HR2014 Takeaways - What a difference a year can make

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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Enjoying my first week of no work related travel for 2014 I watched the keynote of HR 2014 remotely – many thanks to WisPubs for that service. I did the same in 2013 – so it’s a good way to compare the two events, and what a difference a year makes. For reference hereare my 2013 takeaways.

 

 

Top 3 Keynote takeaways

Trying to keep this a short post – here are my top 3 takeaways from the Price / Ludlow keynote:

 

 

1. SAP paints the wider SaaS message – Not surprisingly Price painted the larger SaaS message – beyond HCM, which is ultimately his new organizational responsibility, too. But it could be clearer what the benefits are for e.g. running SuccessFactors with procurement or CRM in the cloud. SAP generally struggles with the topic – see Calderoni’s ill-fated pitch of procurement to the assembled Sapphire audience last year. It’s not clear what makes this hard – except for the integration challenges that are present across the difference platforms. But that should in my view not hold SAP back to draw the larger picture, combine it with a roadmap and deliver to it.
    

2. EmployeeCentral is where the investment is – Confirming what we have been seeing – this is where most of the investment and traction is for SAP. More localization and more payroll support coupled with a good and well sellable ecosystem strategy are the things that work very well for EmployeeCentral. SAP has gone beyond adding pure functionality and with the Upgrade Center has made it easier for customers to identify upgrade induced changes and control their update via the “Update Now” button.
   
   On the flipside SAP needs to keep in mind its talent management capabilities remain competitive – at least good enough – starting with the recruiting area. But it looks this area is quiet and that Learning may see earlier investment.
    

3. On premise is alive and well – SAP keeps delivering based on its HCM renovation commitment and deserves kudos as it delivers to roadmap – with payroll investment scheduled for 2014. The new payroll administration screens look very good – think of Fiori UI experience for SAP Payroll. Conveniently these investments complement the EmployeeCentral payroll offering, too – so SAP is seeing a good return of R&D investment.

 

 

• What a difference 12 months can make – HR2013 was all about showing that SAP is serious in keeping investment in SAP HCM. The new ESS / MSS user interface was shown and has now been delivered. SAP has delivered to its renovation roadmap and is finishing this around payroll. But SAP did not address the roadmap beyond 2014 for SAP HCM – something the company needs to do latest at Sapphire. Still the bulk of SAP’s HCM customers are on SAP HCM and pay decent maintenance dollars. With last year’s promise of maintaining SAP HCM till 2020, SAP needs to show value for on premise HCM in form of a new roadmap soon.

 

• Payroll remains SAP’s higher ground – At some point SAP should erect a monument for Klaus Tschira, the SAP co-founder who was allowed to ‘dabble’ in HCM by his peers and who was key at coming up with the infotype architecture and a sleek payroll engine. Certainly SAP had the location advantage of being based in Europe to understand multiple statutory and language requirements better than other e.g. US based vendors. So the investment into around 50+ country support for payroll remains untouched and a formidable challenge for its competitors. And SAP is wisely propagating and rightfully messaging this. As long as payroll remains a minefield enterprises need to walk through once (or even twice) a month – solving and addressing that by one vendor is of immense value to clients. Couple that with the talent management and include payroll information in advanced analytics remains a very powerful foundation for making the right HCM decisions.

 

• A working ecosystem strategy – SAP is doing well with its 4 step ecosystem strategy – of SAP to SAP integration (well not really ecosystem), joint go to market partners, 3^rd party pre-delivered content and (43 certified) SI partners. Sometimes partnerships work well because they are needed and SAP (really) needs good answers for US benefits and workforce management (Kronos and Workforce).

 

• Progress on transition scenarios – SAP did a good job running the audience through the three transition scenarios from on premise to cloud based offerings. SAP offers to run talent in the cloud or a full cloud based HCM offering. And then there is the (I guess originally inspired by byDesign) side by side scenario of running cloud HCM in subsidiaries and staying on premise at headquarters. The latter scenario is where we see customers looking for complimentary cloud based solutions – if they do not have them already. But now SAP has an offering for this scenario. 

