Cornerstone OnDemand Announces The First PaaS Solution for the Talent Management Industry

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

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In the early hours before its yearly user conference Convergence in downtown Los Angeles, Cornerstone made an important announcement on its product capability, announcing a PaaS.

 

 

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

 

SANTA MONICA, Calif., May 12, 2015 – Cornerstone OnDemand (NASDAQ: CSOD), a global leader in cloud-based talent management software solutions, today announced the launch of Cornerstone Edge, a new cloud computing architecture and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution that provides clients, partners and third-party developers with new, easy-to-use tools and services for quickly creating and deploying new and existing applications within the Cornerstone suite of applications.

 

MyPOV – HR Professionals keep mentioning ‘integration’ as one of the key problems and concerns that are on their minds. A part of the problem is that enterprises need to integrate solutions that are built on separate platforms and enterprises need to integrate them. With the advent of modern platforms, vendors with enough ecosystem power can attract third parties to their platforms and create a platform integrated offering. Moreover, a PaaS will give enterprises the opportunities to customize their HCM solution further, without breaking their capability to consume regular upgrades.

 

Companies today require the flexibility to build applications specific to their particular needs. Cornerstone Edge enables clients to extend their investment in Cornerstone and fit their unique necessities by allowing the creation of web and mobile applications that leverage talent management data, drastically lowering the cost and complexity of application development and management.

 

MyPOV – Good to see Cornerstone hit the standard PaaS messages. Especially in the mobile field we see the high desire and demand to build enterprise specific applications – or to significantly expand vendor offered one.

 

The platform is designed to meet the complex needs of developers and simple demands of power users. Streamlining the app development process, Cornerstone Edge rapidly integrates with Cornerstone’s cloud applications, shifts specific aspects of systems management to Cornerstone, the service provider, and provides tools to build an application.

 

Available for preview in July, Cornerstone Edge enables users to:

 

?          Learn. With Cornerstone Developer, users can leverage Cornerstone’s developer community to learn and access key resources for Cornerstone Edge.

 

?          Integrate. Cornerstone API Services provide access to Cornerstone’s library of APIs and services, built on the OData framework, as well as documentation, sample entities and tutorials.

 

?          Build. Using Cornerstone App Builder, clients and partners can create applications using Cornerstone APIs, drag-and-drop development tools and Cornerstone’s proprietary Shelby programming language.

 

?          Market. The Cornerstone Marketplace helps clients to easily access and configure third-party applications that are integrated with or built on Cornerstone Edge.

 

MyPOV – These four capabilities that are key to the success of PaaS. Naturally Build and Integrate are inherent capabilities, but it is good to see that Learn and Market are equally part of it (Cornerstone launched its Marketplace at Convergence a year ago – read more here).

 

Cornerstone’s independent software vendors (ISVs) now have access to the tools and resources they need for easily building integrations with Cornerstone and embedding functionality directly within the Cornerstone suite of applications. Cornerstone has more than 25 ISV applications and integrations available in the Cornerstone Marketplace, including applications for background screening, tuition reimbursement, content management and continuous professional development.

 

MyPOV – It’s a good start for Cornerstone, but it will have to accelerate ISV, partner and developer uptake.

 

Comments on the News

 

“Over the last 15 years, we have been singularly focused on building the most robust, organically built talent management suite in the industry. While our mission to help people realize their potential has not changed, we believe what clients want and need out of talent management solutions is changing. Cornerstone clients don’t just want robust application functionality to manage their people. They are increasingly demanding more flexibility and extensibility of their investments,” said Adam Miller, founder and CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand. “With the launch of the Cornerstone Edge platform, we now have the unmatched ability to deliver development tools and services that put the power of cloud computing in the hands of our clients.”

 

MyPOV – Well said by Adam Miller, and a logical step for Cornerstone. After completing the coverage of the full Talent Management scope last year, announcing a marketplace a year ago, the next logical step is a PaaS.

 

“The future success of enterprise application vendors will be dependent on the ecosystem they create, and by transforming an application into a platform based on powerful data is the best way to rally customers, solution providers and developers to drive innovation in an industry,” said Holger Mueller, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research. “Until now, the HCM space has not benefitted from PaaS technology, and, as with all platforms, having first-mover advantage is important to set the standards and encourage usage.”

 

MyPOV – Mueller after Miller, wait Mueller who? It’s early days for PaaS in HCM, and Cornerstone has hit a first for the Talent Management space, well done.

 

“What makes Cornerstone and Cornerstone Edge distinct is our reach,” commented Jason Corsello, vice president of corporate strategy for Cornerstone OnDemand. “While many of our SaaS peers deploy their solutions to specific teams within an organization, we deploy to every employee at nearly every company we work with, which makes our platform opportunity unique and potentially game-changing.”

 

MyPOV – Fair enough from Corsello to see broader reach by Cornerstone than other vendors. What is clear is that a successful Marketplace and Paas product will do that for Cornerstone.

