Constellation Research Announces New VP of Sales for End User Communities

Best Practices: From First To Worst: Continental In A Post United World, Lessons In Next Gen Customer Experience

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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Multiple Respected Research Survey Results Confirm Frequent Flyer Observations

It’s official. In multiple respected customer experience research reports that cover the airline industry, the results are in.  Despite the numerous attempts by CEO Jeff Smisek to gloss over the issue with increasingly slicked up, feel good, on board welcome ads, Continental’s customer satisfaction numbers have reached the abyss of United’s.  While United Holdings may tout their most admired status in the airline industry by Fortune, the award is measured by corporate executives, airline executives, boards of directors and industry analysts – basically not the customers and passengers who fly United Holdings.  On multiple flights this year, I’ve personally heard Continental flyers groan and boo out loud every time they see the welcome aboard video where Jeff Smisek touts how he’s out to help customers, tells them why they are going to like this merger, and brags about how many planes he’s painted in the new livery.  Flight attendants and pilots roll their eyes as well.

What was pure emotional speculation and conjecture can now be quantified.   A quick glance at the latest Temkin Group: Temkin Experience Ratings shows Continental scores as bad as United – basically smack in the poor category (see Figure 1.)Travel Industry benchmark, Atmosphere Research’s US Airline sentiment shows United at the bottom with US Airways.  Even legacy analyst firm, Forrester’s 2012 Customer Experience Index shows a 5% drop for United and a 11% drop for Continental (you’ll need to pay for a subscription to read the results.)  Asked about Continental and United’s customer experience performance, CX Transformist & Managing Partner, Bruce Temkin (@btemkin) pointed out that, “The overall industry actually had a modest improvement between 2011 and 2012 and only two carriers had significant drops: American and Continental. As these economically challenged big airlines focus on wringing out costs, they also squeeze the soul out of their brand, their employees, and the experiences they provide to customers.

Figure 1.Temkin Experience Ratings Shows Continental Falling to United Levels of Poor Customer Experience

Source: Temkin Group

Many Continental employees agree. In a conversation with a Houston senior Flight Attendant who chose to withhold her name for fear of retribution, she stated, “It’s all ‘Jeff’ed’ up! All the goodness of Continental is going away.  Since Jeff took over, they no longer care what we think and sadly, we think they no longer care what customers think.”  A conversation with a few Newark Red Coats in January revealed similar sentiment as they mustered up, “It’s the worst since Lorenzo. The management team is disconnected with the staff. We’re reverting back to pre-Gordon as Jeff destroys our morale.”  One of then pulled me aside and said, “We’re still Continental at heart and I’ll do the best I can while we can. Please stay with us!”

Figure 2. Atmosphere Research’s U.S. Airline Sentiment Scores From August-December 2011 Show United Near Bottom

Source: Atmosphere Research

Gordon’s Magic Fades Away With Smisek’s Ascent

In 1994, Continental was the most hated airline in the industry.  The airline was in the pits after one of the worst airline managers, Frank Lorenzo had destroyed the airline and left it for dead. Amidst the ashes, former Boeing executive, Gordon Bethume took over the reigns and created a new culture. In fact, his bold leadership launched a new era that would create a 15 year run of loyal and satisfied customers. It started with the simple programs from reducing employee absenteeism with Ford Explorer giveaways for perfect attendance, to suing Delta at the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport for limiting carry on sizes with the X-Ray machine grates after Continental worked to put in bigger bins. Continental emerged as a favorite among loyal travelers for its service and was seen as the customer’s airline.  With a deluge customer satisfaction awards, Gordon had moved the airline from “Worst to First”.

Gordon’s successor, Larry Kellner, continued the tradition with the introduction of DirecTV, lie flat seats, and even improved service qualities amidst 9/11 and the economic downturn. When he stepped down, it wasn’t clear why, other than that Continental was considering a merger with United. Inside sources later revealed that Larry opposed the merger and Jeff was ready for the opportunity to be CEO at the world’s “largest airline”.

Since the merger, customers have sensed that the customer goodness of Continental has been taken away.  To be fair, loyal Global Services United customers also feel disgruntled but their numbers do not show as much change as the Continental flyers. Why? Well, most folks who flew Continental either went out of the way to fly them or truly felt the difference from great customer service. The consensus among most travelers, United was already at its bottom. “You couldn’t get any lower” said May L. a Global Services flyer out of San Francisco.

Cumulative Reduction In Service Levels Start To Take Its Toll

In fact, many loyal customers find the upgrade percentage dropping, new boarding process to be hideous, baggage handling performance down from the first bag out by 11 and last by 22 minutes policy, and small items in international and domestic first continue to be whittled away. Prior to the merger, Continental proudly declared pillows and blankets on all domestic flights as an affront to the airlines that didn’t care about customer service. Dave L, a fellow million miler from New Jersey puts it this way, “In Business First, Gordon Bethume always believed that a business person should have a great breakfast while on the flight. It could be their only meal of the day! So, you’d always get a fresh juice, yogurt, fresh fruit, eggs, mushrooms, half a baked tomato, a slice of canadian ham, a slice of turkey sausage, and some potato au gratin contraption (See Figure 3). Then the best part came with the hot breads which included a croissant, biscuit, or those awesome cinnamon rolls.

