Results

Event Report: 2013 Capgemini India Analyst & Advisor Day #CGAR2013

Event Report: 2013 Capgemini India Analyst & Advisor Day #CGAR2013

Capgemini India Plays A Key Role In The Global Delivery Model

Analyst and advisors gathered on February 12th, 2013 at Capgemini’s India headquarters located near the trendy and upmarket Powai suburbs of Mumbai.  Capgemini India’s CEO, Aruna Jayanthi welcomed guests with a perspective on Capgemini India’s progress.  With more than 40,000 people, the team plans to grow to 70,000 people in 3 years at almost a 20% CAGR year-over-year. Aruna sees the potential for up to 70% of Capgemini’s infrastructure services delivery to come from India.

As part of the non-linear growth plan, Capgemini intends to rely on a shared services model and platform between multiple delivery centres critical for scale and growth.  The good news – Capgemini India expects a reduction in the double digit wage inflation of the past 24 months.  Forecasts call for 5 to 9% for 2013.  Her three focus areas include growth, continued investments, and building end-to-end capability in India.

The analyst and advisor day was hosted in Capgemini’s Accelerated Solutions Environment (ASE).  The ASE combines a patented methodology with a unique, open work environment to deliver large scale facilitated sessions geared at accelerating timelines, gaining alignment and mitigating risks.  ASE’s provide a safe and effective place for collaboration and innovation.

Under this year’s theme of transforming customer experience, sessions touched on nine key areas:

  1. Portfolio transformation. Capgemini India is playing a key role in aligning with the consulting team’s digital transformation efforts.  If successful, the team will gain synergies across consulting, infrastructure, and bpo as part of a broader portfolio transformation.  One example of a focus on IP creation and innovation is Sogetti’s product engineering capabilities delivered in Capgemini India for aerospace and defense. Product Engineering is a priority for Capgemini in 2013.  European service providers Altran, Alten, Safran will have some competition from Capgemini going forward.
  2. Digital utility transformation. With 80% of meters in EU to be converted to smart meters by 2020, Capgemini sees a role in guiding this shift from analog to digital for utilities.  The utilities segment is expected to grow 4% & related software services are expected to grow about 7-8%.  Despite a perceived slow growth in utilities, smart metering is the base for transformation.  Early investment by Capgemini will play a key role in growing out this industry as a shortage of energy production and an upgrade of legacy transmission and energy production technology drive future growth.
  3. All channel experience. Customer centricity is changing as businesses focus on an “All Channel” and “Affordable” value proposition.  The firm focuses in on digerati as a key target for digital transformation. Why? Digerati are 26% more profitable than their peers.  The shift to all channel is a key part of the move to digital transformation and customer experience strategy for clients.
  4. Demand driven supply chain. Demand driven concepts are not new, however, customers seek to improve their ability to deliver on perfect orders.  Organizations also seek to get as close to the consumer as possible.  Capgemini’s work at one client helped a stagnant retail gain achieve 23% increase in customer satisfaction and gain 96 basis points of margin.  Constellation sees this buyer centric shift to matrix commerce as a key trend for 2013.
  5. Tax and welfare. Global governments face a $2.4 trillion USD tax revenue every year.  Consequently, Capgemini’s efforts in tax and welfare focus on the fraud and compliance equation.  The Capgemini’s India team has over 400 employees in their center of excellence complementing 8,000 onsite personnel at clients.  The mission is to improve revenue and increase compliance.  Constellation expects this market to grow as big data technologies improve the ability to manage both structured and unstructured data sources.
  6. Global in house centers. The team shared a success story on the factory franchise approach for testing services at ANZ bank.  The global in house center provided a strong alternative to BOT or captive acquisition.  Capgemini intends to selectively grow this model over the next few years.  Constellation believes this approach is smart but will deliver low volume.
  7. Service integration. Opportunities exist to move operational responsibility for IT provisioning to Capgemini to drive cost savings.  The goal – manage sophisticated IT supplier frameworks.  If successful, service integration will prove to be the PMO account control model of the 2010?s.
  8. Mobile testing. Most organizations face a need for a comprehensive mobile QA strategy.  Building upon Neoload’s Neotys solution offering, Capgemini India opened a mobile testing CoE in Mumbai in December 2012.  The range of mobile testing opportunities has grown as the group seeks to expand from 250 to 1000 FTEs globally.  Constellation sees this as a bold move to jump into an emerging and growing market.
  9. Big data and analytics. As one of the earlier CoE’s, business information management (BIM) was launched in September 2010 as Customer BIM Experience showcase or (CUBE).  With the advent and hype of big data, the BIM team is now playing a key role in using BIM to improve customer experience.  Constellation sees the future with BIM and the support of big data business models.