 

Overall MyPOV

The age of end user enablement is coming quickly, also to the HCM space. PaaS is the first step towards it, allowing (savvy) enterprise users to select from a larger ecosystem of solutions, that ideally can be taken live with no substantial implementation effort. An earlier effort in the PaaS space was done by Oracle at OpenWorld 2014 (here is the HCM take), but that was an overall push for PaaS across its SaaS portfolio. Cornerstone has the chance to tune its SaaS offering to HCM needs and more specifically even Talent Management needs. So congrats to Cornerstone to be early with that trend, now it needs to accelerate uptake and usage of the PaaS, which will be available in July this year. 
 

 

Beyond Deployment: How to Inspire, Motivate & Drive Sustainable Adoption #msignite #resources

Today, IT departments have an unprecedented opportunity to transform their business by providing solutions that help people get things done more efficiently, from anywhere and with anyone. As IT, how do you proceed to define these scenarios and ensure people can take full advantage of them?

In this Microsoft Ignite 2015 session that I had the privilege to co-present with Lindsay Gardner and Katie Larson, we discuss the common use cases and best practices coming from successful customers, experienced partners, and focus groups that led to sustainable user adoption. Specifically, we discuss top use cases to be solved and the capabilities in Office 365 to address these specific challenges; best practices for achieving successful adoption; and the role enterprise social can play in successful adoption.

What do you think of the presentation? Your feedback/comments is greatly appreciated!

Related Resources:

• Office 365 Jeopardy PPT Template
• Business Needs to Technology Capabilities Mapping and Prioritization Spreadsheet
• Article: How to Prioritize Business Needs Before Implementing SharePoint
• AvePoint Sustainable Adoption & Training Services
• Visual SP Self-Service Help System
• Office Success Center

Next Generation Collaboration and Microsoft's Vision for Dynamic Teamwork

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…...

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Below is the presentation Microsoft Senior Director Bryan Goode and I gave at Microsoft Ignite 2015 about the state of collaboration and the rise of more dynamic and automated tools and teams.

My key themes included: the challenges and solutions to input overload, suites/platforms vs. best of breed solutions, and intelligent collaboration leveraging analytics.  Bryan talked about Microsoft's view how the workforce is changing into a giant network, and how Microsoft's portfolio including Office 365, Yammer, Delve and other tools support this vision.

Click here to watch the Ignite keynotes and sessions.

Lesson 2 From Disrupting Digital Business - Keep Brand Promises In An Attention Economy

R "Ray" Wang

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

R “Ray” Wang is the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and blogs at www.raywang.org. His ground-breaking best-selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray's new book about Digital Giants and the future of business, titled, Everybody Wants to Rule The World was released in July 2021. Wang is well-quoted and frequently interviewed by media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, and Bloomberg. Short Bio R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He…...

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Get All 10 Lessons Learned From Disrupting Digital Business

As with the beginning of every revolution, those in the midst of it can feel it, sense it, and realize that something big is happening. Yet it’s hard to quantify the shift. The data isn’t clear. It’s hard to measure. Pace of change is accelerating. Old rules seem not to apply.

Sometimes when you are in the thick of it, it’s hard to describe what’s happening.  In the case of digital business, these models have progressed over the past 20 years.  However, non-traditional competitors have each exploited a few patterns with massive success. However, as the models evolved, winners realize there are more than a handful of patterns.

Lesson 1 – Transform Business Models And Engagement

Lesson 2 – Keep The Brand Promise

In fact, the impact is significant and now quantifiable with 52% of the Fortune 500 gone since 2000 and the average age of the S&P 500 company in 1960 is down from 60 years to a little more than 12 projected in 2020.  That is a 500% compression that has changed the market landscape forever in almost every industry.

Over the course of the next 10 weeks, I’ll be sharing one lesson per week.  For traditional businesses to succeed, they will have to apply all 10 lessons from Disrupting Digital Business in order to not only survive, but also relearn how to thrive.

We Move From Selling Products And Services To Keeping Brand Promises

Have you noticed that products companies no longer just sell products?  In many cases they are willing to trade off product margins for services revenue.  Take the mobile industry, we often see phones given away for free for a commitment to 2 to 3 year annual contracts. Well, that’s just the beginning.  Services companies are giving way services for experiences.   Access to free services often trigger additional offers.  The freemium to premium conversion is an example of how this works.  If you want to access more advance features or use a service more often you then pay for a premium offering.

