First Take - 3 Takeaways from HireVue’s Digital Disruption conference - Day 1 Keynote

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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It was a privilege to be invited to the first HireVue user conference at the beautiful Stein Ericsen lodge in Park City, Utah. Great to see the company embracing its location, showing off the beauty of the Wasatch Mountains and treating attendees to a 100% Utah sourced welcome reception. 

 

Here are my three top takeaways from the Day 1 Keynote:

• Very good corporate DNA – It’s always good to see when entrepreneurs make it – but when they start their company as college students and have to persevere till the technology is viable – it is even a more compelling story. In HireVue’s case Newman started in college, and struggled with the viability of personal video back then. The company used to mail webcams out to customers and candidates, with uncertain odds of successful installation on site. Luckily with more and more hardware having front facing cameras, this is no longer an issue. With Sequoia Capital and others the company has VC and investors with a very strong reputation for long term investment, something HireVue will need as it invests into product (it doubled its R&D resources) and expands abroad (it just opened the UK as a beachhead to Europe). But ultimately software is build, sold and supported by people and it was great to see a humble but energized management team, characteristics reflected and lived well by the large employee force onsite, too. So overall a very promising corporate DNA. 

Picture of HireVue Reporting

• Mobile matters – It was good to see HireVue fully embracing mobile. The company showed off new tablet and smartphone support (iOS and Android) and thus providing more productivity to applicants, recruiters and interviewers. The user interfaces were clean and well designed, the next stage being a full embrace or responsive design mechanics across platforms. What ultimately matters to customers and prospects is, that neither applicants in the application process nor employees will be left without appropriate mobile support. 

Picture of HireVue Analytics

• (True) Analytics – In my view this was the highlight of the keynote. Too many enterprise vendors use the term analytics too loosely and often the term gets hijacked by the marketers on a quest for a new term for BI / reporting / dashboards. Our test for true analytics is, that they either do something directly or at least propose a set of actions to a user. And we are glad to state that HireVue’s analytics pass that test, recommending more likely to succeed candidates to the recruiters. The company has choosen a wise staggered analytical model deployment approach with a default model, an enhanced companywide model and all the way to a position based model to make decision / recommendations on who to interview (and likely hire) first. The more information HireVue customers disclose – the more advanced the model at their disposal, all the way to the position based model. HireVue has gotten some key things for analytics success right – a business user driven rating of success and progressive improvement of the analytical model as more data comes to its disposal. This makes HireVue one of the first vendors to deploy (true) analytical models for day to day HCM decisions (other vendors are working on this, too – but it is still largely work in progress for them). 

MyPOV – HireVue has reached a clear leading position in the fast emerging video recruiting market, other vendors have acknowledged that with numerous partnership. The company is taking the right steps in product development to maintain that lead and has proven pundits wrong that Salt Lake City cannot be a great startup location. Its global expansion poses new opportunities and challenges it needs to address and fund, but it is too early to call where that is going. HireVue is the enviable position that the implementation of its software has a positive quantitative ROI, something that does not happen often in enterprise software history. Now it comes to drive behavior change in enterprises on how they recruit talent.

In the longer run the company needs to find a second area of automation that it will invest into and excel in. Life at the top is great, but the air – like at Stein Ericsen Lodge – is dry and thin. Executives have realized that – but not shared yet what that area will be. But they have some time to tackle these strategic questions.

Have a disruptive technology implementation story? Get recognized for your leadership. Apply for the 2014 SuperNova Awards for leaders in disruptive technology.

Indian Services Providers Fall from Disrupter to Legacy – Next Step Consolidation

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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Individually and collectively, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, Cognizant and others unmistakably revolutionalised the IT services marketplace. Most visibly this was through leveraging India and other offshore locations. Equally importantly was their focus on, and strength in, process and customer service improvements. This forced legacy vendors such as IBM, Capgemini, Accenture et al, to change rapidly to slow their revenue and reputational erosion.

Unfortunately for the Indian based providers, their competitive edge has been eroded by factors including, the replicability of scaling in India, the cost and HR limitations of the model and a can’t beat them, join them, mentality by legacy vendors.

capioIT believes that Indian providers have failed to continue to drive market disruption. In an “as a service” world, growth for IT and business services providers is not through leveraging geographic cost differentials, rather through the automation of services, in the form of the development of services assets and IP based solutions.

