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Salesforce and Microsoft Announce Plans For Seamless Collaboration and Business Processes

Salesforce and Microsoft Announce Plans For Seamless Collaboration and Business Processes


Today at Salesforce Dreamforce in San Francisco, Microsoft and Salesforce joint announced future integrations between their two business collaboration platforms. While today integration is already available between Outlook and Salesforce, future integrations planned for preview in the second half of 2016 will include:

  • Skype for Business, providing presence awareness inside Salesforce and allow for seamless web conferencing, chat and VOIP calls
  • OneNote, enabling note taking to be linked directly to Salesforce records
  • Office Graph and Office Delve, so surface Salesforce content inside Microsoft’s new search and discovery UIs
  • Salesforce1 Mobile App for Windows 10

At first glance, these two companies have several competing products. However, this move showcases that both companies understand they have a large number of overlapping customers, and providing a seamless productivity and business process experience is a winning situation for everyone.

Salesforce Gains Productivity and Collaboration


As I wrote last year, the Salesforce platform has been missing a few basic collaboration features, such as:

"No integrated web-conferencing or video chat - Chatter does provide integrated instant messaging based on Salesforce.com’s 2011 acquisition of DimDim, but the company still has not delivered native web-conferencing features. “ 

Today’s announcement of Skype integration will help fill that gap. The ability to seamlessly start web-conferences, chats or VOIP calls from within Salesforce will be a very welcome addition.  Ideally the content from those events will also be saved back to the appropriate records in Salesforce.  For example, a Skype chat conversation about an account should be saved back to the Chatter stream for that record, or the recording of a web-conference about a service record should be accessible in the future to help resolve similar incidents.
 
"No long form content creation - While Chatter does allow for posts in the activity stream, it currently lacks any formal document creation tools. The lack of an integrated document editor means people have to switch to another tool (blog, wiki or word processor), changing contexts to create content. In 2012 Salesforce.com acquired online collaborative editor Stypi, but the closest thing we've seen to that is the very simple Notes application avilable in the mobile client of Salesforce1.” 

Today’s announcement of OneNote integration may help this, but they also offer some integration between Salesforce Files and the Microsoft Office Apps. The big benefit here is that information collected in OneNote will be able to link directly back to Salesforce records.  Salesforce already has there own basic note taking application (which includes basic task management) so it will be interesting to see which application teams choose to use.  Ideally it will be only one or the other, as you don’t want information spread across multiple tools.

Microsoft Embraces Winning Platforms


These announcements are great examples of “the new Microsoft”, where under Satya Nadella the company has embraced the idea of not going at it alone, but instead becoming comfortable with integrating with other successful vendors. (ex: Releasing Office applications for iPad and iPhones, instead of just their own Windows powered devices.) Even though Microsoft has competing products to Salesforce: Yammer vs Chatter, Dynamics vs Sales Cloud, OneNote vs Salesforce Tasks/Notes, OneDrive vs Salesforce Files, etc. they understand that many of their customers use products from both vendors. While there may be integration challenges for IT (well know more next year about directory integration, identity, security, compliance, etc), the people using Salesforce business solutions (Sales, Marketing, Service) to get their daily jobs done will surely benefit from a more seamless with their Microsoft collaboration tools.

Perhaps the most signifigant news is the Office Graph/Delve integration. When Microsoft first introduced Delve, the premise was that people would be able to easily discover relevant content across a variety of tools. Today’s announcement solidifies that claim, highlights that Office Graph extends beyond just Microsoft products, and shows how Delve can surface content from other key business platforms. Now people will be able to easily see all the files, emails, and Salesforce records about a customer or service record in one place.

 

The Big Winner Is Joint Customers

 

Microsoft and Salesforce both have very positive momentum right now with their product portfolios and marketing messages. With Office 365 Microsoft is successfully shedding the “SharePoint is just a corporate intranet” image that existed during the 2000s, and Salesforce is moving far beyond just being a CRM tool used by Sales people. Bringing together these two successful platforms should provide a very compelling experience for joint customers, reducing the need for people to switch back and forth between the two. However, with the extensibility of these two cloud-centric platforms, I’m disappointed to hear the integrations will take almost a year to be delivered. Overall we’re very optimistic about today’s news, and Constellation Research will continue to monitor these developments and report on the progress.   

 

More Resources
Future of Work Social Business Trends

 

Future of Work salesforce Microsoft Chief People Officer

Salesforce Makes Wave Analytics More Accessible, Affordable

Salesforce Makes Wave Analytics More Accessible, Affordable

Salesforce has revamped its Wave Analytics Cloud to embed insights directly into CRM, but the real winner for customers will be a bevy of new, pre-built sales, service and third-party analytic apps.

If you held off on implementing the Salesforce Wave Analytics Cloud, introduced at Dreamforce 2014, pat yourself on the back for waiting. The second release of Wave, introduced here at Dreamforce 2015, will give you better capabilities and better integration with sales and service apps at what promises to be a lower cost. 

Last year Salesforce hailed Wave as it’s most successful new product launch ever. But there’s been recent turnover in Wave executive leadership, and honchos now admit to having “learned a few lessons” over the past year. Early on, for example, customers complained that Wave was too expensive, so the company dropped steep platform setup fees in favor of per-user, per-month pricing that’s currently set at $125 for “Explorer” users and $250 for “Builder” users. 

