The Future of Advertising and Commerce rests with XR powered Immersive Experiences

Raffaella Camera

XR (AR/VR) Strategist
The WXR Venture Fund, Accenture XR

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As it’s always been the case with emerging technologies, consumers adopt them in small increments. Aside from rare groundbreaking new products like the iPhone, consumers are looking for simple, small improvements to digital solutions and devices that they are already familiar with. Because for the average consumer, the barrier to experience – or unfamiliarity with a new technology - is more costly and disruptive than its potential benefit.

At the closing of 2019, the common belief was that new digital tools and new immersive technologies like AR and VR, visual search, or AI-powered virtual assistants were going to be adopted slowly in the consumer sector. Starting to really get traction in 2023, with the projected mass launch of multiple types of AR glasses and proliferation of 5G. But the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly accelerated consumers’ need to interact with one another, with products, with information and with entertainment - remotely, in a more immersive way.

Anywhere/Anytime Redefines Omnichannel as Consumers’ Behavioral Changes are Here to Stay

Consumers behaviors have forcefully and abruptly changed and will keep modifying future interactions between brands and consumers. Consumers are often unable or unwilling to go to a store, more cautious about germs, crowds and travel. They are rediscovering and adapting to a life lived much more at home. So product interaction, brand interaction, impulse buys have to be delivered anywhere, anytime. Expanding the definition of omnichannel to fully include immersive technologies like AR and VR, delivered seamlessly through AI-powered applications. They need to try-on, try-out or at least feel like they can interact with products virtually – from make-up, to shoes, to cars, to clothing, to furniture. They need to step into a brand’s world and get a sense for what it represents without walking into a perfectly set up flagship store. Brands have also clearly identified their needs.

Virtual music, sports and gaming are showing incredible user growth. They are blending with commerce and are the most promising platforms to develop experiential shopping. Travis Scott’s concert on Fortnite – attended by 12 million people – grossed him $20 million, in large part due to the in-event sale of merchandise.

A recent Accenture study points out that 47% of consumers say that immersive tech makes them feel connected with products and that they would pay extra for a product if they could customize it or personalize. Their motivations for trying out immersive technologies when shopping online include:

• 52% - viewing products without visiting the store
• 42% - assessing product features and capabilities
• 42% - experiencing products before purchasing
• 39% - increasing confidence in purchasing decision
• 29% - changing, customizing or personalizing products

Cross-Platform Solutions Address Gap in Current Tech Capabilities

Unexpectedly, the demand has surpassed the offer. Since XR devices, and the infrastructure needed to deliver those experiences are still not main-stream, the ecosystem is rushing towards the production of cross-platform solutions in learning, communication, shopping, gaming. The purist view of XR gives way to the quick integration of AR/VR in web and mobile, with solutions no longer developed to run only on fully immersive devices – like the Quest or Hololens. And consumers are responding very well, being more than willing to give up a deeper level of immersion in exchange for using a more familiar and accessible device. So AR and VR, first thought of as separate tools or disciplines, are merging with more traditional digital solutions and are becoming common place. We now expect AR elements and functionality in communication tools through filters or lenses, in any gaming app, when shopping for furniture (Wayfair), when trying on make-up or hair colors (11 beauty brands offering AR try-on), when trying on sneakers of any kind (Gucci). We expect to purchase from an AR pop-up store while communicating with friends on Snapchat (American Eagle). Similarly, we expect web-based VR functionality when browsing through a store (Dior), watching a virtual concert (Travis Scott on Fortnite), or virtually participating to a fashion show (Balenciaga).

Gaming and Social Media Platforms Will Compete with Pure Commerce Platforms

A new competitive landscape and digital partner ecosystem is emerging. Large experience-led consumer platforms like Snapchat, Facebook, Epic, Niantic, Apple, Steam seem to be perfectly positioned to create the future of digital consumer interaction, expanding from their leadership in gaming, entertainment and communication. These platforms can rely on:

• Their large user base
• The social interactions and the influencers
• The integration of AR/VR elements
• Their proprietary game engines or AR development tools
• The hardware (most of them)
• A pre-established integration with eCommerce and payment systems
• A library of 3D assets, created or crowd-sourced
• The partnerships with infrastructure players for heavy content distribution
• An established developer ecosystem
• Access to users’ behavioral data

The Bottom Line – What does this mean for brands and XR ecosystem players?

The real transformative future of commerce and advertising is not just based on adding AI enabled AR/VR functionality to an old and tried list of products. But in truly bringing shopping and ads inside any experience that a user might be immersed in. Virtual music events, virtual sport events and gaming in particular are ripe to be the feeding ground for the development of these new commerce interactive solutions and experiences.

To start, brands need to create a 3D library of their unique assets – products, stores, manuals, but also manufacturing facilities and machinery. Then use and distribute the assets internally – for product design, training, digital catalogs – as well as externally for ads and commerce on entertainment, sport or social media immersive properties. Easy-to-use tools to create 3D objects are becoming common place. For example, Unity is integrating RestAR – an AI-based 3D capture tool – in Unity Forma. Obsess helps recreate high quality, shoppable interactive 360 stores. Amazon Made For You helps shoppers create a 3D virtual body double to purchase made-to-measure clothing. Snap is partnering with Unity to bring its Snap Kit tools to game developers and increase reach of in-game ads

Experience-led social media and gaming platforms need to capitalize on their audience and events – like virtual concerts, virtual sports, gaming and influencers – to grab part of the ever-growing digital commerce market. They need to integrate new functionality on top of their gaming and communication engines to provide seamless in-event commerce and advertising. And create a new paradigm for shopping and advertising, where users’ full immersion in an experience leads to themed, impulse purchases.

Marketing Transformation Matrix Commerce Next-Generation Customer Experience

Transforming Field Service When the “Field” Has Changed

Unless your field workforce is composed of goats, these days you’re contending with a mix of workplace safety guidelines, employee health priorities, and customer preferences that complicate how, where, and whom you can dispatch. At the same time, the massive shift to digital commerce and remote or touchless interactions has forever altered the expectations of customers. We all want interactions that are informed, effective, and immediate—and we want them to be equally good in our personal and our professional lives.

If nothing else, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of customer service—and especially field service—in keeping important aspects of our lives up and running. Everything from cold chain logistics, hospital equipment, and manufacturing systems to utilities, home appliances, and consumer electronics has become even more critical as many of us find ourselves living our whole lives from home. Where and how field service is being delivered is changing rapidly, and not just in the short term. With a “field” that is increasingly—but certainly not exclusively—virtual, companies need new tools and different ways of thinking about how to service products and assets wherever they might be.

