Salesforce Connections - Bringing together Builders and Studios for Marketing Success

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…...

We have the opportunity to attend Salesforce’s Connections conference in Atlanta, held from May 10th to 12th 2016. The conference is well attended with over 5000 participants, coming from customers, prospects and the ecosystem. My impression of the attendance was that it was energized and looking forward to use more of the Salesforce marketing offerings.

So take a look at my musings on the event here:

No time to watch – here is the 1-2 slide condensation:

Event Report - Salesforce Connections - Bringing together Builders and Studios for Marketing Success from Holger Mueller

Want to read on? Here you go: Always tough to pick the takeaways – but here are my Top 3 (check out my colleague Alan Lepfosky’s takeaways in this video, too):

Lightning coming to Marketing Cloud – Similar to what Salesforce has announced and provided for Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, its Lightning framework is coming, has come to Marketing Cloud. Lightning has multiple facets, it affects the user experience (to come), provides a platform (available) and a collection on components to build new applications (the Lightning Components). It is good to see Salesforce pursue a consistent strategy and the marketing required / to be provided Lightning Components will make the Lightning platform stronger and more powerful. Classic platform benefits.

The Builders and Studios are here - Salesforce has harmonized product naming with a group of 5 Builders and 5 Studios (check out the video above for the details). The Builders provide horizontal support across all marketing activity (e.g. the Audience Builder takes are of audience / segmentation activity) and the Studios power channel execution above the Builders (e.g. the new Email Studio takes care of email marketing). A good simplification and consistent way to group products. Special kudos to Salesforce Bryan Wade who even the keynote picked up my tweets for clarification – and addressed the role of Builders and Studios during the keynote. A first and as it by the way should be – for a marketing automation vendor – listening to the audience. Well done.

Predictive Analytics for Journey Builder – Journey Builder featured prominently at Connections, as it choreographs the digital relationship with customers, a functionality at the very heart of Marketing Cloud. But the need for explicit definition of customer journeys can only go so far. With cheap compute from the Cloud, BigData and ‘true’ analytics (more here) – customer journeys should not be deterministic, but fluid creation of the digital exhaust of existing customer behavior. Using predictive analytics (mostly Scoring) is a good first step departing from the deterministic philosophy.

MyPOV

A good Connections for Salesforce, the vendor is investing into the product, probably bringing more functionality together through the Builders and Studios than ever before. Good to see the commonality with the Lightning adoption and the next generation Application capabilities that the Lightning platform, combined with Lightning components offer. The predictive analytics capabilities for Journey Builder are encouraging steps to move away from deterministic to probabilistic customer journeys, that are key in the 21st century given the erratic and multi-persona behavior both consumers and customers show.

On the concern side Salesforce is taking some time to unify the user experience. Granted Lightning as a platform is 1.5 years old, the user experience only a little more than 6 months, but a common user experience coming to Marketing Cloud 3+ years after the acquisition of ExactTarget is not ‘lightning’ speed (pun intended). And overall Salesforce has to straddle the chasm of operating two platforms, the existing force.com (that runs Sales Cloud and Service Cloud) and the Marketing Cloud platform that goes across force.com, the products legacy platforms and newer offerings with Lightning (with Heruko, AWS). But by now that is pretty much modus operandi for Salesforce and its customers, so the integration and operation ‘tax’ are factored in. It would be good to harmonize on a single platform sooner than later for Salesforce – hoping we will learn more at Dreamforce later this year.

But overall a good event for Salesforce and its Marketing Cloud product, the ecosystem interest is good, customers are energized, and Salesforce in investing in new products and capabilities, that make Marketing Cloud a must shortlist product for customers who use other Salesforce products, and certainly a long list vendor for overall marketing automation selections.

Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below.

More about Salesforce:

Event Scorecard - Salesforce Dreamforce 2015 - App, Analytics, IoT... - pre event thoughts assessment - read here
Event Report - Salesforce Dreamforce - Value for customers - but some concerns on direction - read here
News Analysis - Microsoft and Salesforce Strengthen Strategic Partnership at Dreamforce 2015 - Good for joint customers - read here
News Analysis - Salesforce Unveils Breakthrough Salesforce IoT Cloud, Powered by Salesforce Thunder - First dips into IoT - read here
News Analysis - Salesforce Unveils the Next Wave of Salesforce Analytics Cloud—Delivering Actionable Insights Across the Customer Success Platform - Glass half full - and half empty! Read / watch here
Event Preview - What I would like Salesforce to address this Dreamforce 2015 - read / watch here
News Analysis - Salesforce Announces Salesforce App Cloud - A Unified Platform for Building Connected Apps, Fast - It’s all coming together, across the clouds - read here
News Analysis - alesforce Delivers Salesforce1 Lightning Components and App Builder […] - More productivity for Admins and Developers - read here
News Analysis - News Analysis - Salesforce Launches Salesforce Shield - More PaaS capabilities coming to Salesforce1 Platform - read here
News Analysis - Salesforce Transforms Big Data Into Customer Success with the Salesforce Analytics Cloud - Read here
News Analysis - Market Move - Salesforce (re) enters HCM - will it rypple the market this time? - Read here
Event Report - Salesforce Dreamforce - A Customer Succes Platform, Analytics and Lightning - but really Salesforce is re-platforming - read here
Constellation Research Summary of Salesforce Dreamforce 2014 - read here
Research Summary - An in depth look at Salesforce1 - Better packaging or new offerng? Read here.
Dreamforce 2013 Platform Takeaways - All about the mobile platform - or more? Read here.
Platform ecosystems are hard - Salesforce grows it - FinancialForce shrinks it - read here.
Our take on Salesforce.com Identity Connect - from three angles - Identity, CRM and PaaS - read here.
Takeaways from the Salesforce and Workday Strategic Partnership - read here.
Act II - The Cloud changes everything - Oracle and Salesforce.com - read here.
How many Pivots make a Pirouette? Salesforce's last Pivot - read here.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Marketing Transformation Data to Decisions Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Innovation & Product-led Growth Future of Work New C-Suite Distillation Aftershots salesforce 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 SaaS PaaS IaaS Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Enterprise Service Chief Customer Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Executive Officer