But even these costs were prohibitive to many, so the big Wave news here at Dreamforce 2015 is the pending (mid October) release of the Sales Wave Analytics App. The company is still hasn’t detailed pricing, but the word on the street is that this pre-built app will be around $85 per user, per month and will give sales executives and teams the most sought-after sales insights. This app will be followed early next year by a Service Wave Analytics App at a similarly competitive price point. 

Recognizing that many customers don’t want to have to build analytic apps, Salesforce is also touting here at Dreamforce more than a dozen third-party apps now in pilot release. Apttus, for example, has a Quote-to-Cash Intelligence App designed to give sales teams actionable insights into customers to improve the odds of winning contracts and meeting revenue targets. And FinancialForce is offering a ERP Wave App that gives users insight into financial and supply chain data so they can optimize business performance. 

Salesforce has also improved Wave integration within applications and the extended platform. New Wave Actions, for example, will enable users to update accounts, assign tasks, create service cases and take other actions directly from any Wave Analytics Dashboard. Furthermore, new Wave Embedded Dashboards let you serve up insights and historical analysis directly in the context of any Salesforce record or object, so users won’t have to toggle between applications and a separate analytical environment.  

Finally, to give all Salesforce customers exposure to Wave, Salesforce will soon release Lightning Reports & Dashboards for the Sales Cloud and Wave Visualization capabilities that will be exposed across the entire platform. Now in preview, Lighting Reports & Dashboards for Sales Cloud replace much more basic reporting and dashboarding capabilities previously available within that app. The new and improved functionality will released in October at no additional cost to Sales Cloud users. Behind the scenes are new Wave Visualization capabilities said to provide a diverse charting library and the ability to intuitively filter and modify visualizations on the fly. 

MyPOV On Salesforce Wave Analytics, Take Two 

The Salesforce press release highlighted the news about Wave Actions, Wave Embedded Dashboards and Wave Visualizations, but these embedded capabilities are really table stakes for a next-generation applications. It’s old news that users don’t want to have to toggle between transactional and analytical apps, particularly if they’re getting both capabilities from the same vendor. Only Salesforce can blend these two worlds directly, so it has to take this step to differentiate its services. 

For my money (and, more importantly, the customer’s money), the real news with Wave Analytics Cloud, take two, is the imminent availability of ready-made sales, service and third-party analytic apps that should lower the cost of Wave entry. Given that these apps were announced this summer, I’m a little disappointed that we’re still a month away from general availability and pricing details. 

Some customers will still want to use the general-purpose Wave Analytics analytics platform, which can be used to build any type of analytical application. But I expect the pre-built sales and service apps to bring the vast majority of Salesforce customers and users the insights they most need. The exact cost per-user, per app and the availability of bundling or multi-app discounts will make or break this second breaking of the Wave Analytics Cloud, so stay tuned for those announcements in October. 

Data to Decisions salesforce Chief Information Officer

Is Salesforce IoT Cloud Last Year's Analytics Cloud in New Packaging?

Is Salesforce IoT Cloud Last Year's Analytics Cloud in New Packaging?

The major announcement at Dreamforce so far has been the Salesforce IoT cloud, I wrote a News Analysis blog post on Monday (check it out here). 
 
By now we have learn more on the new offering - so time to collect first thoughts in a video:

 

For those who can't watch it here are the key takeaways:

 
  • Salesforce IoT Cloud uses a lot of opensource - Kafka, Spark, Storm and Cassandra are mentioned, in my view a good move - as pretty much all vendors now need to leverage open source to keep up with the speed of the community based development.
  • The setup looks / sounds very much of what Salesforce unveiled a year ago for Wave, now Salesforce Analytics Cloud. The concern is that an IoT architecture is very different from a BI / Analytics ingestion architecture. 
  • The other concern is around the massive 'data gravity' of IoT - concepts that move the code to the data seem to be more successful in the long run than concepts that move data around, Salesforce seems to do the latter.
 
Keep in mind this is a First Take - we will learn more through the course of the week. Salesforce is creating substantial value connecting IoT events and data with its transactional applications. Stay tuned. 
 
More on Salesforce:
  • 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.
Data to Decisions Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth Next-Generation Customer Experience Future of Work New C-Suite Dreamforce salesforce 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 Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

2015 Cars Online “The Selfie Experience” Study by Capgemni

2015 Cars Online “The Selfie Experience” Study by Capgemni

As the connected customer experience continues to evolve, Cagemini today released the 16th annual global automotive study, The 2015 Cars Online “The Selfie Experience”. Phones have become “the” selfie device, now this study shows consumers want that same personalized experience as a segment of one. Something that can be difficult to pull off in real-life, customers expect seamless communication over all channels, including both physical and digital touch-points. In this study, over 7,500 consumers who were were “in-market”– planning to buy or lease a car in the next 12 months participated. The study spanned the globe, including Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US).

