Disruptive Technology Companies: Net-Results

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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Golden, Colorado  based Net-Results offers a disruptive technology within the broader marketing automation space. The company links online behavior to database segmentation in a new way. Rather than define an action, such as creating an alert, and then applying the function to a subset of the database, Net-Results allows you to first build the segement and then apply different functionality to it.

For example, a trigger could be set to send an alert to the sales department to follow up with any prospect in a certain segment who views the pricing page for more than 30 seconds. An email could then be sent to that same segment describing the different packages offered.  The email could direct readers to a separate form for people in just that segment to fill out.

Since Net-Results is integrated with CRM packages such as Salesforce and SugarCRM segments can be based on data stored those systems. So a segment could be based on industry in addition to how the web site is used. A list of some data available for segmentation includes:

Website Visit Activity

• Website Visit Duration
• Specific Page Viewed or Not Viewed
• Number of Page Views
• Number of Visits
• Most Recent Visit

CRM Data

• First Name
• Last Name
• Company
• Title
• Email
• Phone (Work, Mobile, Home)
• City
• Account

Email Activity

• Did or Did Not Receive/Open/Click/Visit Site/Bounce/Unsubscribe
• List Membership

Web Form Interaction

• Traffic Sources
• Search Phrase 
• Search Engine Used
• Paid vs. Natural Search
• 3rd Party Referring Site
• Google AdSense

Lead Scoring

• Qualified
• Total lead score
• Contact score
• Activity score
• Engagement score
• Manual score
• Landing page visited

Net-Results is actively recruiting partners and hiring. A good contact at the company is Chaz Daum  at 303-771-2552

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Open Source Not a Panacea for Cloud Infrastructure Decisions

President, Computer Economics and Strativa, Inc.
Computer Economics and Strativa, Inc.

Frank Scavo is skilled at formulating and communicating IT strategy, developing the business case for new systems, and facilitating the selection of enterprise systems, such as ERP, CRM, and supply chain management. He is also an expert in benchmarking IT spending and staffing levels for end-user IT organizations. Frank was one of the first tech bloggers, beginning in 2002 with his launch of the Enterprise System Spectator providing independent analysis of issues and trends in enterprise applications software and the strengths, weaknesses, advantages, and disadvantages of the vendors that provide them. Frank has been quoted as an IT expert in numerous business and industry publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Computerworld, CIO Magazine, ZDnet, eWeek, Datamation,…...

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When it comes to cloud computing, do open systems win out over proprietary standards? My view is, perhaps in theory, but cloud computing--specifically public cloud infrastructure--has bigger problems right now than whether it's built on open source. Furthermore, open source cloud infrastructure providers have obstacles to overcome. 

I'm participating in an online video debate on October 29, hosted by IBM's Smarter Computing program, on "the pros and cons of open computing when it comes to cloud, big data, and software defined environments." This post outlines part of my viewpoint on this subject.

What's Not to Like about Open Source?

One of the problem in debating "open source" is that it is difficult to argue against the word "open" as a concept. For example, we all like to think of ourselves as open-minded, not close-minded. We admire top executives who have an open-door policy--have you ever heard of a manager with a "closed door policy?" In home-buying, sellers like to point out the open floor plan. Who ever advertised a house as having a "closed" floor plan?

So also, in computing, open just sounds better. Moreover, when it comes to cloud infrastructure, open source projects such as OpenStack and CloudStack have admirable goals, such as the ease of porting computing workloads from one cloud provider to another, promoting competition, and escaping the dreaded vendor lock-in.

The Larger Issue: Adoption

But, to me, it is premature to debate about whether open source cloud infrastructure is better. The larger issue today is the small percentage of corporate IT organizations that embrace public cloud infrastructure at all. In our Technology Trends survey at Computer Economics last year, we found that less than 10% of IT organizations worldwide have any use or plans to use public cloud infrastructure. Moreover, of these, only half claim use it, or intend to use it, for production systems.

If they are not using public cloud for production systems, then what are they using it for? Our survey found interest in public cloud for software development and testing, disaster recovery capabilities (such as backup and recovery), or for archiving older data.