Figure 1. Cap Gemini’s ASE Uniquely Creates Visual Story Telling Via Graphic Recorders

Source: R Wang & Insider Associates, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

The Bottom Line: Capgemini India Taking Key Steps To Support Nonlinear Growth Opportunities

Today’s Indian IT services firms have maxed out their current business models. The shift in technology decision-making to the business side, along with buyers’ need for innovation and their move to purchasing business outcomes (rather than just technology), have altered the demand-side environment in the technology space. On the other hand, commoditization of services, vendor consolidation, erosion of the offshore cost advantage, and intense competition from the big multinational providers have all led to declining margins among most Indian IT services providers.

With cloud, mobility, social, Big Data, and unified communications and video becoming pervasive, four business models have emerged to not only meet client needs, but also spur non-linear growth for IT services firms. According to Constellation, by applying differentiated intellectual property (IP) creation, enabling Big Data business models, delivering innovation value chains and leading partner ecosystems, Indian IT services firms can create new high-volume, high-value opportunities to fend off margin threats and become truly global players.

Capgemini India plays a special role in allowing Capgemini to deliver around a customer centric model where consulting, apps, infrastructure, and BPO can co-exist.  The secret will require a leadership team that incentivizes the organization to take a customer centric approach instead of a P&L approach while maintaining Capgemini’s unique and effective decentralized model.  The shift will not be easy, however the pieces are in place.

Capgenini India Analyst & Advisor Day #cgar2013 Storify Tweet Stream

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

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.

Copyright © 2001 to 2013 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.

 

Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth Leadership Chief Experience Officer

Event Report: #InforSummit Reveals More Than A Redesigned Infor

Event Report: #InforSummit Reveals More Than A Redesigned Infor

Changes at Infor More Than Cosmetic

Analysts and tech watchers gathered on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 2013, for Infor Summit, a progress check on Infor, the third largest independent applications vendor in the market.  While many customers may not have heard of Infor, most have heard of the brands it has acquired over the last 20 years.  These venerable brands include Baan, BPCS, Epiphany, Hansen, Intentia, Lawson, MAPICS, NXTrend, SoftBrands, and Syteline.   Since industry veteran Charles ‘Chuck’ Phillips took over Infor, the software vendor has grown revenue from $2.2B to $2.8B.  More impressive, for the past 5 quarters, Infor demonstrated double digit license revenue growth.  Infor is now the third largest private firm in Business Insider’s Digital List witha $16B valuation.  The management team emphasized three key tenets of the Infor strategy:

  • Focus on microverticals. With over 2151 possible market micro verticals, Infor intends to go deeper than the 21 sectors often classified as verticals.  For example, in the wholesale distribution sector, Infor supports micro verticals such as electrical, building materials (BMAT), industrial supply, heating ventilation air conditioning (HVAC), and auto.  For the auto sector, micro verticals include interiors, fixing elements, and  plastics and moldings.

    Point of View (POV): Infor’s strategy to go deep on micro verticals comes at a time when SAP and Oracle are no longer substantially investing R&D in deep vertical functionality.  By going deeper and more specialized in micro vertical industries, Infor can differentiate on features and functionality desired by customers.  Infor’s hired over 800 developers since Charles Phillips joined.  The delivery and support of micro verticals is accomplished as Infor’s support folks are co-located with the developers and many key folks are still in their original on-shore development centers.  With 4000 developers just focused on apps, Infor has the economies of scale to focus on micro verticals.
  • Investment in internet architecture. Infor’s design principles begin with architecting software for the internet and embracing a world of heterogeneous apps.  Support for the Open Applications Group Integration Specification (OAGIS) standards allows Infor to standardize on a canonical business language for information integration.  Infor requires its legacy applications to communicate with each other via XML as the common alphabet for identifying business processes and for defining business messages.   Infor has made significant technology investments including updates to the core technology framework Infor ION, the mobility framework Infor Motion, social software platform with Mingle, and analytics via Infor BI.  Infor currently generates $100M in cloud revenues.