As capioIT has noted, the shift by services providers away from the drug of offshore labour arbitrage to IP based solutions has proved difficult to execute on for all services providers. Indian based organisations have not avoided this under-performance. Highlighting this is Infosys who stated a grand ambition in 2012 for asset based services. Unfortunately, noting the proportionate decline in revenues from asset and IP based services, earlier this month it decided to spin off its asset based business into “Edgeverve Systems”. If Infosys was able to execute effectively on market changes, the legacy people based business should have been spun off, not the assets.

One of the real indicators of how much of a legacy the likes of Infosys, Wipro have become is their inability to differentiate in customers eyes in terms of cloud, both from an IaaS and SaaS services perspective.  For example, none of the Indian providers have excessively compelling capabilities in salesforce.com service provision and integration. Now they share this challenge with fellow legacy vendors such as CSC, HP et al.

Bottom Line

Whilst in general  current revenue growth is solid, fundamentally the Indian providers have lost their unique differentiation both individually and collectively. Where do they go from here? Unfortunately for many of them, they are going to have to consider the same outcomes as the legacy services  vendors, as they fail to reinvent themselves very quickly they will have to consider mergers as a realistic survival option.

I do not believe that by the end of 2015 all the big five Indian firms will be in their current ownership structure. Whilst it is difficult, and not always helpful to speculate, one can gain pointers from the partnership between CSC and HCL. The complementary nature of this and executive interlock gives to the reasonable conclusion that it is a flagging of a potential merger between the two organisations in the not too distant future.

Microsoft Dynamics: Delivering Amazing Customer Experiences

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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Microsoft Dynamics announced new capabilities in marketing, customer care and social listening are now globally available as part of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM spring wave of updates in 54 markets and 42 languages.

MY POV: What this means to you is that this new release delivers a more comprehensive solution with marketing, sales and customer care capabilities that are  integrated with leading productivity applications, such as Microsoft Office 365, Yammer, Lync, Skype, SharePoint and Power BI for Office 365.

Want an example of how Marketers are using Microsoft Dynamics Marketing?

The PGA TOUR uses the new marketing automation solution to better organize its creative, media and trafficking activities and to provide improved reporting information to its sponsors. The video shows how the PGA TOUR uses Microsoft Dynamics Marketing to run marketing promotions across a wide array of media types year-round.

In addition to the availability of Microsoft Dynamics Marketing and Microsoft Social Listening, Microsoft also released updates to Microsoft Dynamics CRM that include a new Unified Service Desk. For on-premises customers, the company delivered these new capabilities as part of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1. Microsoft further announced it plans to expand the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online service to additional markets in Europe, Asia Pacific and South America in the third quarter of calendar year 2014.

“Microsoft Dynamics CRM has made unbelievable progress over the last few years, and the amazing capabilities in this release deliver significant value to our customers as an important component of the Microsoft Cloud for business,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft Corp. “Through innovative business applications in the cloud, businesses can better meet their customers’ needs and thrive in a changing world.”

Microsoft on Monday reinforced that its contractual commitments for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online meet the requirements of the European Union’s “model clauses” and the high standards of European Union (EU) privacy law as acknowledged by the “Article 29 Working Party,” making Microsoft the first — and so far the only — company to receive this recognition.

“In addition to enjoying the benefits of these new capabilities across marketing, sales and service, customers can be comfortable doing business with Microsoft when it comes to their data,” said Bob Stutz, corporate vice president, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. “We focused our development efforts on understanding what our customers need to deliver amazing customer experiences. We redesigned our user interface, implemented a six-month rapid release cycle, made three acquisitions and built many new features — all culminating in the wave of releases we are bringing to market today.”

Global expansion

The expanded availability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to markets in Europe, Asia Pacific and South America begins this month with the availability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online in Turkey. This global expansion gives customers a new and comprehensive online CRM solution in their market.

Market smarter, sell effectively and provide care everywhere

Early Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 customers are already benefiting from the new capabilities that enabled them to sell more effectively than before to meet the challenges of a mobile and social world, become smarter marketers, and provide world-class care to their customers.

Want Another Example? Microsoft’s Social Listening

With Microsoft Social Listening, sales, marketing and service professionals tap into social conversations to get real-time feedback on their brand, products, competitors, campaigns and issues that might be relevant to their business. For instance, Sealord, a global sustainable fishing enterprise, uses Microsoft Social Listening to better understand its stakeholders — from their beliefs about key industry and sustainability issues to the global network of organizations and individuals influencing opinions in this area. When the topic of shark-finning sparked social media outrage, Sealord took the opportunity to make its stance known, resulting in global acknowledgement and a reach that could be easily measured, understood and communicated internally with Microsoft Social Listening.

