Oracle Modern CX Spotlights Customer Data Platform, AI Accelerator

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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Oracle previews CX Unity, 'next-gen' sales UI, and DataFox upgrades. The  investments are promising, but don't dismiss data lakes so easily.

“You have to empower whoever gets to the customer first.” This is the key message that Rob Tarkoff, executive VP and general manager of Oracle CX Cloud, shared at Oracle Modern Customer Experience (CX), March 19-21, in Las Vegas.

Tarkoff’s point was that customers rarely follow prescribed, linear journeys, so everybody must be armed with customer insight and context whether they’re in marketing, sales, commerce or service. To gain contextual insight you need data, and that’s why Oracle announced Oracle CX Unity last October at Oracle Open World. Billed as a “customer intelligence platform,” CX Unity is designed to provide “a comprehensive view into customer interactions across channels and applications.”

CX Unity is Oracle’s entry into the emerging customer data platform (CDP) market, a category first defined in 2013 and that gave rise to The Customer Data Platform Institute (CDPI) in 2016. Search through CDPI’s directory and you won’t find any big tech vendors -- just pioneers and startups mostly emerging from the marketing technology space. That’s about to change, with both Oracle and, on March 25, Salesforce, announcing their intention to offer CDPs. And it’s a safe bet that Adobe won’t be far behind on March 26, Adobe followed suit, announcing its own CDP, building on last year's announcement of a joint initiative with Microsoft and SAP to work together on an open customer data standard.

As defined by CDPI, a CDP is "packaged software that creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems." The platform benefits marketers because it “allows a faster, more efficient solution than general purpose technologies that try to solve many problems at once.” The need for CDPs emerged as marketers started pursuing mass personalization at scale, and it’s only getting more intense as customers expect you know them and their most recent dealings with your company in real time.

Attendees heard lots of promises about the advantages that CX Unity will bring. Oracle has announced availability for CX Unity by late summer. It’s only natural for Oracle to deliver a CDP, but unlike marketing-only vendors, it has a duty to reconcile this offering with the company’s MDM, data warehouse and data lake offerings (as I discuss below).

As for the “next-generation” sales experience demonstrated at Modern CX, the description made it clear that it was an early vision statement -- so not something I would expect to see in 2019. The demo combined automated voice-to-text call transcription/logging and contextual, AI-based recommendation capabilities. I've seen similar capabilities both from Oracle partners, like the OppSource Sales Engagement app, which is integrated with the Oracle Sales Cloud, and from Oracle rivals (like Salesforce Einstein Voice, now in pilot release).

The third big highlight from Modern CX for me was DataFox, which was acquired last October and mentioned by nearly every executive who took the stage at the event. Think of Oracle DataFox as an AI accelerator that will bolster the smart-recommendation capabilities of Oracle’s CX and ERP clouds, mostly through Oracle Adaptive Intelligent Apps.

On the sales front, DataFox studies the companies you sell to successfully in a business-to-business context using machine learning and then finds lookalikes. It also prioritizes leads and next steps and it recommends talking points to help salespeople accelerate their selling. DataFox look-alike capabilities will be used in the ERP context to avoid supplier risk and to spot best-fit alternative suppliers.

MyPOV on Oracle Modern CX Announcements

DataFox was clearly a good acquisition for Oracle, and I particularly like the “human-in-the-loop” (Mechanical-Turk-like) training and exception-handling capabilities. The next-gen sales demo struck me as a “we’re working on it” trail balloon, but if it makes it to market in 2019, Oracle will be among the fast followers on AI-augmented sales.

At the center of Modern CX was CX Unity, which executives described as “three years in the making.” I’m hoping for conversations with early beta customers by Oracle Open World in September. I have to admit, it has to be more challenging for a vendor like Oracle to jump into the CDP market. Unlike marketing-only vendors, I would think Oracle will be held to a higher standard to reconcile its CDP with its master data management (MDM), data warehouse and data lake offerings. I asked one Oracle exec about how CDPs and customer MDM will coexist, and he described them as complimentary, which they should be. But he went on to largely dismiss MDM as only relevant in a legal-liability context, resolving identities for ERP transaction purposes. In my view that underplays the value of MDM and you’ll want your steward-resolved customer MDM identities synchronized with your CDP.

I also wasn’t entirely comfortable with how easily Oracle’s CX executives picked on data lakes as a poor alternative to what CX Unity will offer. It’s all well and good for marketing types to try to put their arms around “customer” data, but as CDPs start to grow, I think larger enterprises and others with incumbent data warehouses and data lakes will start to see overlaps and redundancies.

What is and what isn’t customer-related behavioral data, and who decides which data to store and where? I think customers will expect more guidance (and, perhaps, integrations) from companies like Oracle than they would from marketing-focused startups to help them rationalize investments in data warehouses, data lakes and the emerging customer data platform.