 

• Solid innovation – SAP showed improvements for Onboarding and Succession Management. But the highlight of the show was certainly its Headlines functionality. Making business data presentable has been always manual labor coupled with Microsoft Office skills. With the new Headlines functionality HCM transaction data comes alive in e.g. Microsoft PowerPoint, and not in a static way – but with embedded links, that lead back to the transactional information. User will be delighted.

 

 

• Integration concerns – One of the overall challenges we have been addressing and seeing for SAP is the lack of a competitive integration tool / middleware. The answer used to be NetWeaver PI, but it’s unlikely that this will be the backbone for integrating products SAP has acquired, legacy older SAP products and new (HANA built) SAP products – or even now partner built products (see our takeaway of the new SAP / Accenture Group here). And will HANA Cloud Platform is making progress – its integration capabilities do not seem to be first order of investment priority. Let’s not forget that EmployeeCentral was created while SuccessFactors was still an independent company, making it the integration tool and repository for the various product that the company had acquired.
  
  This puts SAP at a disadvantage in integration scenarios – that are the daily challenge for HCM applications these days – compared to vendors with standalone sold middleware (e.g. Oracle, IBM), vendors that have created such a platform (e.g. Infor) or vendors that have acquired and extended that platform for their needs (e.g. Workday).

 

 

 

MyP?OV

While last year HR conference was all about re-assuring the install base about SAP’s continued investment on SAP HCM – this years was all about EmployeeCentral and cloud. And while this is certainly the right long term direction – and fully what we have heardfrom SAP’s executive board - SAP still needs to address the roadmap for its on premise product. With an end of life timeframe till 2020 and these customers paying a decent amount of maintenance dollars – SAP will have to address the continued HCM roadmap soon – ideally at Sapphire. Otherwise the hard earned and well deserved trust for renovating it’s on premise HCM product will quickly dissipate.

On premise SAP HCM customers that will stay on premise for the foreseeable future will need to start asking the question better sooner than later.

 

• SuccessFactors shows a lot of promise – but – read here.

• Life in transition is hard – SAP HCM – read here.

 

• News Analysis – SAP slices and dices into more Cloud, and of course more HANA – read here.

• SAP gets serious about open source and courts developers – about time – read here.

• My top 3 takeaways from the SAP TechEd keynote – read here.

• SAP discovers elasticity for HANA – kind of – read here.

• Can HANA Cloud be elastic? Tough – read here.

• SAP’s Cloud plans get more cloudy – read here.

• HANA Enterprise Cloud helps SAP discover the cloud (benefits) – read here.

 

• News Analysis – SAP and Accenture partner – more of the old or something new? Read here.

• Now that SAP is a tech company – it wants to be cloud company – read here.

• SAP’s startup program keep rolling – read here.

• Why SAP acquired KXEN? Getting serious about Analytics – read here.

• SAP steamlines organization further – the Danes are leaving – read here.

• Reading between the lines… SAP Q2 Earnings – cloudy with potential structural changes – read here.

• SAP wants to be a technology company, really – read here

• Why SAP acquired hybris software – read here.

• SAP gets serious about the cloud – organizationally – read here.

• Taking stock – what SAP answered and it didn’t answer this Sapphire [2013] – read here.

• Act III & Final Day – A tale of two conference – Sapphire & SuiteWorld13 – read here.

• The middle day – 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.

• A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.

• What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire – read here.

• Why 3rd party maintenance is key to SAP’s and Oracle’s success – read here.

• Why SAP acquired Camillion – read here.

• Why SAP acquired SmartOps – read here.

• Next in your mall – SAP and Oracle? Read here.