“Without Microsoft Social Listening, we would not have had the opportunity to hear what was top-of-mind for our stakeholders and the community we serve, and ensure Sealord’s work to be sustainable in these areas was understood,” said Alison Sykora, public affairs and communications manager, Sealord.

Microsoft Dynamics Marketing gives marketers one solution that allows them to carefully plan their campaigns, deliver qualified leads to their sales teams and subsequently measure the return on their marketing investment.

Microsoft is also enabling a complete range of functionality for customer service professionals. This includes the powerful self-service capabilities in the recently acquired Microsoft Parature offering to the multichannel capabilities coming in the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online update and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1 for on-premises customers, including the Unified Service Desk. Microsoft Dynamics CRM enables companies to provide relevant, responsive and personalized customer service.

More capabilities and features of the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM spring wave of updates, including Microsoft Social Listening and Microsoft Dynamics Marketing, are detailed in the Release Preview Guide. A blog post series by Bob Stutz is available on CRM Connection. In addition, all can follow and engage with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM community @MSDynamicsCRM at http://www.twitter.com/msdynamicscrm, #MSDYNCRM.

About Microsoft Dynamics

At the heart of every successful business are the people who make things happen. Microsoft Dynamics designs modern business solutions that empower individuals with intuitive tools that allow them to do their best work. Our proactive, easy-to-use business applications adapt to the way people and systems work, enabling businesses to rapidly deploy and be forward-looking in an ever-changing world.

Looks like Microsoft Dynamics is stepping up to the plate to create better customer experiences.

@drnatalie

Microsoft Dynamics spring wave updates now available globally, helping businesses deliver amazing customer experiences

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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REDMOND, Wash. — June 2, 2014 — Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT”) on Monday announced that significant new capabilities in marketing, customer care and social listening are now globally available as part of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM spring wave of updates in 54 markets and 42 languages. This new release delivers a comprehensive solution that provides businesses with marketing, sales and customer care capabilities that are seamlessly integrated with leading productivity applications, such as Microsoft Office 365, Yammer, Lync, Skype, SharePoint and Power BI for Office 365. These available capabilities help businesses meet the needs of their customers today.

In addition to the availability of Microsoft Dynamics Marketing and Microsoft Social Listening, Microsoft also released updates to Microsoft Dynamics CRM that include a new Unified Service Desk. For on-premises customers, the company delivered these new capabilities as part of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1. Microsoft further announced it plans to expand the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online service to additional markets in Europe, Asia Pacific and South America in the third quarter of calendar year 2014.[1]

“Microsoft Dynamics CRM has made unbelievable progress over the last few years, and the amazing capabilities in this release deliver significant value to our customers as an important component of the Microsoft Cloud for business,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft Corp. “Through innovative business applications in the cloud, businesses can better meet their customers’ needs and thrive in a changing world.”

Microsoft on Monday reinforced that its contractual commitments for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online meet the requirements of the European Union’s “model clauses” and the high standards of European Union (EU) privacy law as acknowledged by the “Article 29 Working Party,” making Microsoft the first — and so far the only — company to receive this recognition.

“In addition to enjoying the benefits of these new capabilities across marketing, sales and service, customers can be comfortable doing business with Microsoft when it comes to their data,” said Bob Stutz, corporate vice president, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. “We focused our development efforts on understanding what our customers need to deliver amazing customer experiences. We redesigned our user interface, implemented a six-month rapid release cycle, made three acquisitions and built many new features — all culminating in the wave of releases we are bringing to market today.”

Global expansion

The expanded availability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to markets in Europe, Asia Pacific and South America begins this month with the availability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online in Turkey. This global expansion gives customers a new and comprehensive online CRM solution in their market.

Market smarter, sell effectively and provide care everywhere

Early Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 customers are already benefiting from the new capabilities that enabled them to sell more effectively than before to meet the challenges of a mobile and social world, become smarter marketers, and provide world-class care to their customers.