So where does this all go? Experience based companies are now giving away experiences for business outcomes.  In the medical imaging equipment industry, they started out by selling an imaging machine for $1M US dollars.  Then they used financing plans to drive additional revenue and lower the capital outlays.  From there they sold support and service packages.  And after 5 to 7 years, they would convince customers to upgrade.  Now the metric in the medical imaging equipment industry comes down to revenue per patient scan per day.  The business model depends on how many profitable patients can be sent through the machine each day.  The experience shifts to a business outcome of up time.  So the sales model shifts as well.  Now you can get the machine for an 80% up time guarantee for $3M US dollars or if you want 95% up time, that will cost $4.5M US dollars.  As you can see this is about optimizing business models.  Once this happens, the manufacturer wants to put sensors and analytics on every device for remote monitoring.  By predicting when a part will fail, or when to send a tech, the manufacture reduces their risk in meeting their promise to deliver on up time.  Future business models can come from comparing machine performance and selling the insights, benchmarking data, and consulting.

Now, one more shift – business model companies are giving away their business models and focusing on brand promise.  Disney is a great example of this. Whether you watch a movie, enjoy a theme park, participate in a cruise, or even retire in a Disney retirement community, you know it’s going to be more expensive.  You know you’ll have a controlled experience where Disney tells you where to go, what to do, when to do it.  But most folks are happy with the outcome as they look to Disney to put together a high quality experience.  The expect it to be wholesome and family oriented and they are willing to pay for it.

But what Disney is doing is it’s not necessarily competing with another theme park, nor a movie studio, nor a cruise company.  What Disney is competing for is not just a business model.  In fact, you could choose to read another book, have dinner at another restaurant, watch a live musical act, or go to sleep.  In this attention economy, Disney is competing for your time.  Once you realize that we live in an attention economy, you realize that the goal is to captures someone’s time or reduces the time to get something done.   The battle for time is paramount in delivering a brand promise.

Homework

Now for this week, think about how you shift from selling products and services to delivering on experiences and outcomes.  This is not an easy exercise.  But in order to get to your brand promise, you’ll also have to ask yourself:

1. How do you grab a customer’s attention?
2. How can you reduce the time it takes to get something done?
3. What does your brand ultimately stand for?

When you have thought through this lesson, we’ll be ready to apply the business model shift conversation with the attention economy as we get to what we are selling.

The Complete 10 Lessons Learned From Disrupting Digital Business

For those attending the full keynotes and book tours, you’ll get the complete session and in many cases a copied of a signed booked.   For those following virtually, I’ve provided the slimmed down slide share deck for your use.

You now have the 10 lessons learned to disrupt digital business in your hands. You can take this information and change the world in front of you or choose to sit on the knowledge as the world passes you by and digital darwinism consumes your organization.

I trust you will do the right thing. And when you want some company, come join us as a client at Constellation Research where we’re not afraid of the future and the art of the possible.

Get The Book Now. Digital Disruption is Unkind to Those Who Wait.  

Purchase on Amazon
Bulk Orders: contact [email protected]
About Disrupting Digital Business

Join the Digital Disruption Tour. Events in San Francisco, Atlanta, London, and Amsterdam!

Your POV.

Are you ready to disrupt digital business?  Have you ordered the book?

Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

Resources

The post Book Summary: Lesson 2 From Disrupting Digital Business – Keep Brand Promises In An Attention Economy appeared first on A Software Insider's Point of View.

Event Report: Insights Into The New NetSuite At SuiteWorld 2015

R "Ray" Wang

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

R “Ray” Wang is the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and blogs at www.raywang.org. His ground-breaking best-selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray's new book about Digital Giants and the future of business, titled, Everybody Wants to Rule The World was released in July 2021. Wang is well-quoted and frequently interviewed by media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, and Bloomberg. Short Bio R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He…...

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SuiteWorld Comes Of Disruptive Age

Over 7,500 attendees convened at the San Jose McEnery Convention center for the 5th annual NetSuite SuiteWorld. The four day event brought together customers, partners, and influencers among the ecosystem. As one of the original cloud pioneers, the appropriate event theme focused on the impact of disruption. Taking its own advice into account, newly appointed CMO, Fred Studer, has already begun his internal disruption with a re-energized and revitalized brand apparent throughout the event. Analysis of the major announcements include:

From vendor selection inquiries, projects, conversations at SuiteWorld, and contract negotiations, Constellation sees customers attracted to NetSuite's value proposition for five distinct entry points:

1. Classic SMB's seeking a suite based solution.  NetsSuite's initial base came from the SMB market.   These customers sought one integrated ERP and CRM solution.  These customers expect NetSuite to keeping adding functionality such as procure to pay to the core product.  Over the past three years, Constellation has seen a move up market who seek native cloud suite based solutions.
2. IPO bound organizations expecting perfection. Often driven by the CFO's and investors, NetSuite built a reputation as the product to go public on. Now beyond technology start ups, advisors often counsel rapidly growing organizations aspiring to go public to go with NetSuite.
3. Legacy ERP organizations taking a Two-tier approach to innovation. Large organizations lethargically latched to legacy ERP systems often seek a different approach to modernize subsidiaries. The two-tier approach enables subsidiaries to innovate at their own pace and tie back to legacy core financials.
4. Organizations making the move to modernize and consolidate on the cloud. Organizations ready to ditch legacy on-premises use NetSuite for their cloud modernization efforts. The goal is to replace legacy systems and consolidate as much functionality onto one suite.
5. Industry specific use cases pulling on one NetSuite module. Professional services automation, commerce and retail, wholesale distribution, and manufacturing industries often choose NetSuite for the point solution and then grow into the suite.