In addition, I question some of those production uses of IaaS. Discussions with associates who advise data center managers confirm my suspicions. One associate, who works a lot in the entertainment industry, pointed out that one popular use of cloud infrastructure is in rendering animated film. In this case, animators require enormous amounts of computing power and storage to render even a few minutes of animation. As it turns out, cloud infrastructure is perfect for such a use, as it frees the IT organization from having to maintain those high levels of computing resources, which are only used sporadically. Furthermore, the risk is low. If the cloud provider goes down in the middle of a rendering job, the animator can simply resubmit the job. Nothing is lost.

But when it comes to production systems, such as accounting systems or royalty processing, these same entertainment industry decision-makers shun cloud infrastructure. It is not that they want to keep such systems on-premises, as witnessed by the fact that they have been outsourcing their data centers to managed services providers for years. As my associate remarked, "CIOs don't want to be in the data center business any more." But, rightly or wrongly, they are cautious about entrusting production systems to a cloud infrastructure.

Open Source Not a Panacea

Although the goals of OpenStack and other open source cloud projects are admirable, they may be a solution in search of a problem.

• Specifically, migrating workloads between competing cloud providers may not be as big a deal as open source proponents claim. Customer demands are already forcing competing cloud providers to recognize and support each other's APIs. For example, some members of the OpenStack community are urging support for Amazon's APIs.  If OpenStack fully goes this route, application systems written for Amazon's cloud will be able to be deployed on an OpenStack cloud without a lot of migration effort. Even VMware--the vendor with the largest stake in so-called private clouds--supports Amazon APIs and is also a contributor to OpenStack. Therefore, as far as I can tell, portability is not a major issue.

• Second, so far, it does not seem as if proprietary cloud providers are using their proprietary standards in order to extract higher fees from customers. Quite to the contrary, cloud infrastructure is a very competitive market. Whatever concerns IT decision makers have about public cloud infrastructure, one thing they cannot complain about is its cost. Leading cloud providers are not raising prices--rather, they are cutting prices, in some cases many times a year. IT decision makers are not holding on to their on-premises systems because they are concerned about the cost of public cloud--they are focused on risk. This was also a key finding in our Technology Trends survey.

If a cloud provider wants to overcome enterprise IT buyer concerns, it should focus on reliability, security, privacy, and offer a well-staffed support group. Many of the OpenStack providers are doing exactly that. It may well be that OpenStack providers, such as IBM, H-P, Dell, Rackspace and others, will be successful because of their value-added services, not because they embraced an open source infrastructure.

Incumbent Infrastructure Providers Have an Edge

Furthermore, proponents of open source cloud infrastructure may be underestimating the advantage that on-premises infrastructure providers have in moving their customers to the public cloud. Although, as discussed above, IT leaders have concerns about moving production workloads to the public cloud, one thing that does appeal to some of them is the ability to move seamlessly from on-premises system instances to cloud instances.

This is the so-called hybrid cloud infrastructure. CIOs may adopt a hybrid cloud strategy in order to move non-critical workloads out of the data center, freeing up system resources (e.g. the animation rendering application discussed above), or to "burst" to the cloud during period of high demand for system resources (e.g. during a major advertising campaign that strains an in-house e-commerce system).

Now, which provider has the advantage in helping IT organizations set up hybrid cloud capabilities? The provider that is already serving the on-premises data center (Microsoft, VMware, or Oracle, for example) or the one that would like the data center to replatform its on-premises systems to match the infrastructure of the provider's cloud infrastructure (e.g. OpenStack, CloudStack)?

The answer is obvious, which is why Microsoft, VMware, and Oracle are all providing public cloud services that require very little change to the customer's on-premises infrastructure. Unless an IT organization is building a data center from scratch, it is unlikely to want to standardize its internal infrastructure on a completely new technology--open source or otherwise.

Advocating for Cloud and Open Source

Nothing I've written here should be taken as an argument against cloud computing or open source. I've been blogging on these subjects since 2002 and consider myself as an advocate of both. In my view, one day nearly all systems will be delivered via cloud computing, and open source software has proven itself to be a viable business model for a variety of software categories, especially for lower levels in the technology stack. But in the case of public cloud infrastructure, I don't see open source cloud projects as dominating the market any time soon.

You can register for my video debate on IBM's website.

