What I would like Oracle to address this OpenWorld

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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I wrote a long - covering all what Oracle does - post last year before Oracle’s OpenWorld conference - you can find it here. Re-reading it before writing this post I found it surprisingly accurate - even one year later… tempted to ‘copy & paste’ it - I will try to only look at this post from the vantage point of my research areas - Next Generation Applications and Future of Work.
 

Database - Oracle will have to show traction for both 12c and the new in memory options. The announcements have been done, now it’s time to show what customers are doing, what interest partners are shown and drive the roadmap further.

Cloud - We attended Oracle’s Cloud analyst briefing earlier this year (findings here) - it is now time to see what Oracle will unveil from the large NDA portion it presented at the event. Be ready for a lot of XaaS (everything as a Service) products. More importantly Thomas Kurian said back then that Oracle wants to compete with AWS and be price competitive - so it will be interesting to see what Oracle does in this area. And let’s not forget out of the more or less 19M developers out there - 11M are Java developers. Will be key for Oracle to show the way forward - maybe unveiling a PaaS.

The key questions I will be asking are - what will Oracle be doing to enable developers to build modern, next generation applications, taking millions of database, middleware and Java developers by the hand into the cloud era.

HCM - Last year we challenged Oracle in regards of traction in Fusion HCM - and they responded by hijacking my agenda with customer meetings. The result was our report here – showing more traction than we and most industry watchers expected. Now it will be key to see how Oracle has used the last 12 months to build on that. We will also be watching on what Oracle has done and plans to do in the Talent Management space, particularly on Recruiting, where Oracle is the 800 pound gorilla with Taleo, but has not innovated much. Given the retirement challenges in the workforce that even newly appointed co-CEO Mark Hurd tweets about - the Oracle story needs to be good.

The key question I will be asking are - how will Oracle keep differentiating its HCM portfolio vis a vis the competition, innovate to keep it modern and how to develop and extend an attractive value proposition to HCM buyers out there.

Ping me on twitter for more observations and question I should be paying attention for in the frenzy days of Oracle OpenWorld 2014. Oracle has only scheduled 38 events / meetings / briefings for me – so this will be ‘slow’ conference… Find out where I am and what I think by following me on Twitter - @holgermu . 

5 pillars of emerging technology at Wipro – creative disruption

pending

Guy Courtin was formerly Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research covering Matrix Commerce and how the Internet of Things drives the evolution of commerce.  Guy has over 15 years experience in the technology space and specifically in the supply chain space. Most recently he was the Vice President of Research at SCM World. Where he focused on the service providers that empowered supply chains. Prior to SCM World, Guy held numerous senior positions. He was responsible for product marketing at RSi, a retail supply chain solution provider. There managed RSi’s go to market strategy around their leading cloud based supply chain solutions. He also spear headed Progress Software’s supply chain group. Where he was responsible for driving revenue and market share as well…...

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This week I had the privilege of attending the Wipro analyst day in Boston. A large number of industry analysts and influencers were in attendance – it is always good to see old friends at these events.

The day had the usual rhythm: general presentations in the morning followed by the speed dating process of meeting with individual members of the Wipro leadership team. One of these sessions that piqued my interest was a 1 on 1 with KR Sanjiv, Wipro’s Chief Technology Officer out of Bangalore. We discussed the emerging technologies he is focusing on for the next 2-5 years. Always a fun topic.

He gave us 5 key categories:

• Cognitive
• Smart Machines
• Man – Machine interface
• Robotics
• Next Generation Architecture

What struck me the most were the middle three. Why? From my perspective these are part of a wave of digital disruption that is beginning to form in our supply chains – whether it be retail, CPG, industrial, life sciences, aerospace to name a few.