Related Reading:
IBM Think 2019: Takeaways on the Promise of Cloud-Portable Artificial Intelligence
Salesforce Dreamforce 2018 Spotlights Identity, Integration, AI and Getting More For Less
Microsoft Steps Up Data Platform and AI Ambitions

 

Data to Decisions Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Oracle Chief Customer Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Data Officer

Musings - Apple Services Event 2019

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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Apple had its long anticipated services event in Cupertino on the 25th of March. Not surprisingly, Apple announced a news, TV service. The gaming service was expected somewhat. The real surprise was the card. 

 

 

I collected my notes and thoughts in a Twitter Moment (if it doesn't render - you can find it here):


Apple Services Event [FtF]

 

MyPOV

Tech companies do not get media, so I am sceptical that Apple can pull of anything of real substance around News and TV. Most people get these services already and often for free (as bundled with other services). Granted - Apple can throw billions at this - and showed the star power at the event. But the stars will take the money, but not guarantee success. It all reminded me of Yahoo! signing Katie Couric to go into news. Why will it work today for Apple? The challenge is also to convert a free offering (Apple News) to a paid one - never easy.

The gaming offering is interesting, as it offers a syndicated view on the Apps Store for gamers. Apple may be able to charge for placement etc. but then - it makes money already and game vendors don't like it (see Fortnite bypassing the paywall). And gamers are fiercely independent - yes they may have an iPhone - but they will side load it / jailbreak it with not a moment of hesitation for the newest game. 

The most interesting offering is certainly the card. Technology with NFC payments and the smartphone capabilities can certainly disrupt payments and credit cards. It's an antiquated industry, charging premiums and waiting for disruption. Apple may be able to pull this one off - though margins will be lower than selling shiny glitzy objects. If Apple (and investors) can stomach this - great opportunity.

But overall I remain sceptical. The Apple install base has stopped growing. No smartphone / phone maker has been able to revert it. When the moment is passed, the moment is passed. Services on a shrinking platform cannot right the overall enterprise. Assuming iPhone replacements will happen every 3 years, Apple needs to extract about 500$ in services soon to smoothen the bump and then over the life of a headset. A tall order. Only subscribe (and forget) can get Apple there. And there are enough Apple fans out there to do so...  going platform independent is the only way. And that's easy for the card. Future will tell if and how much services can save Apple from fading.

P.S. We often talk about product companies needing to become service companies. This is a very hard transition. If one of the richest, in talent on board and acquirable as well as financial resources, company struggles so much here... what is an ordinary / regular company going to do? Certainly place frugal bets more carefully. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A Portrait of Huawei: What Digital Leaders Should Know

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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For Huawei, it's been a long journey from manufacturing back-office PBX switches back in the 1980s to besting Apple last year to become the second largest mobile phone producer in the world. A family startup story on the order of Hewlett Packard in the United States, the company has grown steadily into a global "Big Tech" behemoth, with major lines of business well beyond its well-known smartphone handsets that now include affordable yet high performance telecom equipment, cloud computing platforms, an Internet of Things stack, smart city solutions, and products in many other related categories.

Now, as the advent of 5G looms -- a vast set of expansive new wireless standards that will ultimately remake the fortunes of entire industries and the largest tech firms alike -- Huawei stands at both the crossroads and at an inflection point. Namely, the company has a historic opportunity to be the frontrunner in this game-changing new wireless technology that will dominate the mobile world for the next decade. If only it can overcome a few significant challengees.

As a Chinese company whose founder Ren Zhengfei has supposed ties to the Chinese government, Huawei has undergone intense scrutiny in the United States and other countries over the years. The concerns are primarily over the worry that the firm could be induced into handing over the consumer and corporate data that flows through its many products. This recently and most famously came to a head as its CFO was detained in Canada over several serious charges that some claim are politically motivated. There is also the ongoing question of whether Huawei has placed or enabled back doors for security and intelligence services into its otherwise highly secure equipment.

The effort Huawei has put into the security of its products is something this author can attest to, having been given a detailed tour of the extraordinary lengths the firm goes through to digitally sign, test, and verify every component in its hardware offerings. But these proof points have been insufficient to ward off concerns, leading to a 5G equipment ban in Australia and perhaps the same soon in the United States, though other countries have rebuffed such actions. Its clear however, that more will have to be done by the company to assure the industry. This then was the backdrop of Huawei's latest and most public foray into grappling with these challenges as 2019 began.

Top-Tier Enterprise Capabilities, Some Strings Attached

This year, at the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) conference in Barcelona, Huawei hosted me as a guest again, as it periodically does, to give me an opportunity to catch up with their latest products and technological advances, as well as to assess their overall situation. As an advisor to top technology executives around the world, I was keen to see how the company would address the political headwinds facing it, right on the eve of the arrival of 5G, a topic which utterly dominated the agenda of the event for the reasons cited above.

