| Constellation Research

Betterment Tosses Desk Phones and Moves to Cloud Communications

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…...

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

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

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. ...

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…...

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

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Microsoft Makes Bet on Kubernetes with Deis Acquisition

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

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…...

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

Cindy Zhou

CMO
Level Access

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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Twitter Courts Developers with Unified APIs, Better Transparency

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

It's safe to say that Twitter has had a complex and at times contentious relationship with developers that want to integrate with and build on the social messenging service. In October 2015, CEO Jack Dorsey acknowledged the problem and said Twitter wanted to "reset" its developer relationships, as Venturebeat notes:

“Somewhere along the line, our relationship with developers got confusing, unpredictable,” he acknowledged. “We want to come to you today and apologize for the confusion. We want to reset our relationship and make sure that we’re learning, listening, and that we are rebooting."

Twitter conducted fairly extensive developer outreach during 2016, but the picture blurred once again with the departure of several prominent developer advocates from the company, and Twitter's decision in January to sell its Fabric mobile development toolkit to Google.

Now Twitter is taking measure of its developer outreach, announcing a unified API platform and increased transparency through a public development road map. Developer advocate Andy Piper laid out the landscape in a blog post:

We’re excited to announce that we’ll be unifying our API platform to make it easier for developers to build new applications that can smoothly scale as they grow. We’re also launching new APIs and endpoints that enable developers to build on the unique attributes of Twitter to create better experiences for businesses. Developers can see where we’re focusing and what we’re building with our newly-published API platform roadmap.

Twitter values developers because they can help serve new use cases and spark innovation, Piper wrote. He cited examples such as the U.S. Geological Service's use of Twitter data for earthquake tracking, and LikeFolio's consumer service for stock investors.

Of course, the broader intent—as with any developer outreach effort—is to help grow Twitter's center of gravity, user base and ultimately revenue.

What Twitter has lacked, but wants to remedy now, is an API set and strategy that's clear, stable and relevant to developers at all ends of the spectrum, from startups to large enterprises. Piper walked through some examples of the new normal:

Since 2006, we’ve had a set of broadly available REST and real-time (streaming) APIs that provide access to a range of features and functions. In 2014, we acquired Gnip, a partner who built a suite of enterprise-grade APIs for the world’s largest and most demanding software companies to create solutions with Twitter data. The Gnip APIs provide deeper access to public data from the Firehose and greater functionality than the standard REST and streaming APIs, but have a price point that is often out of range for developers just starting to scale their businesses. As we’ve met and listened to developers at events around the world and in our developer discussion forums, we’ve heard that this can be a source of frustration.

This year, Twitter will roll out a new developer experience that combines its REST and streaming APIs "with the enterprise-grade power and reliability of Gnip," Piper wrote. "The goal is to create an integrated Twitter API platform that serves everyone, from an individual developer testing a new idea to Twitter’s largest enterprise partners."

Developers will enjoy a streamlined API experience; rather than having to shift among multiple APIs as their projects scale up, there will be a single tool for a given task, such as filtering data from Twitter's Firehose. There will be tiered access, from free at the low end to paid self-service and enterprise grade, Piper wrote.

Despite his earlier mention of developer frustration over Gnip pricing levels, Piper gave no indication Twitter plans to cut those costs. Rather, he emphasized that Twitter will "clearly define the features and costs at each tier" so developers can make the plans best suiting their needs.

Twitter also has some new products in the works that target data analytics and customer engagement scenarios. There's more detail in Piper's full post, which is worth a read.

Piper characterized Twitter's efforts as a "massive new engineering and product investment" for its platform and developer ecosystem. That may be the case, but it comes after years of missteps and fractious relations with developers, not to mention amid stagnant revenue growth and diminished buzz around the service.

"It's good to see Twitter putting order into its API strategy," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller. "It needs to regain the trust it lost a few years ago when changing and reducing API access. And as always with Twitter, monetization is the question. This could open up new alleys."

The bottom line here? Twitter needs developers—many more of them—to start regaining traction. On the face of it, Twitter's unified API plans are welcome and long overdue. The question is how well it can sustain focus on this path.