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Lessons Learned from the Digital Hollywood Panel

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

The Digital Hollywood Panel was comprisized of Brian Popowitz, Jessica Hasson, John Bohan, Christopher Puga and Johnny Miller. When I asked them if they could only leave the audience with a few 1-3 thoughts, what would they be, here’s how they responded:

Brian Popowitz

1) Black Box. I’m in the business of working with musicians to aggregate an audience, build affinity between the audience/artist, and monetize the affinity an artist has with their audience. Social media has completely transformed that linear funnel and it what I dedicate each day of my life to work on.

2) Hoping for a magic bullet or virality is not a social strategy. Panoptic conversation will be replaced with more personalized conversation through social media. Influence is power.

Christopher Puga

1) Have a Voice – Not so long ago brands did everything possible to stay away from public opinion. platforms like twitter and Facebook have changed that. Not even 10 yrs ago some brands would consider it a luxury to not feel the need to comment on social issues. It’s the brands that you see now, like Oreo, Netflix, etc that look at this as an opportunity… an opportunity to build a deeper relationship with their customers and even move ahead of their competitors.

2) Plan for the Moment – Would you be surprised if I said the Oreo, dunk in the dark was not a random lucky post by accident? In fact, it was strategized and planned months in advance. They had a series of images ready to post given the situation. Some obvious like holidays and some subjective. how they won was by planning for the moment and being prepared to join the real-time conversation regardless of what happens in the world. So the lights went out in the super bowl and just like that, you have an award winning tweet and something that marketers will remember forever.

3) Don’t be Afraid to Fail – New features roll out weekly. New platforms pop up and with them come new potential customers. New ways of communicating spark out of nowhere. Don’t be afraid to try something new. Tweet with an emoji, start a periscope account, test Facebook live video, live tweet a TV show. start an AMA with an exec or special guest. Don’t be afraid to fail, but if the returns aren’t there, then fail fast. Only 17% of fortune 500s are on Pinterest. This is a powerful platform that is perfect for brands that want to connect with their customers.

John Bohan

I’m fascinated and energized by the state of the advertising industry today. Many people claim advertising is dead, and there’s no doubt it has changed dramatically in recent years with new challenges emerging daily. Advertising as we knew it is dead. Good advertising is no longer about selling. It’s about inspiring. It’s no longer about brand stories. It’s about people stories. Social media is the single most effective way for brands today to make real connections with real people.

1) Think, talk and act like your customers by gaining a deep understanding of your CUSTOMER ARCHETYPES (read our “bluepaper” here). You have to meet people on their terms in marketing today, and genuinely care about improving the quality of people’s lives. It’s not about your WHAT…it’s about tapping into their WHY.

2) VIDEO, VIDEO, VIDEO. It’s estimated that mobile video will account for 75% of total mobile data traffic by 2020. Facebook is making major moves to champion video and it’s already proving to be highly effective for brands and publishers. From Facebook 360 to Facebook LIVE (hailed as the future of TV – exploding watermelon, anyone?), new video tools allow people to get even closer to the brands, movies and media they love.

3) THE MESSENGER MATTERS – If you want more customers, get more friends. Brands touting their own services and capabilities through one-way messages fall silent in the forest. No one cares and people are tired of being sold to constantly. But they do like and buy from brands that are recommended by their own friends or people that they trust.

If you want people to listen to your message, the person telling your story matters. Build quality networks of influencers that connect with your different archetypes and provide these advocates with turnkey, engaging ways to spread your story in authentic ways (see Storytelling vs. Story Starting).

Jessica Hasson

CEO and Founder of PulpPR. I am passionate about this panel because it has been a powerful learning experience understanding the psychology behind social media, and what companies like Facebook are doing to improve their platforms accordingly. These changes are what ultimately impact the future of marketing and public relations, and we must learn and adapt from them if we are to be successful.