Your POV

Can you see yourself switching to NetSuite? If you are a NetSuite customer, what do you think of the product and strategy? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

Event Report - SAP Sapphire - Top 3 Positives and Concerns

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

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SAP invited me to attend Sapphire and I gladly attended the conference in Orlando. I missed the attendance number, but I’d say it was the same like last year. The exhibitor area of the show floor was even more dense, so more partner interest, spend and investment than last year (my guestimate). 

 

 

 

Earlier I already published my Day 1, Day 2 Keynote takeaways (here and here) and a News Analysis of the SAP and IBM partnership in the HCM area (here). Preparing for this post I also read my Event Reports of Sapphire 2014 (attended, here) and Sapphire 2013 (from the fences, here). If you have 10 minutes to invest, both blogs provide a very good perspective on what SAP’s challenges were, which ones SAP has tackled and which ones remain. 

 

Leukert and The Journey

 

3 Top Positives

SAP cozied up with BigData – or – Hadoop is no longer a bad word – For the longest time other database technologies were bad words at SAP. It was (and still is mostly) HANA, HANA … as I have said, tweeted, blogged and written research about, that put SAP at the losing end of next generation applications opportunity. First ignoring, not working, then co-existing with Hadoop made SAP not a viable provider for 21st century use cases (think IoT, Internet harvesting, Social Media, DaaS etc.) because the volume of business relevant information grows faster than memory chip prices fall. So it was never viable to have ‘all’ information in memory. The co-existence scenarios that SAP adopted fell short because there is always some key data in the BigData clusters that a next gen application needs to get to very, very fast. And data can’t be moved, as it’s too massive, hence we see the micro-services boom. With some projection and benevolent fantasy we can now assume that SAP is finding a way to combine HANA and Hadoop (likely via Spark as it was on Leukert’s slides) in a coherent way, running queries (natively?) across clusters. More from SAP to come but this too me was the (a bit geeky, ok) the #1 takeaway from Sapphire. 

 

Leukert with probably most important Sapphire Slide

SAP can’t stop here and needs more of an outside in perspective on this topic, e.g. it’s not only about getting the BigData back into ERP to HANA, it’s more about getting the ERP relevant data closer to the BigData. With that SAP can really play in next generation application scenarios. IoT being the most prominent one. Siemens selecting SAP for IoT is a key platform and reference win, and my guess is that Siemens also helped this new development [as Siemens’ IOT platform relies heavily on Hadoop.] And while most Sapphire attendees and decision makers may not have realized and may not build these applications (yet) – it is key that they know that their application provider, SAP, is now (more) future proof. 

 

Clark with other DBs than HANA

S/4HANA – The future is clear – or – Are we there yet? How do we get there? – There can be no doubt that S/4HANA is the future for SAP, featured prominently in all keynotes. It is very positive for SAP to rebuild its applications for the 21st century, for the cloud, as SAP described in the S/4HANA launch in January this year (see my First Hand blog here). And SAP is working very fast (maybe too fast – see the concern below) in adding more to S4/HANA than the ‘founding’ member Simple Finance. With the Fiori UI S4/HANA has a compelling and modern UI, in a Q&A Platter remarked that this was the first time he walked the show floor and did not see any SAP GUI, WebDynPro et al interfaces. 

 

Leukert with S/4HANA Cloud Edition and 25 on premise Industries

 

Truly good news for SAP customers, as usability of ERP applications in general and SAP in specific are a traditional challenge. And Leukert surprised regular audit and pundits with the announcement that the newly announced S/4HANA Cloud Edition (see press release here) will include (beyond Finance) Sales, Services, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, R&D and Engineering, Asset Management, Sourcing & Procurement and Sustainability. Looks very much like the mySAP ERP scope. Not enough with that, Leukert shared that all 25 verticals that SAP has built now ‘run’ in S/4HANA. That is an amazing scope and a very fast delivery (though only the vertical code is available now). SAP did not share publicly what will be available and when. What we know is, that the Cloud Edition of S/4HANA should see quarterly new releases and that the roadmap is available to SAP customers on the Service Marketplace. When asked in the executive Q&A Leukert explained how SAP got here so fast: When Simple Finance began, SAP copied ‘all the code’ (from my SAP ERP, ECC 6 – not clear / known to me what the source was) to the new development environment. After the S/4HANA launch the development teams have worked hard to make sure that the 25 industry code ‘runs’ with S/4HANA. ‘Runs’ means that the system will not crash, and works, but it is also not optimized for usage of HANA as the database, the products don’t have a Fiori UI, they are not simplified and augmented with modern best practices. 