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

 

Tech Optimization Next-Generation Customer Experience Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Data to Decisions Future of Work Innovation & Product-led Growth SuccessFactors workday SAP Oracle AI Analytics Automation CX EX Employee Experience HCM Machine Learning ML SaaS PaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Enterprise Software Enterprise IT Leadership HR Chief Information Officer Chief Customer Officer Chief People Officer Chief Human Resources Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

Presentation: 5 Steps to Rapidly Implement #Office365 @Project Online #pmot

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New C-Suite Innovation & Product-led Growth Microsoft Chief Information Officer

Asia Pacific BI and Analytics Solution: Market Opportunities Identified

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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Whilst capioIT and others repeat it ad nauseam, a view that considers that the countries of the Asia Pacific market to be generic and require a single strategy is making the most fatal mistake of all in terms of understanding the market.

Analysis of the market opportunity for the Asia Pacific BI and Analytics Platforms highlights this. The overall market opportunity highlights the diversity in growth through 2017. Some key points:

• The total Asia Pacific BI and Analytics Platform/Software market will grow from US$1.8B in 2013 to US$3.3B. This represents a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 16.4%.
• In the period from 2012-2017, Vietnam will be the fastest growing market, Taiwan will be the slowest growing market.
• China and Australia represent both the growth engine and the installed base opportunity
• In 2014, growth in China in dollar terms will exceed that of a combined ASEAN, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

To highlight the diversity of the Asia Pacific BI and Analytics market opportunity, capioIT has prepared a “Heat Map” for this market. This analytical tool highlights the the strongest market opportunities based upon a combination of supply and demand. This is measured by two axes.   The first is Vendor capability. This scores the aggregated vendor capability to meet customer requirements and overall investment in a market.  Market Velocity is the second variable. This measures customer demand and investment in a geographic market through application of capioIT forecast.

Whilst this analysis is only for the Platform or software component, clearly it is an indicator of the opportunity of the services/solution downstream.

Clearly Australia and the PRC remain the most attractive markets. Further vendor investment is required in India and Korea in order to allow these highly localised markets to meet their potential. In markets such as Singapore and Hong Kong, the vendor capability is strong, but the opportunity needs to be accelerated by key ecosystem providers to meet this capability.  Whilst having strong growth, the small base of markets such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand result in these markets being far from mature. The key for the maturity in those markets is going to be localised vendor capability either directly, or more likely, through partnerships.

Focus Point

There are considerable opportunities and expectations of growth in the Asia Pacific BI and Analytics marketplace. However, anyone who takes a generic single strategy for the Asia Pacific marketplace is quickly doomed to fail.

Data to Decisions Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth AI ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI Robotics Analytics Automation Cloud SaaS PaaS IaaS Quantum Computing Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service developer Metaverse VR Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership business Marketing finance Customer Service Content Management Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

One Privacy Act to Rule them All

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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Reform to Australia’s Privacy legislation began in 2004 – and as of tomorrow, 12 March 2014, there will be a raft of changes to the way in which our privacy is regulated. The Australian Privacy Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim, provides a high level of overview of the changes in this video.

Australian Privacy Principles

The changes that come into effect tomorrow, include a set of 13 new harmonised privacy principles that regulate the handling of personal information by Australian and Norfolk Island Government agencies and some private sector organisations. These replace the national privacy principles and the information privacy principles that were previously in place. In particular, the following principles apply to marketers:

• Direct marketing: Australian Privacy Principle 7 (APP7) relates to direct marketing. Where you hold personal information about an individual, this principle covers the manner in which that information can be used (or not) for direct marketing purposes
• Cross-border disclosure of personal information: Australian Privacy Principle 8 (APP8) covers the sharing of personal information with an overseas entity. This will apply where you are capturing or sharing information with overseas providers.

Who do the APP apply to?

The short answer is government agencies and organisations with over $3 million in annual turnover – but be sure and check the details:

The APPs cover the collection, use, disclosure and storage of personal information. They allow individuals to access their personal information and have it corrected if it is incorrect. There are also separate APPs that deal with the use and disclosure of personal information for the purpose of direct marketing (APP 7), cross-border disclosure of personal information (APP 8) and the adoption, use and disclosure of government related identifiers (APP 9).