Expertise Is Going Virtual Too

Part of that change centers on the workforce of technicians, at all skill levels, and how to deploy them. Take the example of electric utilities. They’ve faced the simultaneous challenge of a big drop in revenues and new difficulties ensuring normal operations. As industrial production dropped and office workers stayed home, commercial demand for electricity declined. Distressed business and residential customers stopped paying their bills. To compound the problem, utilities tend to have a high proportion of older workers, especially among specialists and skilled technicians—essential workers they can ill afford to put at risk. For those working directly in power plants, that has meant sequestering for weeks at a time. But that still hasn't addressed the need for servicing equipment in the field. Or the increasing pressure to do so more cost-effectively.

Tools to help teams communicate and collaborate remotely are filling the breach. Secure mobile apps designed specifically for field service existed before the pandemic, but they’ve proven invaluable during it. These apps push important messages—say localized updates on travel restrictions or an urgent service call that’s just come in—to everyone who needs to know. They make it easy for field technicians to reach other colleagues with additional expertise. Technicians can follow a workflow, search for relevant information, or initiate a video call with another expert quickly and easily. Although they operate without the need for specialist devices, these mobile apps provide augmented reality through annotation capabilities in live video.

Fixing what may seem like a short-term problem is leading to substantial improvements in both customer experience and productivity. The ability to access expertise beyond just that of the technician on site increases the first-time fix rate and improves time to resolution—both key factors influencing customer satisfaction. Expert technicians who may be highly vulnerable to COVID-19 can work remotely, supporting on more callouts than they could handle in person over the same elapsed time. Calling on other experts facilitates knowledge transfer among technicians and helps new hires get up to speed more quickly.

The Next Step: Putting Customers in Charge

Customers themselves have begun to play an even more critical role in this new approach to field service. The latest innovation in field service mobile apps extends to putting them directly into the hands of customers, particularly business customers. As with mobile apps designed for technicians, they allow customers to directly access service history, product manuals, guidelines, and videos. They incorporate the ability to request and schedule service callouts as well as to get real-time notifications and communicate directly with technicians. More importantly, these mobile apps also give customers the same augmented reality capabilities to work directly with remote experts through video, deferring or limiting the need for an on-site technician.

Although it’s early days for customers using field service mobile apps directly, the results so far are promising. Giving customers more power to manage their assets, and increasing the likelihood of preventing or resolving problems, gives them greater control. In time-sensitive operations where the stakes are high, that has huge potential to improve outcomes for customers.

Empowering customers to be more hands-on in managing their assets also helps to close a critical part of the feedback loop for manufacturers. Customers are best placed to validate information about assets in the field. Validating and updating that data increases the odds of getting the right fix the first time and improving preventive maintenance. It also ensures that customers have better visibility into their equipment and are more educated users.

Technology has changed the way we make purchases—and the way we maintain those tangible assets. There will always be a need for field technicians, even as the “field” becomes an increasingly virtual one. And that means we can leave the weeding to the goats.

Future of Work Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer

I Sprained My Ankle and Other Tales of Security in an Insecure World

Liz Miller

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…...

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Three weeks ago, I stepped on a rock in the parking lot and sprained my ankle. As I examined the aftermath of my tumble, I decided it must be my shoe’s fault so I went online for a new pair of shoes. Without any plausible explanation about WHY I neither saw the rock nor avoided the rock, the only thing my brain could land on was a need for another pair of shoes to avoid slipping and twisting on a rock the next time it happened.

Last week, on the road to recovery, I went to go put my new shoes on. Buried deep inside one of my fancy new Asics was a fist full of rocks and the broken prong of a fork. I jammed my recovering foot in, prong got me, embedded into my toe thru my sock. My daughter had decided that my new shoes needed some extra “fairy magic” to make sure I wouldn’t hurt my ankle again. Gotta throw everything at a problem, right?

Neither the new shoes nor the magic fairy treasure could stop an injury. The best I could hope for was having all the supplies and skills to bring on a speedy recovery and maybe learn a couple of lessons.

Why tell you this?

It is literally the only way I can think to explain the issue facing security professionals today. Imagine that your CISO is literally racing through the parking lot on her way to solving a completely unrelated problems. Rock > slip > sprain > recover…only to jam her foot into a shoe and be injured by another completely unrelated incident. The goal is to have the right tools BEFORE you get to the parking lot and even more tools and the right talent to recover AFTER you fall...because you ARE going to fall.

It isn’t unreasonable to say security teams are playing the most exhausting game of multi-dimensional whack-a-mole where at least four stacked game boards are popping digital moles at the same time and you only get 1 mallet. From the attacks themselves to the strategies of protection to the constant demand to justify spend, the pace is exhausting and the cracks created by the strain of responsibility is starting to show.

Let’s just look at SOME of the issues and numbers:

• Cybersecurity budgets have grown, on average, from $6 million to $31 million annually. (Ponemon Institute) So yeah…spending is WAY up.
• Attacks are accelerating and growing in double digits. 90% of executives surveyed by security vendor Tanium said they experienced and increase in attacks due to the pandemic. 93% said they had to delay key security projects to prioritize work-from-home security measures.
• The SOC (security operations center) is a key point of investment as some 70%+ executives say it is essential. (Ponemon Institute)
• The teams running the SOC are exhausted. 67% of SOC team members found information overload is a massive problem. 78% of team members say working in the SOC is “very painful” and 75% say the increased workload is the #1 reason for burn out. This pressure has led 60% of team members to actively consider changing careers…that’s right…LEAVING security all together!
• Then there is the turf war between IT and security. 70% of SOC team members told the Ponemon Institute that they lack visibility into IT infrastructure. 64% admit that the silos between IT and the SOC are adding to the pain of addressing key security issues.

The sobering reality is that for every positive move we make, the adversaries are moving faster and with more intention. And today, every move requires security professionals to carry more baggage along with them. The recent revelation of the massive and exceedingly dangerous SolarWinds hack is a testament to that.

To the non-security and even non-IT leader, this attack has started to be boiled down to “Who didn’t pay enough attention?” This was an intrusion that happened 8 months ago and went unnoticed by some 18,000 companies that accessed a corrupted Orion update. “Who didn’t see it? Who was on watch when it happened? Who should get sued?” are all comments and questions I’ve seen on message boards, social and in conversations.

The truth is we ALL missed it because it was purpose-built to be missed. It was architected and deployed by a well-oiled, well-funded, sophisticated machine that lay in wait, carefully executing a supply-chain attack with precision and intention…and then they just watched. Nation-state attacks of this magnitude are planned…they are cultivated. This isn’t some faceless dude wearing a hoodie in his mom’s basement.

If we want to figure out who to blame…I’d suggest we ALL start by picking up a mirror. Yes, that face you see could share the blame in how we got to this. Bad actors count on all of “us” to brush off any accountability as part of their fog of war. We don’t consider the impact of clicking on that link to that email about a PayPal account…we just “call IT” and they can “handle it.” We don’t tell anyone and we just go change our passwords to call it a day. We don’t even know we fell for a phishing scam. We are to blame for not understanding that our own fallibility is a key ingredient to the hacks and attacks out there.