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Marketing Transformation Matrix Commerce Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Chief Customer Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Digital Officer

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Executive Profile: Public Sector Chief Information Officer

Director of Customer Programs, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Carole oversees the Constellation Executive Network, an executive community for innovative senior leaders who value strategic guidance from trusted advisors who understand the power of disruptive technologies. Carole brings over 15 years of marketing, strategic account management, and operations experience, specializing in high technology and professional services. She holds a BA from Santa Clara University and a MBA from Thunderbird, School of Global Management.     ...

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…...

Our Constellation Research ecosystem of business leaders extends around the world, which we love. We find that our global footprint enriches the diversity of issues and challenges that need to be tackled and enables us to partner closely with executives driving digital transformation in all sizes of organizations. Disruptive technologies and developments like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, blockchain, the Internet of Things, and cyber security are among the many new additions that will drive groundbreaking change in the coming decades across multiple industries.

David L. Stevens is a CIO who we're impressed with like David Chou, Healthcare VP, CIO and CDO. Both are Constellation Executive Network members. As a public sector leader with a large constituency, his focus for the next 18 months is all about the voice of customer, customer experience, and service quality.

If you know of a forward-thinking leader who we should consider profiling and who buys enterprise technology, we look forward to hearing from you at CEN.

David L. Stevens

Chief Information Officer
maricopa County, Arizona -Fourth Largest and Fastest Growing County in the US

Industry - COUNTY GOVERNMENT
LinkedIn
Twitter - @MaricopaCIO & @ShadowAtNoon

Q: Tell us about your role.

A: I serve as the Chief Information Officer for Maricopa County, AZ – the fourth largest (4.2 million citizens and 9,200 square miles in size) and fastest growing County in the Nation; it is larger than 23 States by population with an overall budget of $2.2 Billion dollars and a technology budget of $200 Million dollars. My focus is strategic technology investments that deliver value, keep the customer first, and create a winning culture.

Q: What’s your typical day like?

A: Typical day starts before the office when I wake up to do a quick check of email, texts, and news. In the office my day starts by huddling with my executive assistant to make any needed adjustments to the schedule, handle items needing my immediate attention, and also direct any action to my team. Then I usually spend time with customers, business partners, and stakeholders. The “end” of my work day is reviewing performance metrics, dashboards/ reports, and financials. I go to the gym late each night, and before bed, read new research, a book, or other relevant information.

Q: What are your biggest initiatives or challenges for the next 6 - 18 months?

A: We are making our next 18 months all about voice of customer, customer experience, and service quality – to strive to make saleable, secure, and contextually relevant services for our customers and citizens. We spent the last 3 years building the foundation (network, security, telecommunications, metrics, ERP, culture, and financials) so we could build a reliable technology stack that will deliver first-class customer service. Our new strategic plan can be viewed on our website.

Q: What do you see as the biggest enterprise disruptive technology trends?

A: My sense is that Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, IoT, and Data will continue to be major disruptors – the intersection of these Big Four will generate new growth, discovers, and impact business and society in profound ways.

Q: If you could have a different job, what would it be?

A: I think I would either want to be an exotic vacation tour guide or a fighter pilot.

New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience Data to Decisions Innovation & Product-led Growth Future of Work Tech Optimization Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity B2C CX ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI AI Analytics Automation business Marketing SaaS PaaS IaaS Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP finance Healthcare Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Chief Information Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief AI Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Product Officer Chief Customer Officer Chief People Officer Chief Human Resources Officer

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Digital Adoption Platform WalkMe acquires Jaco

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

WalkMe has a simple goal, they want to help companies make sure their employees and customers have the best possible experience with their applications and websites. If your Sales team is struggling using your CRM system, WalkMe will help guide them through the trouble spots. If your customers are not finding what they need on your website, WalkMe can show them the way. Think of it as the modernization of the Help file.

This week WalkMe announced the acquisition of Jaco, who’s product records the clicks people perform as they navigate around a website or web-based applications. This data can then be played back allowing administrators and designers to get insight into the trouble spots people are experiencing, then fix those problems to provide an improved experience.