Smart Machines is really about the movement towards greater intelligence and analytics within machines. In particular wearables. I wrote a post recently that looked at this trend in supply chain management. Click here for post. There is an increasing segment of companies like Unvired from the software side and Motorola from the hardware side that are tackling the need for greater intelligence in wearable technologies that reduce friction in the supply chain. Think enhanced capabilities for pick packers in the warehouse or more decision making power for floor managers on the manufacturing floor. Wipro was showing off a device that is used to for personal health monitoring – think about how much flexibility and reach this gives health care providers. As well as the data it provides to ensure better monitoring and anticipating needs (similar to a retailer anticipating a consumers’ demand for a product).

Man – Machine interface – think of this as how we have evolved in our interactions with machines. The example we discussed was how Tom Cruise manipulates files in the movie “Minority Report.” Of course that was a movie, but the work done in this space will have a deep impact. Currently our interaction with machines, and the information they contain, is via a keyboard. More recently we have added touch screens. But this is still a flat method of interactions. When it comes to the real world…items have three dimensions. In addition to the ever growing mountains of data and information we produce and look to leverage to run our businesses and supply chains. As Mr Sanjiv stated “The new generation wants more intuitive and ‘human’ interfaces rather than the click and touch.” The amount of data that is needed to manage today’s supply chains only continues to expand – and seeing the information on a traditional screen isn’t optimized for the needs of today’s users.

Robotics is just what it sounds like. Using machines to fill in some needs gaps that humans are not capable or are not as efficient at doing as a robot. KR spoke at length about the usage of drones or even smarter robots to do jobs such as clearing sludge out of hard to reach pipes. Of course these are not ideas that other companies are not already exploring – think iRobot or Amazon with their drone project. Even DHL has announced using drones to deliver medicine to hard to reach islands in the North Sea – click here for story. Right now much of the talk of robotics is constrained to such areas test drones for delivery, using robots in utilities to fix infrastructure or companies like Kiva that are building robots to manage part of warehouses. However there is not question that robotics will have a important role to play in reducing the friction that is encountered in commerce and supply chain.

Overall a good day spent with some sharp folks from Wipro. The discussion of the pillars of emerging technology parallel much of what we are observing when it comes to addressing new disruptions and reducing friction points that are in Matrix Commerce. I will be interested to observe how Wipro’s work in these spaces come to fruition.

Microsoft Begins Bridging The Worlds Of Email and Social Networking

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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Today Microsoft announced that the group functionality commonly found in social networking tools will now be available right inside the Office 365 Outlook client. As seen below, people can access their normal email Inbox and folders as they always have, but now below that they can navigate to the groups they are part of. A group is a place where people can share messages, files and take advantage of a group calendar.



Now you may be thinking: "Conversations, files and calendars... are those features all available today?" Well, yes all those features are but they are spread out across multiple tools making it difficult for people to use. Think back to a few years ago when Microsoft's attempt at collaboration was focused around their on-premises Sharepoint platform. Common industry opinion was that Sharepoint's activity feed, document libraries and Teamsites lagged far behind pure cloud-centric collaboration players such as Yammer, Jive and Box. Fast forward to today and Yammer is owned by Microsoft, SharePoint, Outlook and Office have strong web-based offerings (bundled as Office 365) and OneDrive is a very robust enterprise file-sharing option. So all the pieces are there, but choosing which tool to use and when can be confusing to the average person. But by blending email and enterprise social networking inside a single client, Microsoft could be taking a significant step in helping improve the adoption of enterprise social networking for Microsoft customers.

It's important to note however, this is not the integration of Yammer within Outlook.  The new Office 365 Groups are not mirror images of the groups that currently exist in Yammer. For example, if you're the member of the Marketing group in Yammer, that group will not automatically appear in Office 365. You will need to create a new group and then add the members. When you start using this new Office 365 group, the messages will not be cross posted to Yammer nor vice versa. So why was Yammer not simply integrated? My assumption is that Microsoft has learned a lot from Yammer, but coding similar functionality using the Microsoft stack will provide them a better long term solution than trying to integrate Yammer across the rest of Office. For example, Office 365 Groups are planned to be rolled into other products such as Lync.