Adversaries aren’t getting slower, less intelligent, or less sophisticated. Now that SolarWinds is part of our pop-culture lexicon of the moment, we have an opportunity to STOP being part of the problem and START being part of the solution.

• First and foremost, stop looking around for someone to BLAME. Blame culture in security gets us nowhere FAST. Hold people accountable…but blame tends to be a destination and rarely gets us to solutions.
   
• Second, ask better questions. The reality is that the complexity of digital transformation is being dumped onto security teams like a nasty sweating onion that is just stinking up the joint. We must be allies to security…something I have encouraged CMOs to do more publicly and more purposefully. For me it boils down to two questions every C-Suite leader should be asking their CISO colleague right now:
  • Ask what you do to inadvertently create vulnerabilities and enrage the security team.
  • Ask what you can do to help.
• Third, pick a side and grab a shovel. The sides are simple: left of bang and right of bang. Left of bang is the team working their butts off to prevent incidents from happening. Right of bang is the team working their butts off to address, mitigate and remediate once something DOES happen. We need both sides…and we need more people holding shovels on both sides to be part of a holistic solution. Regardless of function, we are all part of the value chain here. We need to understand what our role is based on which side of bang we find ourselves. Take part in a attack simulation to best understand what happens AND what could be and will be asked of you. Design think the whole thing and see what it would be like in other shoes. To even begin to understand the speed, scale and scope an attack can have, you need to sit in the belly of that beast. Think of it as the most twisted corporate executive retreat to someplace like IBM's X-Force cyber range. 

I know that for my security peers and IT allies, this advice might seem ridiculous. But here is the hard, harsh truth…our security posture is weakening while we play corporate don’t touch my button. Security needs allies. Our businesses are at risk. Full stop. With every engagement, sale and transaction, we are making a promise to our customers, rooted in trust…breaking that promise puts our business at risk. And believe me…a security incident is the fastest way to break a promise and loose trust forever.

Security needs allies. Pick a team. Play hard. Play to win.

New C-Suite Marketing Transformation Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Chief Data Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Privacy Officer

News Analysis: Celonis Launches Execution Management System

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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Eliminating System Complexity Is Celonis’ Number One Priority

On October 14th, 2020, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Alexander Rinke, kicked off its Ecosystem Summit and showcased its new Execution Management System (EMS).  The goal is to improve an enterprise’s execution capacity by simplifying complex processes.  Celonis defines execution capacity as the ability to get things done over the time + cost + effort (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Celonis Defines Execution CapacitySource: Celonis

Celonis uses its process mining core to deliver the Celonis EMS Platform.  The Bavarian software startup is headquartered in Munich, Germany and New York City, USA with 15 offices worldwide.

The Celonis Execution Management System

The Celonis Execution Management System (EMS) brings together a number of applications, instruments, development studios, tools and platform approaches to unlock execution capacity.  Sitting on top of business processes and systems, the heart of the solution is the process mining core that identifies and measures capacity barriers.  Capacity is unlocked by a methodic approach to applying best practices, actions, and automation.  The new additions and updates from the fall launch of EMS include:

• Celonis Execution Applications.  These operational applications include popular apps such as Celonis Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, and Opportunity Management.
• Celonis Execution Instruments. What was formerly known as process mining analytics applications, can be used to measure current execution capacity and identify execution gaps.  Over 170 instruments have been developed to date.
• Celonis Studio.  Ecosystem partners and customers use the studio to build new instruments and applications.  
• Celonis EMS Store.  New solutions can be ecosystem partners can be found in the store

Figure 2. Inside The Celonis EMS Platform

Source: Celonis

Proof Is In The Pudding

At the Ecosystem Summit, Celonis showcased a number of use cases where EMS improved operations.  For example, AVNET reduced throughput times order management by 50% from order to ship.  Dell was able to move to a leaner supply chain with 8 days of inventory versus an industry average of 40 days.  Ascend improved on time delivery by 27% while simultaneously increasing automation by 43% in just four months.  L’Oreal was able to grow on-time touchless orders by 800%, resulting in greater revenue and capacity to ship more products using existing infrastructure.  Comcast improved asset utilization and captured $85 million in improvements.

Overall, this ability to improve execution capacity has created more capacity with existing infrastructure.  In supply chains, the average on-time delivery rate is 43%, yet Celonis customers using EMS can hit a 95% target.  Celonis clams that the average touchless invoice rate is only 27% inside companies while Celonis best-in-class customers are exceeding 90% adoption for finance and administration use cases.  In customer experience, most companies average a 32 net promoter score (NPS), yet Celonis best-in-class customers appear to double scores at an average of 70 NPS.

Celonis customers include venerable brands such as ABB, AstraZeneca, Bosch, Coca Cola, Citibank, Dell, GSK, John Deere, L’Oreal, Siemens, Uber, Vodafone and Whirlpool (see Figure 3)

Figure 3. Celonis Customers Include Global Leaders In Every Industry

Source: Celonis

Bottom Line: The Race To Business Graphs Is Here, Automation and AI are The Facilitators To Decision Velocity.

 The convergence of workflow, process mining, robotic process automation, integration services, microservices, and low-code/no-code platforms drive the future of software.  This next battle in enterprise software will be the creation of business graphs.  Like social graphs which use social networks to provide signal intelligence and digital feedback loops to accumulate massive amounts of data that is mined by AI, business graphs will accomplish the same for enterprises. 

In the case of the enterprise, the relationships among users, documents, business processes, and contextual data will power the signal intelligence and digital feedback loops.  As the majority of data is collected by digital feedback loops via automated and ambient collection, these systems can improve their precision decision capabilities.  Automation and AI are the tools that bring scale to creating decision velocity.

Data to Decisions Future of Work Marketing Transformation Matrix Commerce Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI Robotics AI Analytics Automation B2B B2C CX EX Employee Experience HR HCM business Marketing Metaverse developer SaaS PaaS IaaS Supply Chain Quantum Computing Growth Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology eCommerce Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP Leadership finance Social Healthcare VR CCaaS UCaaS Customer Service Content Management Collaboration M&A Enterprise Service Chief Analytics Officer Chief Customer Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief People Officer Chief Privacy Officer Chief Procurement Officer Chief Revenue Officer Chief Supply Chain Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Operating Officer Chief AI Officer Chief Product Officer Chief Experience Officer

The Gig Economy Comes to Customer Service

Headlines these days are rife with news about the gig economy, whether debates on regulation, discussions about economic impact, or stock predictions. Occasionally there’s even an insightful analysis about the many different kinds of gigs and of gig workers. But the gig economy has so far had very little to do with the business of delivering customer experience. Which is why I’ve been so intrigued by Simplr.