Jaco’s technology will be integrated into WalkMe’s Digital Adoption Platform, providing a media player like experience, where people can replay, click by click, the interactions people take.

This is WalkMe’s second acquisition of the year, the first being ABBI.io, a tool that helps optimize the experience of mobile applications.

Helping People Get Work Done

One of the biggest challenges with applications and websites is that everyone has a different style in how they use them. Digital Adoption Platforms such as WalkMe provide a way to monitor, study, and ultimately fix the roadblocks people are having. This leads to improved workflows, less support calls, and happier users. WalkMe is aggressively improving their platform, constantly seeking new ways to help organizations improve the adoption of the tools they provide their employees and customers.

Future of Work

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Anaplan Steps Up Investment In Connected Planning

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,…...

Anaplan says increased R&D investment will keep it ahead of cloud-based performance management arena. Here’s what connected planning is all about.

When Frank Calderoni, Anaplan’s new CEO, took the stage at the March 27-29 Anaplan Hub 17 event, he cited positive company statistics including signing 250 new customers in the last year (bringing the total count above 660) and more than 75 percent annual year-over-year subscription revenue growth to a $120-million-annual run rate. Just two months on the job, Calderoni also promised a “significant increase” in R&D investment, saying the company intends to stay ahead of the competition.

At Anaplan Hub 17, Frank Calderoni, who joined the company as CEO in January, promised
increased R&D investment. He was previously CFO at RedHat and Cisco, respectively.

Indeed, competition is tightening in the corporate performance management arena, in which the lion’s share of growth is going to cloud-based offerings. Incumbents including Oracle (Hyperion) and SAP (BPC) have introduced their own software-as-a-service options while SaaS rivals Adaptive Insights and Host Analytics have been courting larger and larger customers. Even partners are getting in on the act, with Workday adding Workday Planning to its cloud-based performance management application portfolio in 2016.

Anaplan stands apart among the cloud options in that it focuses on a broader range of business planning challenges than any of its competitors, most of which concentrate on the needs of finance departments. Financial planning and sales planning are Anaplan’s most mature use cases, but the company also supports supply chain, workforce, marketing, IT and other planning needs with more than 195 starting-point applications on its Anaplan App Hub. Roughly two thirds of these domain- and industry-specific apps are offered by partners, such as Accenture, Deloitte and Workforce Insight, who help customers build out and customize apps to their specific needs.

Customers typically start with one planning challenge, such as financial planning and analysis or sales planning, but Anaplan educates customers on the need for “connected planning” as part of its land-and-expand strategy. By connecting plans, companies can understand and account for interdependencies, cascading changes in plans and what-if scenarios across interconnected data, people and processes.

Why do companies need connected planning? Anaplan founder and CTO Michael Gould cited the example of U.K.-based companies that are now in the cross hairs of Brexit. Adequate preparation and forecasting demands more than a single plan; these companies need interconnected plans around possible changes in exchange rates, border tariffs, trade deals, supply costs, pricing and resulting demand. In the U.S. it’s easy to imagine the complex, interconnected planning healthcare organizations will need to come to grips with potential changes in the Affordable Care Act.

Of course, planning and forecasting challenges are more often triggered by routine business dynamics rather than legislative or geopolitical sea changes. Routine business changes such as mergers, acquisitions, digital disruption and emerging market opportunities all trigger complex planning and forecasting challenges. Anaplan customers are typically large companies and fast-growing companies – mostly in retail, banking, technology, healthcare and consumer packaged goods – that face complexity and constant change.

MyPOV on Anaplan’s Progress

There weren’t a lot of high-profile announcements at Anaplan Hub 17 in part because the company is still in the process of delivering capabilities promised at Anaplan Hub 16 (thus, Calderoni’s promise to step up R&D investment). For example, a Business Map feature announced at Hub 16 is still a few weeks away. The Business Map will support connected planning by giving customers a holistic view of all business planning activities, with tagging, searching and filtering by use case, business process and geography.