 

Plattner TCO case for HANA and S/4HANa

All these aforementioned qualities (from Plattner’s list at the launch – see my play for play here) are gatekeeper to make it from S/4HANA on premise (or as managed instance by SAP) to the S/4HANA Cloud edition. Effectively that means that these qualities will come first to the cloud edition and then to the other editions (no commitment made for timelines). But it is probably fair to observe that not every addition / new product SAP builds on S/4HANA cloud edition may be able to run in the S/4HANA on premise edition. A lot of very quick product creation by SAP, so kudos, for the flipside read below in the Concerns section. 



SAP gets viable in IoT – or – (Hadoop) Data is the new gravity - SAP has been talking since summer last year about becoming an IoT player – read my first take here – but the concerns in regards of Hadoop being the operative data store for pretty much every serious IoT project out there was limiting SAP’s potential. With the announced (see press release here) and pending ‘embrace and extend’ (hope Microsoft doesn’t mind the re-use) of Hadoop / Spark that concern is gone. But it’s not just the database, enterprises need a development platform, and that is HANA Cloud Platform (HCP), basically SAP’s PaaS (First Take here). It is good that SAP is looking at all assets it can bring to the table, and good to see the mention of the venerable SQL Anywhere product, probably the best choice in the market when a ‘thing’ needs to run offline for some time. Now it will be key to watch that SAP can sign up similar caliber customers like Siemens, so the IoT / HCP platform does not get influenced too much by Siemens (long, long term SAP insiders will appreciate the deja-vu). But for now it is great to see an industrial heavyweight put is fate onto SAP / HCP. Moreover it is good to see SAP speaks more about HCP, though the statement that SAP cannot build all new applications and that therefore HCP is crucial was a comment made behind closed doors.
 

Leukert preps for IoT part with Siemens

 

Top 3 Concerns

Where there is light there is also shadow, so here are my Top3 concerns.

S/4HANA – changing the engines while the plane is flying - As we pointed out already last year (see here) there are 2 fundamental approaches how to build a massive new enterprise suite, while customer are live and using the previous generation. 

 

• Isolation of the new - One approach is to build the new suite in a separate effort, sometimes even isolated in management, examples for that are Oracle Fusion, the new Infor Financials and HCM or closer to SAP byDesign. From a technology perspective this is easier, as the vendor isolates the efforts. Commercially the approach is a challenge, as the vendor needs to fund the new development, maintain the existing products and keep the install base as clean as possible from inroads by competitors. 

 

• Innovate as you go - The other approach is to gradually move things to the new platform over time (this is what SAP is doing with S/4HANA). The commercial advantage is that the vendor can commercialize the new product right away (e.g. a SAP customer buying Simple Finance), try to declare technology innovation victory (e.g. ‘we are in the cloud’). On the technology and implementation side things are a little harder as integration between new and previous version needs to be re-shuffled every new release of the new platform. And that is what SAP has announced to do with S4/HANA. Multiple version of integration need to be maintained and supported as customers maybe on different versions between new and old. 

SAP has ten thousands of engineers and with Leukert a leader who understand the above very well. Coupled with the good quality track record (all is relative of course) SAP can pull this off, no question. The hard cold fact is, that SAP probably did not have a fair choice between the two approaches, as it did not really succeed with the first approach. With McDermott certainly SAP has more of a commercial leader than with Kagermann back then, so equally no surprise how the dices have fallen. And it will be back to McDermott and the sales team to evangelize, explain and monetize the approach taken with customers. No doubt they can do it, but concerns can pop up along the way. 

 

 

 

For instance that SAP could not present a live S/4HANA customer on stage at Sapphire. It was great to have an international customer on stage (Indian paints vendor asianpaints), but the enterprise go live is near (May or June) so still ahead. It was good for SAP not roll out its own Finance team again (already on stage 2014) and later we learnt that Constellation SuperNova award winner Florida Crystals (for adoption of HANA, more here) is live on S/4HANA. Maybe the sugar maker did not carry enough brand recognition to be on stage, or maybe wasn’t comfortable to speak to a broad global audience. To be fair of course, S/4HANA is only around since a little more than 3 months. But SAP has ten thousands of customers and considerable resources to pour into customer adoption and evangelism. This situation can only get better.
 

The HCP In Clark's presentation

Value Proposition Change – From integrated core to a temporarily networked core - The traditional SAP customer has bought into the vision and then experienced the value proposition of an integrated suite. SAP itself changed that with the advent of the separate mySAP xxx systems (CRM, SCM, SRM, PLM etc.). In the recent years SAP has re-integrated some of these, e.g. mySAP PLM into what was then mySAP ERP, now the Business Suite. But there was always a ‘core’ (and SAP calls S/4HANA again the core, trendily the digital core) of integrated automation. Now for the first time in SAP product history that core will – step by step – over the next years – migrate of the S4/HANA cloud edition. One can argue that there is not much of a difference of SAP maintaining interfaces between e.g. R/3 and mySAP CRM, or today between BusinessSuite and Cloud for Customer. But the economics and mechanics in the cloud age are different for cloud based enterprise software. They are implemented differently, upgraded more frequently – on the flipside they don’t offer the deep configuration and customization we have seen in the on premise era. So to see how SAP will keep customers happy in the transition to S/4HANA Cloud Edition will be an interesting development to keep an eye on. 