The APPs generally apply to Australian and Norfolk Island government agencies and also to private sector organisations with an annual turnover of $3 million or more. These entities are known as ‘APP entities’. In addition, the APPs will apply to some private sector organisations with an annual turnover of less than $3 million, such as health service providers. More information is available on the Who is covered by privacy and the Privacy Topics — Business pages.

The APP checklist

What has changed and what do you need to review?

Take a look at the Privacy Act Reform Checklists for organisations (yes, that’s you if you run a business with turnover > $3 million) and government agencies.

Get reviewing now

Remember, the changes come into effect tomorrow. So you’d best get started on that review ASAP!

Grant Hutchinson via Compfight

News Analysis - SAP and Accenture partner - more of the old or something new?

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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New C-Suite Innovation & Product-led Growth Data to Decisions Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Tech Optimization Future of Work accenture SAP SaaS PaaS IaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Executive Officer

My #SXSW session "Capital vs. Talent" is today at 5 pm, Hilton 616AB #whosboss

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Marketing Transformation Future of Work Chief Customer Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief People Officer Chief Marketing Officer

Progress Report - Good cloud progress at Oracle - and a 2 step program

We had the chance to learn from Oracle executives about the company’s progress in all things cloud, at a recent event in Palm Springs. It was good to see that Oracle communicated openly and with candor where the company stands in regards getting ready for and taking advantage of the cloud era.

 

First of all there can be no question after this day, that Oracle is and remains committed to the cloud. Thomas Kurian who kicked of the day of briefings was crystal clear on that. All prior irritations of the past are history and there can be no question that the product development executives we spoke to are fully committed to cloud. Maybe even a little too much – as in my view too many products got the as a Service suffix – not sure how many ‘aaS’ products customer will really want to deal with.

The state of SaaS

Chris Leone (@chrismleone) presented the Oracle SaaS status and he was a good choice – as Constellation sees Oracle HCM Cloud having the most traction, followed by Customer Experience Cloud and Finance Cloud. None of the colleagues questions Oracle’s push in SaaS. Likewise it was good to see Thomas Kurian speak about the Supply Chain and Manufacturing offering earlier in the day - for whatever reason(s) Oracle is traditionally late to bring manufacturing automation to new platforms, but it’s good to see the traction starting in this area that completes enterprise automation for most enterprises.

The DNA of Oracle’s SaaS products remains compelling – with its foundations on top of Oracle Social Network and a pretty good mobile architecture. User interfaces are now compelling to use – and it’s good to see executives – from Kurian down – demo the software themselves. And Oracle did a good job showing some thought leadership in a CRM demo – not only showing social interactions, but coining the term digital body language’ (coming from Eloqua) and using the predictive analytics foundation to foretell future sales success.

 

From Kurian's presentation.

 

New – Information as a Service

Kurian presented the Oracle cloud having one more offering than the usual trifecta of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS – with Information as a Service. Later he presented one slide on the topic – unfortunately under NDA – but we can all conjure what this offering is all about.

The state of PaaS

Oracle brings a very rich product portfolio to its PaaS offering, probably stronger than its IaaS offering (for now). Not surprisingly – and similar to IBM – PaaS caters to developers, LOB execs and IT managers.

 

From Kurian's presentation.

The most attractive offering for developers is certainly the Java-as-a-Service offerings, with an choice of integrated IDEs and access to a powerful database. On the LOB executive side, social platform with collaboration and the integration / BPM capabilities are attractive. And on the IT side, it’s certainly the cloud to cloud iPaaS and APM capabilities (based on EnterpriseManager) that are key offerings.

Given Oracle’s large install base for its database we expect a lot of interest of existing customers for the Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) offering. Having an 11gR2 or 12c database readily available to you, with the option of having it fully managed by Oracle is certainly an attractive value proposition for Oracle DBMS customers.