Related Posts

The Inexorable Dominance of Cloud Computing
Cutting Through the Fog of Cloud Computing Definitions

Photo Credit: Flickr, followtheseinstructions

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Disruptive Technology Companies in Colorado

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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Every year the annual Colorado Technology Association Wine Tasting Event has proven a promising venue to look for disruptive companies and this year's 9th was no exception. Whatever comes to mind when you think of Colorado, it probably isn't wine. Yet some of the best vineyards between the West Coast and the Mississippi are located in the Northwestern part of the Colorado - take that Wyoming, Utah,  and Idaho! Recently over 500 people showed up to talk tech and sip some of the Colorado's best wines at the McNichols Building in the Civic Center

Among the disruptive companies there were ReadyTalk, Net-Results, and Coldwater Software.

ReadyTalk is an audio and web conferencing company based in the fashionable downtown neighborhood of Lodo. The company is not actively recruiting partners but is hiring. The company can be reached at 800.843.9166 or [email protected].

Coldwater Software is a product and services firm built around Microsoft Sharepoint. Based in the Tech Center the company is actively recruiting partners and hiring. A good connection is Greg Rohan at 720-235-0374 or greg.rohan@ his company name .com

Golden based Net-Results offers marketing automation solutions. A fuller description of the company can be found under the story Disruptive Technology Companies: Net-Results.  The company is actively recruiting partners and hiring. Privately held, the Net-Results is profitable and not looking for investors at the moment.  A good contact at the company is Matt Filios at 303.771.2552 or Twitter @MattFilios.

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Siebel Innovation Pack 2013 Released

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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Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL) has released the Siebel Innovation Pack for 2013. Some of the highlights of the update listed by Alexander Hansal in his Siebel Essentials blog include:

• New installer for SES and SWSE
• IRM adopts Database Server Configuration Wizard and Upgrade Wizard
• Improved IRM conflict resolution (critical conflict filter)
• Packaged Siebel Test Automation scripts
• eService self service application completely redesigned
• New Multisite Ordering module
• CalDAV Support
• Mobile Disconnected Applications

Enhancements specific for Open UI include: 

• New mobile visualizations (grid, launch pad, etc) for Open UI
• jQuery UI ThemeRoller Support for Mobile Applications
• New tile and map visualizations
• Manifest administration in client with conditional nestable expressions
• Drag and drop import via Excel
• New Customer Dashboard
• Refurbished Product Catalog
• Marketing and Loyalty Designers (Flowchart, Gantt Diagrams)
• Chat, Find and Search
• List Applet now "remembers" column size and position

You can read more at Siebel Innovation Pack 2013 is Here

Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer

Is the existing SI business being travolged?

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

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

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I have meant to write this post since quite a while after hearing and learning a lot about the changes that are happening and travelogueing the system integrator (SI) industry. 

For the longest time SI have been able to make a very good living by understanding customer requirements very well and applying that understanding to enterprise software implementations. In the course of the application of the customer's requirements to the enterprise software, the dreaded customization process was an inherent business development engine for the SI. The more the SI was able to understand a customer's business, the more likely it resulted into the further customization of an enterprise software package. That not only resulted into more immediate implementation work, but created follow up business with every update and patch the customer would decide and be forced to take by its enterprise system vendor, since this re-triggered a new wave of validation and testing. Possibly updating documentation and training materials.
 

Enters the cloud

There are many benefits to the deployment of cloud based solutions - but they also come with a largely take it as it is approach. Some vendors in the past even proudly stated that a cloud based solution does not allow for any customization at all - but that is rightfully changing in the last quarters, with e.g. Workday allowing more advanced customization techniques.

But the real damage to the SI community has been done - no matter how much more the vendors will allow to customize - here are two data points that show how the SI business has changed:

• The largest SI partner of a leading HCM cloud product in North America, that does based on independent estimates 20-30% of the North American business - is a 130 employee company with approximately 90+ consultants.

• The expo show at the yearly user conference of one of the larger HCM cloud providers featured only 2 larger booths - the rest was smaller stand up booths. Contrast that with the recent user conference of a mixed on premise and cloud provider where the were over two dozen large SI booths - most of them multi story.

 

Strategies going forward

So for the SI's to remain the companies in the future, that they are today and what they used to be - they need to identify new services and offerings to ensure revenue and growth keep intact. 