Once the core functionality of Yammer is natively part of the Microsoft platform, I can see the Yammer name being depreciated. While early adopters and those of us in the social networking echo chamber may morn the removal of the name, for the majority of customers the simplification could be a welcome change.  Don't believe me? Look how little Microsoft emphasises the name Sharepoint now. By focusing on Office 365, Microsoft can remove the complication of SharePoint vs. Yammer, Teamsites vs. Office 365 Groups, Yammer groups for Office 365 Groups, Exchange Distribution Lists vs. Office 365 groups, Document Libraries vs. OneDrive, etc.

Ideally Microsoft will make migration tools available to help move customers to a single common set of tools.  Until then, this gap provides a great opportunity for business partners.

Kudos to Microsoft for taking this step in bridging email and social networking. I look forward to hearing customer stories about how people now click on a group name and post a message instead of sending an email.

5 Questions for Apple - Why good product development practices matter

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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• Antenna-gate - Remember how iPhone users were able to short circuit the antenna and weaken or even loose signal.
• Hardware issues - Let’s take the recent ‘bending’ issues as latest exhibit. [Update 9/25/14 - Saw the email Apple sent to customers with iPhone6 orders - looks like Apple is doing extensive 'Sit tests'.]
• Battery issues - Through many iOS upgrades users have experienced reduced battery time. 
• Design Flaws in iCloud - I personally experienced a few years ago what many iOS 8.0.1 users are experiencing now. My iPhone 4s became unstable – I could not even send text messages without the phone crashing (which for the non-Apple users is the sudden, reset to the home screen). After many installs and help from the geniuses at Apple stores on two continents it was clear -  iCloud does not separate code from user data, much to my surprise. So local backup, clean install on new iPhone, then get data back (pictures) was the solution then.
• Software issues - Well everyone remembers the Apple Maps debut. 
• Security issues - Just google ….

Progress Report - Workday supports more cloud standards - but work remains

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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We were invited to the yearly Workday Technology Summit in the beautiful Golden Gate Club in the San Francisco Presidio. More than 20 analysts and influencers spent a full day with Workday executives getting briefed on the latest and greatest of where Workday is today and where it plans to go. 

Again another event where it was hard to pick the top 3 takeaways - but here is my attempt to it:

 

• More Standards for Cloud Infrastructure - One of the key concerns we hear from end users, usually the technical side of any due diligence on Workday selections, are questions about the viability and scalability of the Workday technology stack. Everybody understands that at the time Workday started off, there were no ‘off the shelf’ options to build a modern cloud infrastructure, nor were there any public or private cloud vendors and technologies of record. But the concern today is how Workday can support and scale (more from a human than technical perspective) their in house developed technology. So it was great news already at Tech Summit in 2013 to see OpenStack being discussed, and 12 months later we learnt much more on the progress on the topic from David Clarke: Workday is actively working with OpenStack (RedHat distribution) and plans to have 5 customers live in production on OpenStack by early 2015. In the meantime Workday is running development and test systems both on Amazon’s AWS and HP Cloud (Helion?). The ability to run development and test systems on standard IaaS vendor’s clouds like AWS and HP and the support of ‘approved’ cloud technologies like OpenStack will be a key confidence building point working for Workday with both CTOs and CIOs. Push comes to shove, Workday could technically - not that the vendor gave any indication this is a desired deployment scenario soon - deploy on a private cloud. But a good capability to have in your back pocket, given competitors like Oracle and Infor offering this option.
  
  On top of that Workday is doing all the important and good housekeeping duties for its cloud infrastructure, while customers are live and not disrupted. For instance Workday was able to change the complete storage sub system in the course of the last 12 months. Being able to do this ‘in flight’ is a major achievement for Workday.
  
  Lastly it is good to see that the team around Clarke is undertaking disaster preparedness sessions around disaster recovery on the management side and implementing AWS like availability zone model across their currently 4 data centers.

 

Screenshot from Clarke's presentation

• Payroll - Workday reconfirmed the 2015 (UK) and 2016 (France) delivery dates for its additions of payrolls to their existing US and Canadian ones. Beyond that scope the vendor is convinced it will be able to partner with local payroll vendors going forward. Workday has the capability for bi-directional payroll integration and thinks that this provides its customers enough visibility in payroll matters. And finally Workday is undertaking scalability testing of its payroll, with good results. It will be interesting to see, if Workday will be able to stay course of 4 payrolls and then partner payroll strategy in the years to come. 