    (POV): The overall support for OAGIS standards allows Infor’s legacy apps to communicate with newer applications and avoid duplicate creation of common components.  This standardization marks the culmination of the original work initiated by Soma Somasundaram, EVP Global Product Development in 2010.  With Infor ION in place, Infor now has an integrative fabric using loosely coupled architecture.  Customers can run legacy apps and also take advantage of new products and solutions.  Moreover, this enables Infor a platform for rapid integration of future acquisitions.  Customers should pay close attention to see what acquired product families have been enabled to take advantage of Infor Ion and what upgrade paths should be made to take advantage of future innovation.  Expect Infor to nudge customers to the cloud as the margins are higher and the pace of innovation is faster.
  • Creation of a consumer design experience. Infor took advantage of their New York City location to hire designers focused on user experience.  As part of this transformation, they created their own internal agency called Hook & Loop.  Marc Scibelli, VP of Hook & Loop is in charge of the 40 person team behind the design thinking transformation.  From mobile apps to branding, Hook & Loop provides the creative services for Infor (see Figure 1).

    Point of View (POV): Duncan Angove, President at Infor’s talk about Beauty as a Competence reflected the deep transformation throughout the organization.  Infor’s new user experience was first revealed to customers at the 2012 Inforum customer conference.   Users will notice a stark difference between the new apps and the old apps.  When apps begin with user design instead of engineering, the end users benefit.  Customers can expect to see the difference in the new apps but will have to wait for the old apps to catch up.

Figure 1. Flickr Feed Scenes From The Infor Summit

Photos: R Wang & Insider Associates, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Market Momentum Shows A Shift In Customer Preferences For Outcomes Not Technology

One of Constellation’s broad trends for 2012 going into 2013 is the buyer shift from technologies to outcomes.  Recent wins highlighted by Stephan Scholl, one of Infor’s Presidents, demonstrate this customer drive for value based outcomes.  At a global manufacturer’s healthcare division, they had put on hold an 8 instance SAP project upgrade and consolidation that would have taken more than 24 months to complete and millions of dollars in project consulting.  The goal – upgrade 9 different plants and create a cohesive supply chain.  Infor committed to moving 3 plants over in 12 months and delivered early in 9 months while orchestrating the supply chain for 100?s of parts with the other 6 plants.  The result – the customer, a long time SAP customer, made the shift to Infor instead of upgrading on SAP.  Constellation has seen numerous scenarios where the Oracle or SAP upgrade process is now more expensive than a replacement approach..

The Bottom Line:  Infor Intends Not To Be Your Average Enterprise Software Vendor

Infor’s resurrection from the dark days of the recession in 2008 highlights what a new management team, $1B of investment, and a focused strategy can achieve.  The October 25, 2010 arrival of Charles Phillips has led to an influx of talented enterprise software executives joining from Oracle, SAP, IBM, and Salesforce.com.   An infusion of $1B from Golden Gate Capital, Summit Partners, and Salesforce.com in last 12 months has provided a much needed cash cushion for investment.  A customer focused strategy on micro verticals and design thinking inspired user experiences is changing the impression of Infor from a collection of legacy has-beens to a forward looking and innovative contender. 

Whether Infor remains private or files for IPO, the company is on the most solid footing since its inception. As the refresh cycle continues for legacy applications, the improvements in product offerings and technology will place Infor in a good position to capture revenue from both its install base and competitors seeking an alternative to the the traditional two-horse enterprise apps race.

Constellation recommends that:

  • Existing Infor customers should reevaluate their overall enterprise apps strategy with Infor in mind as a key supplier.
  • New prospects should consider Infor in short lists when micro-vertical requirements play a key role in delivering business value
  • Oracle and SAP customers considering upgrades should consider Infor in their short lists.

Your POV.

Have you had a good experience with Infor? Are you investing more or less with Infor?  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

How can we assist?

Buyers, do you need help with your apps strategy and vendor management strategy?  Trying to figure out how to infuse innovation into your tech strategy? Ready to put the expertise of over 1000 software contract negotiations to work?  Give us a call!

Please let us know if you need help with your next gen apps strategy efforts. Here’s how we can help:

  • Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
  • Evaluating SaaS/Cloud options
  • Assessing apps strategies (e.g. single instance, two-tier ERP, upgrade, custom dev, packaged deployments”
  • Designing innovation into end to end processes and systems
  • Comparing SaaS/Cloud integration strategies
  • Assisting with legacy ERP migration
  • Engaging in an SCRM strategy
  • Planning upgrades and migration
  • Performing vendor selection

Related Resources
20110926 A Software Insider’s Point of View – R “Ray” Wang “News Analysis: Infor Launches New Era With Infor 10?