So what do consumers want in terms of a personalized customer experience? The study showed:

  • A wider variety of online sources are utilized when choosing a car, with dealer/manufacturer websites (49%), search engines (43%) and traditional dealerships (48%) now supplemented by web forums (19%), social media pages (12%) and smartphone apps (9%)
  • The use of more varied and non-traditional online information sources is particularly driven by the Asian markets (India/China), where 80% are significantly influenced by positive social media comments.
  • The physical dealership still plays a critical role for consumers, with 95% visiting one or more dealerships before purchase as people still want a tactile experience when buying a car.
  • Consumers want instantaneous personalized online services when buying a car and for post-sale experience too, where 95% expect a response to requests within 24 hours; for growth markets, 69% want one in less than four hours.

While consumers desire more personalized on and offline services, 45% have concerns over data privacyThere is a strong correlation between customer satisfaction and loyalty particularly for dealers:

  • Only 10% of customers, not satisfied at all, say they would likely or very likely buy their next car from the same dealer.
  • 87% of highly satisfied customers would purchase the same brand again and
  • 85% would buy from the same dealer.

In addition, customer do want a seamless experience across the lifecycle of buying a car.  the study showed that there is much for OEMs to think about, including:

  • New entrants are a real threat – One-half of customers are interested in buying a car from a tech company like Apple or Google.
  • Customers expect more and more from OEMs and dealers – When they’re talking to a dealer about buying a car, they value technical expertise rather than a pure sales approach.
  • During ownership, customers want more and better contacts – They want more explanations about (for example) technology and how to use it, together with offers that are relevant to them.
  • Satisfaction is not enough – When it comes to repurchase, high levels of satisfaction are needed to create strong feelings of loyalty towards a manufacturer or dealer.

MY POV: The customer experience is something that customers want and have wanted it to be personalized, special, consistent and relevant. That’s always been the case. And we finally have technology that can deliver a more seamless, consistent and personalized experience.

The bigger issue? The internal structure of corporate America. It has developed into silo’d departments not used to collaborating or having each other’s back. But that has got to stop and stop now. Why? As I speak to customers, I see two types of leaders. In one segment of leaders, they are doing the same thing they did 20 years ago. They aren’t disrupting their silo’d organizational org chart, departmental separations or if they are doing something along these lines, it’s mostly lip service.

And then there are the leaders that truly get what has happened to the world. It had been stood on it’s head. It’s changed and changed a great deal. It takes a while sometimes for these things to show up on the bottom-line, it will.

And for those leaders and their companies that “get” what is happening to the customer experience via the digital disruption, they will make it through this major transition in corporate operations. The others? They will wake up one morning and all (or most) of their customers (and revenue) will be gone and they won’t have any idea what happened. But they can look back at this blog post and see that there was a weather bell that rang to give them a warning that one thing is for sure: Things are going to change and change they have.

Which camp is your company in? The ones that get the value of the customer experience or the ones that think it’s all fluff and silly kumbaya?

@drnatalie

VP and Principal Analyst, IOT of Customer Experience, Constellation Research

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Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

Informatica announces new cloud capabilities at DreamForce 2015

Informatica announces new cloud capabilities at DreamForce 2015

With Dreamforce in full swing in San Francisco, many of the key players in the Salesforce ecosystem have major announcements coming, too – one of them is Informatica, who updated us on new cloud capabilities. 
 
So let’s dissect the press release in our customary style (it can be found here):
[…] Informatica, the world’s number one independent software provider focused on delivering transformative innovation for the future of all things data, today announced new Informatica Cloud capabilities and offerings that help power multiple key Salesforce initiatives, including: Internet of Things (IoT), analytics connectors and vertical solutions.
MyPOV – Good to follow the lead of the day, Salesforce’s Thunder where Informatica was mentioned as one of the partners.
Informatica is a leading Salesforce ISV partner providing pre-built native cloud integration and data management capabilities for Salesforce Clouds – including: Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Analytics Cloud and App Cloud – as well as vertical and role-based analytics connectors for the Salesforce Wave Analytics Platform.

MyPOV – Key is the ‘pre-built’ part – Informatica has gone a long way and invested a lot on the pre-built aspect, building native integrators on the platforms it supports. Informatica has early pushed to be a key player in the Salesforce ecosystem and is now seeing the advantages of that investment.
“Because Informatica supports every Salesforce offering, customers can leverage Informatica Cloud as a unified cloud integration solution across their Salesforce investments as they expand from one Salesforce org to multiple orgs, clouds and apps,” said Ronen Schwartz, vice president and general manager, Informatica Cloud. “Customers continue to benefit from the decade-long partnership between Informatica and Salesforce. Informatica Cloud makes it simpler than ever for business users, Salesforce administrators and LOB IT to integrate external data into their Salesforce Clouds and apps, while dramatically reducing time-to-market for new integrations and helping to efficiently scale out Salesforce deployments.”

MyPOV – Good quote from Schwartz – focusing on the business at hand. And administrator empowerment is always a good move in the Salesforce ecosystem.
New Informatica Cloud capabilities and offerings for Salesforce customers include:

? Internet of Things (IoT) – Informatica supports Salesforce’s IoT Cloud. Informatica empowers customers to stream and upload billions of events from applications, logs, devices and sensors to Salesforce — enabling companies to maximize the value of their data.
 