 

Korngiebel's SmartWatch Demo for T&E

• User Interface - We got an in depth demo about the progress Workday has made on the UI side in the last 12 months. And indeed the team has done a lot of work, starting with a brand new Android native client, more adaptive design brought to more products and clients, new functionality like e.g. Job Change brought to the iPhone client, new PIN login, the W-Drive and more, all very good progress and housekeeping on the new UI Workday that just rolled out earlier this year.
  
  On the innovation side Joe Korngiebel was the first UI design lead to show a smartwatch demo in an expense approval scenario. In general the Workday UIs look clean and easy to use, but in these fast paced times for UI innovation we think Workday will probably need a next generation facelift in the next 12 months to keep up with the latest we are seeing from Workday competitors. Moving to a flat design as Korngiebel announced will be a good first step. More is likely to come later this year. 

TidBits

• Finance & HR, better together – The day started with Betsy Bland and Leighanne Levensaler giving an update on where respectively Finance and HR stand. They both provided a number of integration benefits that customers and prospects should pay attention at. I am not sure if these synergies are strong enough yet to almost default the attach rate of Finance to HR installs, but it is good to see Workday working on suite level benefits. 

• Learning - I asked Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri on the strategy in regards of Learning, the last functional piece missing for Workday to complete the Talent Management suite of products - and he confirmed that the approach - for now - is to partner.

 

MyPOV

Workday is solidly executing on its roadmap and delivering what it has promised to customers. Two key performance factors that are key for SaaS vendors who have to earn the trust from their customers’ day in and day out. It is also evident that the Workday technical teams can implement necessary housekeeping items and innovations while customers are operational, a key capability for any SaaS vendor.

From the executive Q&A at the end of the day it was clear, that Workday’s Bhusri is focusing the vendor on promises made and getting the Finance product to the maturation Workday wants (and needs) it to get to. It seemed like that when that point is reached, Workday will revisit its agenda in regards of further functional roadmap items, vertical extensions, even potentially dabbling into PaaS (Bhusri said it would be with a lower case ‘P’).

A lot of hoopla was made around the impression the analyst community had, that Workday now wants to be more than the system of record, but a system of engagement. Not sure where Workday will take this topic down the road - but certainly making HCM applications more engaging for its users is desirable. However, engaging enterprise software doesn’t make that software the system of engagement - so we will have to check back in on that topic, hopefully soon.

For existing customers it is good to see, that Workday is making progress and is far from resting on its laurels as the category leader for cloud HCM. More cloud deployments options - though not available for customers right now - are a key confidence and investment security aspect for Workday.

For prospects, Workday is and remains a key vendor to evaluate and likely to shortlist.

---------

More on Workday

 

• Workday 22 - Recruiting and rich Workday 22 are here - read here
• First Take - Why Workday acquired Identified - (real) Analytics matter - read here
• Workday Update 21 - All about the user experience and some more - read here
• Workday Update 20 - Mostly a technology release - read here
• Takeaways from the Salesforce.com and Workday parnership - read here
• Workday powers on - adds more to its plate - read here
• What I would like Workday to address this Rising - read here
• Workday Update 19 - you need to slow down to hurry up - read here
• I am worried about... Workday - read here

HP attempts to merge with EMC – Have most legacy IT vendors run out of ideas?

Founder, capioIT
calitolIT

Phil is the founder of capioIT, a research analyst firm focussed on driving change in the analyst and research market through innovation and collaboration, with a strong focus on IT services and BPO strategies in the Asia/Pacific region. He has 17 years' experience in corporate strategy, consulting and market intelligence, gained in a diverse range of organisations and industries. Prior to founding capioIT, he established the Australian and Services business units at Springboard Research. Prior to Springboard Research, Phil was responsible for driving analyst firm IDC's research in the services marketplace across the Asia/Pacific region. During his 6 years at IDC, Phil led a large multi-national team of analysts across a range of IT related services with a particular focus on IT…...