1) Take advantage of the wealth of social media resources available to you: social networks, marketing tools, etc. – most of which are free or of low cost to your business. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain from these resources.

2) Keep on top of the latest social media trends: Experts are constantly studying the psychological impacts of social media. Read up on these types of studies often to better understand how you can efficiently target customers through social media.

3) Analyze your results, often: The only way to improve upon your past efforts is to analyze them, and figure out what went wrong or what did well. As Einstein has stated: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Don’t be insane.

What these people who are in the field actually doing digital and social media, interfacing and engaging with customers are telling us is that the customer is in charge of the message and that it’s time to shift the way things are done.

@DrNatalie, VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Covering Customer-Facing Applications that Create Awesome Customer Experiences

Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

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Salesforce Strikes Marketing Cloud With Lightning

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…...

On May 10th I attended Salesforce Connections 2016 in Atlanta Georgia. This event is Salesforce's conference dedicated to marketing, showcasing their Marketing Cloud offerings.

There were four main announcements:

Marketing Cloud is updated with the new "Lightning UI". Read announcement here.
New Marketing Cloud mobile app
New Advertising Studio for targeting ads to the right customers
Email Studio for those critical email marketing campaigns. Read announcement here.

My Summary

1.) With the updated look and navigation, the full range of features (delivered via a series of Studios and Builders), and the integration with the rest of Salesforce (ex: Sales and Service clouds) Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides an very powerful platform for marketing professionals to reach their audiences across email, social media and even places like car dashboards. They deliver personalized, 1:1 marketing whenever and where ever the customer needs it.

2) I was surprised by the overwhelming focus on email (they did not ignore social media, but it certainly took a backseat to email) and pushing offers (ads), as marketing is more than just pushing discounts at people, it's building relationships and providing them information and services they need.

3) While Marketing Cloud was updated with the "Lighting UI", it is still lacking the collaboration features that the Sales and Service clouds have. I look forward to seeing them add Chatter directly into the various Marketing Cloud studios so that marketing professionals can have conversations directly within the context of their campaigns.

Here is a short video recap of day 1:

Here are my tweets from day 1. You can scroll (down) through them, or click view as slideshow.

Future of Work Chief Marketing Officer

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From the Field: Capgemini Analyst Conference #capgemniAD16

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks: It’s never too late to transform yourself. Having been a system’s integrator many years ago, I found the transformations happening at Capgemni very inspiring. There was a period where many system’s integrators avoided the conversation about going to cloud and for good reason. Their business and revenue model was not shaped for the cloud. They were based for on-premise installations. Enter the cloud and everything changed. With the integration of IGATE and Capgemini, outstanding changes are definitely clear. Replacing McKinsey and Accenture in many digital transformation projects, they are looking to lead the digital transformation. Net new customers are over 200 and a 35% increase in the client base in North America. Though under NDA, the brands were very impressive.

What did Capgemini learn from IGATE? And I have to say I really appreciated all of the executives transparency and honesty in their process of becoming a digital transformation system’s integrator – including but not limited to Fernando Alvarez, Paul Hermelin, Srikanth Iyengar, Bill Ruh, Lanny Cohen, Tim Bridges, John Mullen, Dee Burger, Todd Rovak, Jean Pierre Petit, Frank Greverie, Doug Mills, Mathieu Colas and Andre Cichowlas. IGATE was known for the great client relationship capabilities. A client’s CIO had said, “I’ve never had a company pay more attention to my culture and my people and company that what we have experienced with IGATE.” IGATE is a new breed of company infusing it’s culture into Capgemini, with the key themes of speed, agility and imagination. And Capgemini vowed to learn from IGATE.

Capgemni’s Digital Business Model: It includes not only the “what” but the “how” of customer experience, including digital customer experience, digital organizational and people and digital operations. In terms of the “how”– what digital seems to mean are areas like social & mobile, data, IoT, cyber security and cloud. There was a large focus on cyber security, as more and more customers are putting their data in the cloud. There is a focus on digital innovation as well as a digital ecosystem of partners and start-ups in the mix. There key digital capabilities include: innovation, digital customer experience, digital manufacturing and insights and data.

Fahrenheit212 Innovation Strategy and Design Company: They believe that innovation can be inherently reliable and have spent the last decade designing the method, building the model, and assembling the minds to make innovation a predictable driver of growth for our clients’ businesses. They believe most great innovations don’t come from consultants—they come from entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial organizations. Entrepreneurs are driven by a powerful force that counter-balances their challenger mentality. Namely, they have skin in the game. They don’t obsess over the process of innovation; they care only about the outcomes. And it’s why they make a good addition to Capgemini.

Since their inception, Fahrenheit 212 has harnessed this entrepreneurial approach through a performance-based compensation model that aligns our risk and reward with that of our clients. They offer their clients the option of putting a significant portion of our potential compensation at risk, contingent on their solutions hitting pre-determined success milestones. This means their ideas can’t just be interesting; they actually have to deliver actual business results.