MyPOV – This is the ‘hot’ new announcement at Dreamforce – the Salesforce IoT cloud (my analysis here) and Informatica looks like one of the key partners to get the IoT data ready for the new Salesforce event handler.
? Analytics Apps Integration – Informatica provides a pre-built native connector that allows Salesforce administrators and IT to easily move external data into Salesforce Wave Analytics for business users’ access. Informatica now also enables integration of external data sources with the new Sales Wave Analytics app, a role-based analytics app that will deliver personalized templates, historical analysis and the ability to take immediate actions. This will help sales leaders manage forecasts, pipelines, team performance and more to accelerate business growth. Pre-built integrations to Wave Analytics help companies integrate a wealth of structured and unstructured data to extend analytics for every business need, making it easier than ever for anyone to explore and share data instantly, uncover new insights and take action from anywhere.
MyPOV – Wave and now the Salesforce Analytics Cloud are key growing products for Salesforce, so good to see Informatica going after the new and growing business here, addressing integration needs of customers.
? Enhanced Data Masking for Cloud Platform Users – Informatica Cloud Test Data Management (TDM) enables new security capabilities for SaaS production and sandbox data via award-winning Informatica data masking technology.
MyPOV – This s a vital product that is more and more popular in the Salesforce install base, helping customers to keep up with the increased testing needs and higher release cycles of the SaaS world. With data masking, more people can test new releases.
 
? Mission-Critical Connectivity for Vertical Apps – Informatica provides easy connectivity to on-premise and cloud vertical and horizontal applications. Customers can use Informatica’s pre-built integrations to accelerate time-to-market for their Salesforce implementations.
MyPOV – This is the bread and butter of the Salesforce business that Informatica does. Would have been good to see some specifics on what is new.
 
? Enhanced Connectors – Informatica delivers several new versions of pre-built connectors for leading cloud applications and big data sources, including: Box, Hadoop, MailChimp, Concur, Eloqua, Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Azure SQL Data Warehouse.

MyPOV – And that is the next category, after on premise, the integration with other cloud / SaaS properties. Again – specifics would have been good here.

 

Overall MyPOV

A key show for Informatica, that has bet on the Salesforce ecosystem big time. And the bet has paid off and keeps paying off. To achieve that, Informatica needs to solve integration problems that are close to the new Salesforce offerings on IoT Cloud and Analytics Cloud (covered) but also Apps Cloud (not mentioned here).

On the concern side, betting on new Salesforce products is no guaranteed slam dunk as in the past, as Salesforce extends beyond the traditional home turf of CRM. But Informatica needs to invest in these areas in order to remain an early solution provider for the Salesforce ecosystem – so it is not an option for Informatica to stay out any of these major new Salesforce initiatives.

Overall a good announcement by Informatica, helping it to catch attention at Dreamforce and expand its footprint in the Salesforce ecosystem. Stay tuned.



More on Informatica:
  • Event Report - Informatica World 2015 - Product Progress and New Approaches - read here
  • News Analysis - Informatica's Sohaib Abbasi showcases Innovations for the Age of Engagement - read here
  • Future of Work - One spreadsheet at a time, Informatica Springbok - read here
  • Informatica pushes the cloud integration stakes - read here.
Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard.
Tech Optimization Data to Decisions Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Innovation & Product-led Growth Future of Work New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience informatica 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 Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

Webinar on The American Eagle Story- Competing On Experiences And Outcomes In A Mobile World

Webinar on The American Eagle Story- Competing On Experiences And Outcomes In A Mobile World


@rwang0 Moxie

DELIVERING IN-STORE EXPERIENCES TO DIGITAL CUSTOMERS

Join me Thursday, October 8th, 2015 from 12 to 1 pm PT for a webinar on customer experience in a mobile world.

Only 37% of US brands rate their ability to achieve their eCommerce goals as very effective. As a result, most brands lack the ability to convert a large balance of prospects into revenue producing, loyal customers who could continuously provide revenue for the brand. Better understanding the customer journey and engagement preferences can help eCommerce professionals deliver an in-store experience to their digital customers.

No brand understands this better than American Eagle Outfitters (AEO). Join their Chief Digital Officer, Joe Megibow, and analyst R “Ray” Wang from Constellation Research as they explore how AEO is employing modern digital engagement strategies to drive sales across all devices.

To join, just register here.

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy,stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

 

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions.  However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

 

Copyright © 2001 -2015 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved. Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience.

The post Event Invitation: Webinar on The American Eagle Story- Competing On Experiences And Outcomes In A Mobile World appeared first on A Software Insider's Point of View.

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Salesforce Unveils Breakthrough IoT Cloud, Powered by Salesforce Thunder

Salesforce Unveils Breakthrough IoT Cloud, Powered by Salesforce Thunder

This morning Salesforce released information on what is likely going to be the most important announcement of this year’s Dreamforce user conference, currently taking place in San Francisco. 
 
 


So let’s dissect the press release in our customary style, it can be found here:
SAN FRANCISCO—DREAMFORCE 2015?—Sept. 15, 2015—Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the Customer Success Platform and world’s #1 CRM company, today announced Salesforce IoT Cloud. Powered by Thunder, a massively scalable, real-time event processing engine, IoT Cloud connects billions of events with Salesforce, unlocking insights from the connected world that empower anyone to take the right action, for the right customer, at the right time.
MyPOV – So we learn Salesforce Thunder is a real time event processing engine that connect things with Salesforce applications. It seems to be smart about doing the right thing at the right time.
 