A subsidiary of privately held insurance company Asurion, Simplr began operations in 2017 and seems to have hit its stride in 2020. From its origins tackling Asurion’s own customer service needs, the team behind Simplr saw an opportunity. Why not match variable volumes in customer service and information requests with a pool of well-educated experts seeking flexible work they can do from home?

Simplr’s agents—known as experts—don’t answer phone calls but do handle a range of written interactions. They aren’t dedicated to specific clients or product lines. That means they may be responding to tickets from multiple companies in a single session. It also ensures their time is used as efficiently as possible based on current levels of demand. Since most customer service teams are aligned to specific channels anyway, this also makes it easy for Simplr’s clients to incorporate it into their overall staffing management.

Technology Enables Better Human Interactions

From the outset, the team at Simplr sought to provide great customer service interactions through a combination of skilled staff and sophisticated use of technology. A straightforward user interface for experts presents a consistent work environment despite answering queries for multiple companies. API integrations into a wide array of customer service and CRM systems make it easy for Simplr’s client organizations to integrate into their existing systems.

Experts only have access to limited amounts of personally identifiable information and customer data, significantly reducing security concerns. Any requirement to access such information requires a specific request from the expert, triggering a recording of the interaction.

Simplr has also invested in incorporating AI across a number of key areas, using it to:

• Detect and tag intent
• Rate the complexity of each ticket
• Match tickets to agent preferences and expertise
• Present the relevant information and guidance to the agent

For Businesses, the Advantages Are Clear

Simplr provides companies with a pay-per-resolution model to address text-based customer queries, including email, chat, and social direct messages. If Simplr’s experts don’t resolve the issue, Simplr doesn’t get paid. The company aims to address the 70-80% of customer tickets that are predictable and routine, leaving in-house and full-time customer service teams to handle more complex, involved, or unanticipated queries.

The core value proposition delivers variable costs in line with variable demand. For businesses struggling to keep pace with the wild unpredictability brought by 2020’s global pandemic, that is a strong proposition indeed. Even better when it’s matched with a concerted effort to ensure that experts speak in the tone and language unique to that business. This ability was particularly important for one client, a well-known footwear company. The business’s quirkiness and personal touch underpin its whole brand.

Tapping into a variable pool of resources that sound just like its full-time agents has been a key element of success. At the same time, lightening the load for the in-house customer service and development teams has helped manage the transition as huge volumes of business shifted online. The company’s reliance on Simplr experts has scaled up and down along with the volume of demand.

Who’s Doing This—And What’s in It for Them?

A large proportion of Simplr’s workforce are military dependents all over the U.S. and abroad. The typical expert is a well-educated U.S. citizen (a good many have advanced degrees) who demonstrates strong problem-solving abilities. These are people who value flexible work schedules and can resolve or escalate customer queries quickly. That’s particularly important since experts are, like Simplr, compensated on the number of tickets resolved.

From my perusal of Glassdoor, satisfaction levels seem to be high among Simplr experts. Unsurprisingly, the ability to define work schedules and duration for themselves ranks high among the job benefits. The biggest complaint—and it’s a valid one—is not getting paid for supporting a customer well if the ticket eventually gets escalated anyway.

In theory, this problem should be minimized over time. As the AI tools get better at identifying which customer queries are likely to need escalation and which aren’t, the system should get better at filtering out the likely escalations. Similarly, agents themselves learn as they go, undoubtedly improving their own ability to decide to escalate a customer query early, before they’ve invested much time in it. Even so, Simplr may need to revise its payment policies to ensure that incentives for experts remain closely aligned to its clients’ priorities.

It’s A Win-Win We’ll See More Often

I’ll admit to being initially skeptical of Simplr’s capabilities. There are so many ways that something like this could go wrong—think poorly deployed bots or customer service agents who are nice but can’t actually help you. But I’ve been won over by Simplr’s specific and intentional focus as well as feedback from its customers. As one put it, this isn’t the cheapest option and it isn’t the most expensive—but the ability to scale up and down as needed, with the confidence that the customer experience is consistent with what’s delivered in-house, has been crucial. The benefits for both businesses and agent experts are well aligned.

So far Simplr is the only one of its kind in the market. The company is blazing a trail that others will likely follow, but Simplr has a big advantage in its ability to deliver effectively. With home working and the massive shift to digital commerce across all sectors here to stay, expect to see more of Simplr in 2021.

Future of Work Marketing Transformation Matrix Commerce Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Privacy Officer Chief Revenue Officer

News Analysis: ServiceNow Gets Serious About AI With Element AI Acquisition

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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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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Element AI Takes Workflow to the Autonomous Level for ServiceNow

On November 30th, ServiceNow announced an estimated $500 (CAD) million acquisition of Montreal, Canada based startup, Element AI.  Co-founded by Dr. Yoshua Bengio, a 2018 winner of the Turing Award, Nicolas Chapados. and Jean-François Gagné in 2016, the startup’s mission was to bring AI to non-tech companies in order to compete with tech based companies (see Figure 1).  Key products include an AI-assisted insurance underwriting workflow software known as Underwriting Partner and a data set management platform for manufacturers known as Knowledge Scout.

Figure 1. Jean-François Gagné, co-founder and CEO of Element.AI

Source: Element.AI

In a blog post, Element AI”s co-founder and CEO noted "Element AI will help ServiceNow deliver workflows that learn more efficiently from smaller datasets, improve the quality of existing AI capabilities like content and language understanding, and expand new capabilities like image recognition and cognitive search.”  Gagné also pointed out this level of integration would help users "summarize information, make predictions and recommendations, and automate repetitive tasks,"

As ServiceNow’s fourth AI acquisition in 2020, CEO Bill McDermott and Chief AI Officer, Vijay K Narayanan, has doubled down on the investment and future of the platform with the build out of Now Intelligence capabilities along with the acquisitions of Loom Systems, Passage AI, and Sweagle.

Acquisition of Element AI Elevates ServiceNow Into The AI Driven Orchestration and Automation Market

AI changes enterprise automation holistically with its ability to automate manual labor through software. For ServiceNow, that is on the quest to become the universal workflow platform for the enterprise, it is the game changer that will attract CxOs to its platform. Any disruptor needs to show automation benefits, and delivering automation from AI can the difference maker for enterprises to adopt and migrate to new workflow platforms. And even for existing customers, in the ServiceNow areas of IT, customer and employee workflows, AI is a key change agent for a better automation future. And enterprises that automate more efficiently and become more agile, practice Enterprise Acceleration, the key fuel to enterprise survival in disruptive and tumultuous times. 

1. Element AI addresses several product gaps and creates key opportunities – On the functional side ElementAI brings strong productized document processing to ServiceNow. It has good document processing capabilities that are part of its Document Intelligence product and on top of that its Knowledge Scout product creates knowledge models and workflows. Access Governor applies the knowledge from documents and recommends role based access for the enterprise. All three offerings provide immediate value for ServiceNow's customers.
   