Digital Manufacturing Is Hot: The digital manufacturing value proposition includes a comprehensive enterprise offer of smart product and plants, Capgemni IP and an extended ecosystem of subject matter experts and highly skilled resources. With a 180,000 Capgemini employees, they are looking not only to re-skill some folks as well as hiring new people.

Cloud Is the New Normal: Their cloud value proposition is that cloud first is the new normal. Of their North American clients, 80% want their applications in the cloud in some way- some pure cloud, others a hybrid model.

Competitive Roadmap For Capgemini: Capgemini’s competitive roadmap is one of quality of service where they want to work with some of the most demanding clients on the most challenging projects with the most talented people in the world. Capgemini’s entry into the world of IoT, though under NDA, was very impressive and spot on. I look forward to see what comes of their partnerships and their vision.

@drnatalie petouhoff, VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Covering Customer Facing Applications, including the customer experience of IOT

Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

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Time Waits for No One—nor Any CIO

Recently, I was involved in research spearheaded by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics on New Strategic Information and Technology Roles in Life Sciences Companies: The Impact of Digital Transformation on the CIO. The findings warrant further thought and discussion. The data on where life sciences CIOs are—and where they need to be—reveal a dramatic skills gap that will be filled one way or another. Not all of those ways will be career builders for CIO incumbents. (Cue the voice over: “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”)

This Isn’t Kansas Anymore

CIOs have evolved over the last 25 years—the entire lifespan of the function—to excel at what their organizations have needed. Recently, however, the scope and pace of change in their environment has been sweeping. Consider the current dynamics:

Much of the organization’s infrastructure/technology resources have become commoditized, available in pre-configured components, via the cloud and as services offered by trusted vendors.
Technology is becoming a competitive weapon in the market, as it is key to accelerating R&D cycles, gathering and analyzing big data, reaching and engaging new stakeholders (often through digital channels) , and delivering added value to customers to name just a few industry directions.
Technology is a driver of business transformation. It promises the next generation of P&L, can imbue a culture with the spirit and tools for innovation and is expected to engineer out costs.

The very competencies that earned CIOs their roles are now holding them back.

Consequently, a company’s head technologist has more to worry about than “keeping the lights on” and managing internal processes for reliability and efficiency. Technology is playing a different role and so must the CIO.

Since when is it bad to be a problem solver?

Rather than serving as problem solvers, CIOs are increasingly expected to be innovators, capable of finding new problems (being problem finders if I may) in the marketplace that can be solved with technology. This requires shifting from an inward focus on maintaining service stability and continuity to an outward focus on the possibilities of creating something completely new of value. It demands a curiosity about customer’s needs and market trends and requires substantial creativity and forward thinking.

Get out of the office and go see partners

Traditionally, CIOs have created and overseen organizations of skilled builders—experts who can start from scratch and create all the technological functionality an organization needs. But, in today’s IT world, where pre-configured system components are ready to be “stacked” into a comprehensive solution, the entire model has changed. CIOs are no longer managing a factory but a supply chain.

Process is great, but progress is exceptional

The IT builders of the past needed to follow strict procedures, to nail down requirements, and to work linearly. As their leaders, CIOs placed a premium on detail orientation and adherence to process. Today, the technology environment is much more fluid, and CIOs must value—and should exemplify—agility and flexibility.

CIOs as corporate leaders are an endangered species

When faced with a mismatch between the skills they have in their CIO and what they know the organization needs, CEOs can proceed in one of at least three directions . They can:

Replace the incumbent. There is already much turnover in the CIO position. According to the IMS Institute study, most CIOs of life sciences companies are new to their roles, with almost half in place fewer than three years, and 70 percent fewer than five years. We do not know, however, how much of this turnover has been voluntary vs. involuntary. Have CIOs left out of frustration, or have they been asked to leave?
Surround the incumbent with new players. This allows the CIO to retain responsibility for the “back of the house,” but puts others with the necessary vision out in front, leading the way forward. This does seem to be a favored tactic, as over 82 percent of life sciences companies have established new IT roles in digital, data and innovation. While it’s a sound organizational solution, it doesn’t bode well for the CIO profession.
Retrain the incumbent. The feasibility of succeeding with this is up for debate. Can you, in effect, “teach an old dog new tricks?” As to retraining the rest of the IT organization, one approach is to give team members a rotation in an incubator (such as in the organization of one of the new hires above) before placing them back into the CIO’s organization.

In those life sciences companies where CEOs are willing to “double down” on their incumbents, CIOs have a shot at reorienting themselves and retooling their organizations to succeed in this new technology era. But, even those fortunate CIOs have no time to lose.

Future of Work Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer

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Cornerstone Convergence - HR Core debut, lot's of product, time to execute!

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

We had the opportunity to attend the Cornerstone Convergence event, held from May 9th till 12th in Los Angeles at the JW Marriott in the LA live neighbourhood. The conference is well attended, though I captured no official attendance numbers, but looks similar to last year’s conference.

So take a look at key takeaways from the event:

No time to watch – here is the 1-2 slide condensation:

Progress Report - Cornerstone Convergence - HR Core debut, lot's of product, time to execute from Holger Mueller

Want to read on?