 

 

SAP will say that customers can stay on premise for S/4HANA, too – but new development is likely to be seen and run in the S/4HANA Cloud Edition. It will be interesting to see when SAP customers will move ‘in bulk’ to S/4HANA Cloud Edition. SAP certainly wants customers to move there – customers will seek re-assurances of adoption, quality and functional richness. But at the core is the integrated suite value proposition that was always the main value proposition (and differentiator) of SAP. How well SAP can make it through that transition will be key for its own and its customers’ success.

The largest tall ship built the Koebenhavn

21st century best practices - Or – the history of ship building applied to enterprise software – For the longest time mankind would cross waters in wooden, wind powered ships. 150 or so years ago iron became available in quality, quantity and price to build ships from it, including a steam engine. The new technology of ship building required new skills in the shipyards, and very little could be saved over from the wooden era. We see a similar change in technology today, were for the first time since mankind does computing, the computing capabilities surpass what business best practice require. The consequences are many, but one of them is that 21st business best practices are changing very quickly right in front of us. And the early adopters do as well as the first warriors with iron swords did against those with bronze swords. Or in other words, enterprises clinging to old business best practices will disappear quickly. Digital Transformation is not kind to laggards. This is a challenge for all enterprise software vendors: To react fast enough and built these practices into their software, this is not exclusive to SAP as a challenge. But for the first time enterprise software vendors need to show thought leadership and can’t rely on customer advisory boards and focus groups to tell them what to do. This input process is too slow and runs a high risk to leave both vendors and customers behind. So exciting but also strategic times.

As an analyst I try to assess how close a vendor is to the 21st century best practices by looking at how much new best practices make it in their product plans and how fast they can build code. Because we know that new best practices require new functionality that requires new code. And both points concern me with SAP at this point. Yes the keynotes had promising moments of new best practices, like mentioning simulation, decision management and ‘true’ analytics (more here). But the only new application on top of Finance was ‘new’ – Cash Pooling. And of course it makes sense to build Cash Pooling on top of HANA, but it’s the same process faster, much faster but not re-thought. The other concern is that SAP copied the code of (I assume her) the Business Suite, to build the base for S/4HANA. I am concerned SAP risks to have copied too much of last century best practices and then build on them. The ship building analogy would have been to take the largest wooden ship and but steel casing over it. Would not have worked then and it is likely not to work now. But it is speculation right now, way too early to tell. And fair enough to SAP, if SAP built S/4HANA from code line 1 – they best practices for the 21st century have not fleshed out yet. So would be a risk to build on the best we know in 2015. And this is why (see above) a modern PaaS is so important, let customers build something if they really want that. Of course along guided lines and without (hopefully) loosing key qualities that are need in the cloud age.

 

Analyst Tidbits

• Simple Finance makes progress – It was good to sit down with the Simple Finance team and learn more on customer adoption on roadmap. Both are making good progress for the relative short time the product is around.

 

• Technology business alive and well – With a new version of Lumira and a new push behind the former Sybase (we spend time on SQL Anywhere and Sybase ASE) – it’s good to see SAP using all its technology assets. 

• HCP progresses – Good progress on the HCP side as well. More adoption, more open source and SAP becoming an active contributor to open source projects is a good trend to see. The Integration function is maturing and given the S/4HANA scenarios will have a lot of things to integrate in the near future. It is fair to say it is the ‘make or break’ for S/4HANA. 

• Cloud for Planning – The ‘spreadsheet’ killer on top of HANA is making equal good progress, being even younger than S4/HANA (my First Take at product launch here). 

• HCM – SAP announced partnerships with Benefitfocus and IBM (my News Analysis here). The IBM partnership is good for both SAP and IBM as SAP has a channel to sell more EmployeeCentral and IBM as a modern HR Core offering to shut out potential competitor aspirations. The Benefitfocus partnership allows SAP to close gaps on the Benefit functionality that have been difficult to address before. So both are good moves by SAP in the HCM space. 

 

Great visualization of global flight traffic for a HANA demo

 

 

MyPOV

A good Sapphire for SAP that is in the process of bringing its core products to the cloud. If it fails, as Plattner said back at the launch of S/4HANA, SAP ‘is dead’. There are significant risks in the approach how SAP builds S/4HANA as well as the practice of copying code, making it work, then simplifying it and then enriching it. But then SAP probably didn’t have a choice in the approach anymore, given the advanced age of platforms and the ByDesign history. But that’s a key decision SAP and customers need to live for years to come.