With Microsoft Social Listening, sales, marketing and service professionals tap into social conversations to get real-time feedback on their brand, products, competitors, campaigns and issues that might be relevant to their business. For instance, Sealord, a global sustainable fishing enterprise, uses Microsoft Social Listening to better understand its stakeholders — from their beliefs about key industry and sustainability issues to the global network of organizations and individuals influencing opinions in this area. When the topic of shark-finning sparked social media outrage, Sealord took the opportunity to make its stance known, resulting in global acknowledgement and a reach that could be easily measured, understood and communicated internally with Microsoft Social Listening.

“Without Microsoft Social Listening, we would not have had the opportunity to hear what was top-of-mind for our stakeholders and the community we serve, and ensure Sealord’s work to be sustainable in these areas was understood,” said Alison Sykora, public affairs and communications manager, Sealord.

Microsoft Dynamics Marketing gives marketers one solution that allows them to carefully plan their campaigns, deliver qualified leads to their sales teams and subsequently measure the return on their marketing investment.

Microsoft Dynamics Marketing customer the PGA TOUR uses the new marketing automation solution to better organize its creative, media and trafficking activities and to provide improved reporting information to its sponsors. A video of how the PGA TOUR uses Microsoft Dynamics Marketing to run marketing promotions across a wide array of media types year-round can be seen at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/customer-success-stories-detail.aspx?casestudyid=710000003750.

Microsoft is also enabling a complete range of functionality for customer service professionals. This includes the powerful self-service capabilities in the recently acquired Microsoft Parature offering to the multichannel capabilities coming in the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online update and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1 for on-premises customers, including the Unified Service Desk. Microsoft Dynamics CRM enables companies to provide relevant, responsive and personalized customer service.

New research from Gartner Research also positions Microsoft in the LeadersQuadrant of Gartner’sApril 24, 2014 Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center,[2] based on the product’s completeness of vision and ability to execute.

More capabilities and features of the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM spring wave of updates, including Microsoft Social Listening and Microsoft Dynamics Marketing, are detailed in the Release Preview Guide. A blog post series by Bob Stutz is available on CRM Connection. In addition, all can follow and engage with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM community @MSDynamicsCRM at http://www.twitter.com/msdynamicscrm, #MSDYNCRM.

About Microsoft Dynamics

At the heart of every successful business are the people who make things happen. Microsoft Dynamics designs modern business solutions that empower individuals with intuitive tools that allow them to do their best work. Our proactive, easy-to-use business applications adapt to the way people and systems work, enabling businesses to rapidly deploy and be forward-looking in an ever-changing world.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

[1] Microsoft will disclose the specific market availability at a later date, to be determined.

[2] Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

Three Whats and a Why – Mary Meeker Meltdown

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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Now, I will leave you to your own devices to go through the 164 slides in your own time. There is plenty to read, review and digest. But I’d also encourage you to look at a redesigned (and re-imagined) version of Mary Meeker’s slides. After all, in 2012, Mary Meeker encouraged us to think of one of the core trends as “re-imagining everything”.

But before you immerse yourself in “trends” … take a moment to reflect on the last 12 months in your business or organisation:

• What mattered in mid 2013?
• What matters now?
• What are you measuring?
• Why are these things important?

Understanding your own Three Whats and a Why can help you determine which trends are worth your attention, and which are just noise. Choose your signals wisely.

Have a disruptive technology implementation story? Get recognized for your leadership. Apply for the 2014 SuperNova Awards for leaders in disruptive technology.

Musings - How Technology Innovation fuels Recruiting and disrupts the Laggards

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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Innovation has been fueling the recruiting industry for quite some time. And given the competitive nature of recruiting – one of the few areas in the HR practice where a professional can be fired pretty quickly for non-performance – it’s not a surprise.

To visit the areas where technology innovation can help in the recruiting process – let’s break the recruiting process down to its most fundamental pieces, the FQSO process:

• Find
  Find the candidates, and get them to interact, then to apply. 

• Qualifiy
  Qualify the candidates that have (or have not) applied. 

• Select
  Select the best candidate from interviews (and other means). 
• Onboard
  Onboard the candidate, make the offer, get them signed up with benefits etc. etc.

Have a case study? Get recognized for your innovation. Apply for the 2014 SuperNova Awards for leaders in disruptive technology. 

 

Find – Social reverses the process with micro headhunting

The largest innovation we see is the reversal of the Find process from the honey-pot model to micro headhunting. Instead of waiting (and hoping) for candidates to be found on job boards, candidates will be actively recruited through social networks. We know this works both from the employee referral success – where basically the employee has done a real world social network analysis on the candidate and the executive headhunting model, where successful headhunter place their Rolodex members multiple time over their careers. The micro headhunting trend can be best seen with the success that LinkedIn has with its recruiting offerings.
 

