This list celebrates changemakers creating meaningful impact through leadership, innovation, fresh perspectives, transformative mindsets, and lessons that resonate far beyond the workplace.
Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research
About Liz Miller:
Liz Miller is Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation, focused on the org-wide team sport known as customer experience. While covering CX as an enterprise strategy, Miller spends time zeroing in on the functional demands of Marketing and Service and the evolving role of the Chief Marketing Officer, the rise of the Chief Experience Officer, the evolution of customer engagement, and the rising requirement for a new security posture that accounts for the threat to brand trust in this age of AI. With over 30 years of marketing experience, Miller offers strategic guidance on the leadership, business transformation, and technology requirements to deliver on today’s CX strategies. She has worked with global marketing organizations to transform everything from…...
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…...
📽 The latest episode of ConstellationTV just dropped! Here's what episode 58 includes...
00:00: Introduction with co-hosts Liz Miller and Holer Mueller
00:37: #tech news, including SAP's Sapphire conference & Meta's recent fines around #data regulation.
11:20: Liz interviews Rob Walker, VP of Decisioning and Analytics for Pegasystems about #ai's role in #sales, service, and growth. Rob defines the autonomous enterprise, and how #cxos can aim for it.
11:35: Holger concludes with event coverage of IBM's Quantum Partner Forum in Paris and the advances #ibm is making around #quantum. 27:20: Watch to the end for ConstellationTV bloopers... this time outlining how an industry analyst Barbie would be outfitted!
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…...
Don't miss Day 2 updates from Holger Mueller of #ibm's Quantum Partner Forum in Paris.
Today, Holger interviews Sean Dudley, Chief Research Information Officer & Associate VP of Arizona State University. Sean shares the #quantum initiatives happening at #ASU, namely the Quantum Collaborative, which explores how to be effective with quantum in #research.
IBM was the original partner for ASU's core quantum work, including #quantumcomputing and algorithm development. IBM's mature program gives ASU access to impressive systems and a far-reaching partner network, as well as internal support and materials.
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…...
Constellation analyst Holger Mueller gives key takeaways from day 3 of #IBM's #quantum Partner Innovation Forum in Paris, including 2023 announcements, making quantum #skills training accessible & bringing quantum into different fields, such as #healthcare.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
Generative AI is a topic du jour among companies reporting #earnings, launching #products and holding court with customers.
Here are a few themes that seem to be popping up.
1. We've been doing this for ages and #generativeai is just one more tool. You'll hear this from technology vendors often trying to sell you stuff. The general idea is that these companies are #ai savvy and just layering in a new engine. In some cases, tech vendors are accurate.
Sometimes, vendors are just generative AI washing. How can you tell? If there's a launch in late 2023 or even 2024 chances are vendors were caught flat-footed.
The buy side will also have some version of generative AI washing. 2. Generative AI looks great, but we need more #transparency before adding our #data. This theme has emerged frequently among buy-side #ceos.
For instance, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan sees the promise, but the bank already has AI and conversational bots trained on just its data. His exact quote: https://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/co...
"We have to understand how the decisions are made, and, frankly, follow the laws and rules and regulations on lending."
3. We can save on headcount. OK no CEO says this directly, but sure do hint about it. CEOs say things like they can hold headcount flat, become more productive, do less with more, and other subtle ways to say there's no hiring boom ahead.
4. My #customer data is the differentiator. CEOs are looking to take base models and then tune them with their #enterprise data. What remains to be seen is what companies actually have the data to properly tune the base model.
Here's a quote from Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky: https://news.airbnb.com/wp-content/up... "Instead of asking you questions like where are you going and when are you going, I want us to build a robust profile about you, learn more about you and ask you 2 bigger and more fundamental questions: who are you? And what do you want? Think of us building the ultimate AI concierge that could understand you."
5. Holy @#$#@$#! OK, CEOs aren't dropping the F-bomb yet. But there will be a bevy of companies that don't have their data game down, lack the AI know-how, and don't have the stack and architecture that can simply integrate new models.
Insurance company Lemonade said it has already added #chatgpt to its AI stack because has been using models to predict losses and risk down to the house since inception. Lemonade co-CEO Shai Wininger, said: https://twitter.com/shai_wininger/photo
"This #technology will help us better anticipate customer needs, respond to more claims instantly, and ultimately provide better coverage at lower costs," he said. "For our competitors, though, adapting to this change will not be easy. A traditional insurance company depends on hundreds of disparate software tools to run its business. many of which are outdated legacy systems built decades ago by third-party vendors."
Rest assured a lot of companies aren't in the same camp.
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…...
Get the latest interview with Adobe's Ely Greenfield and Constellation Research founder R "Ray" Wang on Adobe Firefly, the Generative AI release from Adobe launched at Adobe Summit on March 21, 2023.
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…...