Figure 3. Gordon’s Breakfast Circa 2011 (note the salt and pepper shakers)

Now I get on a flight and they’ve gotten rid of the salt and pepper shakers – we get those cheap United paper packets. They took away one meat and we lost the mushrooms and tomatoes. Sometimes we get yogurt, but most times we don’t. In another case, they didn’t have enough meals for everyone and a few people got stuck with the cheerios and bananas. Even the basic coffee has been atrocious. We should have gotten the Starbucks stuff from United! Come on’ it’s business first, not cattle class”

On my recent trip back from India, my fellow seat mate in Business First, Deepak Sukh, Managing Director of Luminent, Inc, a leadership coaching firm that brings Indian and US companies together noted, “Even Air India is better and cheaper than this. If I had known it’d be this bad, I’d have taken Jet Airways back. Everything is wrong with this flight. From the food choices and variety, loss of hot appetizers, the entertainment is limited, what do you do on 16 hours? I’m so disappointed with this flight. This is not the typical Continental experience. I’m worried if this is what’s happening post-merger. I’ve been a Continental frequent flyer for ages. I won’t be taking this flight again.”

United Management Frankly Fails To Listen To Its Employees

In fairness to the crew on my recent journey to and from India, they were awesome.  They did their best with the utmost experience and professionalism. However, it was obvious the airline had taken away the tools to empower employees to deliver an awesome customer experience.  Comparing service levels from 2010 to 2012, here’s a list of items passengers noted and I have personally confirmed on the February 29th, 2012 flight from BOM to EWR (CO 49):

• Not enough food for folks in coach
• Loss of cheese cart in first
• No more hot appetizers on selected night flights
• 1/3 the movies of a normal flight (37 vs 80+)
• Deferred maintenance – taped up floor in the galley (see Figure 4.)
• Low quality of meals
• A dirtier plane than normal
• Priority bags put out last on the arrival belt in EWR

Figure 4.  United Quality Maintenance Now On Continental Planes

Customers Willing To Help But Is United Willing To Listen And Take Action?

And here’s more, over the past 3 months, in interviews with over 50 Platinum Elites, the results show the same level of unhappiness from the most loyal flyers.  Sadly, even the tools of communication have also been taken away or ignored.  In fact, the in flight comment cards were taken away by Jeff Smisek’s management. So how does a customer respond?  Email they say. Well, insiders note that Smisek likes to say he personally responds to every email.  Many million milers have written several times and not gotten a response until they escalated through back channels. In the past, the CEO would personally call or email back to frequent flyers. As one of Continental’s top flyers, I was a CO-Star, and I could attest that both former CEO’s Larry Kellner and Gordon Bethume always responded.  In fact, this will be a case study in my upcoming book on the New Laws of Business.

Social Media Exacerbates Transparency

Unfortunately, what’s made the situation worse, the advent of social media. A quick scan on Twitter for #united lands a slew of complaints, mostly unanswered (see Figure 5). What kind of customer experience do you create when you fail to respond to legitimate customer complaints and allow the public to so publicly express their outrage. What kind of customer service on twitter is 9 to 5? You’d think the experience from David Caroll’s “United Breaks Guitars” video would have taught them a lesson. Sadly, it hasn’t. In fact, insiders tell me that the management team believes that their lock on the routes and command of corporate accounts gives them the leeway to treat customers poorly. Others tell me that since the customer backlash from United customers on the potential removal of Economy+, they’ve been afraid to engage in social.

Figure 5. The Twitterverse Lashes Out And Not A Single United Response

Industry Analysts Speak Out On Continental United

Asked about what an airline can do to improve customer experience in a down market, I turned to leading travel analyst, Henry Harteveldt (@hharteveldt), co-founder of travel industry research firm Atmosphere Research Group — and a former Continental marketing executive.  “The United teams need to be careful — this merger is an exciting opportunity that had best not be squandered through arrogance or failing to correctly judge the market.

Though the airline will be the largest after its merger, within the US it will be only the third largest, after Delta and Southwest. Our research shows just three in 10 travelers view themselves as brand loyal — so even though there are more than 70 million members in the Mileage Plus program, United can’t take their loyalty or business for granted. United lags American, Delta, and Virgin America in offering amenities like in-flight Wi-Fi and in-seat power that business travelers, its bread-and-butter, value. Though United is adding Economy Plus to the former Continental fleet, they won’t have it on the entire Continental fleet for a while – another missed opportunity. Worse, Delta is adding a similar product to its domestic fleet (it has premium economy on its international aircraft) and, on March 1, American announced that it too would add premium economy seating. These moves weaken United’s lead.