   Element AI has done a good job also monetizing its APIs to enterprises, an offering that is less likely to remain around now with ServiceNow, as we don't expect the vendor will show interest in regards of AI related advisory services (beyond the immediate product scope of ServiceNow). Of substantial value will also be ElementAI's OS platform – if ServiceNow manages to empower a broader range of users to build AI based next gen Apps. If Orkestrator is of value remains to be seen – given ServiceNows partner strategy, it is more likely the vendor will most likely use its cloud partner's platform and orchestration platforms. 
    
2. Element AI is an acqui-hire – Talent plays a key role in the battle for AI, and ElmentAI brings key talent to ServiceNow – effectively soaking up most of Canada's AI royalty from both a research and commercial perspective. Given Canada's substantial role in deep learning is a good move as well, but ServiceNow needs to find ways to keep the talent on board. ServiceNow may face some challenges retaining the team as AI talent is in high demand.
    
3. Documents lead the way to workflow – ServiceNow has understood that documents are the artifacts of the digital enterprise – and are like the start and finish locations of a cycling stage race… with workflow the race between the start and end points. A lot of workflow can be derived from documents and that is where the Element AI IP comes in handy, with its document centric capabilities.
    

Customers Finally Gain A Future Roadmap Beyond Workflow

While many industry watchers would agree that the move to embrace workflow as the key messaging point has helped shift the perception that ServiceNow is both more than an ITSM offering and a key cloud platform. However, the larger differentiator in the next 18 months will come from both automation and AI.

1. ElementAI goes from solution to ingredient – Element AI customers have found a viable future for the vendor that was in need to find another funding round. But the concern will be what will happen with offerings and services that are outside of the likely interest of ServiceNow. Customers relying on these offerings and services need to get reassurance from Element AI asap – better even from ServiceNow. Understanding strategy, product roadmap future and possible end of life plans and deadlines will be key.
    
2. Servicenow gets more heft in AI – It's good to be a ServiceNow customer right now, as the vendor is expanding its automation capabilities and enterprises get more value from a proven / trusted platform. It also helps that IT in most cases runs it and there is no gatekeeper role here for LoB deployments – au contraire we see IT pushing new ServiceNow offerings. Element AI brings critical capabilities to ServiceNow, and now it will be all about how ServiceNow will shape the future of workflow. AI is certainly a key part of that and ServiceNow's ability to execute is now significantly increased. But acquisitions are one thing, delivering on roadmaps is another – and that's what ServiceNow customer need to keep an eye on. 

Platform Considerations Highlight The Challenges Ahead

ServiceNow follows a multi-cloud strategy with partnerships available or in the making wth the three big cloud providers. Element AI has catered more to the on premise work of data scientists, so there is no conflict here, as it makes its solutions portable, and likely to be easily integrated into ServiceNow's portfolio. 

Like all enterprise application vendors, ServiceNow needs to make a few key decisions on platforms when it comes to AI.  Constellation sees three crucial areas that need to be address:

• Data gravity is real. AI needs massive amounts of data, but moving data is expensive.  Bringing the AI closer to the data is a key design point. With cloud data egress costs being punitive enterprise need to understand and plan where their data will reside. 

• Customers need an abstraction layer to power AI. The heavy lifting is too complex for most enterprises and there are not enough data scientists out there. The democratization of AI is key for enterprise application success with AI and vendors need to provide a common layer for non technical users to own their automation destiny. 
• Model migration strategy must be addressed. When models cannot be built where the data is, the need to be migrated and tested with the new data. Ideally this is avoided, but for most vendors still a reality.

Bottom Line: The Race To Business Graphs Is Here, Automation and AI are The Facilitators To Decision Velocity.

 The convergence of workflow, process mining, robotic process automation, integration services, microservices, and low-code/no-code platforms drive the future of software.  This next battle in enterprise software will be the creation of business graphs.  Like social graphs which use social networks to provide signal intelligence and digital feedback loops to accumulate massive amounts of data that is mined by AI, business graphs will accomplish the same for enterprises. 

In the case of the enterprise, the relationships among users, documents, business processes, and contextual data will power the signal intelligence and digital feedback loops.  As the majority of data is collected by digital feedback loops via automated and ambient collection, these systems can improve their precision decision capabilities.  Automation and AI are the tools that bring scale to creating decision velocity.

Data to Decisions Future of Work Marketing Transformation New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity servicenow ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI Robotics AI Analytics Automation B2B B2C CX EX Employee Experience HR HCM business Marketing Metaverse developer SaaS PaaS IaaS Supply Chain Quantum Computing Growth Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology eCommerce Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP Leadership finance Social Healthcare VR CCaaS UCaaS Customer Service Content Management Collaboration M&A Enterprise Service Chief Analytics Officer Chief Customer Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief People Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Operating Officer Chief Revenue Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief AI Officer Chief Product Officer Chief Experience Officer

Monday's Musings: Inside The Post 2020 Election GeoTech Analysis

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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Dr. David Bray

Distinguished Chair of the Accelerator & Principal/CEO
Stimson Center & LeadDoAdapt Ventures

Dr. David A. Bray is a Distinguished Fellow and Chair of the Accelerator with the Alfred Lee Loomis Innovation Council at the non-partisan Henry L. Stimson Center. He is also a non-resident Distinguished Fellow with the Business Executives for National Security, and a CEO and transformation leader for different “under the radar” tech and data ventures seeking to get started in novel situations. He is Principal at LeadDoAdapt Ventures and has served in a variety of leadership roles in turbulent environments, including bioterrorism preparedness and response from 2000-2005. Dr. Bray previously was the Executive Director for a bipartisan National Commission on R&D, provided non-partisan leadership as a federal agency Senior Executive, worked with the U.S. Navy and Marines on improving…...

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Dion Hinchcliffe

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Title: About Dion Hinchcliffe Dion Hinchcliffe is an internationally recognized business strategist, bestselling author, enterprise architect, industry analyst, and noted keynote speaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in digital strategy, the future of work, and enterprise IT. He works with the leadership teams of large enterprises as well as software vendors to raise the bar for the art-of-the-possible in their digital capabilities. He is currently Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research. Dion is also currently an executive fellow at the Tuck School of Business Center for Digital Strategies. He is a globally recognized industry expert on the topics of digital transformation, digital workplace, enterprise collaboration, API…...

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What’s Next For 2021?

