Event Report: Igloo Software ICE 2018

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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This week in San Antonio Texas, Digital Workplace vendor Igloo Software held their annual user conference Igloo Customer Experience (ICE, Igloo... get it!) In addition to attending, I had the honour of keynoting the second day. I highlighted some of the challenges employees are struggling with today, and how bringing together content, colleagues and conversations can help employees not only get work done but be creative and feel like they have a voice in the company. My talk was designed to complement the conference theme of providing customers with a Digital Workplace, the new term being used for intranets or communities.

Here is a short video review of the news, with more details below.

There were four main items announced at ICE:

1. Igloo Marketplace , a repository of templates and integrations that expand the capabilities of Igloo.

MyPOV: This is a significant step in evolving from a product to a platform. To compete against vendors like Microsoft and Google, you need to have a vibrant business partner ecosystem and you need to have integrations with the popular 3rd enterprise business applications. In order to create a seamless experience for employees, they need to be able to access their files, HR applications, CRM records and web-conferencing tools and more... all without switching between multiple applications. A marketplace or catalogue provides a central place for people to add the tools and integrations they need to get their jobs done. 

2. "Unified Search: Through a partnership with Lucidworks, Igloo will be incorporating the latest in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing technology to improve search speed and relevancy."

MyPOV: While this is not available yet, it is a move well aligned with the trend of using AI to help people find, filter and focus on the things they need, ideally with personalized and context-aware results. It's not just about finding the right content, it's about finding the right content at the right time in the right location.  This partnership does not seem to be exclusive, leaving the door open for Igloo to leverage technologies from different vendors for things like image search or video indexing.

3. "Worldwide Data Residency: Igloo’s growing base of multinational enterprise customers will soon be able to use Azure for local data residency options in US, Canada and Europe"

MyPOV: This is a good indicator of the growth of Igloo's customer base. Clearly they are seeing demand outside of North America, and I look forward to hearing customer reference stories that leverage these new data centre options, as well as potential announcements around additional locations.

4. "General availability of the Networked Enterprise Edition provides complex and dispersed organizations with a hub and spoke architecture for connecting business units, vendors, suppliers, partners, and customers"

MyPOV: This appears to be a very interesting feature, enabling organizations to deploy a central "hub" of information that everyone can access, then multiple "spokes" that can be tailored to specific needs. I'd like to hear more about the benefits and challenges of administration and security of this architecture. Hopefully, Igloo will share case-studies and metrics around how their large customers are using this new feature.

 

Overall Impressions

No matter what you call it; Intranet, Employee Community, or Digital Workplace, the need to have a place where employees can create, share and discover knowledge is a critical component of empowering collaboration.

Several of the attendees I spoke to over the two days are currently using Jive Software or Microsoft SharePoint and are looking for alternatives. The high level of interest in Igloo is a good sign for the company, and they should continue to capitalize on the uncertainty in some of their competition's roadmaps and vision.

Igloo has always been very strong on design, not just in looks and branding, but in user experience around creating, finding and sharing knowledge.

They are now at the stage where they need to focus on enterprise needs such as scalability, security, compliance and administration.

The announcements at ICE this week are moves in the right direction, and validate why Igloo Software is one of the vendors on the Constellation ShortList™ for Corporate Intranet Platforms.

 

Future of Work

TIBCO Extends its Data Intelligence Vision

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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TIBCO is building out a comprehensive analytics portfolio through multiple acquisitions. Here's what's in store for Spotfire, Statistica and Alpine customers.

Sometimes one plus one really can turn into three. That’s the formula TIBCO is hoping will apply to multiple acquisitions in the data-management and data science spaces over the last 18 months including Alpine Data Labs and Statistica (both now part of the just-announced TIBCO Data Science Platform), and the CISCO Information Server, previously known as Composite Software and now called TIBCO Data Virtualization.

To set the stage, formerly public TIBCO was acquired by private equity firm Vista Equity Partners in 2014. It has annual revenues of about $783 million, according to Hoover’s estimate. Founded in 1997, the firm has long prided itself on punching above its weight among industry giants. It started out as a messaging and integration middleware vendor up against the likes of IBM and Oracle. The company has landed many large, notable customers over the years, including Adidas, Bank of Montreal, Coca-Cola, FedEx, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Unilever.