United has announced plans to improve its long-haul premium cabin meal service, and it’s bringing the Continental in-flight entertainment content to the long-haul United fleet that have in-seat entertainment systems. It’s announced plans to add in-flight Wi-Fi to its entire fleet (only the 757s dedicated to the JFK-LAX/SFO premium service flights now have Wi-Fi ), though only a handful of aircraft will have that by the end of 2012. My advice to travelers: Borrow a page from Cold War geopolitics, and trust but verify that United is living up to its promises and your expectations. Other airlines are keenly watching to see how United handles the final elements of the merger. By all means, if you’re a loyal United or Continental traveler, stick with the airline. But if the new United doesn’t meet your expectations, let your wallet do the talking, and take your business to other airlines. If you’re an “elite” United Mileage Plus member, some other airlines may offer you a one-time match of your United Mileage Plus status in their loyalty program. Check the various airline forums on Milepoint.com and FlyerTalk.com, the two leading online communities for frequent fliers, for more information on this.

For the folks at United, don’t think March 3, “merger day,” is the end. It’s just the beginning. United must beat the basics — that is, offers superior on-time performance, that passegers’ checked bags arrive with them, that front-line staff remain consistently professional and courteous, the planes are clean, and that key consumer-facing technology channels like the website, mobile apps, online check-in, and kiosks all work reliably. As I learned when I worked in the airline business, the measure of a good airline isn’t how it operates when the weather is clear and sunny, it’s how the airline handles things when it’s snowing, you’re overbooked, and half your flights are cancelled. United must now focus to deliver a more consistent customer experience. They’ll have, at best, six months, before travelers lose patience — and before negotiations start with major corporations’ for their 2013 airline contracts. As the saying goes, you never have a second chance to make a first impression. Let’s hope United lives up to the challenge.”

Meanwhile, Bruce Temkin noted that customers should, “Choose the carriers that care whenever they can. The more that the economics favor the carriers that do a good job with the CX, the more that others will need to put CX on their executive agenda.  From an airline’s point of view executives should not, “Consider this a problem with customer interactions and recognize that its a fundamental problem in how their organizations operate. Once they understand that, they need to focus on what Temkin Group calls the four customer experience core competencies: Purposeful leadership, compelling brand value, employee engagement, and customer connectedness.

The GodFather of CRM, Paul Greenberg, devoted a post on customer experience calling United out and comparing the difference in service levels with Marriott Hotels.  The airline ignored him and never got back to him.  That utter lack of response pretty much explained how much the airline cared.

Customers “Just Want Their Airline Back”

The general verdict from frequent flyers, employees, and partners of Continental/United- “we want our airline back!” Sadly, the last Continental flight is Saturday March 3rd ( see Figure 6.)

Figure 6.  March 3rd Put An End To the Continental Legacy

Basic Customer Experience Principles Lacking At The Management Level Since Jeff Smisek’s Leadership

So what’s the lesson learned here in delivering top-notch customer experience? United and other customer service facing industries can improve with just these 5 strategies.

1. Revisit listening to your customers. This doesn’t mean you respond to every complaint or comment. It means you understand what the root cause of the problem is and seek to address that cause.
2. Understand that everything is public. In an age of social media it’s all public. You have to engage your customers. This means taking your understanding and involving them in the process. Show customers you are addressing the issue and also helping them understand your side of the story
3. Stop resting on your laurels. Even the most loyal customers will bolt. Taking a customer for granted can be costly in not only money, time, but also publicity
4. Listen to your employees. In 8 out of 10 cases, the employees know what’s going on and can provide the best feedback. In United and Continental’s case here, the failure to listen to employees is breaking the culture of the airline.
5. Build an active community. An active and engaged community can provide United with the force multipliers to not only improve customer service, but also reduce costs. Giff Gaff in the UK has shown this with the mobile phone business. It’s a great example of getting the best of both worlds in Social Business.

Your POV

Do you want your airline back?  Have you learned from this case study?  Are you a customer facing organization looking to win by improving customer experience?  Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts.  Here’s how we can assist:

• Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
• Developing your social business/ social CRM  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:

• 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
• Best Practices: Applying Social Business Challenges To Social Business Maturity Models
• Research Summary: Software Insider’s Top 25 Posts For 2010
• Best Practices: Five Simple Rules For Social Business
• Research Report: How The Five Pillars Of Consumer Tech Influence Enterprise Innovation
• Research Report: Next Gen B2B and B2C E-Commerce Priorities Reflect Macro Level Trends
• Tuesday’s Tip: Applying The Five Stages Of Adoption Towards SCRM Projects
• Monday’s Musings: Avoiding Failure In Social CRM Projects Requires Ecosystem Coordination
• Research Report: The 18 Use Cases of Social CRM – The New Rules of Relationship Management
• Monday’s Musings: Why Every Social CRM Initiative Needs An MDM Backbone
• Monday’s Musings: 10 Essential Elements For Social Enterprise Apps

Reprints

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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.

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

Copyright © 2001 – 2012 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
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Announcing this year’s Keynote Speakers – Connected Enterprise 2012 #CCE2012

Constellation’s Connected Enterprise brings together the brightest minds to discuss the present and future of innovation, technology, and society, and is quickly establishing itself as the must-attend conference for pioneers, innovators, and early adopters.  Continuing this tradition, we have brought together an accomplished group of dynamic visionaries to deliver this year’s keynote addresses on November 9th through 11th at the St. Regis Monarch Beach in California. Check back frequently as we update information about our keynote speakers. 