Huawei itself has increasingly become a leading player in many technology sectors, often seizing high ground in areas such as smart devices and telecom equipment by offering best-in-class equipment for essentially commodity prices (although premium pricing for the company's unique market offerings like the foldable Mate X, is also increasingly a trend.) Its vision and capabilities in the enterprise sector in particular have been gaining attention lately because they are maturing faster than many of its competitors.

I also had an enlightening sit down conversation with Huawei Enterprise CMO Qiu Heng at MWC, as he walked me through his go-to-market approach that he calls "industrial marketing", which uses additional dedicated "industry teams" to bridge the marketing and product teams to create new products with what they believe are exactly the right features and focus for maximum impact. It was enlightening that he noted in our talk that the enterprise solutions group revenue is doubling at present every year. That's an enormous and nearly unparalleled pace of growth for a large business technology division. It's also a helpful indicator of how influential Huawei will likely continue to become in the enterprise outside of where it's more widely known in consumer handsets.

In short, Huawei has now become a presence that's impossible to ignore in many strategic technology conversations by leaders in business, government, and other organizations. This is especially the case as Huawei has now gone beyond winning on price point, to offering notably differentiated products that are often more advanced than their competitors are offering. A key example illustrates this point: For its new "One" Digital Platform -- a comprehensive entry into what I call target platforms for digital transformation, which was introduced at a special event at MWC that I covered in detail at the time -- Huawei is actually producing its own unique chipsets dedicated to accelerate machine learning and AI, something few other companies in its category are even able to consider, but less execute on.

In my analysis, Huawei has begun delivering compelling, top-tier capabilites to the enterprise for the journey through digital transformation at just about every level -- from the most overarching platforms down to tactical components -- at price points that many competitors simply cannot match. This combination of high capability and low cost will be an an unignorable advantage for many organizations. And so they will have to sort through Huawei's other, more politcal challenges in deciding whether they can become a true, long term strategic partner.

A Trust by Verification Offer of Transparency

The defining event for Huawei at MWC was undoubtably rotating chaiman Guo Ping's keynote at MWC on Day 2. Maintaining a lighthearded but firm tone, Ping bluntly assured the audience -- and the world watching -- that "Huawei never has and never will put back doors in its products."

But notably and to his credit, Ping did not expect that to settle the matter. Instead, he announced an elaborate cybersecurity transparency center in Brussels that will be aimed at providing independent hardware verification and create a more trustworthy environment in general around 5G tecnologies, though the details have yet to be completely worked out. "Based on a common set of standards, technical verification and legal verification can lay the foundation for building trust. This must be a collaborative effort, because no single vendor, government, or telco operator can do it alone." Huwaei's own press release claims that customers will be able use the center to test its products -- and others together in combination -- in detail to verify their security compliance. Mincing no words, the company refers to this more open policy for trust as "Security or nothing."

Certainly, this is a significant step in the right direction. An indepedent transparency and verification process is what Huawei needs at this point, though I'd note that every major tech vendor needs one in the today's climate of concern about the safety and privacy of digital services.

What then should digital leaders do about Huawei today, as the question was recently posed in the Wall Street Journal? The company is simply too large and compelling to ignore, particular as competitors adopt its products and gain their advantages. In today's ever growing environment of concern about the safety and privacy of digital technologies, and the risks posed by governments meddling in the affairs and operations of technology companies themselves (certainly the U.S. itself is far from immune, having apparently asked big tech firms to systematically build in back doors for its own use), how can executives possibly manage the risk and gain the upside from what in my opinion is an otherwise highly capable enterprise technology firm?

How to Safely Partner with Big Tech like Huawei

The answers for safely dealing with Huawei (and all other tech endors as it turns out), will require more discipline than organizations have had in the past, even as the answers also surface uncomfortable truths and will sometimes require companies to make rather difficult choices:

• Take the long-term view. Huawei will be a dominant 5G, telecom, and smart device maker almost no matter what happens, unless further substantial additional concerns are uncovered. It will likely flip these advantages into market leadership in Internet of things, cloud, AI, and other emerging categories. I've talked with many Huawei executives over the years, and the companies thinks and strategizes long term and many moves ahead. For example, it has a twenty year strategic plan. While it wants your business now, it's also seemingly willing to wait until the time is right for customers to convert. Yet, as long as permanent advantage isn't lost forever (always a real risk in the fast-moving tech industry), some buyers can bide their time until remaining concerns about the company are resolved. This is the easiest option, but one that can leave significant opporunity and first mover advantage on the table.
• Reject avoidable Faustian bargains. This is the proverbial situation where whereby something of supreme importance, such as values or safety, is traded for less vital, short term benefit. Even if one looks only at major data breaches (and not government espionage), the reality is that it's likely that most or all the big tech vendors are compromised by security and/or privacy concerns in some way. As a result, using digital technology of any kind is an increasingly challenging and committing prospect, not just from a vendor lock-in perspective, but in the downstream choices that vendor selection makes in terms of which type of moral compromises come along for the ride. If such choices can be made at all. If your interest is in customer safety, first and foremost, then Huawei's idea to create centers of verification that are used rigorously to ensure safety is a stronger offer than almost anyone else is making today. It is likely that all major tech vendors will eventually be called onto the carpet to prove that they are trustworthy in a similar way as well. However, as the European Commission is finding, such an effort to ensure consistent governance even in a single common market with advances like 5G is an incredibly complex affair well beyond the ability of smaller actors to grapple with by themselves. As Huawei notes, you can't do this yourself. Consistently avoid poor technology decisions by requiring trusted vertification from independent groups that you in turn have gone through rigorous due diligence to trust.
• Hedge bets with multicloud and be ready to move. This is easier for large organizations, which tend to have a more global presence, yet can be a viable strategy for any organization until more certainty in digital data privacy and security are more effectively established. The crux of this strategy is make sure any major cloud choice is an immediately reversible decision in the event of adverse situations (an example of how this works in practice here.) While this won't help manage security risk with point technologies like mobile and IoT devices, it will work with everything except edge devices. This strategy has the disadvantage in that it closes the door on the barn after the horse (customer data) has left, but if an enterprise uses any cloud technologies, then it still must be able close that door very quickly regardness.
• Build an end-to-end verified trust chain of digital services over time. This is a long term strategy and the most important one. It also goes well beyond being able to deal with Huawei as a strategic partner, though it does make that viable as well. A verified trust chain offers the promise of dealing head-on with the reality that any digital or cloud vendor can be compromised, so ensure up front that they are definitively safe before adopting any new product or service. As data privacy, security, and control become top-of-the-agenda issues, organizations can take Huawei's concept of verification to ensure that no segment of their digital supply chains has unproven levels of security or privacy. While this is certainl a major effort it can be spread out across a wide base of enterprises. But it's where the digital industry must logically go: Indepedent centers of verification to ensure each element of the digital supply chain is safe.

For all intents and purposes, Huawei has moved into the top tier of technology vendors, both in the consumer and enterprise sectors. While not yet a household name like Apple or Samsung in some parts of the world, the company is one of the fastest growing players in the enterprise space. While we still have to see if their offering of transparency to build trust is as thorough as it needs to be in order to succeed in certain key markets, their overall path is clear in becoming one of the leading vendors in the technology world with products that will almost certainly lead certain top industries like 5G and has a good shot at AI and cloud as well.

The four strategies above, which I would argue need to be employed regardless of whether a company wishes to use Huawei products or another vendor's, are a way to ensure organizations have truly safe access to the strategic enterprise technologies they need to survive and grow. While a tall order, trust regimes are becoming the next big requirement for a basic digital foundation. CIOs in particular, must be leading the charge in ensuring such trust regimes are in place consistently and thoroughly across their entire digital supply chain. I applaud Huawei's approach to building trust in the digital world, even as there is still much to do.

New C-Suite Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Distillation Aftershots Marketing Transformation Marketing B2B B2C CX Customer Experience EX Employee Experience AI ML Generative AI Analytics Automation Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Growth eCommerce Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps Social Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Security Zero Trust Chief Executive Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Privacy Officer

Event Report: Oracle Cloud ERP Gains Traction Among Customer Base and Net New Enterprises

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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Oracle Customers Move To Cloud ERP For Innovation And Industry Capabilities

Photo: @rwang0

Figure 1. #OracleMBX Shows Large Enterprise Cloud ERP Adoption and Innovation

Photo: @rwang0

Figure 2. Twitter Moments for #OracleMBX and #ModernCX

Event Report: Oracle Cloud ERP Gains Traction With Big Enterprise Wins

In the three-horse race for Cloud ERP, customers and prospects have limited options. However, Oracle has shown the tenacity to make key investments to improve the customer ownership experience. As a result, customers and prospects have seen a compelling reason to make the shift and migration to Oracle ERP Cloud. Partners have also noticed the growing momentum in ERP and have made key investments in operational excellence, customer success, industry capabilities, and focus on innovation. If Oracle seeks to gain market share, the management team will need to step up the investment into partner migration resources to enable a rapid conversion of competitor install bases.

Your POV.