“Salesforce is turning the Internet of Things into the Internet of Customers,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and chief executive officer, Salesforce.“The IoT Cloud will allow businesses to create real-time 1:1, proactive actions for sales, service, marketing or any other business process, delivering a new kind of customer success.”
MyPOV – Benioff explains more what is mentioned above, connect things data with customer data, of course for customer success, which seems to stay as the leitmotiv for Salesforce at this Dreamforce (which is good news – see my blog posts on too many pivots below).
Connected World, Disconnected Data
The combination of mobile, social, sensor, wearable and cloud technologies has triggered a deluge of data. More than 90 percent of the world’s data has been generated over the last two years. And, with the number of connected devices projected to reach 75 billion by 2020, the volume of data available is expected to grow exponentially.
MyPOV – Good point to raise the data volume and deluge, will be interesting how Salesforce plans to scale for it.
This world of connected devices and digital content presents an enormous opportunity for companies to take advantage of the new data. In a June 2015 report, the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that IoT applications may have a potential economic impact of as much as $11.1 trillion per year by 2025. However, businesses have been unable to capitalize on the vast volume of data from the Internet of Things.
MyPOV – We know it’s a big next generation application example, and agree that enterprises must have an IoT strategy going forward.
Salesforce IoT Cloud, Powered by Thunder—Connecting to the Internet of Customers
IoT Cloud empowers businesses to connect data from the Internet of Things, as well as any digital content, with customer information, giving context to data and making it actionable—all in real-time. Thunder, built on a massively scalable, modern architecture, can "listen" to the connected world, ingesting billions of events a day, from any source. IoT Cloud’s capabilities include:

• Listen to the World at IoT Scale: IoT Cloud connects everything to Salesforce. In addition to the Internet of Things, connecting to phones, wearables, windmills and industrial turbines and other devices, IoT Cloud connects data from websites, social interactions and more to Salesforce. By connecting the billions of real-time events and digital content with Salesforce, the IoT Cloud brings customer context to transactional data.
MyPOV – We learn that the Salesforce IoT Cloud has listening capabilities to IoT data and connectivity capabilities not only to the things, but also website, social and more data. So it looks like Salesforce is leveraging some of its social listening and monitoring capabilities (all the way back to the Radian6 acquisition).
 
• Trigger Actions with Real-time Rules: With IoT Cloud, business users can use intuitive, point- and-click tools to define, modify and set rules and logic for events that can trigger actions across Salesforce. A global fleet management company, for example, can enforce passenger safety standards by setting filters for “hard brakes” or “hard accelerations” and defining rules that trigger in-car sensors to log service cases reporting possible instances of erratic driving. Or, a national retailer holding a holiday sale can set rules based on loyalty program status, inventory or sales performance, triggering retail beacons to send discount offers to in-store shoppers in real-time.
MyPOV – So next to listening Salesforce is deploying ‘triggers’ based on rules. Good news they seem to be able to be even user defined. It looks like Salesforce is leveraging more of the Analytics Cloud (aka Wave) capabilities here (see below for our take on its announcement). Good to see Salesforce making tangible examples.
• 1:1 Proactive Engagement through Salesforce: IoT Cloud seamlessly works across the Salesforce Customer Success Platform to surface insights and trigger real-time 1:1, personalized actions for sales, service, marketing or any other business process. For example, a thermostat provider can parse through billions of events gathered from weather forecasts, sensors and temperature settings to proactively alert customers on how to manage their HVAC usage within their predefined budget. Or, a vehicle assistance service partnering with an auto brand can send personalized offers on behalf of local dealers based on sensor data that tracks fluid levels and mileage.
MyPOV – Well that was a table stake – of course an IoT initiative by an application vendor… should work with the applications of that vendor. No surprise, but expected.
Comments on the News
• “Emerson is reinventing customer service,” said Todd Finders, CIO of Emerson Climate Technologies. “By integrating our connected comfort products and services with customer data in Salesforce in real-time, we will be able to address our customers’ needs in a proactive, personalized way.” […]
MyPOV – Always good see customer quotes endorsing the new capabilities in press release.
 
Salesforce Ecosystem Expands with IoT Partners
Salesforce is accelerating the adoption of IoT Cloud with initial launch partners ARM, Etherios, Informatica, PTC ThingWorx and Xively LogMeln that provide connectivity between devices and the Internet. The company will continue to expand its ecosystem of IoT partners to enable businesses to connect with their customers in a whole new way.
MyPOV – Good to see partners on the press release right away. It looks like partners will provide Salesforce with data (ARM, see the recent ‘chip to cloud announcement with IBM on my blog, too), Informatica, Xively LogMeIn and PTC ThingWorx for connectivity and Ehterios on an application side.
Salesforce App Cloud—the Unified Platform for Delivering Connected Apps Fast
Thunder is part of the Salesforce App Cloud, an integrated set of platform services that enable businesses to develop connected apps fast. With services for rapid app development, modern user experiences, integration, mobile app dev, identity management, compliance, governance and more, App Cloud is the most comprehensive and agile platform available to CIOs to deliver their app portfolio. App Cloud also includes an ecosystem of 2.3 million developers, who have built 5.5 million apps, and the AppExchange, the world’s largest enterprise app marketplace, which features more than 2,800 ISV apps and and 40 Lightning Components. All of this runs on the industry’s most trusted enterprise infrastructure that delivers approximately 3.7 billion transactions every business day.
MyPOV – Good to see that this is not ‘another’ cloud, but Salesforce Thunder is part of Salesforce App Cloud (the IoT Cloud is part of it, too then?), always good to see software vendors re-suing assets and creating synergies (see below my take on the Salesforce App Cloud).
Pricing and Availability
• IoT Cloud will be in pilot the first half of 2016 with generally availability later in the year. Pricing will be announced at the time of general availability.