Here you go: Always tough to pick the takeaways – but here are my Top takeaways:

Cornerstone moves beyond Talent Management – With the announcement of Link, the HR core function Cornerstone shied away to call Core HR product, the vendor is moving beyond Talent Management. Gone are the days that the position was ‘the world does not need another HR Core system’ – but Cornerstone gave good reasons why an HR Core offering makes sense now. Apart from competing with the Big 3 more effectively, Cornerstone has found three valuable scenarios on how it helps its customers with its Link offering. Now it is just announcement days, and Cornerstone will have to move away from a Learning centric story to a platform (with Edge) or HR Core story. I jokingly asked if it will be 3 or 5 years till Cornerstone offers Payroll… and the answer was (of course) ‘Never!’ – but if there is one thing we learn here – never say never in enterprise software.

Cornerstone Insights takes off – A good 18 months after Cornerstone acquired Evolv, more products in the ‘true’ analytics space (those who take an action or make a recommendation) are becoming real. We saw best candidate fit and best promotion fit as part of the keynote. It looks like Cornerstone is relying mostly on proven scoring algorithms, which come along with the bonus that they can easily be explained to business users. But it is good to see Cornerstone is using the Evolv expertise, bringing this ‘acquihire’ to fruition. For my taste the solution is still risking to be more about visualization than ‘true’ analytics – but the scores are shown and can be used right away. Not its key Cornerstone does not repeat the mistake of some other early ‘true’ analytics pioneers in the HCM space, and does not sell to the HCM leaders (generalization here, of course), and avoids arduous and lengthy proof of concepts – but provides value to the line of business users. Humans are very good at figuring out if analytics work – or not.

Tons of more product – I jokingly told Cornerstone executives that this Convergence had more product announcements and available than the least three conferences together, and they jokingly agreed, some truth to it. So Cornerstone also announced / made available:

Cornerstone View – A ‘tablet first’ version of showing the above Cornerstone Insights in action. Easy to use, information at the finger tips for business users, a good V1 for an important day to day product for business users.

Cornerstone Workforce Planning – Cornerstone offered also a view at the first version of its Workforce Planning product, which used to be high as a mindset of many HR professionals 12-18 months ago. It is good to see the vendor having delivered a solid V1, as with all enterprise planning products, this one also stands and falls with its ability to unseat the tool of choice, Microsoft’s Excel. Too early to tell but off to a good start.

Edge Integrate – A year ago Cornerstone announced its ‘paas’ (by purpose with the little ‘p’ as it is not a general purpose PaaS a la e.g. Pivotal CloudFoundry, but a development tool to create, extend and integrate HCM apps), now it delivered the vital integration option. No chance to drill down more into it, stay tuned for more later in the year.

Launch of CyberU – As usually Cornerstone Miller was candid – and going back to the roots, which were free software and pay for content – under the same name today – Cornerstone announced CyberU – available at cyberu.com. A website to source Learning content from MooCs and create / crowdsource content as well.

A new User Interface – Last year the collected influences scolded Cornerstone on a more dated UI. It is good to see the vendor has listened, has hired is first usability experts (and then quickly more). The result is a much improved usability of the Cornerstone products something customers noted positively. We ran out of time to lift the lid on the approach – so the verdict is still open if this was a ‘lipstick on the famous p…’ or a fundamental overall overhaul. But no matter what the result looks much better putting the Cornerstone UI in the main pack of HCM products out there. Not a bad step ahead in 12 months.

MyPOV

Cornerstone is doing well on all fronts. The vendor has a shot at breaking even for the first time in 2016 based on GAAP rules and is expanding its product offering, boldly, more bold than I would have expected. This could be the strategic junction where it is clear that Cornerstone has left the ‘Talent Management only’ offering, and is moving to cover much more HCM automation (for now with Link in HR Core and with Workforce Planning gets into Workforce Management). It’s also good to see that Cornerstone is doing some good housekeeping on the technology and platform side, as other vendors are, too – but we did not hear that much from Cornerstone before, so things are definitively moving ‘behind the scenes’, too. All of these means that Cornerstone moves from a very key Talent Management vendor to an overall HCM player, and CHROs and CIOs needs to re-adjust their bearings in the market place.

On the concern side the operational challenges only get bigger for Cornerstone. While it needs to compete with the Big 3 and becomes more effective with Link when the conversation gets expanded to HR Core, it needs to fund and deliver on the R&D and overall know how acquisition. So a roadmap of Link (and other products) will be good to share soon, as customers and prospects need to know where to invest – and where not. With roadmaps available even publicly by some competitors, Cornerstone will have to double down on the same and related efforts. But there is always room for hard charging and hardworking vendors in enterprise software, and Cornerstone is certainly one of them.

And most importantly the vendor has shown to listen to market, customers and influencers, has upgraded usability and painted a compelling vision going forward. So a very good Convergence for Cornerstone and its customers and ecosystem… now its execution time. We will be watching and analyzing - as you know.

Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below (and my analyst meeting tweets are here).