Are you ready to move to the Cloud for your ERP replacement and renewal? What happens migration? Where do you see opportunities for replacement? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

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

• Developing your digital business strategy
• Connecting with other pioneers
• Sharing best practices
• Vendor selection
• Implementation partner selection
• Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
• Demystifying software licensing

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

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DisrupTV: Building an Effective Team & The Latest Tech Trends   

Aubrey Coggins

Constellation Research

Aubrey (Levinstone) Coggins manages Constellation's marketing and communications programs and is the producer of DisrupTV, a weekly Web series on innovation and the enterprise.  She previously served as a senior manager of corporate communications at Egnyte and held account roles at Access Communications and The Hoffman Agency. Born and raised in Texas, she received a bachelor's degree in Public Relations from The University of Texas at Austin – Hook ‘em!   ...

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“Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” - Theodore Roosevelt

This bold leadership lesson helps set apart midcore managers from the true leaders in an organization. To lead is to serve and to serve is to care, explained Alden Mills, Inc. 500 CEO, Author, Entrepreneur, CXO Advisor, Navy SEAL on a recent episode of DisrupTV. Build relationships with empathy and trust. Always remember to CARE – Connect, Achieve, Respect and Empower. What a great acronym!

Mills also dove into the importance of teams. Many people who work together are really “groups.” They co-exist but are not necessarily working toward a bigger purpose. Individuals and teams need to move from selfishness to selflessness. It’s a difficult journey, but those are the teams that make the most impact. The strongest leaders also build relationships with many different personalities. The more types of people you can work with and inspire, the better you can encourage diversity of thought and a more capable team.

The show also closed out with a great tech news update with Ron Miller, Enterprise Reporter at TechCrunch. Few of the highlights that stood out – commercial drones, Salesforce’s 20^th anniversary, Survey Monkey and protecting data on blockchain.

This is just a high-level take on the great advice shared during the show. Please check out the full discussions in the video replay here or the podcast.

Tune in every week for DisrupTV, hosted by Vala Afshar and R “Ray” Wang, on Fridays 11 AM PT/2 PM ET. Remember to Care! 

 

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Constellation Research Accelerates 2019 SuperNova Awards

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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Constellation’s ninth annual innovation award program is open for nominations. Submit before the summer heats up!

What do shipping giant UPS, medical device manufacturer Royal Philips, Nordic bank SEB, The Federal Communications Commission, NBCUniversal, MGM Resorts, Mercy Hospital St. Louis, The Little Potato Company and the Kenya Revenue Authority have in common? They have all seen executives honored for digital innovation and transformation though the Constellation Research SuperNova Awards program.

Now in their ninth year, the SuperNova Awards have spotlighted hundreds of deserving nominees and honored scores of standout winners. It’s one of the tech industry’s longest-running and most prestigious awards, but this year marks a change. Constellation is moving the nomination period up into the spring (where it was previously during the summer). The goal is to cast an even wider net and to take better advantage of the spring show season, when so many innovators are sharing their success stories at tech events. The new deadline is July 5.  

The SuperNova Awards are for technology users, not vendors, but vendors can nominate their deserving customers. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a household-name company or little-know startup. We’re looking for great case studies that detail examples of innovation or transformation. Are you (or your client) making waves in an industry? Have you (or your customer) made major leaps over the competition based on technology or programs you put in place? Do you (or a client) have an amazing team that should be recognized for your/their accomplishments? Submit nominations here!

Our nomination form will help you document end-user case studies in nine categories:

• AI and Augmented Humanity - Machines that possess the learning capabilities of humans. This category addresses the business outcomes and preparations being made for a future in which software can improve itself.
• Blockchain - Share where you have used blockchain concepts and principles to craft new business models and enable new businesses.
• Data to Decisions - Employing data to make informed business decisions. (analytics, big data, predictive data science)
• Digital Marketing Transformation and Sales Effectiveness - Data-driven digital marketing and revenue generation (configure price quote, mobile marketing, account based marketing, sales by design)
• Digital Safety, Governance, and Privacy - Enabling customers to dictate how personal information is used, strategies for effective compliance, privacy best practices
• Future of Work: Employee Experience - Strategies to deliver the best possible employee experience to maximize wellness and productivity
• Future of Work: Human Capital Management - Technologies that enable organizations to utilize the workforce as a competitive asset. (talent management, benefits, HR core)
• Internet of Things - A network of smart objects enables smart services. (sensors, smart ‘things’, device to purchase, fog computing)
• Next-Generation Customer Experience - How organizations keep brand promises as business shifts to systems of engagement and mass personalization. (crm, customer experience)

Winners are announced live at Constellation's flagship executive innovation summit – Constellation Connected Enterprise (CCE) in a gala awards dinner. Finalists are invited to attend CCE, with registration for the event covered by Constellation (finalists must cover their own travel and hotel costs for the event). Some finalists will be selected to speak on panels at this exclusive executive innovation summit. As an added benefit, winners and finalists are often highlighted (with permission) in Constellation Research case studies and reports.

Submissions are now open! Please take a look at the nomination form, compile the detailed information requested and submit your application by the Friday, July 12, 2019 deadline.