MyPOV – Kudos to Salesforce for sharing ETA and at least give a date for pricing.

 

Overall MyPOV

It’s good to see Salesforce finding an IoT story, starting with event processing and ‘trigger’ like actions related to events and trends derived from the Things data. Was it 2 (or even 3) years ago when Marc Benioff pulled out his toothbrush doing a keynote, talking about his dentist knowing how well he used the brush? Well, we seem to be closer to realizing this now with Salesforce products and technology, always good for vendors to deliver. It also looks like Salesforce is re-using assets from Salesforce App and Analytics Cloud – which is always a good best practice for software vendors.

On the concern side the announcement is vague from a technical perspective. It is not clear how the event listener works, how the actions work and how they scale. Salesforce will have to shed more light on this – hopefully soon. Moreover any complete IoT strategy needs to offer Hadoop scale data management, storage and analytics usage, something this announcement does not mention. It looks like Salesforce sees its IoT strategy (for now) as connectivity issue, but this is not a long term IoT strategy (though a typical one for application vendors). Instead of bringing IoT data to the enterprise applications, we see it much more that enterprise application data has to come to the IoT data.

Overall a good first step by Salesforce, creating value for existing customers, but much more needs to follow to make Salesforce an IoT contender, and Salesforce App Cloud a veritable IoT platform contender. Maybe something Salesforce does not want to become. We will learn more at Dreamforce, stay tuned.



And if ready for some watching - checkout my video what I would like Salesforce to address this Dreamforce:

 



More on Salesforce:
  • 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.
Data to Decisions Future of Work Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Tech Optimization Hadoop salesforce PaaS ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI AI Analytics Automation business Marketing SaaS 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 Cloud CCaaS UCaaS Enterprise Service Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Executive Officer

2015 SuperNova Award Finalists Announced

2015 SuperNova Award Finalists Announced


The judges' votes are in. Constellation Research is happy to announce the finalists for fifth annual SuperNova Awards for leaders in disruptive technology! The Constellation SuperNova Awards recognize the leaders and teams leading successful disruptive technology implementation projects.

We at Constellation know advancing the adoption of disruptive technology is not easy. Disruptive technology adoption often faces resistance from supporters of the status quo, myopia, and financial constraint. We believe actors fighting these forces to champion disruptive technology in their organizations help, not only their organizations, but society as a whole to realize the potential of new and emerging technologies.

On September 21, 2015 the polls open to the public. Be sure to return to the Constellation website to vote for SuperNova Award winners!

The SuperNova Award finalists will join the Constellation team at The SuperNova Awards Gala Dinner on November 5, 2015 where we will announce the winners of the 2015 SuperNova Awards. The Gala Dinner will take place on the first night of Constellation’s Connected Enterprise innovation summit.

Read the SuperNova Award Finalists' case studies. 

2015 SuperNova Award Finalists

Consumerization of IT & The New C-Suite

Russell Foltz-Smith, TrueCar
Daniel Hart, MEDHOST
Craig Pavia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade & Development Canada
Martin Brodbeck, SterlingBankcheck

Data to Decisions

Rasim Manavoglu, MUDO
Joshua Marshall, State of Indiana
Alda Mizaku, Mercy Health
Jamie Oswald, Mercy Health
Mike Peterson, Neustar, Inc.
Scott Salter, Cox Automotive
Sam Savage, Barclays

Digital Marketing Transformation

Naveen Gunti, Tumi Holdings, Inc.
Tushar Patel, Innotas 
Michael Seminara, Janome America 
Dan Sichel, Mind Share World
Tom Vu, Atmel Corporation
John Sahagian, Baxter Credit Union

Future of Work

Asha Aravindakshan, Ashoka
Geoff Corb, Johns Hopkins University
Cris Debord/Kenny Bailey/Brandon Garner, Dollar General
Steve Nava, Luminex
Hadi Partovi, Code.org
Helen Scott, Canadian Network for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health
Christian Trujillo, Western Union
Phillip Young, Dowco Consultants Ltd.
Donna Morris, Adobe

Matrix Commerce

Steve Carlson, FloraCraft 
Rodney Henson, MetLife 
Jordan Kivelstadt, Free Flow Wines
Erica Stevens, Dylan’s Candy Bar
David Tomlinson, ConAgra Foods
Ajit Sivadasan, Lenovo