• Services shift – SI workloads and revenues are under pressure due to the lower implementation complexity of SaaS products.  So it comes back for SIs to switch from lesser paid roles to roles that have a future in the new SaaS reality that is dawning on enterprises. On the lower end this can be testing services. The continuous release updates by the SaaS vendors creates a testing burden on their customers and providing a system validation service as a turnkey service is a viable business. From there SIs should explore higher paid services such as the creation of training materials, the recording of online tutorials and the hand holding and training of enterprise employees when a new release becomes available. And ultimately there are even higher paid validation services in the area of system certification e.g. in regards of compliance with public safety and heath standards. Likewise there is higher level news service opportunity in validating and documenting new upcoming SaaS releases for specific customers groups.

• New services – We see the need for both a cloud architecture as well as cloud integration services. And while SIs have setup numerous cloud practices, the integration aspect across different clouds and cloud and on premise is still in its infancy. But this will be a sizeable chunk of SI revenue that can be derived from the cloud – so it’s important to prepare for this upcoming business. It gets more challenging going forward, as the SaaS providers are trying to change the integration game by building integration as a provider delivered feature – see the recent plans of Oracle to integrate Fusion Financials and HCM with Salesforce.com’s CRM products. And how to invest and try to get a leg up on the competition was recently also demonstrated by Deloitte, who are building the integration between NetSuite and Oracle Fusion HCM.

• New product opportunities – While today most SIs live and breathe in the ecosystems of the respective vendors they partner with, the cloud gives SIs the option to create new products that integrate and create a value add with the older still running on premise products of their customers. And if architected and built right – a piece of complimentary business automation to on premise enterprise system may well work across on premise vendors, offering the SI the opportunity to grow beyond the original single vendor ecosystem, usually dictated by the technology choices of the vendor.

• 3^rd party maintenance – Though this is a tricky subject in regards of vendor relations – we expect a growing number of enterprises thoroughly evaluating 3^rd party maintenance options. With the advent of enterprises moving their automation to the cloud – there will be remaining islands of automation that will have to be maintained. And while they will ultimately be replaced –enterprise may not want to pay for the full cost of maintenance anymore and look for 3^rd party maintenance. So while not a very long term business field – we see a growth in this market for the next 3-6 years depending on cloud adoption by enterprises and on the pricing and product strategy of the on premise vendors.

• New business rationale – Finally the cloud allows to de-emphasize technology and shift from vendor specific technology choices to a business rationale that focuses on outcomes. We are already seeing enterprises questioning technology less as long as it’s in the cloud (and of course safe and secure etc). Herein lies the opportunity of SIs to create attractive automation portfolios regardless of technology base, potentially cross vendor, ideally complemented with own product offerings – with a strong focus of selling outcomes to enterprises. SIs capitalizing early on this trend and creating barriers to copy to the competition with investment in own products will do well, based on conversations we have with forward thinking and innovative enterprises.

MyPOV

Tech Optimization Data to Decisions Future of Work Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity workday Google salesforce amazon SAP Oracle 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

What to Expect at Connected Enterprise: Live Quarks

Constellation's Connected Enterprise is THE innovation summit for the enterprise. In keeping with that spirit, Connected Enterprise features Live Quarks-- fast-paced 10 minute demos of emerging technologies. The speakers are hand picked by the Constellation team to present their technologies to the Connected Enterprise audience. The majority of Live Quark presenters represent startups with tremendous disruptive potential.

On the schedule this year: 

• DoubleDutch - mobile application for events
• Sparksfly - mobile application that brings all your favorite apps together in one app
• Littlebird - influencer discovery and enagement platform

Trak Lord presenting Metaio's augmented reality technology at Connected Enterprise 2012

There's still time to register for Connected Enterprise --emerge with new ideas and a fresh perspective! Register now: http://connectedenterprise.ontrackevents.com/home.cfm

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Trends: Real World Lessons In Optimizing The Customer Service Experience From Kana Connect

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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The event began with a overview of  Constellation 9C’s of customer engagement  and then an overview of the eight ways to optimize your customer service experience.  Teams were broken up to documen current state and to rank future state.  Teams were told to identify the top three ways among these eight strategies:

1. Effortless and personalized
2. Channel convenience
3. Channel consistency
4. Social media
5. Unified agent desktop
6. Agent knowledge
7. Process-driven
8. Internationalization

Results Show Future Focus on Channel Consistency, Social Media, and Effortless and Personalized

Given the Kana customer base, current state priorities of agent knowledge, process driven, and channel convenience came as little surprise to the participants.  In fact, most workshop attendees have had significant success in adopting these top 3 optimization strategies (see Figure 1).  However, the future state rankings revealed emerging priorities in channel consistency, social media, and effortless and personalized strategies.  Of note, unified agent desktop and channel convenience were not far behind in rankings.