The DBaaS offering is also one of the best examples right now how the integrated Oracle technology stack (aka redstack) can work together – in order to enable RESTful HTTP service Oracle ‘just’ bundles in a (lightweight) Java Server. Constellation expects similar under the hood bundling of the redstackto emerge sooner than later.

Moreover, Oracle Database 12c multitenant data base architecture with pluggable databases makes it easy to move complete databases within a clour or between clouds.

The State of IaaS

Here Oracle offers Storage, Compute, Identity, (lightweight) queues and notifications. From all three traditional cloud product areas – SaaS, PaaS and IaaS, this is the one where Oracle needs to catch up and move faster. In all these areas it seems Kurian has prescribed the two step program mentioned in the headline of this blog post – get there first and then differentiate. And we are positive that Oracle uses OpenStack standard both on compute and storage… but that of course means questions on how and where to differentiate remain.

 

From Kurian's presentation.

 

Logically Oracle has begun with Storage and Compute but it has some road to cover before being at par with Amazon’s AWS, Microsoft’s Azure and Google GCE. Credit goes to Oracle execs acknowledging this, but the roadmap looks realistic and only to a certain point ambitious.

A word on private cloud

One of the key decisions the Oracle executive team took was to operate public and private cloud offerings on the same technology stack, a decision that has proven right and is paying off already. And customers really appreciate the capability to run a familiar technology stack both on premise and in the cloud, being flexible to move loads across on premise and public cloud. On the IaaS layer the Nimbula Cloud Director is a key asset to orchestrate this capability.

From Kurian's presentation.

Needless to say Oracle offers customers plenty of option for consolidation – for servers (with Oracle VM and Nimbula), platforms (RAC) and databases (12c multitenancy). We expect customers to heavily look into these areas as they may realize attractive cost savings. It was also interesting to see that Oracle plans to offer very similar consolidation offers for middleware – server (with Nimbula), platform (WebLogic clusters) and Application Server consolidation (multi tenant WebLogic Server).

Partnerships

Amit Zavery (@AZavery) later had a slide in his deck explaining how Oracle is working with with Microsoft and Verizon, who run Oracle’s database and middleware on Azure and Verizon Cloud respectively.

From Zavery's presentation.

No surprise here – but I believe this is the first formal public slide on the subject. We think seeing that Oracle is able to partner / OEM / deliver (pick your best wording) its products is a good proof point of the attractiveness of the products, but also forces Oracle to be open and flexible at certain intersection of its technology stack. Prominent example being support for Microsoft’s Hyper-v hypervisor in the partnership with Windows Azure.

MyPOV

6 months after checking in with Oracle at OpenWorld, there has been good progress across the board for the cloud products. There is still a lot of road to cover though, but all road maps were under NDA – so we can’t comment further. We still see the three strong converging forces working for Oracle and stay to our three concerns (they are here). But 2014 should be the year where it all comes together for Oracle.

 

Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer

April 7-9 2014: Marketo Marketing Nation Summit

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’m thrilled to be attending the Marketo Marketing Nation Summit 2014. Here is more information if you’re interested in joining me:

Conference Information

Without question, the Marketo Marketing Nation Summit 2014 will be the Marketing Event of the year. Join the Marketing Nation as over 3,500 of your peers, colleagues and thought leaders gather to celebrate Innovation in the Nation. Located at Moscone Center – West , in the heart of San Francisco’s Financial District, the Marketo Marketing Nation Summit 2014 will provide an engaging experience to grow your expertise and network over two and a half days. Connect with ideas, marketers, and resources to help YOU achieve success faster!

Moscone Center – West , San Francisco California

Moscone Center – West is a visually stunning and expansive three-level exhibition hall, conveniently located near fine dining, shopping, museums and more. As the heart-center of the Marketo Marketing Nation Summit 2014, Moscone Center – West will be buzzing with life and will serve as a vibrant backdrop where connections will be made over two and a half days.