Keynotes include:

Love Goel

Chairman and CEO, GVG Capital

Love Goel is considered one of the most innovative and transformational business leaders of our time. Goel is known for transforming iconic brands and companies into digital market leaders, for building 5 of the world’s top 10 multi-channel companies, and for pioneering many of the most innovative digital business models.

He sold his first software company at age 12, helped launch Apple’s digital and retail business, transformed Macy’s from the world’s largest and most profitable department store retailer into the world’s largest multi-channel retailer, and became a top Silicon Valley CEO building three billion-dollar internet companies from scratch –all by his late 20’s.

Today, he is Chairman and CEO of GVG Capital Group, the premier global private equity firm focused on digital and multi-channel transformation. He has acquired 25 companies, created $30 billion in shareholder value, and advised 100+ market leaders including Ama- zon, Wal-Mart, BMW, Nike, and Cargill. He is a globally sought after thought leader, key- note speaker, media personality and governance expert, and serves on numerous corporate and non-profit boards. He has lived and worked in North America, Europe and Asia, and is a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute.

 

 

Tom Kelley

General Manager, Ideo and Author The Ten Faces of Innovation 

A leading speaker, Tom Kelley addresses scores of business audiences on how to use innovation to transform a business's culture and strategic thinking. Kelley helped manage IDEO with his brother, IDEO founder and chairman David Kelley, as the firm grew from 20 designers to a staff of more than 500 people. During that time, he has been responsible for diverse areas such as business development, marketing, human resources, and operations. Kelley is the author of two best-selling books, The Art of Innovation (2001) and The Ten Faces of Innovation (2005).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Michael Mandelbaum

The Christian A. Herter Professor and Director of American Foreign Policy, The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and Co-author, That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back

Michael Mandelbaum is one of America’s leading authorities on international affairs, known for his ability to explain the meaning and consequences of complicated global developments and trends. In 2010 Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers."

The World Affairs Councils of America named him one of the most influential people in American foreign policy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Linda Rottenberg

Co-founder and CEO, Endeavor Global

Linda Rottenberg is considered one of the world’s most dynamic and respected experts on entrepreneurship, business opportunities in emerging markets, and innovative leadership for the new economy. For years, she has motivated audiences of Fortune 500 managers to think like entrepreneurs and is often sought out for her ability to understand new trends in global business. 

Dubbed “Ms. Davos” in 2011 by Business Insider, Rottenberg served as co-chair of the World Economic Forum (WEF) on the Middle East and currently vice-chairs the WEF Entrepreneurship Council.

As the CEO and Co-founder of Endeavor, Rottenberg pioneered the field of High-Impact Entrepreneurship, the global phenomenon of using high-growth business to transform economies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to inspirational keynotes, Connected Enterprise will host best practices panels that will feature the semifinalists from the 2012 SuperNova Awards, Constellation's award winning analysts, and additional guest speakers to be announced.  To find out more information about Constellation's events or to qualify for the SuperNova Awards go to http://www.constellationrg.com/events/

The New Technology Elite: A Book and Author Review

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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My friend and associate Vinnie Mirchandani has written his second book, The New Technology Elite: How Great Companies Optimize Both Technology Consumption and Production. I asked Vinnie if I could write a review, and he provided a pre-release copy of his book.

I’d gotten bits and pieces of the book from Vinnie’s blog posts and excerpts he released on LinkedIn. But getting a look at the entire book is a whole other experience.

In this post, I'd like not only to review the book--I'd like to also review the author.

A Curious Mind

For regular readers of the Spectator, Vinnie needs no introduction. I’ve been quoting and linking to him for years, even before I met him in person, around 2007. Since then, we’ve become friends. Among industry analysts, Vinnie is someone I consider like-minded.

At the same time, though, Vinnie is something of a strange cat. As a former Gartner analyst and PwC sourcing executive, his background is in enterprise software and vendor management (his blog title, Deal Architect, gives that away).

But over the past several years his focus has shifted to technology innovation more generally. Ever restless, he launched a second blog, New Florence, New Renaissance, I suspect, to help him on his flights of fancy outside the walls of enterprise IT. This has taken him far afield into areas such as nanotechnology, healthcare IT, sustainability, consumer electronics, mobility, and dozens of other corners of technology innovation. From time to time I try to scoop him, by sending him a link to some cool new application of technology, when I spot it. But generally, he’s not only spotted it himself: he’s also written about it. I still try, though.

Vinnie’s interests led to his 2010 book, The New Polymaths: Profiles in Compound-Technology Innovations. There he chronicled dozens of case-studies of organizations that are leveraging a wide range of technologies to solve the world’s grand challenges and improve our lives. Now in his second book, The New Technology Elite: How Great Companies Optimize Both Technology Consumption and Production, he weaves more case-studies into a larger story.

In Vinnie's view, some organizations that are, historically, buyers of information technology, are now turning into technology providers—as they embed new technology into their products and services. Virgin America, 3M, GE, and UPS are examples. At the same time, leading technology providers, such as Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook are becoming examples of best business practices, such as in their data center operations, retailing units, and supply chains. He then presents a framework for understanding what these organizations have in common: their 12 key attributes.