Figure 1. Workshop Results Show Future Focus on Channel Consistency, Social Media, and Effortless and Personalized

AREA	CURRENT We’re Already Quite Good at This (1, 2 and 3)	FUTURE Our Focus in the Next 12 Months (1, 2 and 3)
Effortless and Personalized	2+0+1+3+3+1+0= 10     4	0+2+2+3+0+2+2=11         3
Channel Convenience	2+1+1+1+3+2+1= 11     3	1+1+0+0+2+3+2 = 9         5
Channel Consistency	0+0+1+0+1+0=2             7	2+1+1+2+2+4+3=15         1
Social Media	1+0+1+2+1+3+0=8         5	2+1+2+0+3+4+1=13         2
Unified Agent Desktop	1+1+1+0+0+1+2=6         6	0+0+2+1+3+4+0=10         4
Agent Knowledge	2+3+2+3+4+5+2=21       1	1+0+2+0+0+0+2=5           7
Process-Driven	0+2+1+2+1+4+3=13       2	2+2+1+0+1+1+0=7           6
Internationalization	1+2+1+0+0+0+1=5         8	2+0+0+2+1+0+1=7           6

The Bottom Line:  Customer Centricity Is Required For Differentiation In A Digital World

A digital world requires organizations to practice what they preach.  Customer centricity is a state of mind that requires leadership at the top.  Most data on customer experience highlights a need for authenticity and relevancy in dealing with a brand or enterprise.  With trust and transparency an increasing requirement for authentic business, leaders who fail to lead from the top, deliver great customer journeys, and apply the right CRM technologies will continue to fall behind as the digital business divide widens.  Customer centricity is now a strategic imperative and requires first rate orchestration, company wide commitment, and leadership.  A focus on channel consistency, social media, and effortless and personalized are good approaches to achieve customer centricity when designing and delivering customer service experience.

Your POV.

What’s your plan to achieve customer centricity? Are you embarking on a digital business transformation?  Let us know how it’s going!  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 your Customer Centricity and Digital Business transformation efforts.  Here’s how we can assist:

• Assessing customer centricty readiness
• Developing your digital business strategy
• 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

 

Related Research:

• Event Report: CRM Evolution 2013 – Seven Trends In The Return To Digital Business And Customer Centricity
• Research Summary And Speaker Notes: The Identity Manifesto – Why Identity Is At The Heart of Digital Business
• News Analysis: Kana Express 13 Addresses Omni-Channel Customer Service for Mid-Market
• News Analysis: Oracle’s Cloud Strategy – Revisionist History or Cloud Genius?
• News Analysis: The Vibe On Informatica’s Virtual Data Machine
• Monday’s Musings: The Controversy Surrounding Gartner’s CRM Market Share Analysis
• Research Summary: Constellation Cosmos – Cloud Bill of Rights for SaaS Apps, Actian and Netsuite Achieve Epic Status
• Executive Profiles: Kirill Tatarinov, President Microsoft Business Solutions
• Event Report: Microsoft Dynamics Convegence 2013 (#conv13)
• Event Report: Customers Very Happy At Ultimate Connections 2013 (#ulticonnect)
• Event Report: Informatica Analyst Day Reveals A Growth Strategy
• Trends: Seven Priorities In The Shift From CMO to Chief Digital Officer
• News Analysis: Adobe Behances The Creative Class With $150M Community Acquisition
• Market Maker 1:1: Steve Miranda, Oracle Fusion Applications Update – The Inside Story
• Monday’s Musings: Understand The Four Organizational Personas Of Disruptive Tech Adoption
• Event Report: IFS World Conference 2012 – Innovations Abound Beyond ERP (#IFSWoCo2012)
• News Analysis: SnapLogic Snaps Up $20M In Series C Funding For Cloud Integration
• Event Report: The Day 0 & Day 1 Tweet Stream From #OOW12
• Event Report: The Tweet Stream From #DF12
• Event Report: Dreamforce X (#DF12) Emerges As The South By Southwest (#SXSW) For The Enterprise
• News Analysis: Epicor Acquires Solarsoft, Moves Closer To $1B in Annual Revenues
• Monday’s Musings: The New Engagement Platform Drives The Shift From Transactions
• News Analysis: KANA Enters MidMarket With Trinicom Acquisition
• Best Practices: From First To Worst – Continental In A Post United World, Lessons In Next Gen Customer Experience
• Monday’s Musings: Seven Basic Privacy Rights Users Should Demand For Social Business
• Monday’s Musings: Balancing The Six S’s In Consumerization Of IT
• Monday’s Musings: A Working Vendor Landscape For Social Business
• Product Review: Google+, Consumerization of IT, and Crossing The Chasm For Enterprise Social Business
• Monday’s Musings: Using MDM To Build A Complete Customer View In A Social Era
• Monday’s Musings: Mastering When and How High End Brands Should Use Daily Deal Sites Such As Groupon
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• Monday’s Musings: Avoiding Failure In Social CRM Projects Requires Ecosystem Coordination
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• Monday’s Musings: Why Every Social CRM Initiative Needs An MDM Backbone
• Monday’s Musings: 10 Essential Elements For Social Enterprise Apps