Join this special video to learn what happens in the post-election world with regards to geo-politics and technology.  The esteemed guests include:

Dr. David A Bray, Director, GeoTech Center and Director, GeoTech Commission at the Atlantic Council

Dion Hinchcliffe, VP and Principal Analyst of Constellation Research, Inc. | Tuck School of Business CIO Roundtable | ZDNet Contributor

R “Ray” Wang, CEO of Constellation Research, Inc. | Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council

Key topics discussed addressed cover questions such as:

1. So what does this all mean with a Democratic President, potentially Republican Senate, for the US, the World?  
2. Where does the US vs China relationship go?
3. What can we learn from Elon Musk?
4. Does GDPR apply to space?
5. What will happen with the future of digital cooperation?
6. How has technology eroded human rights? What rights does a baby in 2040 have upon birth?
7. Where will we be on our right to digital privacy?
8. What should data policies look like?
9. Will digital avatars play a role in the future?
10. How has economics failed to explain what’s really going on in this digital world?
11. What happens in a culture of abundance?  Will we be efficient?
12. How will we make this work for the 8 billion people on Earth?

The Hope For Clear Leadership And Stability Emerges

Ray – Don’t expect massive change given our federal system. Policy and themes may set direction but there is only so much the federal government can do. States and localities will still have a lot of local control.  This balance of power ensures stable government.

Dion – Most organizations are extremely complex systems that make it hard for a single level of control to drive change.  The Influencer leader is emerging as the most effective agent.  Clear and stable leadership is key.  Servant leader is the model where we are emerging as the most effective.  The world is becoming a place where there is limitless opportunity and we seem to be evolving mostly on the technology side but not the rest of the other areas. 

David – Tech policy and relationships will change.  Europe and NATO wants to know how to work best with the Biden administration.  The last four years has seen a decoupling of Europe and American over the past four years.  A new coalition and community of digital democracies seek to bring closer ties.  This coalition builds on those open societies who like choice and promote freedom not oppression from technologies. 

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Facebook Picks Up Kustomer to Accelerate Chat-to-Commerce Services

Liz Miller

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…...

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With widely anticipated U.S. federal antitrust lawsuits looming, it may seem like an odd time for Facebook to make another big acquisition. In Kustomer, however, Facebook is buying itself options. Here is what we know so far:

• According to reports, Facebook has agreed to buy New York-based Kustomer for $1 billion. In a blog post announcing the acquisition, Dan Levy, Facebook VP of Ads and Business Products, and Matt Idema, COO, WhatsApp stated that, “Our goal with Kustomer is simple: to give businesses access to best-in-class tools that deliver excellent service and support.”

• Kustomer, founded in 2015, bills itself as a customer service centered CRM platform. With the mantra of “customers not tickets”, the platform delivers service and support capabilities in a single timeline, centralizing a customer’s experience and engagement with a brand into a consolidated view.

• Kustomer has an AI powered “Kustomer IQ” tool that embeds across the platform, managing everything from intelligent routing of service engagements to aiding in the management of repetitive tasks and deflection of easy, frequent, and repetitive questions.

• Some of Kustomer’s key logos include Ring, Glovo, Glossier, Sweetgreen, Away, Rent the Runway, and UNTUCKit.

• Kustomer CEO and Co-Founder Brad Birnbaum is a customer service and community chat veteran and no stranger to successful acquisitions as he previous co-founded Assistly, acquired by Salesforce, and co-founded eShare Technologies while still in college.

This acquisition gets interesting for Facebook on several different levels.

Kustomer adds customer service capabilities that round out Facebook Shops and Facebook Marketplace. Facebook Shops was introduced in May 2020, initially to empower small business customers to quickly transition from a brick-and-mortar only business to an e-commerce storefront with a built-in marketing and advertising channel. Shops’ full suite of solutions help get everything from inventory to merchandising and marketing under control and were rolled out to all businesses in August. Facebook has seen a steady increase in traffic and utilization of both Shops and its primarily Peer-to-Peer commerce offering, Marketplace, in the last three quarters, leading to a robust Q3 revenue report that exceeded expectations.

With Kustomer, Facebook can directly meet the needs of its small and medium business customers who do not already have digital customer service capabilities. That’s likely the majority of Facebook Shops customers that just recently made the move to e-commerce.

Omnichannel messaging capacity powered by AI and built for volume. For Facebook, the big win in Click to Shop has been frictionless commerce experiences where customers don’t have to leave Facebook to shop. Customers can view products and transact directly in chat messages in Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Kustomer’s service capabilities extend the scope of customer interactions directly within Facebook even further. This turns Facebook’s end to end social commerce vision into a reality.

Kustomer migrates to storing customer’s data on Facebook’s infrastructure, rapidly advancing its cloud hosting services. In the fine print of the acquisition announcement, Facebook notes that it “eventually expects to host Kustomer data on secure Facebook infrastructure. In doing so, Facebook will act as a service provider at the instruction of business customers.”

Given Facebook’s announcement in October 2020 that it would enter the cloud computing sector, it has a strong vested interest in generating more customer service messages through Facebook channels. Storing those messages—at a cost that will likely range from half a cent to 9 cents per message, according to a Reuters interview with WhatsApp’s Idema—generates an additional new revenue stream.

The Elephant in the Room

Facebook has a lousy reputation when it comes to the security and sanctity of customer data. The company’s failings include a track record of failing to secure customer accounts and miscalculating metrics used to calculate advertiser payments. Even in the October cloud storage offering announcement, Idema was quick to note that the messages being stored via the new hosting service are “stored elsewhere and not protected by the app’s end-to-end encryption.”

Despite Facebook’s desire to immediately claim the status of “service provider” for customer data solutions, this comes with significant risk. The increasingly white-hot focus of regulators from California’s CCPA/CRPA to the EU’s GDPR leaves far fewer corners to hide in as Facebook enters the CRM jungle.

What This Means for Kustomer and Its Customers

The intention, for now, appears to be to allow Kustomer to remain own entity under the Facebook umbrella of brands. That’s sensible given how important ongoing innovation will be to ensuring Kustomer remains a credible contender in a crowded and competitive market, as well as the importance of the many integrations other CRM platforms have to Facebook channels.

Since Kustomer’s capabilities concentrate on customer service interactions, integration with Facebook’s existing commerce and advertising capabilities should help it compete with broader, more developed CRM offerings. Most, if not all, of Kustomer’s existing customers already use Facebook channels, so the impact of the acquisition should be neutral to positive. We’ll be looking out for any new pricing and bundling options that might be introduced.

Bottom Line

In acquiring Kustomer, Facebook has bought itself two important assets: 1) additional revenue streams through expanded services to small and medium businesses and 2) a wider range of strategic options depending on what antitrust lawsuits might come its way. 

As with all things Facebook, the devil and his evil ways are ALWAYS in the details. There are significant upsides in customer service, support, and engagement that customers can achieve with a Facebook-Kustomer combination. The test will be if Facebook, flaws and all, is ready to take customer data as seriously as it will need to in the world of data service providers, or if it will still assume that its tall garden walls are thick enough to take on the new legal, compliance, and ethical burdens.