Next Generation Customer Experience

John Bollen, MGM Resorts International
Dennis Bromley, Mountain America Credit Union
Mark Fordham, Central Desktop
Belinda Rushing, nTelos Wireless
Aparajita Gupta, Firstsource Solutions Ltd.
Brian Murray, CoTap 
Howard Tarnoff, Ceridian
Dan Wallis, Kaiser Permanente
Bill Zhang, SAP and the National Basketball Association (NBA)

Technology Optimization and Innovation

Erica Stevens, Dylan’s Candy Bar
Dr. David Bray, Federal Communications Comission
Jeffrey Cohen, The MENTOR Network 
Carter Maslan, Camio
Bob Moore, InterMetro Industries
Eric Quinn, C&S Companies
Julien Ramond, Club Auto Roadside Services Ltd., a CAA company 
Heather Maniscalco, Blackboard, Inc. 
RJ Smith, Venture Technologies
Keth Zecchini, Parsons Brinckerhoff
Paul Wright, Accuride


Data to Decisions Future of Work Marketing Transformation Matrix Commerce New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth AR Executive Events Chief Customer Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief People Officer Chief Procurement Officer Chief Supply Chain Officer

Dreamforce: Salesforce Unveils the Next Wave of Salesforce Analytics Cloud

Dreamforce: Salesforce Unveils the Next Wave of Salesforce Analytics Cloud

Delivering Actionable Insights Across the Customer Success Platform - Glass half full - and half empty!

This morning Salesforce announced the latest progress on their analytics platform - as part of the Salesforce Analytics Cloud. It is an important area to watch as Salesforce for a long time has not been competitive on the reporting, data exploration side.


The press release can be found here - let's take a peek on my takeaways:

 
In case you don't have a chance to watch the video, let's go with these few bullets

 
  • Salesforce brings consistent visualization between OLAP and OLTP  - a good move
  • Salesforce brings integration of insight and action, all the way into the OLTP apps - a good move
  • ISVs are endorsing Salesforce Analytics Cloud - mentioned are Apptus, FinancialForce, Steelbrick and Vlocity - a good sign of value that Salesforce has created with Analytics Cloud
 
MyPOV
 
It's good to see Salesforce addressing the analytics and overall reporting / data visualization space on its platform. For a long time Salesforce has lacked adequate, modern reporting and visualization capabilities, even leaving this area explicitly to (partner) ISVs in the past. So more value for Salesforce customers.
 
On the concern side Salesforce Analytics Cloud is far from real time - with hourly updates to the platform. And while that is good enough and an improvement for Salesforce users, it is not best practice in 2015 anymore, where users need and demand more and faster information. Moreover Salesforce does not have the capability to tap into Hadoop scale BigData, where more and  more business relevant and critical (think IoT) information reside.
 
So a step forward for Salesforce users, still work to be done to catch up with the best of breed platforms. Stay tuned, we will be watching. 

 
Revenue & Growth Effectiveness New C-Suite Data to Decisions Tech Optimization Dreamforce financialforce salesforce business finance ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI AI Analytics Automation Marketing SaaS PaaS IaaS Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP Healthcare Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Cloud CCaaS UCaaS Enterprise Service Chief Financial Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Executive Officer

10 Ways Analytics Accelerate Digital Manufacturing

10 Ways Analytics Accelerate Digital Manufacturing

1
  • 42% of manufacturers say big data and analytics as their highest priority in 2015.
  • 56% of power distribution providers rank big data and analytics within their top three priorities for 2015.
  • 61% of aviation companies consider big data and analytics their highest priority this year.

Bottom line: Digital manufacturing strategies are gaining ground as manufacturers adopt big data and analytics to improve operational effectiveness, time-to-market, new product development and increase product quality and reliability.

Analytics Are Fueling Digital Manufacturing Growth

Big data and analytics adoption by manufacturers is the first step many are taking to create a galvanized, intelligent digital thread that unifies every aspect of their value chains. For aerospace manufacturers whose supply chains are exceptionally complex, big data and analytics are revolutionizing value chains starting with suppliers and progressing through all operations.

The majority of manufacturers are relying on analytics to improve order accuracy, shipment & cycle time performance, and product quality. Those excelling at digital manufacturing strategies are gaining additional analytical insights into how they can make decisions more accurately, quicker and with lower potential costs and risks.

The manufacturing industry generates more data than any other sector of the global economy on a consistent basis.   The more complex a given manufacturers’ operations are, the more valuable the insights gained from big data and analytics. The following comparison of big data analytics priorities by industry from a recent speech given by Jeff Immelt, CEO and President of General Electric illustrates this point:

analytics customer survey

Source: GE Minds and Machines Presentation, Jeff Immelt, CEO & President, General Electric.

10 Ways Analytics Are Accelerating Digital Manufacturing 

The ten ways analytics is accelerating digital manufacturing adoption globally include the following:

  • Providing real-time operator intelligence (70%), remote monitoring and diagnostics (66%), and condition-based maintenance (59%) are the three most valuable areas for analytics GE customers mentioned in a recent survey. GE’s industrial customers are looking to tailor pre-built applications that can deliver the eight different functional areas shown in the graphic below.  Manufacturers are looking to asset performance management as an integral part of their digital thread’s analytics and insight.

industrial customer perspective

Source: GE Minds and Machines Presentation, Jeff Immelt, CEO & President, General Electric.