TIBCO’s foray into analytics began with its acquisition of data discovery and visualization vendor Spotfire in 2007. The portfolio was extended in 2014 with the acquisition of Jaspersoft, a more reporting-centric, open-source business intelligence platform often used to embed analytical capabilities into commercial and custom software.

The analytics side of TIBCO is now billed as the “Augment Intelligence” portfolio, while the integration side is designed to “Interconnect Everything.” The two sides support each other, but I’ll focus here almost entirely on analytics. TIBCO NOW 2018, the vendor’s annual customer event, held September 4-6 in Las Vegas, gave some 1,600 attendees a great update and it gave me a better understanding of the company’s many acquisitions and strategy.

Since 2014, TIBCO has acquired Statistica, Alpine and the CISCO Integration Server (formerly Composite Software), among other assets, and has added a data catalog.

Analytics Update

Before we get into the vision and strategy, the key analytics-related announcements at TIBCO NOW included the following:

Spotfire gets smarter. Set for general availability this fall, Spotfire X (as in the 10.0 release – skipping 8.X and 9.X) adds natural language querying (NLQ) and AI-driven recommendations. NLQ lets users explore data through typed, English-language questions rather than SQL code. The AI-driven recommendations feature employs an ensemble of machine learning techniques to scan data and spot interesting variables, exceptions and drivers. The recommendations are exposed as a list of notable data-exploration possibilities.

Spotfire gets faster. Spotfire X gains a new Data Streams function from TIBCO’s StreamBase technology to support visual analytics on data streams. Spotfire Data Streams offers real-time intelligence for Internet of Things (IoT) applications and other (fast-growing) use cases for low-latency insight. Oil and gas, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and life sciences businesses are at the head of the list of potential customers. Spotfire Data Streams supports continuous monitoring as well as real-time analysis and comparison to historical data to support trend- and root-cause analysis.

Data science options integrated. TIBCO Data Science is a start on the integration of various TIBCO analytics and machine learning capabilities, including last year’s Alpine Data and Statistica acquisitions as well as the TERR (R server) and Statistics Server offerings long associated with Spotfire. Bundling brings together everything under a single license while initial integrations enable Statistica analytics to be run from Spotfire Analyst. Statistica can also call out to the Alpine engine to run analytics in cluster.

Jaspersoft gets cloud friendlier. TIBCO announced JasperReports IO to advance embedding of reports and visualizations in cloud-based apps. IO is a small-footprint rendering engine that wraps Java in RESTful endpoints for easier development. It’s initially available as a Dockerfile. Highly scalable microservices orchestrated by Kubernetes are a planned next step.

MyPOV On Key Announcements

Spotfire is a solid data discovery and visualization option that’s particularly popular with data-savvy analysts in manufacturing, oil and gas, life sciences, pharma and other demanding environments. TIBCO was ahead of the game in delivering integrated data-wrangling capabilities in 2015. Spotfire is not as intuitive for business users as is Tableau or Microsoft Power BI, but the addition of natural language query and AI-driven recommendations should help to make it more accessible.

The new streaming analysis capabilities in Spotfire X will give power users yet more sophisticated functionality for low-latency and IoT scenarios. Other upgrades in release X, including data visualization improvements and design-once, deploy-on-any-device responsive design, will please every Spotfire customer.

Every analytics vendor now seems to claim embedded analytics capabilities, but this is a market niche that Jaspersoft has focused on for a long time. Open source licensing gives developers a cost-effective, flexible foundation. With JasperReports IO, TIBCO is clearly intent on supporting state-of-the-art cloud architecture.

As for my take on the data science moves, let’s look at how the broader portfolio comes together.

The Data Intelligence Portfolio

TIBCO executives say underlying data intelligence capabilities including data wrangling, data cataloging and virtualization will be a boon to analytics and data science teams alike.

To get a better understanding of TIBCO’s analytics strategy, I sat down with Brad Hopper, vice president, analytics product strategy, who drew out a simple pyramid to explain what he informally calls the data intelligence portfolio. It starts at the top of the pyramid with the data wrangling capabilities built into Spotfire. These features enable individual analysts and data scientists to combine, manipulate, clean up, standardize and otherwise munge data for visual analysis in Spotfire or in data science work.

Data analysts and data scientists don’t tend to methodically build out workflows with every data-manipulation step planned out in advance, as would an ETL professional. The focus is on letting these users wrangle the data, yet each step they take is captured and recorded in the background. Even if the steps weren’t applied in a linear, planned-out way, Spotfire’s Data Canvas retains a logically ordered, documented and trackable workflow of all the joins, transformations and cleansing and editing steps behind each new source that can be edited, perfected, reused and audited.