20110426 A Software Insider’s Point of View – R “Ray” Wang “Quick Take: Infor and Golden Gate Gain Definitive Agreement To Acquire Lawson For $2B”

20110314 A Software Insider’s Point of View – R “Ray” Wang “News Analysis: Infor Extends $1.84B Unsolicited Offer For Lawson”

20101025 A Software Insider’s Point Of View – R “Ray” Wang “News Analysis: Charles Phillips Takes Over As CEO Of Infor”

20100625 A Software Insider’s Point of View – R “Ray” Wang “News Analysis: Infor Bets On Microsoft”

20100422 A Software Insider’s Point of View – R ” Ray” Wang “News Analysis: Lawson Puts Its Full ERP Suite Into The Cloud”

20100112 A Software Insider’s Point of View – R “Ray” Wang “News Analysis: Lawson Software Closes Healthvision Acquisition for $160M, Deepens Healthcare Specialization”

20090425 A Software Insider’s Point of View – R “Ray” Wang ” Event Report: Lawson Cue09?

20090313 A Software Insider’s Point of View – R “Ray” Wang “Friday’s Feature: Snapshots in Enterprise 2.0 UI/UX – Lawson Smart Office

20090612 A Software Insider’s Point of View – R “Ray” Wang “News Analysis: Infor Snags SoftBrands for $80M”

20081017 A Software Insider’s Point of View – R “Ray” Wang “Event Report: Inforum 2008 Highlights Transition from Acquirer to Builder”

Storify Twitter Feed From The Infor Summit

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

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.

Copyright © 2001 to 2013 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.

 

 

Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth Leadership Chief Experience Officer

Fitting mobility into the enterprise

Fitting mobility into the enterprise

At Fujitsu Forum, held in Munich in November last year, Benno Zollner (the CIO of Fujitsu Technology Solutions, outside Japan) asked the question:  “Why are (organizations) spending so much for Workplace IT?”  It is a good question.  It has made me think 1)  about mobile devices and 2) about roles and what is deployed with which characteristics. I am going to explore both of these here…

To me the most startling statistic that Benno used was  that it costs organizations something like €130 per user/per month for a managed workplace. This included basic communications, Microsoft Licences, corporate email services, Internet fees, operational services, LAN services (per port) and print services (and probably much more that is not listed).  But this excludes any hardware cost and, presumably, advanced communications services like mobile voice and data.

On the assumption that Fujitsu is more efficient than most, this means that most organizations may currently be spending (say) between €120-€200 per user per month — or €1440 to €2400 per user per year.  The implication is also that this is for a ‘standard user’, one with a laptop or desktop probably situated in an office somewhere and connected to standard IT infrastructure (network, servers, Internet gateways, email, etc.).

With 1000 employees that become a significant sum.  It certainly explains why there is so much interest, not least from Fujitsu on behalf of its clients, in reducing the cost of the corporate workplace — particularly in virtualization and centralization via what Benno referred to as the “Web Desktop”, thereby reducing the cost per month per user.  (Such a “Web Desktop” could offer centralized email, calendar, contacts, tasks,  text, spreadsheets, presentations, file sharing, social media integration as well as other web services integration.)

But going beyond this, Benno also included mobile sync-ing as well as app management.  This suggests that he expects mobile devices to become a key element of any solution.  This makes perfect sense — and is hardly surprising, given the increasing popularity of Bring (or Buy) Your Own Device (BYOD), whether this is a phone, tablet or laptop or combinations of all three.

By bringing such an approach to enterprises the intention must be to increase flexibility beyond the standard laptop/desktop, and with reduced cost per user (even if that user has multiple devices.

In thinking this through, I felt that Benno challenged his listeners with the following observations:

  • role and locality make ever less difference (n a mobile world)
  • there is (or should be) no difference in the future between internal and external users
  • a continuum exists between stationary and mobile workers
  • a different, parallel continuum exists, from task workers through to knowledge workers and power users.

In the following chart I have tried to expand and elaborate on these points.

What should be apparent is that there indeed, as Benno  described, continua which relate to roles (task, knowledge and power) as well as between what each role is likely to need in order to deliver its purpose.