  • Using data modeling to improve production workflows is improving Earnings Before Interest & Taxes (EBIT) by 55% for a chemical manufacturer.  Using analytics and data modeling to make more accurate,  efficient decisions encompassing making or buying ingredients, choosing to substitute an ingredient or not, optimizing equipment usage and/or reliability and gaining incremental sales through increased production capacity is leading to a significant improvement in EBIT for a leading chemical manufacturer on a consistent basis.  The following graphic provides insights into the contributions of each factor in improving EBIT performance.

EBIT Growth

Source: Taming manufacturing complexity with advanced analytics. McKinsey & Company by Patrick Briest, Valerio Dilda, and Ken Somers February 2015. 

  • Planning-execution integration in production centers and real-time production integration are two areas where analytics are having the greatest impact on manufacturers’ operating expenses (OPEX). When analytics are integrated as part of a digital manufacturing strategy, supply chains benefit when Web-EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) and real-time order conformation are implemented and analyzed for continual improvement.

Digital initaitves impact

Source: Operational Excellence through Digital in Manufacturing Industries. Capgemini Consulting.

  • Optimization tools (56%), demand forecasting (53%), integrated business planning (48%) and supplier collaboration & risk analytics (46%) are being rapidly adopted by manufacturers today, setting the foundation for digital manufacturing growth.  Deloitte recently interviewed supply chain executives regarding the thirteen fastest-moving technical capacities they are using today and expect to use in the future. The following graphic provides an overview of supply chain capabilities current in use and what percent of each they expect to use in the future.

use of supply chain capabilities

Source: Supply Chain Talent of the Future Findings from the third annual supply chain survey. Deloitte.  2015.

  • Analytics is integral to making the vision of Industrie 4.0 a reality. Industrie 4.0 is a German government initiative that promotes automation of the manufacturing industry with the goal of developing Smart Factories. Analytics is extensively used in manufacturing centers who are in the process of reengineering their entire operations to attain Industrie 4.0 compliance. Manufacturing value chains in highly regulated industries that rely on German suppliers and manufacturers are also relying on analytics extensively to guide their Industrie 4.0 journey. A recent Deloitte study of Industrie 4.0 adoption found that research and development (43%) will see the greatest transformational contribution from Industry 4.0.

Industry 4.0 areas

Source: Industry 4.0: Challenges and solutions for the digital transformation and use of exponential technologies. Deloitte Consulting, 2015

  • Analytics is enabling manufacturers to also scale real time cloud-based operational intelligence, condition-based monitoring, monitoring & diagnostics and asset lifecycle management across global manufacturing centers.  Capturing, aggregating, analyzing and taking action on analytics across all production centers using the GE Predix Cloud will also accelerate digital manufacturing growth over time.  Integrating analytics, industrial and sensor data into a scalable series of data models and apps delivered as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), GE will make this service commercially available in 2016.  The following graphic illustrates how complex manufacturers could use Predix Cloud to improve operational efficiency and quality.

horizontal capability controls

Source: Jeff Immelt Presentation on Pivot Strategy, December 16, 2014

  • Analytics is providing greater insights into product, process, program and service quality, forcing manufacturers to revamp existing production centers and make them more efficient.  Gaining greater insight into which production centers and factories are delivering the highest quality products and why is now possible.  The vision of unifying quality across an enterprise quality management and compliance (ECQM) framework is now a reality, driving greater digital manufacturing growth as a result. The following graphic from Tableau is an example of a manufacturing quality dashboard.

Mfg quality dashboard

Source: Manufacturing Analytics Quality Dashboard

  • Increasing production yields through the use of more effective supplier quality management and bill of material (BOM) planning integrated within production processes.  Analytics is extensively being used today for supplier audits, supplier quality management and traceability. Capitalizing on the full value of these analytics is a strong catalyst for manufacturers to move closer to digitizing their operations.
  • Using analytics to predict machine failures before they occur reduces downtime, production costs and increase customer satisfaction.  In highly regulated industries production equipment is periodically audited and reviewed for conformance to specific standards.  Integrating even the simplest sensor into production equipment can deliver valuable insights into what factors cause it to fail.  Analytics are providing Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) in real-time today, providing manufacturers with a glimpse into which equipment and machinery will most likely fail when. Knowing this can save literally millions of dollars in lost production time.
  • Adopting Pareto Analysis to continually improve schedule, quality and cost performance to the cell or production center level is driving digital manufacturing adoption.  Determining which factors are enhancing or reducing product, process and program quality is now possible using advanced manufacturing analytics. Differentiating between the many symptoms of a quality problem and its root cause is now becoming possible, especially for companies pursuing digital manufacturing strategies.

Additional sources of information on the impact of analytics on digital manufacturing:

 


Filed under: Analytics, Cloud Computing, Louis Columbus' blog, SaaS ERP, SaaS Forecasts Tagged: 10 Ways Analytics Are Accelerating Digital Manufacturing, Analytics, Analytics and Big Data in Manufacturing, Big Data, Digital Manufacturing, Louis Columbus' blog, Manufacturing Intelligence, Software-as-a-Service

Data to Decisions Chief Information Officer