He concludes by examining the outside influences affecting these organizations, including the regulatory environment, their impact on society at large, and the ability (or lack thereof) of sell-side financial analysts to understand it all. Lest one think Vinnie is an unabashed technology enthusiast, these last three chapters strike a counterbalance—it’s not all positive.

A Disorienting Experience

Reading the book leads to one overriding impression: the pace of technology change is unprecedented. Sure, we all know this, generally. But, most of us really don’t.

The danger for anyone in a business leadership position today is to not recognize new entrants arising from outside traditional markets. At the same time, it’s no longer enough to look at best business practices within one’s own industry. Often, it’s players in other markets that are setting the bar higher. This is a problem for today’s market leaders, their customers and suppliers, and the analysts that cover them.

Vinnie’s fast-paced writing style matches his subject matter. Just one example: in Chapter 15, Vinnie discusses how quickly GPS technology evolved from in-auto dashboard systems, to standalone GPS devices, to smartphone apps—in less than a decade. He then launches into a discussion about technologies that are being embedded in home appliances, enabling them to connect to smartphones, tablets, and other devices and how this is leading to Samsung—a consumer electronics company—to take market share away from appliance market leaders, such as Whirlpool and Kenmore. He then jumps to an analysis of how difficult it is to forecast demand for new products such as Amazon’s Kindle, or Nintendo’s Wii.

If you have attention-deficit disorder, Vinnie’s book is for you. He piles on examples one after another, barely giving time to take a breath. For the rest of us, it is disorienting. But it serves a purpose: to give the reader overwhelming evidence of the magnitude and pace of the changes taking place in all industries.

A Positive Example

Although his book is on new technologies, Vinnie’s research style is definitely old school. Today too many so-called industry analysts take the lazy way, getting nearly all of their information from vendor briefings and press releases, writing analysis that regurgitates vendor PR talking points, and rarely speaking directly to customers. As a result, they have no original insight.

Vinnie’s way requires more work, but it’s more rewarding: Do your homework, pick up the phone, talk to those at the center of the action, and learn something new.

Then, take a position. Those who engage with Vinnie on Twitter or in blog comments know that Vinnie doesn’t hedge his views. From time to time, I get into debates with him. Although sometimes I don’t agree with him, I respect that he doesn't arrive at a position lightly, and that his opinions are research-based. He doesn’t shoot from the hip. (At the same time, though, I do see an evolution of his thinking in the final version of the book, as compared to some of his earlier blog posts on the same subjects.)

So, there’s much to learn from The New Technology Elite. Moreover, there’s a lot to learn in imitating the author’s example.

The New Technology Elite can be pre-ordered from Amazon. My copy is already on order. It is now scheduled to ship in March, 2012.

Monday's Musings: Beyond The Three V's of Big Data Viscosity and Virality

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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Revisiting the Three V’s of Big Data

It’s time to revisit that original post from July 4th, 2011 post on the the Three V’s of big data.  Here’s the recap:

Traditionally, big data describes data that’s too large for existing systems to process.  Over the past three years, experts and gurus in the space have added additional characteristics to define big data.   As big data enters the mainstream language, it’s time to revisit the definition (see Figure 1.)

1. Volume. This original characteristic describes the relative size of data to the processing capability. Today a large number may be 10 terabytes.  In 12 months 50 terabytes may constitute big data if we follow Moore’s Law.  Overcoming the volume issue requires technologies that store vast amounts of data in a scalable fashion and provide distributed approaches to querying or finding that data.  Two options exist today: Apache Hadoop based solutions and massively parallel processing databases such as CalPont, EMC GreenPlum, EXASOL, HP Vertica, IBM Netezza,  Kognitio, ParAccel, and Teradata Kickfire
2. Velocity. Velocity describes the frequency at which data is generated, captured, and shared. The growth in sensor data from devices, and web based click stream analysis now create requirements for greater real-time use cases.  The velocity of large data streams power the ability to parse text, detect sentiment, and identify new patterns.  Real-time offers in a world of engagement, require fast matching and immediate feedback loops so promotions align with geo location data, customer purchase history, and current sentiment.  Key technologies that address velocity include streaming processing and complex event processing.  NoSQL databases are used when relational approaches no longer make sense.  In addition, the use of in-memory data bases (IMDB), columnar databases, and key value stores help improve retrieval of pre-calculated data.
3. Variety.  A proliferation of data types from social, machine to machine, and mobile sources add new data types to traditional transactional data.  Data no longer fits into neat, easy to consume structures. New types include content, geo-spatial, hardware data points, location based, log data, machine data, metrics, mobile, physical data points, process, RFID’s, search, sentiment, streaming data, social, text, and web.  The addition of unstructured data such as speech, text, and language increasingly complicate the ability to categorize data.  Some technologies that deal with unstructured data include data mining, text analytics, and noisy text analytics.