More importantly SAP has departed from an almost ‘cultish’ HANA (and database centric) view of applications. It is very good to see that this phase is over in my view, building next generation application with a ‘best tool’ philosophy vs. a single tool mindset can only be good for SAP and its customers.

Moreover SAP needs to make the transition options and benefits vs TCO of moving to S/4HANA very clear. The SAP customer base (as diverse surveys show) has not been able to execute the HANA TCO equation in SAP’s favor. The S/4HANA equation has probably a one order of magnitude bigger price tag. Plattner showed an encouraging TCO comparison that made it look like a ‘no brainer’ to move to S/4HANA – if SAP can pull this off in this category in its diverse customer landscape on a multitude of systems, then S/4HANA adoption will be easy from a TCO perspective. That would be a huge win for SAP.

Lastly, SAP’s business has been a rich ecosystem play, as the booths at Sapphire showed. In general pundits assume that for 1 currency unit for SAP, up to 7 are made in the ecosystem. That equation will change with S/4HANA and it will be key for SAP to keep partners on its side in the process. The enterprise software industry itself has been disrupting itself on the product side – but the impact on implementation services has been the strongest. Customers can and want configure enterprise software by themselves, maybe with a few special forces type consultants by their side, but not a company of foot soldiers aka consultants anymore. The disruption to the services partners is in full swing, with SAP probably driving the most generous ecosystem in the market, it needs to be extra careful to not create antagonistic trends.

But for now – it is forward for SAP and its customers with all the ups and downs the creation of a new product brings. We will be there watching and blogging, please keep reading.

 

 

And more on overall SAP strategy and products:

 

• First Take - Bernd Leukert and Steve Singh Day #2 Keynote - read here
• News Analysis - SAP and IBM join forces ... read here
• First Take - SAP Sapphire Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote - read here
• In Depth - S/4HANA qualities as presented by Plattner - play for play - read here
• First Take - SAP Cloud for Planning - the next spreadsheet killer is off to a good start - read here
• Progress Report - SAP HCM makes progress and consolidates - a lot of moving parts - read here
• First Take - SAP launches S/4HANA - The good, the challenge and the concern - read here
• First Take - SAP's IoT strategy becomes clearer - read here
• SAP appoints a CTO - some musings - read here
• Event Report - SAP's SAPtd - (Finally) more talk on PaaS, good progress and aligning with IBM and Oracle - read here
• News Analysis - SAP and IBM partner for cloud success - good news - read here
• Market Move - SAP strikes again - this time it is Concur and the spend into spend management - read here
• Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors picks up speed - but there remains work to be done - read here
• First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Top 3 Takeaways Day 1 Keynote - read here.
• Event Report - Sapphire - SAP finds its (unique) path to cloud - read here
• What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire - read here
• News Analysis - SAP becomes more about applications - again - read here
• Market Move - SAP acquires Fieldglass - off to the contingent workforce - early move or reaction? Read here.
• SAP's startup program keep rolling – read here.
• Why SAP acquired KXEN? Getting serious about Analytics – read here.
• SAP steamlines organization further – the Danes are leaving – read here.
• Reading between the lines… SAP Q2 Earnings – cloudy with potential structural changes – read here.
• SAP wants to be a technology company, really – read here
• Why SAP acquired hybris software – read here.
• SAP gets serious about the cloud – organizationally – read here.
• Taking stock – what SAP answered and it didn’t answer this Sapphire [2013] – read here.
• Act III & Final Day – A tale of two conference – Sapphire & SuiteWorld13 – read here.
• The middle day – 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
• A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
• What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire – read here.
• Why 3rd party maintenance is key to SAP’s and Oracle’s success – read here.
• Why SAP acquired Camillion – read here.
• Why SAP acquired SmartOps – read here.
• Next in your mall – SAP and Oracle? Read here.

 

And more about SAP technology:

• HANA Cloud Platform - Revisited - Improvements ahead and turning into a real PaaS - read here
• News Analysis - SAP commits to CloudFoundry and OpenSource - key steps - but what is the direction? - Read here.
• News Analysis - SAP moves Ariba Spend Visibility to HANA - Interesting first step in a long journey - read here
• Launch Report - When BW 7.4 meets HANA it is like 2 + 2 = 5 - but is 5 enough - read here
• Event Report - BI 2014 and HANA 2014 takeaways - it is all about HANA and Lumira - but is that enough? Read here.
• News Analysis – SAP slices and dices into more Cloud, and of course more HANA – read here.
• SAP gets serious about open source and courts developers – about time – read here.
• My top 3 takeaways from the SAP TechEd keynote – read here.
• SAP discovers elasticity for HANA – kind of – read here.
• Can HANA Cloud be elastic? Tough – read here.
• SAP’s Cloud plans get more cloudy – read here.
• HANA Enterprise Cloud helps SAP discover the cloud (benefits) – read here. 

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here.