Co-hosts R "Ray" Wang, founder of Constellation Research and Teresa Barreira, CMO of Publicis Sapient discuss the impact of #generativeai on people and businesses, and hear how the following industry leaders are using technology to empower their people:
00:00 - Introduction
02:50 - Sheldon Monteiro, EVP & Chief Product Officer of Publicis Sapient
17:14 - Nikhil Krishnan, CTO of Product, C3 AI
32:00 - Ely Greenfield, CTO of #adobe
🗓? Keep an eye out for episode 2 of Impact TV, coming down the pipeline in the coming weeks! https://lnkd.in/gKeg-7_C
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…...
IBM invited its partners for three days to the IBM Innovation Lab in Paris, to share progress in quantum as well as provide partners the chance to educate each other, share the progress and state of their projects as well as ample network opportunities.
Here are my four key takeaways from the event:
IBM makes good progress on the innovation of its platform / hardware.
IBM’s VP of Quantum Jay Gambetta was in Paris and re-confirmed that IBM is on track with its goal of reaching 4000+ qubits by 2025, based on the IBM Quantum System Two. For now, the Osprey chip is available with its 433 qubits, later this year Condor (1121 qubits) is slated to become available. At Think 2023 IBM also launched new offerings for quantum, with the IBM Quantum Safe technology getting the most attention.
Figure 1 – The IBM Quantum Development Roadmap
Source: IBM
Most importantly, partners see progress and are confident that IBM is the right partner to provide the underlying hardware platform for their quantum computing projects.
Figure 2 – Jay Gambetta in Paris, May 15th, 2023
Source: Constellation Research
A wide variety of use cases are happening today.
IBM sees five large use cases where quantum is being implemented today, IBM’s Jamie Garcia walked us through the five use cases:
Aerospace and automotive. Prominent use cases here are customer experience (CX), materials design, structural design and optimization of processes like in manufacturing.
Financial Services. Thepopular use cases are evidently fraud detection, pricing of derivatives and options, portfolio optimization and risk analysis.
Hight Tech. IBM sees seismic imaging, catalysts, supply chain planning and manufacturing scheduling as key quantum use cases.
Energy, environment, and utilities. Portfolio optimization, grid optimization, risk analysis and options pricing as well as battery design are key use cases for quantum in these verticals.
Healthcare and life sciences. IBM sees the prediction of disease risk, drug discovery and design as well as protein folding predictions as the most prominent uses cases in these industries.
Figure 3 – Jamie Garcia presenting in Paris, May 16th, 2023.
Source: Constellation Research
Quantum education remains challenging but is making progress.
Education on what quantum computing is, and what its benefits are in academia, government and enterprise is a major challenge. More than one time I heard from attendees referring to the session and saying that they need to explain what quantum is over and over. The challenge is the novelty of quantum and that requires education of executives but also requires education of the workforce. As of today, most attendees held degrees in physics, something not surprising given the nature of quantum. But that needs to change, and other disciplines will have to play a role here. It was also good to see the first quantum education courses coming into place in Canada. The challenge is real and vital for the industry, as for quantum to grow it needs skilled people who can use, explain, and advance quantum technology.
Figure 4 – Rafa-Martin Cuevas presenting in Paris May 17th, 2023.
Source: Constellation
The partner network approach is delivering.
With over 100+ attendees across the whole partner ecosystem – from clients, prospects, services partners, academic partners, and IBM, it was good to see how the network is delivering value for the attendees. On such an innovative and fast pacing technology like quantum, it is key to bring together users, implementors and makers, so they can align on what is feasible and what needs to be done. The learning across the use cases is substantial, even if they come from very different vertical use cases. This is critical at the relatively early phase quantum is still in its adoption across enterprises, governments, and academia. More than a few times attendees said they learned from other industry use cases, partners, enterprises in other countries and regions, and even from academia. It is good for IBM to bring it all together as synergistic learning is substantial. As quantum grows, this approach may not be feasible anymore but for now and the next years to come this is the right approach and IBM deserves kudos for inviting and hosting the forum. With just around 100 attendees, the event is small-scale enough for a lot of networking to happen, as anyone who wants to speak to another attendee has the chance to do so. Additionally, a unique atmosphere is created at an event where almost every attendee is a moderator or panelist, as it breaks the attendee vs presenter barrier effectively – encouraging networking and information exchange on a peer-to-peer basis.
Also checkout the multimedia deliverables, the Wakelet of the event here, the 1Slide summary here and the event video below (and don't miss the Day #1 and Day #2 (with a bonus on how Arizona State is using quantum) summaries here and here).
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
“AI is a data problem and security is a data problem and has an interesting role to play in security, both for its ability to help deliver superior security outcomes in near real-time and unfortunately the potential threat associated with AI being used to generate attacks. “
Arora added that there's "significant opportunity" to embed generative AI into Palo Alto Networks' security platform, products and workflows. These opportunities include:
Improving detection and prevention efficacy by advancing the company's AI and machine learning models in products today.
Providing more accessible ways to enable customers to engage and comprehend data sets and telemetry. Generative AI can also provide a more natural-language driven interface to products.