Yet, while confirming what Benno and Fujitsu have been thinking, the large green oval on the right remains a mystery — at least with today’s mobile technologies/roles.  The top right quadrant seems empty, for lack of any obvious occupants.

If you can think of what should, or even might, deserve to be there I will be most interested to hear your suggestions (and please feel able to contact me ([email protected] or [email protected] or charlesbrett on Twitter).

New C-Suite Tech Optimization

Polls and Surveys: Negotiating Software Contracts With Oracle or SAP Part 1.

Polls and Surveys: Negotiating Software Contracts With Oracle or SAP Part 1.

We’re working on a report looking at “How Third Party Maintenance Plays A Role In SAP and Oracle Contract Negotiations”. If you are an Oracle or SAP customer, please take our survey.  We’ll add you to the final report list when you complete the survey and provide a little information about yourself.  Here’s the survey:

Your POV.

Let us know your experiences with SAP or Oracle contract negotiations  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Let Us Help You.

Need help with your software contract or working out the rationale for used software or third party maintenance?  Put the power of experience with over 1500 software contract negotiations to work.  Contact us throughout the vendor selection or negotiation process.  We can help with a quick contract review or even the complete vendor selection.  We provide fix-fee and gain sharing arrangements.

Related Constellation Research

Wang, R. “Best Practices – Three Simple Software Maintenance Strategies That Can Save You Millions” Constellation Research, Inc. March 7, 2012

Wang, R. “Best Practices: Why Every CIO Should Consider Third-Party Maintenance.” Constellation Research, Inc. August 7, 2012.

Wang, R. “Market Overview: The Market For SAP Optimization Options.” Constellation Research, Inc. May 11, 2011.

Wang, R. “Best Practices: The Case for Two-Tier ERP Deployments.” Constellation Research, Inc. February 28, 2011.

Related Resources And Links

20090612, Channel Partner, “Used software – SAP suffers defeat”

20090612 Channel Partner, “UsedSoft obtains a provisional order against Microsoft”

20080602 Federal Judge Approves eBay Auction of Copyrighted Autodesk AutoCAD Design Software”

20120318 Research Summary: Best Practices – Three Simple Software Maintenance Strategies That Can Save You Millions

20100419 Tuesday’s Tip: Dealing With Pesky Software Licensing Audits

20090714 Research Summary: An Enterprise Software Licensee’s Bill of Rights, V2

20101214 Tuesday’s Tip: Dealing With Vendor Offers To Cancel Shelfware And Replace With New Licenses

20100308 Monday’s Musings: Decoupling Support From Maintenance – What Apps Vendors Can Learn From Microsoft Dynamics

20100222 Monday’s Musings: Why Users Should Preserve Their Third Party Maintenance Rights

20100104 News Analysis: SAP Revives Two-Tier Maintenance Options

20090210 Tuesday’s Tip: Software Licensing and Pricing – Do Not Give Away Your Third Party Maintenance And Access Rights

20090709 Tuesday’s Tip: Do Not Bundle Your Support and Maintenance Contracts!

20091222 Tuesday’s Tip: 10 Cloud And SaaS Apps Strategies For 2010

20091208 Tuesday’s Tip: 2010 Apps Strategies Should Start With Business Value

20091102 Best Practices: Lessons Learned In What SMB’s Want From Their ERP Provider

20091006 Tuesday’s Tip: Why Free Software Ain’t Really Free

20090504 News Analysis: Oracle Waives Fees On Extended Support Offerings

20080909 Trends: What Customers Want From Maintenance And Support

20080215 Software Licensing and Pricing: Stop the Anti-Competitive Maintenance Fee Madness

20090405 Monday’s Musings: Total Account Value, True Cost of Ownership, And Software Vendor Business Models

20090324 Tuesday’s Tips: Five Simple Steps To Reduce Your Software Maintenance Costs

20090223 Monday’s Musings: Five Programs Some Vendors Have Implemented To Help Clients In An Economic Recession

20091012 Research Report: Customer Bill of Rights – Software-as-a Service

20090910 Tuesday’s Tip: Note To Self – Start Renegotiating Your Q4 Software Maintenance Contracts Now!

20090721 Tuesday’s Tip: 3 Approaches To Return Shelfware

20090127 Tuesday’s Tip: Software Licensing and Pricing – Now’s The Time To Remove “Gag Rule” Clauses In Your Software Contracts

Reprints

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 – 2013 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!