Data to Decisions Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Future of Work Marketing Transformation Matrix Commerce New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth AR Executive Events Chief Customer Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief People Officer Chief Procurement Officer Chief Revenue Officer Chief Supply Chain Officer

DisrupTV: It’s Not a Sprint but a Marathon in Business and Life

Aubrey Coggins

Constellation Research

Aubrey (Levinstone) Coggins manages Constellation's marketing and communications programs and is the producer of DisrupTV, a weekly Web series on innovation and the enterprise.  She previously served as a senior manager of corporate communications at Egnyte and held account roles at Access Communications and The Hoffman Agency. Born and raised in Texas, she received a bachelor's degree in Public Relations from The University of Texas at Austin – Hook ‘em!   ...

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When it comes to building customer, employee and personal relationships, it’s about the process and the time you put in, not just the end goal.

DisrupTV recently caught up with Rhonda Vetere, author of the new book “Grit & Grind: 10 Principles for Living an Extraordinary Life,” to discuss secrets around becoming a stronger leader, team member and even finding success in your personal life.

The top principles in her new book highlight what we should engrain into our everyday lives. It’s not just for top management but for any time in your career path. One big principle that stuck out to me: time accountability (I feel late if I’m not at least five minutes early!). Being late everywhere you go, especially to work meetings she explained, is not respectful of time (one of our most essential assets), and this change will make a huge impact to those around you and for yourself. Lead by example. You are showing respect to your peers, friends and other people within your network and also setting expectations for others to follow.

Building Business Programs Around People

It’s doesn’t matter how you do business, what channels you use, and how you engage, sell or communicate. Fundamentally, it’s about people and human relationships. Technology may improve the way we do things, but we need to focus on the people on either end of the relationship, explained Nicole France, VP & Principal Analyst at Constellation Research.

During her interview, she discussed some of her latest research about the intersection and correlation of customer engagement and employee engagement. If your are employees are treated well, you will see much higher customer engagement and satisfaction due to the happiness of your employees. This is an extremely important piece to the equation that many companies don’t seem to understand. At the end of the day, people are always your most important asset.  

Marketing is Data-Inspired Not Data-Driven

DisrupTV also caught up with Mayur Gupta, CMO at Freshly. He’s a technologist who has transitioned over the years into the marketing realm. He deeply believes that it’s not an art and science, but science in art and art in science. You can’t isolate the two, especially with the increase of new technologies, such as AI and machine learning.

We aren’t being replaced. We have more opportunities to continue to add human value using science. There are so many breadcrumbs of data signals, and it’s not humanly possible to connect all of those pieces. How do you amplify AI combined with human empathy and value? It’s about finding the middle path to maximize your programs while supporting the people doing the day-to-day efforts.

This is just a small glimpse at the great advice shared during the show. Please check out the full discussions in the video replay here or the podcast.

Tune in every week for DisrupTV, hosted by Vala Afshar and R “Ray” Wang, on Fridays 11 AM PT/2 PM ET. Tomorrow is bright! Technology can transform leaders, teams, organizations and industries.

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DisrupTV: Building a Stronger Tomorrow Through Solid Leadership and the Power of Technology

Aubrey Coggins

Constellation Research

Aubrey (Levinstone) Coggins manages Constellation's marketing and communications programs and is the producer of DisrupTV, a weekly Web series on innovation and the enterprise.  She previously served as a senior manager of corporate communications at Egnyte and held account roles at Access Communications and The Hoffman Agency. Born and raised in Texas, she received a bachelor's degree in Public Relations from The University of Texas at Austin – Hook ‘em!   ...

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With all the recent industry events and holidays, DisrupTV featured guests to share insights that align with these big themes, including HIMSS, IBM Think, Valentine’s Day, Leadership, AI and more!

Providing Better Patient Care through Data and Exponential Medicine

When it comes to healthcare, the industry has historically been slower to adopt the latest technologies due to strict regulations and outdated processes. Dr. Daniel Kraft, Chair for Medicine at Singularity University and Founder of Exponential Medicine, shared some of the big shifts happening in the industry.

With the increase of AI, wearables and analytics, these technologies can drastically change the type of care given to patients. Rather than filling out forms at each visit, the consistent data gives doctors a better indication of the issues based on long-term data rather than what’s going on at that exact moment when the patient is in the office or hospital. Unfortunately, the data is pretty siloed, so there’s still a long way to go. As we continue to connect the dots, there’s a big opportunity to go from curing to preventing by catching diseases before it’s too late or even before it develops.

With all the new, disruptive technology being tested, there was also a great discussion on the skillsets needed for the future doctors, nurses and other medical professionals. Will they need to learn coding? App development? Tech will not replace us, but it’s time to “upskill” and become multi-disciplinarians.