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EMC was a very successful vendor in redefining the storage space, but its business is being impacted on all angles from changing buying patterns, competitive shifts, Infrastructure as a Service, price pressure and of course an internal inability to shift the business model quickly.

Cut to the core and EMC has publicly been considering its long term future financial position. It has one piece of gold, in the form of the 80% of VMware that it owns. The fact that VMware is the redeeming feature of EMC speaks to the failure of EMC to continue to transform in front of the market rather than reacting to change. (One of the major takeaways for capioIT at EMC World was that EMC was following the market in reaction mode, rather than making things happen out in front through innovation).

The EMC scenario is reflected at HP, albeit in the case of HP, the breadth of the business means that the scale of the challenge is even larger. Furthermore, the legacy of the executive dysfunction prior to Meg Whitman taking over as CEO and Chairman has had a massive negative impact.

For EMC, along cames HP, still not burnt from the failed acquisitions of EDS and Autonomy, willing to merge/acquire EMC. Put simply if this happens, it has every indication of adding to the mess of $19B in write-downs that HP has undertaken in recent years.

It is the marriage of two vendors who are struggling to find their identity in a nimble, evolving world. The rationale for two already cumbersome vendors forming a much larger entity with the ability to be flexible, reactive to customer evolution and part of the new order of technology is difficult to identify.

There are so many implications of this. Front and centre, the impact on Cisco, VMware and the VCE enterprise is worth scrutinising. Cisco and EMC always have had a degree of competitive tension in their relationship and it would not surprise that in the longer term Cisco looks to EMC as more competitor than deep partner and increases the enhanced relationship with NetApp amongst others.

The other investment option for EMC is to invest in analytics providers such as Qlik, Tableau et al particularly in alignment with Pivotal. This would solve some of the problems for the future but cannot create the revenues of the storage business in the long term. In addition the potential integration issues and the ability to keep the real IP of these companies, the developers, within EMC does not have a clear resolution. If EMC were to do anything in the analytics space, it would have to be as part of Pivotal. The challenge is that Pivotal has reinforced an agnostic approach to the platform of choice for the user of analytics.

The challenges that HP and EMC face, and the risk that they are willing to make in order to maintain relevance highlights how difficult it is to be a legacy vendor. The transformation required to stand still is at such a level that very few will survive, whether they are a hardware, software or services based legacy vendor. Consider that the biggest challenges for these vendors’ revenue streams are yet to come. The shift to a subscription model for the procurement of technology has only just begun. So far in broad terms revenue and earnings have held up, but long term options are increasingly difficult.

The vendors who are comparatively successfully transitioning to the new technology environment have to be measured on potential rather than execution, but IBM and Microsoft have made tough decisions and embraced changing business models to be in a better place in late 2014 than they were at the beginning of the year. Cisco and Oracle are in the balance, but it is hard to argue that HP, Dell, EMC and Fujitsu are in a better position now than at the beginning of 2014 in light of a rapidly changing future.

Focus Point – A merger of HP and EMC may have been a great idea in 2004, but in 2014, it just reinforces the view that most of the legacy vendors have simply run out of ideas to execute a long term future around.

Musings - Is Transboarding the future of People Talent Management?

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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Lets look how the future of people management is going to change for enterprises - first gradually, then with accelerating speed:

• Talent is short in supply - We know that the first world is suffering from a workforce qualification problem, enterprises need to prepare for that.
• The silver tsunami is coming - Most developed countries also see an aging workforce as a key challenge on the road ahead.
• Life / Work Balance matters - For the first time we are seeing people en masse deciding for a better Life / Work balance and opting for Life.
• The shift to Projects - We are seeing a departure from lifelong employment, baked positions held for decades to a more flexible composition of teams that get work done.