Moscone Center – West 
800 Howard Street
Located at the corner of Fourth and Howard Streets
San Francisco, CA 94103

Conference FAQ’s

Why should I attend?
The Marketo Marketing Nation Summit 2014 will deliver dynamic and rich content along with key takeaways that will prove to be an incredible investment to your business. Learn how to implement and use the latest features and see what’s on the future horizon at Marketo. Develop deeper relationships with your contacts and marketing experts by gaining mastery over innovating lead generation, campaign management, social media strategies and analytics.

Social Networking Parties
Learn during the day, relax network and socialize in the evening! Registration opens Monday, April 7th followed by our Marketing Nation Kickoff Party. On Tuesday, April 8, join us for Happy Hour in the Marketing Nation Expo before being shuttled to our Customer Appreciation Party! We have an incredible night planned, so stay tuned for more information.

Registration Information

What is the registration fee?

Can I register in person at the event?
Absolutely, however at this year’s event seats will be in high-demand so we recommend that you register early to secure your spot. Onsite registration is $1,595.

Is a group discount available?
Yes, simply email to [email protected] the names of the 10 or more attendees from your company and you get $200 off each registrant. You will receive a discount code of $200 off to register for each person. You must register all 10 people within one week of receiving the code.

Will Marketo close registration at any point?
Registration will close on Wednesday, April 2, 2014 at 5:00 p.m., PST. If seats are available after registration closes, onsite registration will be available for the price of $1,595.

What is included in my registration fee?
Access to the Marketo Marketing Nation Summit 2014 which includes keynote sessions as well as customer success tracks. The program begins at 5:00 p.m. on April 7 and will end at 5:00 p.m. on April 9. Registration fee includes admission, food and beverage during the daytime sessions and access to the Social Networking Parties.

Does the registration fee include travel costs for the conference?
All travel costs including air and hotel accommodations are the responsibility of the attendee. Marketo has secured a block of rooms at a discounted rate of $267 (Classic) / $277 (Deluxe) at the Hilton San Francisco, the host hotel. To reserve your rooms, please click here.

Is there an additional charge to attend Summit University Day?
Yes, there is an additional charge to attend Summit University Day. The registration prices are outlined below:

UNIVERSITY
Early Bird: $595 (until February 1)
Regular: $695 (February 2 – April 2)

CERTIFICATION
Early Bird: $100 (until February 1)
Regular: $125 (February 2 – April 2)

How is my registration confirmed??
After completing registration, you will receive a confirmation email with your registration information and your invoice attached.

What forms of payment do you accept for the conference fee?
Visa, MasterCard, American Express, wire transfer and company checks are all accepted.

If I can’t attend, can I substitute my registration?
Yes. If you are unable to attend, you may substitute one colleague’s name per registration. All substitutions must be received in writing prior to Monday, March 16, 2014 and will incur a fee of $50. After this date, all substitutions are subject to a $100.00 (USD) processing fee. Please submit substitution requests to [email protected] and include the following information for the new registrant: Name, Job Title/Position, Work Address, Work Phone Number and Email Address. A registration confirmation will be sent to the new registrant once the substitution is confirmed.

What if I have to cancel??
Registration cancellations received in writing by 5:00 PM (Pacific Standard Time) prior to Friday, February 21, 2014, will be refunded, less a $150.00 (USD) processing fee. There will be no refunds for cancellations received after 5:00 PM (Pacific Standard Time) on Friday, February 21, 2014. Please send any information regarding cancellations via email to [email protected].

Look forward to connecting

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff 

How to work with Dr. Natalie — VP & Principal Analyst | Constellation Research, Inc.

