical equipment, electronics, and energy companies.

The company is currently recruiting sales engineers and sales managers. Resumes can be sent to [email protected].

Schwab has been a long time Director of Sierra Ventures and helped build Sierra’s enterprise software investment practice. His primary investment focus is business applications and next generation infrastructure. Portfolio companies Dave has worked with in the past include: Accruent (acquired by Vista Equity Partners), Crosslogix (acquired by BEA Systems Inc.), CSS (acquired by Partners Group), SalesLogix (IPO and acquired by Sage), Knova (Merger of Kanisa and ServiceWare), MicroMuse (sold to IBM), OnLink Technologies (sold to Siebel Systems), and 360Commerce (sold to Oracle). His portfolio includes Corrigo, Parature, Prelert, Revionics, Trivantis, Zebra Imaging, and Zoom Systems.

In addtion his MBA from Harvard, Schwab holds two graduate engineering degrees from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree from UC San Diego.

Trends: 10 Trends for #Cloud Computing in 2014 To Dominate #Digital Disruption [Slide Share]

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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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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Ten Trends For Cloud Computing In 2014 To Dominate Digital Disruption

Constellation's cloud computing research falls under the Tech Optimization and Innovation business theme and throughout other areas where applications are applied.

The trends for 2014 cover across the entire cloud stack. Holger Mueller, VP and Principal Analyst, covers the impact of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) as well as HR Technologies in the Future of Work. R "Ray" Wang researches the impact of Cloud Computing on business strategy and the application landscape.

Below are the 2014 trends for Cloud Computing. Join the Constellation experience as we set to help our clients dominate digital disruption.

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