• Seamlessly onboard existing employees, potential hires and external contractors and freelancers.
• Have a project approach to positions and a temporary view on project team composition.
• Consider project position timelines and upcoming projects skill needs in Learning systems
• Formalize project start and end charters.
• Formalize position transfers in a transparent and scalable way.
• Formalize project transitions in a transparent and scalable way.  

SAP Buys Concur, An $8.4b Attack Plan for A New Market

Sholto Macpherson

SME Tech Commentator
Digital First

Sholto Macpherson is a business technology journalist and expert on cloud software and services for SMEs. Since June 2011 he has published http://DigitalFirst.com, which explores how SMEs can use the latest cloud technologies and the impact of digital disruption on the accounting industry.Sholto has 14 years’ experience contributing to magazines and websites, radio and TV segments, webinars and conferences on enterprise and SMB technology and the cloud-led productivity revolution. His stories have appeared in national and regional Australian newspapers and industry websites such as CRN.com.au and iTnews.com.au.Sholto won a national IT Journalism award for Best Columnist in 2012 for his Cloud Channel column in CRN Australia magazine on the transition from server software to cloud software…...

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Concur employees woke to the surprising news last Friday that enterprise giant SAP had bought their company for an eye-watering US$8.4 billion. What does the world’s most famous ERP company want with a horizontal app in expense and travel management? And why did it pay so much?

The answer clearly has less to do with Concur’s software than its success in conquering a market that SAP must be very keen to enter. SAP’s press release made a lot of noise about synergies, expanding markets and additional sales.

It said much the same thing about its 2011 purchase Ariba, which streamlines procurement supply chains like Concur does with corporate travel. The two acquisitions had almost identical revenues in 2011 (US$335m vs US$349m respectively) – although Ariba was profitable and Concur wasn’t (net income US$33m vs -US$10m).

So why did SAP pay almost double for Concur?

Strong on Strategy

Concur has shown an impressive ability to pick trends early and move fast enough to ride them. “We saw that the consumerization of enterprise was happening years ago,” Matt Goss, Concur Australia’s managing director, told me in June. “We recognised very early the shift to mobile, too.”

The company launched its travel and expense management app as a cloud solution back in 2005 when Microsoft was still telling the world that the cloud couldn’t happen. Concur not only made it happen, it cracked open the market that SAP wants to enter today.

Launched in 1994, Concur spent the first two decades building its brand in enterprise and government circles. Once its cloud app went on sale Concur realised it could sell to a much larger number of companies that would never install Concur’s server-based software – the SMB market.

With the backing of an enterprise brand and the low-friction delivery mechanism provided by SaaS, Concur built a specially tailored sales program for SMBs in America, Goss says.

While enterprise vendors often dream of tackling the SMB market few have done it as successfully as Concur, and this goes for double in SaaS. Two of the biggest SaaS vendors, Salesforce.com and Google with Google Apps, have struggled to replicate their market share in enterprise among SMBs. Neither has managed to foster a strong network of SMB partners to help them make the sales.

However, Concur has created a strong network of referring partners in the US and is looking to do the same in Australia and other countries to supercharge its growth. Concur already had ISO accreditations and PCI compliance in place for its government customers – “all the things that you need to trust a business to host these services”, Goss adds.

Goss explains the model that has won over expense management agencies, travel risk assessors, supply chain consultants and accountants. Typically a VAR (value-added reseller) will sell the travel and expense management app to a customer, for which the VAR is paid a referral fee.

“As that customer expands their utilisation of Concur products we can grow that revenue share proportionally with partners,” Goss says. “Partners walk away the understanding that Concur is a platform.”

An Unlikely Prize

Concur has divided its sales and marketing teams into separate divisions for enterprise and SMB. The latter is responsible for a lot of the company’s recent growth.

Look out for similar tactics soon within SAP. In the very last paragraph of its press release SAP discreetly nods to Concur’s products in the small and medium business space that will complement its Business One cloud solution. In Australia SAP markets Business One as “affordable, scalable small business software”.

Perhaps credit for this deal should go to one of SAP’s biggest threats. Cloud ERP NetSuite has stolen market share from SAP as the latter has floundered trying to create a cloud solution in response.