Also still in the works is a promised expansion of existing predictive capabilities to better support workforce optimization, supply planning, transportation assignment, product marketing, and risk modeling, among other forward-looking analyses. Anaplan did release a module in a limited private beta, but executives say they’re reworking the module to support mathematical optimization without requiring coding.

Late last year Anaplan did deliver on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) capabilities promised at Hub 16. The new ALM capabilities brought an important productivity advance, enabling customers to split large models and synchronize model versions so they don’t have to replicate changes across development, testing and production instances.

At Hub 17, Anaplan did announce a new data-integration option called Anaplan HyperConnect, which is a licensed version of Informatica Cloud that Anaplan will sell and support under its own brand. It also announced reporting integrations with Tableau, and the company is days away from releasing a DocuSign integration that will take paperwork and, thus, time out of approval processes.

Anaplan didn’t play up the announcement, but in a roadmap session it unveiled plans for two important coming platform capabilities that will unlock yet more growth. A Bring-Your-Own-Key encryption requested by security-conscious banks and financial institution is due out later this year. And a lightweight workflow capability will improve planning throughput, governance and collaboration by routing tasks, approvals and alerts. Release dates weren’t disclosed, and one Anaplan executive quipped that the company wants to live down recent product delays by under-promising and overdelivering.

Anaplan has had its share of executive changes over the last year, as is common in any CEO regime change. But as Calderoni settles in and the company pours more of its considerable venture funding into development, I expect innovation to accelerate and the connected planning story to get stronger.

Media Name: Anaplan CEO Frank Calderoni.jpg

Media Name: Anaplan Connected Planning.jpg

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Google Forms New Patent Pool for Android: The Enterprise Implications

Chris Kanaracus

Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Google has created a new patent cross-licensing effort in the interest of stemming litigation within the burgeoning Android ecosystem. It's called PAX, which means "peace" in Latin. Here are the key details from Google's official blog post on PAX:

Under PAX, members grant each other royalty-free patent licenses covering Android and Google Applications on qualified devices. This community-driven clearinghouse, developed together with our Android partners, ensures that innovation and consumer choice—not patent threats—will continue to be key drivers of our Android ecosystem. PAX is free to join and open to anyone.

PAX members currently include Google, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics,Foxconn Technology Group, HMD Global, HTC, Coolpad, BQ, and Allview. The members collectively own more than 230,000 patents worldwide. As more companies join, PAX will bring even more patent peace and value to its members through more freedom to innovate.

It's important to note a couple of things here. One, there are indeed some big names signed onto PAX at launch, but they represent only a small percentage of Android OEMs. As the blog notes, the Android ecosystem now has more than 400 partner manufacturers and 500 carriers, with greater than 4,000 devices created in just the past year. There is plenty of room for PAX's ranks to grow, and no doubt they will as word gets out.

Don't expect Microsoft, which at one point was reportedly earning $2 billion per year licensing its patents to Android device makers, to join up.

Second, PAX's launch companies may possess more than 230,000 patents but that doesn't mean all of them will pertain to PAX or Android. It also appears that PAX will focus on software, not hardware patents.

PAX is not Google's first patent pool. Past initiatives include the LOT Network, which focuses on combating patent trolls. Google also participates in long-standing patent pools such as the Open Invention Network.

Google has set up a website for PAX, but it contains very little specific information. In fact, visitors are asked to submit a request if they want to see a copy of the PAX license. The site offers no guarantee one will be received, but in the case one is, asks that recipients keep it confidential save for employees, board members and attorneys, or if compelled by law.

While still in its early days, the emergence of PAX is good news not only for the Android partner and developer ecosystem, but for enterprises. Despite Android's nearly 90 percent smartphone market share, it has lagged Apple dramatically in the enterprise market for a number of reasons, chief among them the Android ecosystem's rampant fragmentation and a resulting perception (or reality) of inferior security.

While most every iOS device gets updated with new operating system versions within a matter of weeks or even days, that's never been the case with Android, with many carriers taking years to make updates available to customers. This makes BYOD initiatives much tougher to do for enterprise IT with Android devices, given users may be running earlier, less secure versions of Android.