 

Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth Leadership Chief Experience Officer

Laptops are a misnomer; mobility is changing what and how we do it, at work, at home and in between

Laptops are a misnomer; mobility is changing what and how we do it, at work, at home and in between

Have you ever thought about the term ‘laptop’?  It was invented to differentiate a portable class of PC from desktops.  But, how many people use their ‘laptops’ on their laps?  This has a practical productivity significance that many underestimate, and it may be one of the unsung reasons why tablets are so attractive…

Think about how you use a laptop.  For most people a laptop PC is a device that is semi-mobile.  Yes, you can move it around and you can take it traveling.  But where do you use it?  Almost certainly ypu place it on a desk or a table.  Ask yourself where you put your laptop when in a hotel, in a meeting, in your office – and even on a plane (if there is enough room): it is on a desk or table of some sort.

This has a consequence.  To use your laptop you must make a physical effort to move to that desk or table before you can start working (and without even considering whether it needs to boot up or not).  If you are at home and want to check email or find out some information, you go through (consciously or subconsciously) an evaluation of whether it is worth the effort of getting up and moving from your arm chair or the kitchen or wherever.  Broadly the same applies everywhere else (except perhaps the office).  Before you begin to use your laptop you weigh the cost of commiting to a physical action.  In practice this ‘overhead’ to move is an impediment (how many times can you remember thinking ‘ah, it is not worth it’?).

Contrast this with a tablet (or even a smartphone).  These produce an experience very different from the misnamed laptop.  To start, a tablet its simply more physically accessible: it may be with or beside you wherever you are (and even on the plane).  You can keep the tablet with you in a way that you do not (for most people) with a laptop (never mind a desktop).

Tablets that connect enable you to do what you want, whenever you want.  That can be any or all of email, personal browsing, corporate browsing, information access, decision taking, reading, entertainment, etc.  Indeed, one of the attractions is that you can switch at will between any or all of these.  About the only activity you cannot do is document creation (writing, presentation manipulation, large spreadsheet alteration, etc — where a larger screen plus a mouse are desirable, though these are arguably requirements of Office or similar software and not the device).

In fact, even the need for a laptop for document creation is questionable — and may be related more to age and training than anything else.  Personal experience shows that the young can do pretty much anything on a tablet and also the elderly, especially those  who never had mastered mice,  keyboards and operating systems.  Try watching a 2 year old and/or an 80 year old and you will see how fast their take up is.

There are some who argue that tablets and smartphones will be the next ‘crackberries’, that they will invade and consume personal time.  In fact the reverse seems more likely.  You can be watching a movie and move to reading an urgent email, doing the research to reply to it and then return to your movie — all from where you are.  This introduces a flexibility to ‘turn on and to turn off’ that was never true of the misnamed laptop (too often, once you had made the effort to go to your laptop, you stayed).

Watch yourself.  Watch your partner, your children and your elderly relatives. Mobility is changing what and how we do it, at work, at home and in between.

 

PS  I am particularly interested in the success of the ill and the elderly and tablet use: if you have any stories or evidence (for or against), I would very much like to hear more.  Send me an email at [email protected]

New C-Suite Tech Optimization

Upcoming Technologies Set To Change The Way We Interact With Our Surroundings

Upcoming Technologies Set To Change The Way We Interact With Our Surroundings

I can't wait for these technologies to be part of our daily lives.  Which do you want the most?

Tactus Technology, transparent physical buttons that rise up from a touchscreen surface



Leap Motion, control your computer in three dimensions using just your hand and finger movements  



Google Project Glass, augmented reality glasses



Samsung Youm, flexible screens for phones, tablets, etc.



Under Armour, dynamic clothing that can be a flexible display (just ahead to 40 seconds)

Future of Work

Waving Goodbye to Posterous

Waving Goodbye to Posterous

1
 

Bye Bye PosterousI have long been a fan of Posterous. It was a platform that was ridiculously easy to use – and was a great introduction to social media for those who were (or remain) cautious of technology and online publishing.

But when Twitter acquired Posterous in 2012, it was only a matter of time before it was made redundant. And now we know that Posterous will be turned off on April 30, 2013. Making the announcement on the official Posterous blog, founder, Sachin Agarwal, thanked the users and supporters of Posterous and explained how to backup and download your site:

  1. Go to http://posterous.com/#backup.
  2. Click to request a backup of your Space by clicking “Request Backup” next to your Space name.
  3. When your backup is ready, you’ll receive an email.
  4. Return to http://posterous.com/#backup to download a .zip file.