Marketing Transformation Matrix Commerce Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Marketing Officer Chief Digital Officer

AWS Re:Invent 2020: Week One Database, ML and IoT Highlights

Doug Henschen

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Doug Henschen is former Vice President and Principal Analyst where he focused on data-driven decision making. Henschen’s Data-to-Decisions research examines how organizations employ data analysis to reimagine their business models and gain a deeper understanding of their customers. Henschen's research acknowledges the fact that innovative applications of data analysis requires a multi-disciplinary approach starting with information and orchestration technologies, continuing through business intelligence, data-visualization, and analytics, and moving into NoSQL and big-data analysis, third-party data enrichment, and decision-management technologies. Insight-driven business models are of interest to the entire C-suite, but most particularly chief executive officers, chief digital officers,…...

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Amazon Web Services Re:Invent 2020 continues the vendor’s tradition of delivering a slew of announcements. Here’s my take on the top data-to-decisions introductions.

Where to begin to size up the more than 35 announcements slated for just the first week of Amazon Web Services (AWS) #ReInvent 2020? Guided by my data-to-decisions (D2D) research focus, let’s drill down on what I see as the highlights among the database, machine learning, and intelligent edge/IoT announcements from week one of this three-week virtual event.

Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy kicking off Re:Invent 2020.

(I’ll skip over all the new compute and storage instance types as well as the container-management, serverless computing and hybrid deployment announcements. Not that these offerings won’t have big impacts on D2D deployments -- they most certainly will -- but the highlights will, no doubt, be covered in detail by my colleague, Holger Mueller.)

‘Glue’ing Together the Database Services

AWS’s database strategy is to deliver a fit-for-purpose service for every need, as exemplified by Amazon RDS (relational database services), DynamoDB key value store, Amazon ElastiCache in-memory store, Amazon Neptune graph database, Amazon DocumentDB, and the Amazon TimeStream time-series database. AWS says customers want “the right tool for the right job to optimize their workloads.”

In contrast, AWS rival Oracle emphasizes that graph, JSON (document), and time-series capabilities are all built into its flagship Oracle Database. But the success of role-specific databases (from AWS and others) strongly suggests that there are many cases where the performance and depth and breadth of functionality from task-specific products and services matters. The downside of using separate services is that you can end up with silos of data. This problem triggered what I see as the most significant database-related announcement from Re:Invent:

• AWS Glue Elastic Views. This new service, in preview as of December 1, is designed to automatically combine and/or replicate data across multiple data stores, creating a virtual table (or materialized view) in a target data store. You could, for example, combine data from multiple stores and copy it into Redshift for analytical use or ElastiSearch for searching. AWS Glue Elastic Views monitors source stores and updates the target automatically “within seconds,” according to AWS. The preview works with DynamoDB, S3, Redshift and ElastiSearch, and support for Aurora is said to be on the roadmap. MyPOV:  The longer the “works with” list becomes, the more powerful and attractive this feature will be. Customers will undoubtedly clamor for Aurora support and other RDS options.

Here are two other notable database-related Re:Invent week one announcements:

• Amazon Aurora Serverless v2. This advance over Serverless v1 is touted as brining greater elastic scalability as well finer-grained (cost-saving) scaling increments to Aurora. MyPOV:  Elastic, serverless scaling is big cost saver as compared to conventional provisioning for peak workloads. Customers asked for, and are now getting, capabilities for more demanding Aurora deployments through Serverless v2.
• Babelfish for Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL. Don’t let the name confuse you: Aurora already offered PostgresSQL “compatibility.” Babelfish is a new translation layer, in preview as of December 1, that will enable Aurora PostgreSQL to understand Microsoft SQL Server T-SQL. Babelfish enables applications built using T-SQL to “run with little to no code changes,” according to AWS. The goal is obviously to accelerate migrations from Microsoft SQL Server to Amazon Aurora. Once moved, you would write to PostgreSQL. MyPOV: Keep in mind that AWS database “compatibility” (be it Aurora with PostgreSQL or MySQL, Keyspaces with Apache Cassandra, DocumentDB with MongoDB or, now, Aurora PostgreSQL with Microsoft SQL Server) is a one-way proposition. Once you migrate, you are running on an AWS database service and there’s no easy migration path back to the database you formerly used. Be sure you will be fine with the reality that there’s no easy way to go back.

Filling in the SageMaker Gaps

AWS made huge strides forward on the ML front over the last year with the introduction of SageMaker Studio (based on JupyterLab), SafeMaker Autopilot, SageMaker Debugger, SageMaker Model Monitor and more – all announced at Re:Invent 2019. At Re:Invent 2020 AWS plugged some of the few remaining holes:

• SageMaker Data Wrangler is, as the name suggests, a self-service data-prep option that will enable a broader base of users (not just data engineers) to handle the data cleansing and transformation tasks that are necessary before you attempt to build reliable models. The tool set promises to make data-prep workflows repeatable and automated. MyPOV: Obvious and overdue, but, nonetheless, welcome. I’m eager to hear more about the depth and breadth of capabilities.
• SageMaker Feature Store is aimed at getting more mileage out of the work that goes into feature engineering.  As with any good repository, this service is designed to help you store, discover and share – in this case features for use across multiple ML models. It’s also said to help with compliance requirements, as you can recreate features at a point in time. MyPOV: Data science skill is scarce, so any advantage available in reusability and productivity is welcome.  
• Amazon SageMaker Pipelines is designed to build automated ML workflows at scale, cutting development-to-deployment time from “months to hours,” according to AWS. These automated pipelines are said to be easily auditable because model versions, dependencies and related code and artifacts are tracked. MyPOV: Automation is the key to bringing ML into production at scale, so this is a welcome announcement.

Improving Industrial Processes With Edge Intelligence

Machine learning and machine vision are the core of four new industrial IoT services introduced by AWS:

• Amazon Lookout for Equipment is an ML-based anomaly detection service for industrial equipment. In preview as of December 1, this service is focused on predictive maintenance for assets such as motors, pumps, turbines and more.
• Amazon Monitron is a complete, end-to-end monitoring system for industrial assets that includes sensors, a gateway device and ML services to detect abnormal conditions. Now generally available, Monitron also includes a prebuilt mobile app that tracks the status and health of assets without the need for mobile app development or model training.
• AWS Panorama is a small-footprint appliance that’s installed locally to run custom computer-vision models at the edge for real-time decisions in applications such as quality control, part identification and workplace safety. Now in preview, AWS Panorama includes a software development kit designed to support pre-existing or Panorama-compatible camaras, integrate with AWS ML services, and support model development and training in SageMaker.
• Amazon Lookout for Vision is used to develop models to spot defects and anomalies using computer vision and can be used at the edge in conjunction with the Panorama appliance. Computer vision models used to detect damage, evaluate color, identify missing components and other machine vision inspection needs can be trained with as few as 30 images, according to AWS.  