Google has taken significant steps in the past year to make Android more enterprise-friendly, adding an array of security features in Android 7.0 (Nougat), which was released in August. (Go here for a comprehensive rundown). Google also sees enterprise overall as its next big path to growth, and has invested accordingly. Expect Google to spend plenty of energy educating the market on where Android stands as an enterprise solution over the course of this year and beyond.

While PAX doesn't draw a direct line toward spurring enterprise adoption of Android, if successful it can only help. An Android partner ecosystem focused more on creating new innovations than fending off intellectual property claims could help reduce fragmentation and thus coalesce around enterprise mobility opportunities, which are already vast.

There's a broader view to consider, as well. "A digital economy built around a new generation of interactive, high-value business and consumer apps and service orchestrations calls for levels of shared and integrated technology operations that massively surpass that of the Web," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Andy Mulholland. "The recent battle around protecting patents on smartphone features has shown just how difficult it can be to simultaneously add patented features while in parallel allowing user interactivity with other technology and apps."

"Multiply that many times over the next several years as hundreds of successful startups add their claims to those of the established vendors in the rush to win a share of the new digital markets and the results will be at best chaotic, and at worst could lead to users find their purchases are banned from use," he adds. "Revising both patent and commercial law may not be easy but its very necessary."

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Does Oracle and Accenture make sense - or never ever!

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

So before I get more questions on Oracle possibly buying Accenture and getting back on the road this - week... better to have a blog post out there on the topic...

First things first - quick thoughts in the video: (if the video doesn’t show up, check here)

No time to watch - here is the one slide update:
(if the slide doesn’t show up, check here)

Musings - Why Oracle and Accenture make sense.. or maybe not! from Holger Mueller

Definitively, because

The Future is Services - We know services are the future - vs. CAPEX style perpetual licenses. Combos of software and human services (aka BPO, more modern BPaaS) have a future, not doubt.
Accenture can bring cloud load - The idea would be that Accenture can 'persuade' most of its customers to move to Oracle products, and provide the services. Stands and falls with 'client leakage'. But Oracle needs load for its cloud to be competitive.
The 21st century "IBM" needs services - Ellison wants Oracle to become the IBM of the 21st century - what the IBM of the 20th century had was services. So Accenture is the missing piece.

Never ever, because

Product vs Services DNA - These are like fire and water - they need each other but never live well together.
Accenture dilutes Oracle's margin - It's all about P/E ratio, less E means a smaller P... not good for Oracle shareholders, who may not be happy.
Services under pressure - There is a lot of talk about digital disruption - but a function that has been thoroughly disrupted by software - is system integrator services. Gone are the 1000+ FTE projects, a dozen consultants is a large project these days. So why would Oracle acquire a player in a systematically struggling industry - and one that Oracle disrupts itself with its cloud products?

MyPOV

I would be very surprised if this merger would happen. It’s unlikely that Oracle / Larry Ellison will make the mistake from the 90ies twice – when the integrated product and services Oracle offering feel short in the market when competing with the SAP (product only) and SI combo (back then the Big 7 in case you remember). Basically, the Big 7 influenced customers to implement… where there would be revenue stream for them.

On the flip side one could argue that the market is no longer the same as in the 90ies. Customer want all in one shot, and want it as fast as possible, maybe even need their solution as fast as possible to keep operating. But what has not changed is the stock market: Predictable revenues with predictable margins – and that is so much more attractive with (cloud) software than with cloud related services.

What’s your POV?

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Executive Profile: Public Sector Chief Information Officer

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Chief Information Officer maricopa County, Arizona -Fourth Largest and Fastest Growing County in the US

Digital Adoption Platform WalkMe acquires Jaco

Anaplan Steps Up Investment In Connected Planning

Google Forms New Patent Pool for Android: The Enterprise Implications

Does Oracle and Accenture make sense - or never ever!

MyPOV

Chief Information Officer
maricopa County, Arizona -Fourth Largest and Fastest Growing County in the US