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

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

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

Copyright © 2001 – 2013 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
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Event Report: Metaio's #InsideAR Conference Hails The Future Of An Always On, Always Augmented Reality

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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Digital Business Arrives In The Always On Always Augmented World

On October 10th and 11th, 2013, over 800 attendees from more than 45 countries arrived at the Munich Olympic Park to share their passion and excitement about the latest augmented reality (AR) developments (see Figure 1).  Hosted by augmented reality pioneer Metaio, Inside AR 2013, has emerged as one of the world’s largest conferences dedicated to the business of AR.  The conference touched on key areas such as:

• Wearable computing
• Hardware advances
• Applications and development
• Global adoption
• Future of digital business and AR
• AR use cases from engineering to sales
• Consumer AR
• Future of print and packaging in AR
• Public sector use cases

Figure 1. Full Flickr Stream Of InsideAR Including Demo Videos

Source: Copyright © 2001 – 2013 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.

Augmented Reality Brings Contextual Experiences To Life

Constellation believes AR is one of the top 10 disruptive technologies for the decade that bring digital business models to life.  In fact, augmented reality expands on the five pillars of digital business – social, mobile, cloud, big data, and video identified in 2010.  Consequently, four components of AR drive this shift from engagement to experiential models (see Figure 2):

1. Interactivity improves engagement
2. Data drives paths to decision and differentiation
3. Visualization enables experience
4. Context delivers right time relevancy

Figure 2. The Four Components Of Contextual Experiences In Augmented Reality

The Bottom Line: Consider Augmented Reality As A Key Driver For Future Digital Business Models

Augmented reality has progressed beyond the laboratory since the decade of work Metaio pioneered.  Customers such as Mitsubishi Electric have grown sales $60M in two years with AR for ductless units in the US.   Ikea’s catalog app is the most downloaded app in the world for its category.  Car companies such as Audi, BMW, GM, Mercedes Benz, and Volkswagen apply AR to enhance the user experience and to transform service.  Ball packaging uses AR to drive increased sales from innovative packaging.  McDonald’s powers a sustainability campaign through AR.  Deloitte’s GovLab uses AR to transform government services.

From engineering to sales, the entire life cycle of digital business can be powered by AR.  Constellation has identified 12 use cases for brands and organizations to consider (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. 12 Pragmatic Use Cases For Augmented Reality

Your POV.

Are you ready for AR? What’s your plan to achieve customer centricity? Are you embarking on a digital business transformation?  Let us know how it’s going!  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 your Augmented Reality, Customer Centricity, and Digital Business transformation efforts.  Here’s how we can assist:

• Assessing customer centricty readiness
• Developing your digital business strategy
• 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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Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

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

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

Copyright © 2001 – 2013 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience!

 

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Nick Aronson – The Future of Payments @ DiG Festival

Gavin Heaton

Founder
Disruptors Co

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

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The folks at the DiG Festival in Newcastle have started posting videos of the keynote presentations. Here, Nick Aronson from the Commonwealth Bank talks about the future of payments.