Qualify – Analytics and BigData drive change

Candidate qualification has been left for the longest to personal judgment of the recruiter and hiring managers. Not that they won’t matter in the future – but most humans cannot select by more than 5-7 criteria from a number of decision options. Will that decision get better when you go to 20, 50 or 100 criteria? It certainly will. The good news is, that with the rise of BigData we can for the first time store the wealth of information and consider it all. Couple the data storage with next generation analytics – that are model agnostic and simply bootstrap analytical models over the data – and we will see some never before seen candidates at the front of the qualification queue.

Assuming an enterprise has added the micro headhunting capability it also enables that enterprise to go back to actively Find the candidates of the right caliber – should the first wave of candidates not been qualified enough.
 

Select – Scheduling and Video increase quality, mobile drives efficiency

In the traditional recruiting modus operandi we would now see candidates being invited for phone and onsite interviews. Scheduling these is a logistical nightmare – so scheduling software that is tuned to the needs of the recruiting process (aware e.g. the hiring funnel, candidate attractiveness etc.) makes a huge difference. And video allows to replace the single sensory phone interview into a multi-sensory experience that unquestionably leads to better selection results in the Select phase. With the support of tablets and smartphones during the interview process, vendors are already making the interview process itself more efficient.

Assuming an enterprise has added the Analytics and BigData capabilities in the Qualify phase – then it can treat the video data as qualification data, too. All of the sudden information on facial expression, body language, voice modulation etc. becomes part of the qualification data pool. And with that analytical models can factor all of those into the candidate selection process. While legal concerns may loom, anybody who has hired someone knows that all these factors play an explicit to implicit role in the decision process.
 

Onboard – Time to get it right

The irony is that the Onboard function is probably the least innovative one of the four, and therefore less subject to potential technology disruption. But the challenge is that Onboarding in most enterprises is fundamentally broken and practically an incarnation of the system integration mess many enterprises have created. But it’s time to get onboarding right, as the sooner the new hire is productive on the job, the better ROI of the hiring process – and with that it’s an area both the Chief People Officer and the Chief Executive Officer should ignore.
 

FQSO does not operate by itself

Let’s not forget that the whole recruiting process of the future will not run by itself – the role of the recruiter will fundamentally change, the hiring manager will take over the process and maintain a continuous talent depth chart for every existing and potential future position – as I have laid out here in more detail.
 

MyPOV

Innovation with technology has been mankind’s secret of success. Whoever mastered the technology earlier had a considerable advantage over the other players. Given the war for talent, the increased cost for personnel that are all trends enterprises are facing – the right usage and dosage of technology to innovate in recruiting while be a key success factor for enterprises in the remaining teenage years of the 21st century. Better to get started earlier than later.

Have a case study? Get recognized for your innovation. Apply for the 2014 SuperNova Awards for leaders in disruptive technology. 

News Analysis: Understanding The Microsoft and Salesforce Partnership From The Customers POV

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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Microsoft’s Platform DNA and Salesforce.com Quest For User Productivity Drive The Strategic Partnership

On May 29th, 2014, the Redmond based mega vendor Microsoft and the San Francisco based Cloud pioneer salesforce announced a partnership.  From the teleconference call with CEOs Satya Nadella and Marc Benioff; and in conversations with over 50 key executives, partners, and customers, Constellation sees the following impact for customers and competitors:

• Salesforce for Office 365 fills in a key functionality gap. A flagship feature of the deal is the planned interoperability between salesforce and Microsoft Office 365.  salesforce users gain access to business class email and calendaring services, online conferencing, and secure file sharing.  The first release should address basic integration.
  
  Point of View (POV): A big criticism of salesforce in the past was the poor integration options to Microsoft Office.  With Salesforce for Office 365, salesforce addresses a big gap in customer requirements while Microsoft gains a new market for its cloud based offering and some competition to Google Enterprise.  The ability to use OneDrive as a storage option will help with organizations using SharePoint looking for a migration path.  Microsoft Dynamics Partners should not lose competitive advantage in deal flow because the Microsoft Dynamics integration to Office 365 is much deeper and richer than the planned integration with salesforce and ties back closely with existing business processes.  However, salesforce gains the right to declare an integration to Office 365.