In the meantime NetSuite too has been experimenting with selling itself as online accounting software for SMBs. JCurve, an Australian company, sells NetSuite’s accounting module to small businesses which can turn on more functions as they grow larger. Once JCurve has proven it can sell the enterprise ERP to Australian SMBs en masse, it plans to take it to the rest of Asia Pacific.

At NetSuite’s partner conference in San Jose in May, executives talked in the keynote of scaling its software from SMB to enterprise. That same speech cited Concur as a company that had successfully expanded from enterprise down to SMB.

SAP chief executive Bill McDermott told the Wall Street Journal on Friday that Concur hadn't put itself up for sale. It was SAP who had approached Concur’s CEO, Steve Singh, about 90 days ago to explore a takeover.

McDermott’s first phone call to Singh came less than a month after SuiteWorld. Coincidence? No doubt Concur and SAP would prefer to call it serendipity. 

Personal Log: Have most analysts completely given up doing research?

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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Authors: Phil Fersht and R “Ray” Wang, Industry Analysts who still give a sh!t

(This is a collaboration and represents our individual points of view and not necessarily our employers. Oh wait, that’s us…. moving on…)

The State Of The Industry Research Industry Remains Fragile

We called it three years’ ago and we can now officially proclaim that the industry, once known as research, is close to meeting its maker.

Okay, the reality is it’s rare these days for analysts to comb for obscure facts, ask the hard questions, reach out to customers, dig deep with the system integrators, and circumvent corporate communication teams by going direct to employees for the inside scoop.

In fact, the alarming observation of analysts, especially in the large firms, is that most of them are spending all their time on evaluation matrices (e.g. MQs, Waves, Marketscapes, etc.).  There seems to be precious little (or any) research coming out of these places anymore.  Where are the big ideas? Where’s the insight? Where’s the thought leadership? What do these people stand for anymore?

When we sat down to talk to our client base, our analysts, and our clients, we determined that there were eight common reasons, namely:

1. Legacy business models are built on scare to play.  The only way the legacy firms are making money is through selling reprints of vendor positionings. Sales folks tell vendors that if they don’t pay for briefing hours and advisory time, analysts will ignore them.
2. Tele-analyst approach reinforces an ivory tower image.  Today’s legacy analysts have no other means of getting data.  Sadly, most rarely ever talk to buyers of services  or users of technology.  The situation is so bad, that many vendors are forced to provide 15 to 50 customer references because the analyst has no means to reach out to real customers.
3. Stone soup research model reflects the laziness of analyst firm methodologies.  They are essentially having the vendors do their “research” for them.  Another way to look at this, legacy analyst firms are strong-arming vendors into providing references as their primary method of reaching out to customers.  Some analysts today are demanding three hour briefings with vendors to educate them – they are essentially making vendors pay to give them the knowledge they need to appear smart.
4. Egotistical narcissism drives power trips in evalutions.  Legacy analysts love the attention of vendors pandering to their demands.  In one case, a legacy analyst asked for 35 client references for a scatterplot chart.  Vendors humored him just to play along.
5. Information often confused as insight.  Many legacy analysts have precious little fresh insight of their own.  Often legacy analysts operate on limited data and base “facts” from old surveys run at the corporate level.  The result – dated insight not grounded with the reality of the buyer’s point of view. In fact, many have become so  enslaved to the vendor evaluation model and have forgotten that they really are an analyst who’s supposed to provide insight to the world – not simply regurgitate vendor-fed marketing hype.
6. Limited practical experience hampered by siloed’ coverage areas.  The legacy analysts firms create specialists blinded by the big picture and intensely focused on the hyper specific. Clients often express frustration in having to schedule conversations with multiple analysts who often can not match experience with context.
7. Lowered expectations reinforce lowered standards.  Let’s face it, the legacy analyst firms have lost touch with their clients when it comes to research. Clients aren’t expecting insight anymore, and most the analysts just aren’t producing it.
8. Failure of research firms to bring in visionary leaders.  Most of the traditional analyst firms prefer to have 20 year veterans as their lead visionaries to the market, many of whom have never worked in the real world and refrain from hiring dynamic analysts who can outshine them.  Many refrain from talking to clients, speaking at conferences as they have lost touch with their customers – and are not incentivized to inspire – simply keep their machine cranking along. They have become slaves to their internal politics and P&Ls, as opposed to shaping new ideas and insights to delight their markets.