I’ve started the process of moving the various Posterous sites that I have created. I will probably move them to a WordPress site of some kind – when I have the time … but I do so a little sadly.

Posterous’ ease-of-use was a phenomenal wake-up call to the rest of the web world. It will be a shame to see it disappear. Let’s hope the Posterous focus on simplicity impacts the Twitter product roadmap. After all, we don’t need more features, we need a better experience in our use of technology. And for my money, simplicity it the key.

 

 

Marketing Transformation

Repeat After Me - There Is No One Perfect Tool

Repeat After Me - There Is No One Perfect Tool

I'm tired of people talking about how social software solves everything and call for the end of email.

Let me make my opinion perfectly clear: No one tool is perfect for all scenarios and no tool is effective without the right use-cases and process for using it.

Phones have a purpose. They are good for some things, bad for others.
Email has a purpose. It is good for some things, bad for others.
Forums/Communities have a purpose. They are good for some things, bad for others.
Blogs have a purpose. They are good for some things, bad for others.
Wikis have a purpose. They are good for some things, bad for others.
News Feeds/Activity Streams/Status Updates (social networks) have a purpose. They are good for some things, bad for others.
Instant Messaging/Chat has a purpose. It is good for some things, bad for others.
Web Conferencing/Hangouts have a purpose. They are good for some things, bad for others.
File sharing has a purpose. It is good for some things, bad for others.
Social Bookmarking/Pinboarding has a purpose. It is good for some things, bad for others.
Location based check-ins have a purpose. They are good for some things, bad for others.

The list goes on.

Choose the right tool for the job.


 

Future of Work

Lead The Enterprise Revolution: 5 SharePoint Trends You’ll Want to Follow in 2013

Lead The Enterprise Revolution: 5 SharePoint Trends You’ll Want to Follow in 2013

1
In the past few years, it has been evident that a revolution is brewing in the enterprise. Whether you like it or not, this revolution is happening in your enterprise as proven by these four telltale signs:In the past few years, it has been evident that a revolution is brewing in the enterprise. Whether you like it or not, this revolution is happening in your enterprise as proven by these four telltale signs:
 
Consumerization of IT, aka BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) Movement
It’s so easy and convenient for business people to bring their own devices or even procure web-based tools that meet their business needs. Gone are the days of businesses fully relying and waiting on IT to provide them with a relevant solution.
Lightning Speed of Business
Our global economy and the exponential growth of technology have expedited business transactions worldwide. Sales cycles are shorter, immediate access to a global market is the norm, and the competitive barrier to entry has been lowered. Who would have imagined a viral video watched by 1.2 billion people worldwide in less than six months can generate $8M USD in ad revenue? Is your enterprise adequately equipped to adapt to this new reality?
Doing More with Less
The global economic crisis in the past few years has forced organizations to cut their expenditures and be more prudent in their investments. We are expected to do more with less. Thanks to technology platforms, such as SharePoint, doing more with less can certainly be achieved. However, unless business needs are strategically aligned with your SharePoint investment, it’s nothing but a glorified network share. Sound familiar?
Grassroots Social Collaboration
Gone are the days where you’ll pick up the phone or send an email to a subject matter expert asking for help. With the proliferation of consumer social tools, information workers are used to collaborating with their peers anytime, anywhere, with any device. How are we supporting this mode of collaboration in the enterprise?
Fortunately, with SharePoint 2013 and related technologies, you can guide your business through this major paradigm shift and help address these needs. The question is: what should your enterprise focus on in 2013?
 

Read the rest of the article at Digital WPC


What’s in Your Startup DNA

What’s in Your Startup DNA

There’s plenty of hype around startups – and around the founders of those startups. We buy books (books, really? Yes!) written by startup entrepreneurs, attend talks, download podcasts and go to  conferences. Sometimes it can feel like meeting a rockstar rather than a business person.

But for every startup, there are countless others, often behind the scenes, who have helped drive those startup successes and the failures that they are built on.

This great presentation by Yevgeniy Brikman is the view from the front row. It talks about the nitty gritty of startups. It’s not the big ideas or the grand plans. It’s the stuff that makes the business tick. And it makes you think … what’s in your startup DNA – and how deep does that go.