How to work with Dr. Natalie at the Executive Success Firm

Dr. Natalie: voted Top 20 In Social Media HuffPo
Voice:  +1.310.919.8467  | Twitter: @drnatalie | 

Skype: drnatalie007 | LinkedIn | Google+

Catch my latest:

• Thoughts at www.DrNatalieNews.com 

• Upcoming book series: “7 Steps To Digital Customer Experience Mastery” (working title) 

• My Book: Like My Stuff: Tactics to Monetizing Facebook Engagement and

• 3rd Most Download ebook: Myths, Truths of Social Media ROI

SAVE THE DATE!
Constellation’s 4th Annual Connected Enterprise 
The Executive Innovation Conference | October 29th-31st

Half Moon Bay, CA | Ritz Carlton

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Marketing Transformation Chief Marketing Officer

Helpful Utilities to Upgrade Siebel

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.  , Title: Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

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In his Siebel Essentials blog, Alexander Hansal continues his exploration of the world's favorite on premise CRM system by describing some helpful upgrade utilities.

This is a repost from February 2009, seems that upgrading Siebel CRM doesn't go out of fashion anytime soon, especially with Innovation Pack 2013.

It appears that many of those Siebel consultants are busily upgrading and I think that timeframes are challenging as always ;-)

The following command line utilities are here to help you during the upgrade and save your precious time (you'll need it for other tasks ;-). Please note that the list below is not complete.

1. Log Parser

When Siebel Upgrade Wizard performs the Upgrade Database Schema (upgrep) and Upgrade Physical Schema (upgphys) and any other step against the database, it forwards the command line utilities' log files to a central directory, a subfolder of the Siebel Server's log directory. You can run the logparse executable from the command line and generate a nice and pretty html summary.

The logparse utility is also useful to summarize tasks not related to an upgrade such as a repository migration (notoriously known as dev2prod). You can easily automate it, archive the directory and keep it for later reference.

2. cfgmerge utility

So you merged your repositories? What about the Siebel Enterprise configuration data stored in the Gateway Name Server's siebns.dat file?

On your new Siebel 8.1 production server you will need your custom components as well as the nifty new components from Oracle (such as ADM, BIP etc.). Using cfgmerge on the command line you can create an input file for the srvrmgr command line. You have to edit the file before you run it against the target enterprise.

The utility merges parameter based data for components that exist in both configurations. So if you want to use it for a custom component, you have to create a component with the same name in the target enterprise before you run the utility. The input file will then help you to update the parameter values.

The cfgmerge utility is also suitable for other tasks outside the upgrade process.

3. utleimdiff

This utility is provided to identify differences in EIM tables and their mappings between two repositories (usually Prior Customer Repository and New Customer Repository). During a recent upgrade project, I found that the utility behaves a little odd in 8.1.1. But it's worth to note that it exists.

If you feel that you need more information on a Siebel CRM upgrade and how to do it, please add a comment to this post. Oracle University offers a Siebel Upgrade Workshop on a private event basis.

This post originally appeared in the Siebel Essentials Blog.

The Death of Siebel – A First World Problem?

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.  , Title: Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

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In his On Demand Education blog, Richard Napier looks at where in the world Siebel is most popular.

I know the title of this article might seem a little inflammatory, but I have been having an interesting week where my eyes have been perhaps opened, once more, to the vibrancy of the Siebel Enterprise Market. I have been travelling in the Middle East recently and have been both humbled and excited by the number of fresh Siebel Enterprise projects that I see. Not upgrades, not Open UI projects, but brand new exciting, multi-business unit projects.

Of course at the same time, the competitors and even some integrators continue to peddle the message that “Siebel is dead”. But I’ll wager they wish they were working on these heavyweight projects.

What I find interesting also is that most of these big projects are in clearly defined industry sectors which leverage the Industry knowledge of Siebel – this ties in with another (seemingly) endless debate and discussion about whether it was better to have standard Objects for Industry (the Siebel approach) or to give you a clean page and let you build it all yourself (the Salesforce approach). As far as I can see, this is now closed. For big, industry specific, complex processes, there is no case to answer. Siebel has taken the crown and kept it.

This post originally appeared in the On Demand Education blog.

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