Figure 1. The Three V’s of Big Data

Contextual Scenarios Require Two More V’s

In an age where we shift from transactions to engagement and then to experience, the forces of social, mobile, cloud, and unified communications add  two more big data characteristics that should be considered when seeking insights.  These characteristics highlight the importance and complexity required to solve context in big data.

• Viscosity – Viscosity measures the resistance to flow in the volume of data.  This resistance can come from different data sources, friction from integration flow rates, and processing required to turn the data into insight.  Technologies to deal with viscosity include improved streaming, agile integration bus’, and complex event processing.
• Virality – Virality describes how quickly information gets dispersed across people to people (P2P) networks.  Virality measures how quickly data is spread and shared to each unique node.  Time is a determinant factor along with rate of spread.

Figure 2. The Five V’s of Big Data

The Bottom Line: Big Data Provides The Key Element In Moving From Real Time To Right Time

Context represents the next frontier as we move to intelligent systems.  Big data systems and techniques will provide the key infrastructure in delivering context within business processes, across relationships, by geo spatial position, and within a time spectrum.  As engagement systems make the shift to experiential systems, expect context to provide the key filter in improving signal to noise ratios.  Big data provides the context required to move from real time to right time.

Catch Constellation’s Big Data Coverage From VP and Principal Analyst – Neil Raden

Upcoming Report: Analytics in the Organization: Types, Roles and Skills

“Analytics” is a critical component of enterprise architecture capabilities, though most organizations have only recently begun to develop experience using quantitative methods. This report discusses the role of analytics, why it is a difficult topic for many, and what actions you should take. It lays out the various meanings of analytics, provide a framework for aligning various types of analytics with associated roles and skill sets needed.

Blog Post: What Is a Data Scientist (and What Isn’t)

Big Data doesn’t happen by itself. Because the tools and techniques are different from traditional Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence approaches, big Data requires different skills. This role has become known as the Data Scientist. Have a look at analyst Neil Raden’s take on the data scientist.

Watch for the following:

• Here is all my stuff: Select what you like:
• Understanding Data: Mechanical MDM, Ontology, Machine Learing
• Future of IBM’s Watson
• Tainted Truth: How to Read Statistical Research
• noSql: The End of the Relational Database
• Analytical Platforms: Revenge of the Relatioal Database
• Next Wave of BI
• The Data Scientist
• Planning and Performance Management Supercharged with ANalytics
• Hadoop vs. ETL vs. ELT
• CEP: From Product Class to Wider Application
• Real-Time Decision-Making: Where It Fits
• Are Rules-Based Management Systems Dead?
• Skills Checklist for Big Data
• Skills Checklist for Business Analytics
• Interactive Data Visualization
• Let the Gorillas Write the Script: Forget Requirements
• Data Warehouse Rescue: What to Do with your Legacy Warehouse
• BI Rescue: What to Do with your Legacy BI

Your POV

What business problem will require you to start with Big Data?  What are the key outcomes?  Where do you expect to move the needle?   Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Resources

• Monday’s Musings: The Three V’s of Big Data
• Research Report: Rethink Your Next Generation Business Intelligence Strategy
• Monday’s Musings: Balancing The Six S’s In Consumerization Of IT
• Monday’s Musings: A Working Vendor Landscape For Social Business
• Research Report: The Upcoming Battle For The Largest Share Of The Technology Budget Part 1
• Research Report: How The Five Pillars Of Consumer Tech Influence Enterprise Innovation
• Best Practices: Five Simple Rules For Social Business

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 -2012 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!

“New” Genesys Demonstrates Renewed Energy at Analyst Conference

Constellation Orbits
Constellation Research, Inc.

Elizabeth is a well-recognized industry-leading analyst. She was previously Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research.  Prior to Constellation, Elizabeth spent eleven years at Forrester Research as vice president and principal analyst.  She has managed large consulting projects for business and government organizations and provides technical insight and guidance to business and government organizations on their communication issues. Prior to her role as an industry analyst with Communication Initiatives and Forrester Research, Elizabeth held senior management positions with IBM, ROLM and Siemens ICN where she was a senior manager for strategic planning and alliances. Expertise Elizabeth’s expertise includes in-depth knowledge of unified communications,…...

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Genesys unveiled its marketing plans at its industry analyst conference with much enthusiasm, as it transitions to a private company.  Private equity firm Permira recently finalized its acquisition and fortunately for Genesys, its brand remained intact from the 2000 earlier purchase by Alcatel Lucent. Throughout the event Genesys emphasized its commitment to engage with its customers and extend its brand as a premier brand in customer service.  Genesys plans to continue its strong focus as an innovative software provider for contact centers and cross channel interactions, while also providing solutions in adjacent markets.  It rightly considers mobile and social as two major growth opportunities.

For its game plan Genesys plans to leverage its global partners to expand its market reach and build closer relationships with its customers.  Initiatives also include growth across its product lines, continued expansion of cloud services and introduction of additional software solutions. Genesys also plans to assist companies support their non-contact center employees and drive back office worker productivity through intelligent workload distribution (iWD) application. 