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

More on Cornerstone

Progress Report - Cornerstone innovates with Analytics, PaaS and Learning, but needs to watch the basics - read here
News Analysis - Cornerstone On Demand announces CornerstoneEdge, the 1st PaaS Solution for the Talent Management Industry - read here
Progress Report - Cornerstone completest Talent Management - what is next - read here
Event Report - Cornerstone re-imagines Talent Mangament - and itself - read here

HOLMES Puts Wipro in the Forefront of Cognitive Computing

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…...

Wipro HOLMES Delivers Next-Generation Services Built on Cognitive Computing Capabilities

Wipro is an information technology, consulting, and outsourcing firm serving more than 900 clients from the Fortune 1000. Wipro operates in more than 175 cities worldwide and generated $7.7 billion in revenue in its 2015-16 fiscal year. Its global workforce has more than 170,000 individuals.

The company operates in two segments: IT Services and IT Products. IT Services include consulting, development, re-engineering and maintenance, systems integration, packaged implementation, global infrastructure services, digital, business process services, and custom application design. IT Products include computing, storage, networking, security and software.

As technology services vendors gear up to tap into the $100.7 billion Digital Transformation Services business, Wipro is quietly but steadily emerging as one of the major players. Constellation believes that service providers that have an early edge in building platforms will have the opportunity to emerge as new leaders in the marketplace.

Wipro’s HOLMES platform represents a software and services offering in the cognitive computing platforms and solutions category. This artificial intelligence-based platform allows Wipro to provide clients with a differentiated and disruptive offering among the classical IT services firms.

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Your POV.

Are you exploring your cognitive computing options? Have you compared HOLMES with other offerings? Are you using Wipro to lead your Cognitive Computing efforts? Let us know what your experiences have been and feel free to reach out. Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

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Resources

Monday’s Musings: Why The Third Generation Of Enterprise Mobile Is Designed For Digital Transformation

Event Report: #PowerPlex At The Crux Of The New Manufacturing Renaissance

News Analysis: FinancialForce.com ERP Arrives To Signal The Era Of Best Of Breed Cloud Suites

Tuesday’s Tip: Putting the Kibosh On ERP Vendor Sales Reps Who Troll For Indirect Access

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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.

The post Research Summary: HOLMES Puts Wipro in the Forefront of Cognitive Computing appeared first on A Software Insider's Point of View.

Next-Generation Customer Experience Data to Decisions Innovation & Product-led Growth Future of Work Tech Optimization Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity New C-Suite wipro SoftwareInsider AI Agentic AI LLMs Generative AI ML Analytics Automation Cloud CRM Data to Decisions Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology eCommerce Enterprise IT Enterprise Software finance HCM HR Machine Learning Next Gen Apps SaaS PaaS IaaS Supply Chain Robotics B2B B2C CX EX Employee Experience business Marketing Metaverse developer Quantum Computing Growth Enterprise Acceleration IoT Blockchain ERP Leadership Social Healthcare VR CCaaS UCaaS Customer Service Content Management Collaboration M&A Enterprise Service Chief Customer Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief AI Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Product Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Operating Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Revenue Officer Chief Experience Officer

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Research Summary: Why Live Engagement Marketing Supercharges Event Marketing

R "Ray" Wang

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

Digital Transformation Shifts Static Event Marketing to Live Engagement Marketing

Event marketing often represents 21 percent to 33 percent of most marketing organization budgets. While success criteria remain murky at worst and sparse at best, organizations have an opportunity to digitize event marketing using live engagement marketing techniques. Live engagement marketing provides marketing teams with the capability to not only quantify event marketing activities but also identify success rates in right time. This real-time capability enables event marketing teams to make adjustments during the event that improve engagement and ultimately increase conversion rates.

This report launches a new research category called Live Engagement Marketing. The category reflects the digital transformation of traditional event marketing.

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Your POV.

Are you ready to transform marketing with live engagement marketing? Are you looking to super charge your event marketing efforts? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

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

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

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

Disclosure

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

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

The post Research Summary: Why Live Engagement Marketing Supercharges Event Marketing appeared first on A Software Insider's Point of View.

Marketing Transformation Revenue & Growth Effectiveness Matrix Commerce Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth Future of Work Data to Decisions New C-Suite Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity SoftwareInsider Supply Chain Automation Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software IoT Blockchain ERP Leadership Collaboration M&A Marketing B2B B2C CX Customer Experience EX Employee Experience AI ML Generative AI Analytics Growth eCommerce Next Gen Apps Social Customer Service Content Management Machine Learning business SaaS PaaS CRM LLMs Agentic AI HR HCM IaaS finance Enterprise Service Robotics Quantum Computing CCaaS UCaaS developer Metaverse VR Healthcare Chief Marketing Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Experience Officer Chief Revenue Officer Chief Supply Chain Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Operating Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Customer Officer Chief People Officer Chief Human Resources Officer

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Long Way to Go to Tackle Identify Fraud

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…...

Steve Wilson, Constellation VP & Principal Analyst shares his POV in 10.5 minutes.