Marketing Transformation Matrix Commerce Chief Customer Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer

Event Report: The Evolution And Maturation of @Tibbr at #Tucon2013, the Tibco User Conference

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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tibbr Continues To Show Momentum In Customer Adoption And Addition Of Key Enterprise Social Features

On October 14th to 17th 2013,  the Tibbr enterprise social crowd mingled with the core Tibco faithful at this year’s TUCON 2013 user conference in Las Vegas.  (An analysis of the broader Tibco announcements can be found from my colleague Holger Mueller).  While the Tibbr team continues to build synergies with the core Tibco offering in Big Data, Events, Integration, and BPM, the Tibbr team also made key announcements that include:

• tibbr crosses the 6.5M users adoption mark. The team announced paid user growth from 1.2M to 6.5M in over a year.  Distribution partnerships with Amazon Web Services (AWS), KPN, and T-Systems highlight future opportunities for growth.
  
  POV: The team’s partnerships and geographic expansion in Latin America and EMEA have paid off. With an entry point of $12 per user per month, 6.5M users represents a sizable growth in subscriber base.  Given the virality of successful enterprise social networks (ESN), tibbr could prove to be a key cross-sell lead gen for the rest of Tibco’s products.

• tibbr Files and partnership with Huddle. tibbr Files allows customers to integrate with existing content and file systems such as Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Huddle, and SharePoint.  Users can access tibbr to view conversations, work on files, and collaborate through the tibbr interface.  the tibbr team also announced a partnership with Huddle.
  
  Point of View (POV): Customers have been clamoring for more out of the box integration options to unify content repositories.  The partnership with Huddle is crucial for organizations that rely on Huddle’s security mechanisms.  In tibbr, users retain their security, permissions, and versions when accessing Huddle’s files.

• tibbr Tasks. tibbr Tasks provides social task management capabilities.  Users can create tasks in process, track and update tasks via social channels, and manage a visual portfolio of tasks across all project management tools.
  
  POV: Tasks are a key requirement for supporting Purposeful Collaboration as described by colleague Alan Lepofsky. Many customers have deployed tibbr to unify disparate business processes.  The addition of tasks embedded in enterprise social will improve collaboration at the business process level.

• tibbr Pages. The new pages product allows users to publish content within and outside the organization.  Pages also retains tibbr security rules.
  
  POV: The tibbr team takes a stab at the proliferation of SharePoint kudzu with its own application.  By enabling users to find, publish, and share, the tibbr team adds another key tool to enabling content creation and collaboration for users.

Figure 1. The Tucon 2013 Scene and New Tibbr App Screen Shots

Source: 2013 R Wang and Insider Associates. All rights reserved.

The Bottom Line: tibbr Emerge As A Key Player For Enterprise Social

The Constellation team has spoken with over 50 tibbr customers over the past 3 years including Cathay Pacific, Interport Police, KPMG, The Men’s Warehouse, Nielsen Company, Schneider Electric, Thomson Reuters, and Yellow Pages Group.  A key common traits emerge among successful tibbr customers:

• Sought an integrated approach to enterprise social
• Brought both IT and business early into the process
• Needed key security requirements across disparate environments
• Worked closely to include requirements into future releases
• Expanded quickly to large volumes of users.

Customers are also seeking additional features in future releases including, hashtag support (released in tibbr 5), improved analytics, improved pro services, improved recommendaitons, and native calendar.  Given the pace of innovation, customers probably can expect many features to show up in the upcoming Tibbr 5 and 6 releases slated in the next 12 months.

Based on Constellation’s inquiry and deal flow, Constellation is confident that Tibco’s tibbr product should be considered in short lists when considering internal and external enterprise social solutions.

Your POV.

Ready to choose a social business or enterprise social product? Have as success or failure story? Any advice from your experience?  Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your Social Business efforts.  Sign up for a Constellation Academy Workshop or let us assist with:

• Assessing readiness
• Developing your social business strategy
• Vendor selection
• Implementation partner selection
• Connecting with other pioneers

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Related Research:

• Research Report: Demystifying Social Business – The Lead to Deal Process
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Disclosure

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

Copyright © 2001 – 2013 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.

 

 

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