Having watched Genesys over the years, I think the management team has a strong grasp on the market and renewed energy to deliver leading-edge solutions for its customers.  To continue its momentum Genesys need to extend its fervor to its business partners and customers.  This means supporting the decisive changes occurring in customer care and cloud services, as well as making the right choices in its expansion plans.  Genesys is off to a good start as a private company and hopefully will get the support needed to grow through product diversification in adjacent markets and strong partnerships.

Poor Quality Audio in a Recorded Microsoft Lync Web Conference

Alumni: Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Dr. Brent Kelly is a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research and President of KelCor, Inc. He focuses on the unique intersection of unified communications, social business, cloud services, video and mobility.  Dr. Kelly provides strategy and counsel to key clients including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, technology policy executives, sell-side firms and technology buyers. Prior to joining Constellation, Dr. Kelly served for 10 years as a partner at Wainhouse Research where he was the primary author of most of the firm’s unified communications reports and forecasts. Dr. Kelly is a regular presenter at Enterprise Connect (formerly VoiceCon), the communications industry trade show where his well…...

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Constellation adds AMP's Innovation Chief, Annalie Killian to Board of Advisors

Monday's Musings: Why Customers And Prospects Expect Clearer Rules About Content Marketing

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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Original Mission Improves Engagement Through Relevancy

Content marketing re-emerges as a hot topic and trend in improving engagement with existing customers and prospects.  Marketers can improve the likelihood of engagement through the creation and sharing of relevant information.  Typical delivery formats include advertorials, emails, branded websites, white papers, webinars, podcasts, and field marketing events.  Content marketers believe that educating a customers with high quality information will improve the likelihood of a sale due to brand association with expertise and thought leadership.  Content marketing is a powerful and effective approach when done well.

Many Marketers Will Abuse The Model As Marketer Objectivity Standards Go By The Way Side

As with all techniques, content marketing has the potential to improve brand relevancy and conversion.  However, when applied to social media, there is greater room for abuse.  Why? The speed of social media and the lack of rules creates a confluence of forces leading many content marketers to quickly blur the limits of objectivity.  How? By placing biased marketing content and associating with a known, objective, and trusted brand.  It’s happening with paid blogs, paid tweets, purchasing Facebook likes, thinly veiled advertorials in trusted magazine brands, and biased white papers disguised as objective research.

Though many will claim that a new generation could care less about objectivity, selling out on standards will create short term gain at a more punishing long term loss of trust.  In today’s social businesses, trust is the new social currency.  Without trust based on our actions, we destroy the basis for engagement and relationships.  In fact the newness and pureness of social media is what draws users to engage.  If marketers deafen the channel with the equivalent of ‘junk mail”, spam, and telemarketing in the guise of content marketing, the recipients will hit another level of social overload and disengagement.

The Bottom Line: Three Simple Disclosure Rules Can Improve Content Marketing In A Social World

As expected, a high level of ethics and self-policing is required to prevent abuse.  To keep content marketing as an effective tool, a few ground rules should be put in place to ensure that trust is not broken:

1. Sponsored content should be clearly stated upfront. Recipients should know that the material is sponsored.  If embedded within the broader content of a trusted source, marketers should call out what’s sponsored.  Placing the words “Advertorial” in small font is misleading.  Not noting that content is sponsored in a webinar is misleading. 
2. Sponsor affiliations should be easily identifiable. The company sponsoring content should prominently display or verbally indicate their name. Hiding the company name until the last page of a document is misleading.  Stating the sponsor name in a rapid voice in a podcast as part of the “small” text is misleading.
3. Paid relationships should be openly noted. Recipients have a right to know the paid relationship status between the marketer and the channel.  This level of disclosure is key to ensuring trust.

Your POV

Agree or disagree with the disclosure rules?  Got one to add to the mix? Are you trying out content marketing?  Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts.  Here’s how we can assist:

• Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
• Developing your social business/ social CRM  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:

• 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
• Best Practices: Applying Social Business Challenges To Social Business Maturity Models
• Research Summary: Software Insider’s Top 25 Posts For 2010
• Best Practices: Five Simple Rules For Social Business
• Research Report: How The Five Pillars Of Consumer Tech Influence Enterprise Innovation
• Research Report: Next Gen B2B and B2C E-Commerce Priorities Reflect Macro Level Trends
• Tuesday’s Tip: Applying The Five Stages Of Adoption Towards SCRM Projects
• Monday’s Musings: Avoiding Failure In Social CRM Projects Requires Ecosystem Coordination
• Research Report: The 18 Use Cases of Social CRM – The New Rules of Relationship Management
• 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 – 2012 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!

Mischaracterization of Multitenancy in an SAP-sponsored Blog Post

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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In an SAP-sponsored post on ZDnet, SAP employee Eric Lai attempts to identify "four big problems" with multitenancy in cloud applications. As I am writing a soon-to-be published research report on cloud ERP, I was interested to hear Eric's take on the subject.

By way of definition, in a software-as-a-service application, the term multitenancy refers to an application architecture where a single instance of the system's application code and database serves multiple customers.

Please read Lai's entire post, as, in the interest of space, I will not quote from it extensively.