Deciphering the Power Genes

Wait, what genes? While we didn’t talk about healthcare and genetics, Maggie Craddock, President of Workplace Relationships and Author of “Power Genes: Understanding Your Power Persona--and How to Wield It,” shared some important leadership lessons. By understanding power styles, leaders can learn their emotional strengths and weaknesses to determine the best ways to manage and avoid self-sabotaging behaviors or power struggles. She covered storytelling, emotional instincts, career paths and workplace cultures. Be sure to check out the full interview for some fantastic advice for becoming a stronger leader.  

Jobs of Tomorrow and the Power of AI

The show transitioned into discussing the future of work and the impact of AI across all industries. The show caught up with Byron Reese, CEO and Publisher at Gigaom and author of “The Fourth Age.” While AI and technology may be disrupting organizations and forcing career shifts, he doesn’t believe we will lose jobs based on it. It will create new opportunities for different types of jobs.

“Can everybody do a job that is better or harder than what they do today?” The answer is yes.

Machines can’t do everyone’s jobs, and as long as we continue to educate and upskill our workforce, new jobs and opportunities will be opened with the technology assisting or augmenting the way we do business. The hope is that this provides better value, helps us find smarter outcomes based on data, and makes our work lives easier by assisting us in the monotonous tasks.  

This is just a small glimpse at the great advice shared during the show. Please check out the full discussions in the video replay here or the podcast.

Tune in every week for DisrupTV, hosted by Vala Afshar and R “Ray” Wang, on Fridays 11 AM PT/2 PM ET. Tomorrow is bright! Technology can transform leaders, teams, organizations and industries.

 

DisrupTV Episode 137, Dr. Daniel Kraft, Maggie Craddock, Byron Reese from Constellation Research on Vimeo.

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Week Two - More Constellation ShortList Portfolio Updates

Aubrey Coggins

Constellation Research

Aubrey (Levinstone) Coggins manages Constellation's marketing and communications programs and is the producer of DisrupTV, a weekly Web series on innovation and the enterprise.  She previously served as a senior manager of corporate communications at Egnyte and held account roles at Access Communications and The Hoffman Agency. Born and raised in Texas, she received a bachelor's degree in Public Relations from The University of Texas at Austin – Hook ‘em!   ...

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As promised last week, we rolled out an additional 21 new and updated lists from the Constellation ShortList™ portfolio across our different coverage areas.

Below is the full list released today:

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Best Of Breed Platforms - NEW
B2B Marketing Automation
Campaign to Commerce 
Cloud-Based BI & Analytics
Cloud-Based Performance Management
Data Cataloging
Employee Digital Workspaces
ERM/GRC 
European-Centric Talent Management Vendors
Field Service Management
Global HCM Suites
Global IaaS for NextGen Apps
Partner & Alliance Relationship Management (PARM)
Payroll Vendors for North American SMBS
Quantum Computing Platforms
Robotic Process Automation
Self-Service Data Preparation
Smart Services Digital Monetization Platforms
Social / Digital Media Listening / Monitoring / Engagement Platforms
Talent Management Suites
Work Coordination Platforms

Technology buyers use these reports to identify the services and products they need to achieve digital transformation. Products and services named to each Constellation ShortList meet the threshold criteria as determined by our analysts through client inquiries, partner conversations, customer references, vendor selection projects, market share and internal research. Constellation ShortList reports are part of Constellation’s open research library and are free to download. Updates are shared every six months.

 

Be sure to check back for the final set up updates next Wednesday! 
 

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IBM Think 2019: Takeaways on the Promise of Cloud-Portable Artificial Intelligence

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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IBM promises ‘AI Anywhere,’ but will customers trade one form of lock-in for another?

IBM Think, the company’s big annual event, visited San Francisco for the first time February 12-15, bringing some 30,000 customers, partners, press and analysts to the Moscone Center. What’s next for IBM and will it reignite growth?

Most of what I heard at Think 2019 seemed geared to existing IBM customers who are all-in on its stack. That’s good news for many long-time IBM customers, but I have to wonder whether more heterogeneous firms or entirely new customers will be attracted to what seemed like an all-IBM offering designed for multi-cloud deployment? Here’s my take on the big “AI Anywhere” announcement.

IBM Promises ‘AI Anywhere’

IBM’s Watson Anywhere promise, which was announced by CEO Ginni Rometty during her keynote and detailed in separate analyst and customer presentations, sounded compelling in principle. The idea is to facilitate a hybrid, multi-cloud world, and most organizations Constellation Research talks to accept that the combination of on-premises and cloud-based deployments will be a reality for some time to come. IBM’s envisioned “anywhere” deployment choices include on-premises and the IBM Cloud, of course, but also Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure (Azure), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and RedHat Openshift and OpenStack (see IBM Watson Anywhere slide, below).