• Salesforce 1 for Windows and Windows Phone 8.1 opens up emerging markets. The agreement intends to provide customers with the ability to run and access salesforce from Windows devices.  General availability is slated for 2015.
  
  (POV): While few existing salesforce customers would move to Windows Mobile, the offering provides customers with long term choice on mobile platforms.  Today, most customers use iOS and Android.  In the future, Salesforce customers in emerging markets may seek Windows at a better value point to manage device platform versus Android and iOS.   In addition, Microsoft, Windows 8 devleopers, and partners gains access to a lucrative market of salesforce customers who tend to be more innovative than laggardish.

• Connection of Salesforce data to Excel and Power BI for Office 365 temporarily solves the lack of analytics. Salesforce users gain the ability to access Power BI.  Power BI is a self service analytics tool in Office 365.  Power BI proivdes the ability to bring in data from multiple sources.  Users will take advantage of the in-memory analytics to model with Power Pivot inside Excel.  Included are powerful data visualization tools such as Power View and Power Map.  Power BI provides sharing, collaboration, and subscription of live reports in a report gallery.  The natural language processing capabitilies enable users to ask questions on the fly and provide Q&A type functionality.
  
  (POV): While reporting has been a hallmark feature for salesforce, most cloud based systems of transaction (record) including salesforce lack the ability to deliver on analytics.  Microsoft will most likely see PowerBI as the greatest adoption by salesforce users seeking to free themselves from the shackles of expensive legacy on-premises BI tools.  Over time, users will want advanced capabilities than PowerBI for predictive modeling such as Birst or Good Data, however, the offer of PowerBI fills a much needed gap in the salesforce product offering.

2014 SuperNova Awards

Terri Griffith

Professor/Author/Speaker
Simon Fraser University

Terri Griffith holds the Keith Beedie Chair in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business. She spent two decades in the Silicon Valley and, in 2012 was honored as a Woman of Influence by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Terri helps her students and their organizations accelerate performance and prepare for the futures of work. Through her speaking, writing, teaching, and research, she brings evidence-based leadership and innovation to high-tech, education, and global agribusiness organizations. She inspires and coaches groups on negotiating change and uniquely mixing existing and new capabilities. Her most recent work uses a “bottom-up” approach to automation, including artificial intelligence. Her award-winning book, The Plugged-In Manager:…...

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Constellation SuperNova Award Applications Are Open!

Applications are taken here and I can guarantee great feedback and an excellent network.

The winners will be celebrated at the 2014 Connected Enterprise Gala in Half Moon Bay. I’m honored to be a judge for the Future of Work category.

We’ll look at the “confluence of technological, demographical and cultural trends challenging the traditional paradigm of work,” and I expect much more as the SuperNova awards are about disruption, not incremental change.

Alan Lepofsky is one of the Constellation guru’s covering the future of work. Here is a link to his work if you’d like to get the flavor of the topic: largely the where, when, why, and how we do our work.

Snippet from the SuperNova press release

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, May 27, 2014—Constellation Research, Inc. (@ConstellationRG), the research and advisory firm helping clients dominate digital disruption through business models and disruptive technologies announced today the call for applications for the 2014 SuperNova Awards, the first awards recognizing early adopters of technology that have overcome adversity to successfully implement disruptive technologies in their organizations. The 2014 SuperNova Awards will recognize seven technology leaders in the following categories:

• Consumerization of IT & The New C-Suite
• Data to Decisions
• Digital Marketing Transformation
• Future of Work
• Matrix Commerce
• Next Generation Customer Experience
• Technology Optimization & Innovation

Event Report: Answers To The Top 12 Questions About SAP Ahead of #SapphireNow #ASUG2014

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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In The Era Of Simplification, The Complex Still Remains Complex

More than 20,000 customers, partners, and prospects are expected to convene in Orlando, Florida for America’s SAP User Group (ASUG) and SAP’s annual conference known as Sapphire. Co-CEO Bill McDermott hopes to close a chapter in SAP’s history and open a new chapter as the sole CEO.   As the market shifts to a world of digital business and digital transformation, Constellation expects many changes to be announced, some more cosmetic than others.

The theme for this year’s Sapphire begins with Simplification.  Despite this push for Simplification, conversations with over 100 SAP customers, partners, and employees indicate a need for clarity in direction, not just simplification.  Constellation attempts to answer the top 12 questions in four key areas the SAP diaspora wants answer for:

OVERALL CORPORATE  STRATEGY

1. Given very few applications and offerings for SAP to sell and that we want to buy, will SAP build new apps or make acquisitions?