Lai gets off to a good start:

Anyone can see how much more efficient [multitenancy] is versus the old server hosting model, where the ratio of server:customer is 1:1. Even using today’s Red Hat-type virtualization, each server can cram fewer users/customers onto itself than a true multitenant service.

Besides their efficiency, multitenant services can scale easily. Both of these mean lower costs for the hosters/software vendors, and, potentially, lower prices for customers.

No argument there. But then he quickly goes downhill. He first draws a distinction between consumers and enterprise customers, which have "much more rigorous requirements." He then presents his four objections to multitenancy.

1. "It's Inflexible."

Here, Lai doesn't really make a flexibility argument as much as a security and privacy argument. He points to privacy laws in some European regions that require data in some circumstances to be stored locally. But this is not an argument against multitenancy--it's an argument in favor of local data centers. A single-tenant system provider will need to build local data centers in the regions it serves, just as a multitenant provider will need to do so.

He then argues that multitenant systems might allow competitors on the same system to see each other's confidential information. I agree that IP theft is an increasing problem, especially with organized gangs of cyber-criminals in Eastern Europe and Asia, who in some cases may have the endorsement of their governments. (See, for example, this report.) But I do not know of a single cases where one tenant on a multitenant system was able to access the data of another customer on the same system. Tellingly, Lai provides not a single reference of such a confidentiality breach.

2. "It's Less Secure."

He now makes the security argument again, from a different angle. Here he argues that a multitenant database gives a careless database administrator, or a malicious hacker, the opportunity to compromise, with one breach, the data of multiple customers rather than just a single customer. He overlooks the fact that if a DBA is careless with one database, he or she would probably be careless with multiple databases. Likewise, if a criminal is able to gain access to a single customer's database in a secured data center, he or she will probably be able to gain access to many or all of the customer databases in the same data center.

3. "It's Less Powerful."

Here the argument is that the capabilities of the platform-as-a-service providers do not match the capabilities of traditional database tools. He points to Salesforce.com's database.com, Google App Engine, and Windows Azure as examples. Here, I find Lai's argument similar to that of Larry Ellison, head of SAP's arch-rival, Oracle.

In response I would point to the testimony of the head of development of one new enterprise SaaS provider. This individual came from a traditional enterprise software development and has now built sophisticated enterprise applications on both NetSuite's platform and on Force.com. He told me recently, "Frank, you wouldn't believe how easy it is to develop on these platforms. Things that used to take us months [at vendor X], we can now do in weeks or days."

Although I am no longer into software development, I am willing to stipulate that the newer cloud platform-as-a-service (PaaS) environments do not have all of the features and functions of traditional on-premise application development environments. (So also, in the old days we couldn't do as much with third-generation procedural languages, such as COBOL, as we could in assembler language. And, we couldn't do as much in 4GLs as we could in third generation.) But a PaaS removes an enormous amount of development work, by abstracting database, middleware, and user-interface functions, allowing the developer to focus on business logic. Furthermore, if (as I believe) PaaS is a disruptive technology, we should expect its capabilities to improve over time, and increasingly able to take on jobs that formerly could only be done by traditional tools.

4. "It May Be More Costly."

Here he doesn't mean the cost to the customer, but the cost to the ISV who wants to move from a traditional on-premises software product to a cloud offering. He is arguing, in essence, that it is cheaper for the vendor to simply host his traditional product as a single-tenant offering (i.e. changing nothing) than to rewrite it as a true multi-tenant SaaS offering.

As an advocate for enterprise IT buyers, I have to ask, will that hosted offering will be less costly for customers? Lai doesn't say. But in his introductory paragraphs (quoted earlier), he indicates that multitenancy offers "lower costs for the hosters/software vendors, and, potentially, lower prices for customers." So he has contradicted himself in his own post.

A Puzzling Position

Finally, what I find strange about this SAP-sponsored blog post is that it seems to contradict SAP's own position relative to Business ByDesign (ByD).

ByD is a full multi-tenant ERP offering for SMBs. It is a well-known fact that SAP's first attempt at ByD employed a single-tenant architecture, similar to that proposed by Lai in his blog post. That iteration was not successful in that, according to SAP spokespeople, they could not get that approach to scale cost-effectively. So, SAP took an extra two years or so and rewrote ByD as a completely multi-tenant application. The system is rolling out in multiple geographies worldwide, in local data centers where required, presumably with security and privacy measures commensurate with SAP's high standards for customers. The system is cost-competitive with other SaaS ERP offerings and has grown quickly to over 1,000 customers at the end of 2011.

SAP now has such confidence in its ByD platform that it has made it the platform for developing its line-of-business applications, such as Sales OnDemand and Travel OnDemand, for its large enterprise customers--presumably the ones with the most demanding security and privacy requirements.

Now, at the top of the post, ZDnet does make the disclaimer, "Eric's views are his alone and do not necessarily represent those of SAP." Still, as I mentioned, I find it puzzling that Lai's views appear to be closer to Larry Ellison's than those of his employer.

I am waiting for SAP's rebuttal to its own sponsored post.

Update: Eric Lai responds in the comments below.
Update, Feb.23: Please read the more detailed response on SDN by Sybase's Eric Farrar.

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