2012, 2013, 2014 & 2015 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

Infographic Friday: Life of a Fan in a Digital World

Russell Scibetti

Founding Editor, The Business of Sports
The Business of Sports

My name is Russell Scibetti and I have an extensive background in sports business, including CRM and database marketing, interactive and digital marketing, social media, corporate sponsorships and activation, and applied market research. From 2007 to 2014, I worked for Arizona State Athletics, Comcast-Spectacor (Philadelphia Flyers) and the New York Jets to manage and implement CRM, database marketing, market research and other technology-based sales and marketing initiatives. In 2014, I joined KORE Software as their VP of Product Strategy, where I am responsible for the strategic vision, planning and development of the KORE ProSports Ticketing, Sponsorship and Suites/Premium software products. I earned my MBA in Sports Business from the W.P. Carey…...

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It’s time for another edition of Infographic Friday. Today’s content comes to us from Nikolai Vetter and the SAP Community Network who takes us through a hypothetical match day experience of a modern fan, showing the logical connections between traditional actions (ordering tickets, meeting up with friends, buying merchandise) with digital enhancements (sharing via social, mobile replays and geolocation).

Check out the full infographic below or click here to see Nikolai’s complete article and more.

Don’t Throw Out Marketing Skills with the Digital Bathwater

Gavin Heaton

Founder
Disruptors Co

Gavin is the Founder of Disruptors Co, one of Australia’s leading independent strategy and innovation companies. Gavin advises firms on strategy, marketing, product development and innovation. He is also a member of the Orbits program, the influencer network of award winning analyst and advisory firm, Constellation Research. Gavin advises boards and leadership on innovation strategy, marketing, data-driven product development and corporate venturing. Gavin is on the board of Vibewire, a youth-led social enterprise based in Sydney, Australia and on the Technology Advisory Group for Good2Give – the workplace giving platform. ...

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The marketing skills gap is a hot topic right now. No matter how many clients, colleagues or competitors that I speak with, it’s clear that the marketing industry is facing a skills crisis. And the questions and discussions are often the same:

• Do we have the right people?
• How do we understand data and put it to work?
• Do we have the right technology?
• What do we do with the technology we’ve already got?
• How do we plug the gaps?

But it is NOT all doom and gloom. Many of the marketing skills and processes that have been developed over the last few decades are still eminently useful in the digital world. They just need some retraining, cross-training. As I explain on the newly revamped Telstra Exchange blog – marketing is from mars, digital is from venus:

In the traditional world of marketing, we’d think about this as media. We’d break it into paid media, owned and earned. It’s media that is created from a central point and pushed out, interrupting the lives of our audiences with its urgency. Even where that media is “earned” or “social”, it’s still created with a particular focus and intention. And from the inside of our marketing command centre we run the sums. Counting, measuring, assessing and reporting.

Read the full article here.

Submit Your Application for the 2015 SuperNova Awards

In its fifth year, the Constellation SuperNova Awards will recognize eight individuals who demonstrate true leadership in digital business through their application and adoption of new and emerging technologies. We’re searching for leaders and teams who have innovatively applied disruptive technolgies to their business models as a means of adapting to the rapidly-changing digital business environment. Special emphasis will be given to projects that seek to redefine how the enterprise uses technology on a large scale.

We’re searching for the boldest, most transformative technology projects out there. If you or someone you know has what it takes to compete in the SuperNova Awards, fill out the application here: 

The Correct Way to Use Customer Data

R "Ray" Wang

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

R “Ray” Wang is the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and blogs at www.raywang.org. His ground-breaking best-selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray's new book about Digital Giants and the future of business, titled, Everybody Wants to Rule The World was released in July 2021. Wang is well-quoted and frequently interviewed by media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, and Bloomberg. Short Bio R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He…...

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My latest report, Customer Data: The Missing Link to Customer Success explains how successful organizations will utilize customer data to power their business initiatives in the digital era. 

Customer data is your organization's most strategic asset. Use it the right way to rise above your competitors, delight your customers, and create a sustainable digital business. Constellation's seven-step customer data framework will show you how. 

Report Summary

Organizations seeking to grow and differentiate their businesses can no longer afford to mistreat their customer data. In fact, as customers have evolved and in many cases moved on, new strategies require customer data as the foundation for engaging and influencing customers. Information governance and master data management emerge as key competencies in an organization’s successful customer-facing strategies. Organizations must master 10 critical steps across the information supply chain: classify, transform, augment, master, secure, deliver, refresh, relate, archive, and retire.

Those leaders who fail to act on a customer data strategy face lost revenue, decreased customer satisfaction, lower levels of retention, and increased costs in customer acquisition. To achieve business value, organizations can take immediate action by applying Constellation’s seven-step framework for customer data strategy. With these power tools in one’s hands, customer data emerges as the missing link to strategic success. 

Customer Data: The Missing Link to Strategic Success addresses why organizations must embrace master data as an asset for success.

Download a snapshot of this report below.