Bolster productivity throughout the Palo Alto Networks organization and save money on support costs, headcount and other costs that add up at scale. On CNBC, Arora noted that his company used generative AI to create marketing narratives in four hours compared to two weeks.
"We intend to deploy proprietary Palo Alto Networks security LLM in the coming year and are actively pursuing multiple efforts to realize these three outcomes," said Arora.
Nevertheless, Palo Alto Networks executives acknowledge that generative AI is also a security risk. Arora said that Lee Klarich, Chief Product Officer and team, have been researching ways that generative AI can more efficiently produce malware. "There's a lot of work we're doing as well to make sure we are able to protect our customers against any such activity that is conducted using generative AI," said Arora.
Overall, Arora was upbeat about generative AI's impact on security and its business. Generative AI will likely favor the companies that have strong data sets. "I think it favors the people who have a lot of data already as part of their strategy, and they have built a business on the back of a data-led strategy," said Arora. "It favors companies that have a tremendous amount of data."
Palo Alto Networks delivered a strong third quarter with net income of $107.8 million, or 31 cents a share, non-GAAP earnings of $1.10 a share, and revenue of $1.72 billion, up 24% from a year ago. For the fourth quarter, Palo Alto Networks projected revenue between $1.94 billion and $1.97 billion with non-GAAP earnings of $1.26 a share to $1.30 a share. For fiscal 2023, Palo Alto Networks is expecting revenue of $6.88 billion to $6.91 billion.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
Learning to fire is way more important than hiring, according to Uri Levine, a two-time unicorn builder with Waze & Moovit and author of "Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution."
Speaking on the latest edition of DisrupTV, Levine outlined how it's critical for entrepreneurs to bring the right people into an organization. "Firing is more important. Hiring is the easy decision, and you have to learn how to make hard decisions," said Levine.
When Levine talked to entrepreneurs about why teams weren't performing, he would hear communication, performance, and ego management issues. "When I asked, 'when did you know the team was not right, all of them said within the first month," explained Levine. "So, they knew within the first month that the team was not right and didn't do anything. The problem is that you weren't making the hard decision. If you're not making those decisions two things happen. No. 1 is you're stuck with people that shouldn't be there. The other is even worse in that the top performing people leave because they don't want to be in an organization that is unable to make the hard decisions."
Levine added that if a startup has two choices of hiring someone awesome or firing an underperformer it's more important to fire.
"If you hire a new person mark your calendars for 30 days down the road and ask yourself one question: 'Knowing what I know today would I hire this person?' If the answer is no, then fire them immediately because they're not going to be successful. If the answer is yes, tell that person they are exceeding your expectations and give them more options or equity."
Other takeaways from Levine:
Entrepreneurship is about value creation. Levine said when he had an idea as a child, his dad would always ask why. The question was meant to focus Levine on solving a problem.
Startups are about the roller coaster. "This journey is going to be very challenging. This is going to be a long roller coaster of failures and each of them is important," said Levine. "If you tell me all the businesses in the world have ups and downs I'd agree, but the frequency of those are way higher when you're building startups."
Failures matter. Given the entrepreneurship journey and frequent failures it's critical you learn from them. "It's a journey of failures so we try one thing and then another," he said. "If you're afraid to fail you already failed. You need to teach your kids to fail."
Keep going. The sooner an entrepreneur knows it's a journey of failures, she has to fail fast. "When you fail fast you still have plenty of time to make another attempt and try different things until you find one thing that does work. If you have more attempts than anyone else you are way more likely to be successful," said Levine.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
OpenAI President and Co-Founder Greg Brockman said industry specific use cases as well as developers adding on top of models will drive more value from generative AI.
Brockman, speaking at Microsoft Build, said "the technology (ChatGPT, generative AI) is getting better and better, but the value is going into specific domains and understand how they work there." Brockman referenced the legal industry as one area where developers can add a lot of value.
"There's a huge amount of value that can be added," said Brockman.
While Microsoft launched a series of Copilots by product line--Dynamics 365, Windows, Bing, Power Platform etc.--the company urged developers to leverage plug-ins, open source and foundational models to focus on solving problems. According to Mary Jo Foley, there are 20 customers currently in the M365 Copilot Early Access program.
Scott said the generative AI model is not the product and developers need to focus on creating good products that address problems.
"It is up to you all to build great experiences," said Scott. He told developers to focus on what problem the Copilot to address. For instance, UX flows are less important since there's natural language processing. The focus is really figuring out how to keep the Copilot on point.
To date, generative AI has been aimed mostly at functions and horizontal productivity tasks. Think social media posts for Scott’s podcast. Scott noted he wasn’t good at social media posting so he built a Copilot to help. Here’s how it broke down.
Going forward, Brockman's legal use case is just the beginning. Once vendors launch a series of generative AI tools and product integrations, the next step will be focused on industries such as CPG, manufacturing, transportation and health care to name a few. These industry use cases will likely be deployed as software vendors, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud all duel.