"Identity fraud is very simple, it is necessary to work in authentication because it is now very easy to replace, falsifying and stealing the digital identity. The identification industry has worked on increasing security and privacy, reduce costs and barriers of authentication, but needs to go much further."

Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Chief Information Officer

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News Analysis - Apple & SAP Partner to Revolutionize Work on iPhone & iPad

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

It looks like the SAP “pre Sapphire leak announcement” tradition that broke 2 years ago is alive and well – today Apple announced a partnership with SAP. It’s not clear what may have motivated Apple to push on the gas pedal in regards of the timeline, apart from the known slowing of iPad Sales and more recently iPhone Sales. With 13 days to Sapphire, there are a number of selling days in the quarter left...

So let’s pick apart the press release in our customary style – it can be found here:

CUPERTINO, California and WALLDORF, Germany — May 5, 2016 — Apple® and SAP today announced a partnership to revolutionize the mobile work experience for enterprise customers of all sizes, combining powerful native apps for iPhone® and iPad® with the cutting-edge capabilities of the SAP HANA platform. This joint effort will also deliver a new iOS software development kit (SDK) and training academy so that developers, partners and customers can easily build native iOS apps tailored to their business needs.

MyPOV _ Great introductory paragraph that summarizes the scope well – native apps for iPhone and iPad, a new iOS SDK to run on SAP HANA platform (why not SAP HANA Cloud Platform – HCP – as mentioned later?), and good reference to training (that is often forgotten in partnerships like these).

“This partnership will transform how iPhone and iPad are used in enterprise by bringing together the innovation and security of iOS with SAP’s deep expertise in business software,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “As the leader in enterprise software and with 76% of business transactions touching an SAP system, SAP is the ideal partner to help us truly transform how businesses around the world are run on iPhone and iPad. Through the new SDK, we’re empowering SAP’s more than 2.5 million developers to build powerful native apps that fully leverage SAP HANA Cloud Platform and tap into the incredible capabilities that only iOS devices can deliver.”

MyPOV – Good quote from Cook, of course the partnership makes sense, but it is not clear what makes this partnership special. SAP could have (and has) built on iOS (natively) before. Would be good to learn what the ‘incredible capabilities that only iOS can deliver’ are. But let’s read on.

“We’re proud to take this special partnership between Apple and SAP to a groundbreaking new place,” said Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP. “In giving people an agile and intuitive business experience, we empower them to know more, care more and do more. By combining the powerful capabilities of SAP HANA Cloud Platform and SAP S/4HANA, together with iOS, the leading and most secure mobile platform for enterprise, we will help deliver live data to people wherever and whenever they choose to work. Apple and SAP share a commitment to shaping the future, helping the world run better and improving people’s lives.”

MyPOV – Good quote of McDermott – though it is not clear what SAP will deliver, new capabilities on SAP HANA Cloud Platform – as mentioned before – and or native apps for S/4HANA. The question is of course – what about the existing applications etc. And interesting that McDermott gives iOS the ‘most secure mobile platform for the enterprise’ badge – without justification. But I guess both CEOs / press teams agreed on the CEOs complimenting each other.

The companies plan to deliver a new SAP HANA Cloud Platform SDK exclusively for iOS that will provide businesses, designers and developers the tools to quickly and efficiently build their own iOS apps for iPhone and iPad, based on SAP HANA Cloud Platform, SAP’s open platform as a service. These native apps will provide access to core data and business processes on SAP S/4HANA, while taking full advantage of iPhone and iPad features like Touch ID®, Location Services and Notifications.

MyPOV – Always good to see SAP talk HCP, a product that in my view has not gotten the attention, keynote time, marketing spend etc. that it deserves, as it is vital for both customers and SAP to e.g. create partnerships like this and build innovative next generation applications. Without a good competitive platform SAP won’t be able to do well in enterprise software. So it is good to see HCP mentioned by McDermott twice (!) in one paragraph. And now we learn that S/4HANA processes (APIs?) will be exposed in the SDK, good to know / understand. The question is of course – what happens with all the other SAP applications.

A new SAP Fiori for iOS design language will take the award-winning SAP Fiori user experience to the next level by combining it with a consumer-grade iOS experience to deliver on the robust user needs in the enterprise and enable developers to build next-generation apps. To help SAP’s 2.5-million member global developer community take full advantage of the new SDK and Apple’s innovative hardware and software, a new SAP Academy for iOS will offer tools and training. The new SDK, design language and academy will begin rolling out before the end of the year.

MyPOV – Good to see Fiori in the mix, as it should guarantee a high level of UI consistency for SAP users. As much as we live in the ‘mobile first’ world – users are still using browsers (or an iPad) with a different form factor and deserve an ‘as consistent as possible’ user experience. Why it requires a ‘new’ Fiori design language is something we need to understand better… new is good – but more languages also add complexity. Maybe not so close to the 'simple' SAP likes to stress. And as developers could build iOS apps today, why is a new SDK needed? And good to see the know-how dissemination efforts.