POV: In order to meet its financial targets and avoid attrition of the customer base, SAP would have to roll out new applications at a faster pace or acquire at a faster rate to achieve their targets.  Many believe that SAP has not successfully rolled out enough applications or platforms that customers want to purchase.  Constellation believes SAP will have no choice but to make more acquisitions in areas where customers have been pursuing a surround SAP strategy.  Some areas include customer engagement, big data, integration, internet of things, and mobile.

Customers will watch carefully where their maintenance dollars are used to make purchases.

2. What will change other than simplification at SAP in its marketing mesage?

POV: As we enter an era of digital business, SAP is shedding the IT centric, tech marketing terms such as social, mobile, cloud, and HANA.  A concerted effort is underway to move to business oriented marketing and attract line of business leaders.  New terminology can be translated in the following manner: HR or HCM becomes Future of Work.  CRM is now engaged customer.  Ariba, commerce and procurement evolves into the networked economy.  SMB turns into Think Like a Startup. Classic LOB turns into growing your next generation business.

Customers will be introduced to the new translation at SapphireNow.

3. Does SAP still care about innovation?

POV: No company will state they do not care about innovation.  However, Constellation believes that SAP will have to acquire innovation in products and talent via an M&A strategy.  The move back to ABAP is a bad signal to most customers.  Many of the gains made in opening up SAP to the broader tech world and start up community may be at risk.

Time will tell but customers expect innovation and a trusted face or many trusted faces to represent SAP.

 

FUTURE LEADERSHIP

4. What does it mean for Bernd Leukert to be in charge of global development now that Vishal Sikka has departed?

Point of View (POV): Bernd will focus in on the global development organization.  Germany is now in charge again of core development.  Constellation believes that organic innovation will be curtailed while the focus will remain on keeping the maintenance cash cow alive.  Many partners have signaled that Waldorf is undoing the work of Vishal Sikka starting with a reemergence of ABAP.  Constellation believes that Leukert will focus much of his time on post merger integration with acquired platforms.

Customers expect to see stronger and clearer leadership

5. Why was Rob Enslin, Head of Global customer Operations, appointed to the Executive Board?

POV: Many insiders have indicated that Enslin is Bill’s right hand man and a potential successor should McDermott depart.  Constellation expects McDermott to clear the deck where possible and add his chosen team to the board and management team.

Customers will want to know which cloud heads report to Rob and expect transparency on the org chart from an accountability point of view.

6. Who’s leading cloud leadership with Shawn Price’s departure?

POV: Currently Rob Enslin’s team owns the cloud sales and marketing efforts.  Constellation expects SAP to ramp up mergers and acquisitions.  In that process, SAP plans to acquire new talent to take these teams to the next level.

Customers expect to see clear lines of accountability.

PRODUCT AND TECHNOLOGY DIRECTION

7. How do the recent layoffs impact SAP’s ability to innovate and impact our ability to receive new innovation?

POV: Constellation understands that 2.5% to 3.0% of the workforce was targeted for rebalancing.  The rebalancing is in advance of skill and staffing changes.  Moreover, SAP expects future mergers and acquisitions to also add to the employee rolls.   Constellation believes SAP will gain acqui-hires (i.e. talent gained from mergers and acquisitions) who would continue to drive innovation.  Overall head count will most likely grow while SAP reallocates talent.

Clients need to know who the replacements are and that key services will not be cut.

8. What happens to the future of ECC 6.0 and the originally promised road map they made to us?

POV: Customers realize that the suite will move on to HANA.  What has not been clear is what they will pay for in that upgrade process and when there will be functional parity.  Customers want SAP to be clear on these details.  Further, customers want the industry vertical and micro-vertical functionality they thought their maintenance dollars should have paid for.  The inability to deliver critical functional requests from as far back as 10 years has been a sticking point for users.

Clients want a commitment on road map not a set of empty promises.

9. Has SAP management heard the fury over SAP Fiori?

POV: While the new products build on the user experience are quite fabulous, Constellation believes that SAP has been tone deaf on Fiori.  Many customers who have paid millions in maintenance over the past 15 to 20 years expect new user experience to be included in upgrades.  Instead, their maintenance and upgrade dollars were funneled into acquisitions that customers have to pay extra to purchase.   With few products in pipe to sell, SAP sales reps are trying to capture revenue where the vendor can and customers are not happy.