 

Source: IBM

The “Watson Anywhere” offerings described at Think showed IBM’s complete stack, including the AI options and the underlying information architecture (IA). IBM will use the Kubernetes and containerization capabilities of (the confusingly named) IBM Cloud Private (ICP) to deploy all or parts of the portfolio on the on-premises, private cloud and public-cloud options listed above. IBM’s multi-cloud offering on AWS will be the first of IBM's third-party cloud deployment options to be introduced this year. IBM executives often use the line “there’s no AI without IA,” and the slide below seems to suggest that IBM's AI is inextricably tied to its IA, meaning IBM Cloud Private for Data (ICP/D), but that's not the case. You can take more of an a la carte approach, as I discuss below, but execs did a better job of detailing the IBM stack than they did of explaining the modularity and flexibility of the portfolio to work with the components and services that customers might use on other public clouds.

Source: IBM

As for the IBM stack, ICP/D bundles together microservices-enabled capabilities to collect, organize, and analyze data, as shown in the slide below. The “collect” services embedded in ICP/D include the Db2 family (Db2 itself, Db2 Warehouse, Db2 Event Store) and Hadoop, Spark and IBM BigSQL. The “organize” services include capabilities from the InfoSphere brand, including DataStage integration, cleansing, data masking and governance capabilities. The “analyze” aspects of ICP/D include foundations from SPSS, Cognos and Watson Studio. There are also open source technologies in the mix -- like Hadoop, Spark, Elastisearch, Flink and more -- but as you can see below, there are a lot of IBM technologies under the hood in ICP/D.

IBM Cloud Private For Data

Source: IBM

MyPOV on IBM’s Multi-cloud Offering

IBM executives argued that Watson Anywhere will help companies break down the “walled gardens,” meaning various forms of vendor lock-in, on the major public clouds. But I doubt many customes will want to go to the opposite extreme of locking into all IBM technologies wherever they choose to deploy workloads. I see those interested in multi-cloud as more likely to be interested in mixing and matching capabilities, including some native to those third-party clouds, because they 1. Have significant amounts of data on those clouds, 2. Run significant numbers of applications on those clouds and/or 3. Want to use best-of-breed capabilities available on those clouds.

In my recent case study report on Royal Dutch Shell, Daniel Jeavons, the company’s general manager of data science, explained that the energy giant is using both AWS and Azure, tapping what it thinks of as interchangeable, but low-cost and quickly scalable information architecture available on each cloud. For example, Shell uses Redshift Spectrum, S3, Databricks, MySQL, Spark and Hadoop services on AWS and what Jeavons described as more-or-less equivalent services on Azure, including Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Azure Blob Storage, Databricks and MySQL, Spark and HDInsight.

Shell sees what it describes as its “data science platform” as the part that it wants to be portable across hybrid and multi-cloud deployments. That platform is a mix of non-cloud-specific software including Alteryx, MATLAB, Python, R, and R Studio. So in Shell’s case, the IA is seen as interchangeable while the AI and data-science capabilities – and the models developed thereon – are the prized part that the company wants available in hybrid- and multi-cloud fashion, applicable wherever data lives.

IBM execs did acknowlede, when asked, that there’s nothing preventing customers from deploying individual components of its modular AI stack. To me, some of the more attractive components of the overall stack are Watson Studio, which includes a nice collection of open source frameworks, and Watson OpenScale, which addresses the monitoring and optimization aspects of the model-development-and-deployment lifecycle often neglected in data science offerings. OpenScale also addresses model interpretability and bias detection, which are emerging as important challenges. If you just want to use Watson Studio and OpenScale, you could use ICP (without the “for Data,” IA part) to deploy just those components on the range of IBM’s hybrid and multi-cloud deployment options. As show below, for example, Watson Studio and OpenScale clould run on AWS or Azure with those clouds being the runtime environment.

Source: IBM

The advantage of a more a la carte approach would be, for example, bringing a consistent data science and model-management environment to a range of deployments, drawing on data where it lives (assuming it’s already on that cloud) rather than moving it or replicating it onto a separate platform (ICP/D running on IaaS). But instead of talking up flexibility and choice, IBM spoke to IBM customers about running the IBM stack on rival clouds using a bare minimum of capabilities from those clouds.

I suppose it’s a breakthrough that IBM is even acknowledging the customer desire to run workloads on rival clouds – something Microsoft and Oracle don’t discuss. But if you’re going to talk up multi-cloud support, in my book you might as well talk up the ability to work with data where it lives and bring what the customer loves most (and not everything) to a third-party cloud. I wouldn't expect IBM execs to talk up the components and services customers might want to use on other clouds, but it would have helped the deploy-anywhere story to hear more about the modularity of the portfolio and the availability of REST APIs and more to play nicely on third-party clouds.

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