As a part of the partnership, SAP will develop native iOS apps for critical business operations. These apps for iPhone and iPad will be built with Swift™, Apple’s modern, secure and interactive programming language, and will offer a familiar user experience with the SAP Fiori for iOS design language. Workers across industries will be empowered to access the critical enterprise data, processes and user experience they need to make decisions and take action right from their iPhone or iPad through apps designed to enable a field maintenance worker to order parts or schedule service, or a doctor to share the latest patient data with other healthcare professionals.

MyPOV – The Swift endorsement is a key win for Apple, but does not bide too well for developer productivity in the likely scenario of building cross mobile OS applications. [Update May 9th 2016 - Apple points out correctly that it has open sources Swift and there are initiatives by 3rd parties on the way to address cross platform support of Swift. And certainy Swift is the most efficient platform for iOS apps today.]. How will a developer build an Android, Windows 10 etc. application working in HCP? Maybe the new Fiori SDK language will address this, though no data to support this in this press release (and I lack the technical ingenuity at this point to figure out if this would work). But in the age of e.g. Google and Microsoft enabling mobile developers to create cross platform applications (see my event reports from Google Cloud Platform here and of Microsoft Build here) this is a step back for SAP developers, and a win for the Apple proprietary, ‘walled garden’ approach to build ecosystems. [Update May 9th 2016 - Apple correctly points out that if they 3rd party initiatives come to fruition, they would definitively make the 'walled garden' metaphor invalid. Agreed.]

As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable approximately 310,000 business and public sector customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, OS X, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.

MyPOV – No need to comment on the boilerplate closing paragraphs of both SAP and Apple.

Overall MyPOV

A good move by Apple and SAP to partner, the question is really, what took both sides so long, almost two years longer than the Apple and IBM partnership. But then Swift was not around – so coming to it late may not be too bad for SAP. With SAP’s market share it makes sense for Apple to partner with the leading enterprise application vendor, but both will have to work hard to get a level of differentiation that justifies the premium prices that Apple hardware commands. And that’s a good hurdle, as premium hardware deserves premium software. The new Fiori SDK may well point in that direction – we will see how good and well the new joint application will do and how much of unique Apple ecosystem feature they will embody ([May 9th 2016 - Factually corrected to official Apple product names;] the Apple 3D Touch, Apple Touch ID, Apple Pay etc come to mind)..

Surprisingly, the announcement is void of details on the go to market side. The press quotes no revenue share between the two vendors. Compared to the similar press release Apple did in July 2014 with IBM (see here), we don’t hear / see / read anything on the services / support side. No mention of marketing / sales either. Where will joint customers get their applications from? The Apple Store? Their own branded Apple Store? Their own branded SAP store? From the app developer? So there are some questions that Apple and SAP will have to answer soon. Also of note, Apple partnered as well with Cisco (see here) late summer 2015, but we have not seen heard much about progress on this partnership. That announcement was also weaker on go to market than the original 'Apple comes to the enterprise' than the one with IBM, so we will have to see how the partnership will pan out going forward.

On the concern side - it looks like Apple and SAP may have missed what Facebook, Google and Microsoft recently announced in regards of chat and conversational bots coming to your smartphone. So building 'another' 100 (why is it always 100?) mobile apps may miss the boat on where mobile usage is going. An Apple / SAP partnership bringing S/4HANA (and other systems) capabilities to iMessage would have been in synch with the announcement wave of spring of 2016. But only what has not happened can still happen and Apple / SAP may have left an arrow back there, with Sapphire looming. And fair enough, the whole conversation / chat bot - Conversation as a Platform as Microsoft calls it is in its infancy... but then - if working - would disrupt the whole apps ecosystem. Something that Apple surely does not want, something that SAP is more open to, as it needs to build mobile endpoints that are popular and expected by its customers.

What is good to see is the support of HCP, which becomes more and more strategic for SAP with every quarter. Understanding what value SAP can bring to the existing, pre S/4HANA applications will be important for customers as well as for the success of the partnership, as for now – despite ambitions plans for S/4HANA – the bulk of SAP users are and will remain for the foreseeable future on the pre S/4HANA SAP applications. And that’s where the partnership needs to play for the next years to yield the device sales that Apple is hoping to get from this partnership. I expect a lot of SAP customers sitting on 2 more device refresh cycles (assuming a 2 year mobile device refresh cycle) before they will move to S4/HANA en masse. We will be watching – we will likely learn more at Sapphire in Orlando in a few weeks.

Results

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MyPOV

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MyPOV

HOLMES Puts Wipro in the Forefront of Cognitive Computing

Wipro HOLMES Delivers Next-Generation Services Built on Cognitive Computing Capabilities

Your POV.

Resources

Reprints

Disclosure

Research Summary: Why Live Engagement Marketing Supercharges Event Marketing

Digital Transformation Shifts Static Event Marketing to Live Engagement Marketing

Your POV.

Disclosure

Long Way to Go to Tackle Identify Fraud

News Analysis - Apple & SAP Partner to Revolutionize Work on iPhone & iPad

Overall MyPOV