Customers are furious about the Fiori pricing and will remain so until this issue is addressed.

10. What platforms and skill sets should I focus on for SAP?

POV: SAP has done a poor job cleaning up and integrating its platforms on-premises and in the cloud. As with the multiple code bases and data models in on-premises, much confusion exists as SAP has multiple stacks of cloud from areas such as Ariba, ByDesign, HCP, HEC, and SuccessFactors.   In addition, the Sybase acquisition created a mess of mobile platforms.   Integration tools for a connected world are desired.  A common master data model is needed. A common set of APIs and composable processes are required.  A common set of user experiences is expected.

Constellation and clients hope Leukert addresses this issue of platform cleanup, despite the focus on applications.

RELATIONSHIPS WITH CUSTOMERS

11. Will SAP provide clearer direction on shelf ware and license credits?

POV: Many established and mature installs of SAP continue to face shelf ware issues.  Sitting on software purchased, not used, and paying for maintenance is a sticky and sore point for customers.  At this moment, SAP does not officially have a position other than they do not park licenses.  However, Constellation recommends an apps strategy review and contract negotiations to address these issues.  Success in reaching a win-win has been achieved by many clients.

Clients are tired of paying for shelfware and considering third party maintenance given the inability to extract concessions and access innovation.

12. Will my SAP sales reps stop their poor treatment of me?

POV: Constellation has had hundreds of interactions with customers who have dealt with sales bullying, contract bundling clauses, and indirect access audits.  Despite a pledge by Bill McDermott when he took the reins as Co-CEO to address this customer centricity issue, the memo must have been lost by many sales reps and sales management.  A common tactic by the sales team is to talk about the need for a good relationship and then bully the customer into accepting poor payment and contract terms in the contract in return for empty promises of guaranteed service levels or functionality commitments.   Customers who buy new products should read their contract terms carefully as SAP has new unbundling clauses which will make it impossible to remove products without triggering price increases or contract changes.  Constellation’s advice is “Never Ever Bundle”.  Finally, SAP and other vendors have stepped up indirect access audits.  This threat starts with since your system is connected and being accessed by another system we need to charge you more.  Short answer, fight back because this is not in the original terms of the license an it’s just another way for SAP to extract more value on licenses without delivering value.

Clients want to be treated with respect and to have a real partnership

Click here for a good resource guide on software contract negotiations

 

The Bottom Line: The Burning Platform is More Real For SAP Than For Its Customers

Bill McDermott has a unique opportunity to reinvent SAP.  The road will not be easy.  The technical debt incurred over 15 years of engineering mismanagement and the need to accelerate mergers and acquisition activity must be balanced by simplification.  The work required for simplification is complex and requires a lot of rolling up the sleeves.  As with many mature software vendors, SAP will need to show how it will

• Bring customers into the digital era
• Deliver products and services that customers seek to buy
• Improve how it treats its customers
• Identify a platform that will support an accelerated mergers and acquisitions strategy and the need for future integration paths
• Show partners that SAP can co-innovate and co-create
• Improve total addressable market size

None of the above are easy tasks on their own and the combination is quite a challenge.  Customers will want proof as they have many more alternatives today than in the past.  Customers expect show not tell on the simplification messsage.  But with the huge presence and install base at risk, there is a burning platform for change.

Have a disruptive technology implementation story? Get recognized for your leadership. Apply for the 2014 SuperNova Awards for leaders in disruptive technology. 

Your POV:

Are you investing more or less with SAP?  Do you feel SAP can innovate or will it buy it’s way to growth? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Please let us know if you need help with vendor selection or contract negotiation efforts.  Here’s how we can assist:

• Vendor selection
• Implementation partner selection
• Connecting with other pioneers
• Sharing best practices
• Designing a next gen apps strategy
• Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
• Demystifying software licensing

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What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire

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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The Future

Line of Business – what is the vision?

Pricing and maintenance

A key Sapphire for SAP is coming up. While the executive changes are in the books and it will be interesting to see how McDermott and Leukert will perform – the key is going to be if and how SAP will address its vision for next generation applications. It is getting time for SAP to find its business automation DNA again. The technical innovation work with HANA has been done, SAP is now at a cross roads on how much the technology message vs the application message will be first of all in its overall messaging and then in its product roadmap and lastly product delivery mix. We will be there to observe.