MyPOV on Industrial Advances: Predictive maintenance and quality control are the most in-demand, starting-point applications in IoT and machine vision deployments, respectively. AWS has formidable competition on these fronts from Microsoft Azure, so getting more industrial customers in at the top of the funnel by lowering time-to-value for high-demand applications is an important objective. The IoT arms race is far from over, and AWS is also this week introducing improvements to its Marketplace that will make it easier for customers to work with third-party IoT partners and service providers.

MyPOV on Re:Invent 2020

The rule of thumb for many virtual tech event organizers in 2020 has been to cut down on the presentation time and the volume of keynote content that would have otherwise been delivered in an in-person event. The idea is that virtual attention spans are virtually nonexistent, but AWS apparently didn’t hear or heed the advice on timing. AWS CEO Andy Jassy’s opening Re:Invent keynote once again clocked in at nearly three hours.

As for the content, AWS once again delivered a juggernaut of new product introductions and announcements in just the first week, but qualitatively, the announcements -- at least those in the database and ML arenas - don't feel as substantial as those in 2019. As noted above, AWS delivered quite a bit last year, so the approach of filling in gaps and introducing v2 improvments is likely to be welcome to cutomers, many of whom are still adjusting to working with remote teams and trying to make the most of the AWS services already in use. In fact, in years past, I've encouraged AWS to focus more on quality, fit and finish and less on the quantity of Re:Invent announcements. Also on the topic of making the most of what's already available, I really like some AWS Marketplace announcements, coming later this week, that will make it easier to work with third-party software and service providers in Amazon's cloud.

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Product Review: Apple's M1 MacBook Pro 13"

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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When They Meant One More Thing, They Meant One More Big Thing

Apple made ground breaking announcements at its “One More Thing” event on November 10th, 2020 event.  The launch of the M1 chip, macOS Big Sur operating system, and a long awaited update to the Mac line up.  Apple takes its destiny into its own hands from silicon to services.  By having complete control of the chip, operating system software, and hardware, Apple delivers exponential gains in performance, better value, longer battery life, and significant improvements to the Mac line up.

Mac mini, 13-inch MacBook Air, and the 13-inch MacBook Pro sport the new Apple-designed M1 chip (see Figure 1).  This 5nm system on a chip (SOC) delivers Apple’s own design and architecture which pulls the processor, GPU, DRAM, fabric, cache, and Neural Engine, and security features, all on one chip.  With the power of 16 billion transistors, the chip blows away the competition when looking at performance per watt.

Figure 1. Inside Apple’s M1 Silicon On Chip (SOC) Specifications

Source: Apple

Compared To The Intel MacBook Pro 13?, The M1 MacBook Pro 13? Has Many Advantages

When the M1 MacBook Pro 13? is compared to the Intel MacBook Pro 13?, the obvious similarities come from the familiar chassis design and key display features (see Figure 2).  Both models share:

• Availability in Space Gray and Silver
• 13.3-inch LED-backlit display with In-plane switching (IPS) technology, wide color (P3) and True Tone
• 720p FaceTime HD camera
• Wide stereo sound and support for Dolby Atmos playback
• 3.5 mm headphone jack
• Magic Keyboard
• Force Touch Trackpad
• Touch Bar and Touch ID
• Bluetooth 5.0

Figure 2. Everything You Need To Know About The M1 MacBook Pro 13?

Source: Apple

Here are the differences between the two models (see Figure 3):

Figure 3. Side by Side Comparison of Intel-based vs M1 Apple SOC-based MacBook Pro 13? 

Source: Constellation Research, Inc.

Overall, the M1 MacBook Pro beats out the existing Intel line up.  However, a few areas of improvement for future releases include the need for a better than 720p FaceTime camera (though the M1’s ISP does improve the performance of the 1.2 megapixel camera), Wi-Fi 6 support, and the lack of a touch screen.

Compatibility With x86-64 Apps Remains A Work In Progress

Initial tests on the M1 MacBook Pro have yielded great performance and exponentially improved battery life when running native Apple apps.  However, slight glitches and significant performance hits occurred with application crashes wtih some of the enterprise products from Microsoft including Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Edge browsers.  The Microsoft Office suite didn’t show any lag at all when used and Microsoft Excel macros seemed to experience improved performance.

Other enterprise software such as Autodesk Revit, Avid ProTools, Google Drive File Stream, MatLab, Oracle VirtualBox, Parallels, and VMWare Fusion currently are not supported by the M1 chip.  Initial experiences with much of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite show some compatibility issues with Rosetta 2 for Adobe AfterEffects, Illustrator, Indesign, Photoshop 2020, and Premier Pro.  Ongoing fixes and updates can be found on the Adobe web site.

Slack really slacked and needed a performance hit.  Video software such as BlueJeans, GoToMeeting, WebEx, and Zoom all were quite laggy.  Meanwhile, DJ controller software such as RekordBox by Pioneer wasn’t working yet on Rosetta 2 or M1 as of this post. Enterprise clients should confirm which apps work with the new M1 architecture and ask for a roadmap from key vendors for M1 forward and backward compatibility on Rosetta 2. 

Early adopters must determine the trade-off of native Apple performance versus x86-64 Intel compatibility.  The independent crowdsourced site “Is Apple Silicon Ready” also confirmed some of the incompatibilities and performance issues with M1 and Rosetta 2 experienced in this review.  (Note: this site is not an Apple-run or reviewed site, and the accuracy and timeliness of information it offers is not officially verified)

The Bottom Line: The New M1 Macs Are A Future Proof Investment

The fully integrated control of the M1 chip, macOS BigSur, and Mac hardware kicks off the beginning of a new era for Apple.  The venerable hardware innovator now has full control of its ability to differentiate on product, performance, price, and place. As Apple Silicon makes its way into the full line up of hardware, users can expect significant advantages over commodity and purpose built PCs.  Moreover, the announcements made at the 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference and the November 10th event bring the convergence of iOS and macOS one step closer. 

However, much work needs to be done on backward compatibility as early users and tests show a lot of broken apps to be addressed. Overall, the M1 MacBook Pro 13?, Mac mini, and MacBook Air are a wise investment into the future. In conversations with the major software vendors, Constellation expects backward compatibility to improve as major software vendors  adjust and improve their offerings to support the new line up over the next 18 to 24 months.

Early adopters and Apple shops looking to modernize their computing should consider the M1 MacBook Pro 13?, Mac mini, and MacBook Air in their procurement refresh cycle plans and short lists over the next 24 months. Why? This is the next era of computing for Apple and the long-term benefits will significantly outweigh the costs.

Source: Apple

Future of Work Marketing Transformation New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth apple Leadership Chief Customer Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief People Officer Chief Procurement Officer Chief Experience Officer