The Digital Chasm Among Analyst Firms Is Growing

Buyers must seriously ask if legacy analyst firms are still analyst firms or are they merely advertising agencies for vendors smart enough to play their game?  With the dearth of enterprise journalists and media, has the analyst become the new media for the enterprise market?

Gartner’s model is smart. It continues to create more categories to include more vendors with the goal of monopolizing a vendor’s resources and time.  Many vendors now have multiple FTE’s dedicated to just Gartner’s evaluations.  This model crowds out other independent voices and puts pressure on the other legacy analyst firms.  Those dedicated to the analyst relations function have little time to see a different point of view.

We believe that should this continue, there may not be a research industry left in 2 years’ time.  We believe that this model of racking and stacking vendors will no longer be sustainable.

The Bottom line: The only way to resurrect research is to bring back talent – and motivate it

We can talk about new business models for hours, but the one missing ingredient in today’s fading research business is the lack of passionate people who want to know everything about their area, who are talking to the people who buy and sell technology and services… who care about what they represent and articulating what they think and do.

Where are those people?  Are they hiding, did they retire, or did they just give up?  Or did they just figure out how to check the boxes as analysts and give up caring about their careers?

Without passionate talent, we’re doomed and research can – and will soon – be put to bed as a distant memory that once was.  Maybe a couple of smart individuals will save this industry, but it needs some serious saving…

Your POV.

Tired of the white paper for hire analysts?  Not getting value from your legacy analyst firm?  Come join Constellation Research for a different experience.  Thanks in advance for your feedback. Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

The post Personal Log: Have most analysts completely given up doing research? appeared first on A Software Insider's Point of View.

Sales Navigator – LinkedIn’s New Way to Operationalize Social Selling

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

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

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I was just at Sales Connect Conference, LinkedIn’s Social Selling Conference. I was there to meet and great many of the top minds in social selling and to do research for an upcoming report. What I found was that one of the best things about being at the conference (besides the technology) was to be in a room full of people who are all thinking the same thing. It’s time to change how company’s operate. It’s time to change how people get treated at work. It’s time to change how sales people are perceived. It’s just plain time to change.

I liked the idea of a Social Selling Index (SSI) and that through that one could tell where they stand with respect to using new tools like Sales Navigator and to know what we need to change. The biggest take-a-way I got from the conference was that sales is less about the product or service you are offering, and more about the relationship you are building with the customer or person you are selling to. That seems so simple that it is feels kinda silly writing it. But having been in sales positions before and knowing that the sales was more about getting the quota for that quarter than it was about how I was going to build a relationship with someone over the long haul and be able to look them in the eye 20 years from now. After thinking about it like that it doesn’t seem silly writing it.

Sales and the profession of sales has changed. It is about the relationship. And this is not new. It used to be that way when we were oriented toward mom and pop shops, where everyone in the village knew each other and did have to look each other in the eye over 20 or 30 years. With industrialization and expansion, we lost that sense of personal responsibility to those we sell to and now it’s back. And I’m glad because I feel better about the way the world is starting to go. I feel better about the level of integrity that digital / social and SaaS is bringing to sales. I’m glad that people are accountable and that we now can see a future where we are honest with ourselves and our customers.

How are you feeling about sale these days? Do you think social / digital / SaaS has changed anything?

If you missed the conference, here’s my storify report… that has all the tweets from the hashtag #SalesConnect https://storify.com/drnatalie/how-linkedin-is-changing-sales

@drnatalie

VP and Principle Analyst covering Marketing, Sales, Customer Service to bring about Amazing Customer Experiences and Long Lasting Relationships in Business