The next layer down in the Data Intelligence pyramid is the TIBCO Spotfire Data Catalog, which is built on technology from Attivio that supports machine-learning-based crawling and indexing of all data in the enterprise. This includes data lakes with unstructured information, which the catalog parses and enriches with metadata. Fuzzy matching helps to find relationships among data.

This middle layer is designed to aid search, discovery and data prototyping, so it’s aimed at teams using Spotfire, but Hopper also sees it coming into play for data scientists. Teams might develop marts for standardized dashboarding and visualization through Spotfire or reporting through Jaspersoft. The catalog and data wrangling tools will help data science teams spot and develop new data sets.

At the bottom of the Data Intelligence pyramid is TIBCO Data Virtualization (formerly Cisco Information Server/Composite Software). This is where IT can draw on the data workflows captured on the Spotfire Data Canvas and turn them into hardened data marts and sanctioned, production-grade data sources. The heavy lifting is done through virtualization rather than traditional ETL and data-movement. Also described, variously, as data fabric, logical data warehousing or virtual data layer, data virtualization approaches are gaining traction. TIBCO Data Virtualization competes directly with Donodo (which I recently wrote about in combination with Looker in this recent case study).

MyPOV on TIBCO’s Data Intelligence Strategy

Analytics and data science can only thrive where there is ready access to solid, well-managed data. Thus, I do like how the data catalog and data virtualization assets complement Spotfire and, potentially, Tibco Data Science. I’ve been following Composite Software for a long time, so it’s good to see stepped up investment in what’s now known as TIBCO Data Virtualization. I didn’t get to see enough at TIBCO NOW, so I’ve asked for deeper briefings on how DV works with modern cloud architectures, unstructured sources and object stores such as Amazon S3.

The breadth of TIBCO’s portfolio and the one-stop-shop/one-throat-to-choke opportunity it affords is likely to appeal to IT buyers. I’d make a point of getting analytics buyers in the loop, too. You might use DV to deliver IT-sanctioned data sources for data governance purposes, for example. One Spotfire customer lamented, during a DV session at TIBCO NOW, that users want direct, not virtualized, access to the tables and sources they already know. Adoption of TIBCO DV may require a bit of change management, even if it’s ultimately a boon to data access and governance.

As for TIBCO’s data science portfolio, I see the moves to bring together the Statistica, Alpine and Terr/Spotfire assets on one platform as appealing to existing customers, but I doubt the collection will win over greenfield converts. For one thing, they remain separate products with very basic points of integration at this point. For another, data scientists starting from scratch are embracing all things open source, including Jupyter and Zeppelin notebooks and direct coding of open algorithms. Alpine Data certainly tried to cater to this next-generation crowd, but it wasn’t winning in the marketplace.

For now, TIBCO’s access-to-everything licensing will appeal to existing Statistica and Alpine Data customers (as will the complement of catalog, data wrangling and DV capabilities, if they’re also Spotfire customers). Long term, however, I’d want to see deeper integration and refactoring that truly brings these assets together as a single product worthy of the “platform” billing, with connected workflows and consistent user interfaces.

In short, I like what TIBCO is doing with Spotfire, catalog capabilities and TIBCO DV. Only time will tell if the data science portfolio can become more appealing than the sum of its parts.

Related Reading:
Tableau Advances the Era of Smart Analytics
UltraMobile Takes an Affordable Approach to Agile Analytics
Alteryx Offers Gift of Time for Analytical Innovation

 

Data to Decisions Tech Optimization Big Data ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI AI Analytics Automation business Marketing SaaS PaaS IaaS Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP finance Healthcare Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Chief Executive Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

DisrupTV Takes on The Future of Sales and Marketing

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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Key Takeaways for Today’s Marketing & Sales Professionals from Tiffani Bova, Rober Glazer and Jen Grant

“Half the money I spend on marketing works, but I don’t know which half.”

This simple adage illustrates the marketing and sales problems of the past are still impacting teams across today’s organizations and industries. On a recent DisrupTV episode (121), its hosts R “Ray” Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research, and Vala Afshar, chief digital evangelist at Salesforce, interviewed three seasoned leaders addressing the future of marketing and sales. Be sure to check out the full replay for the interviews, but for now, here are the five takeaways from the discussions.

1. Empower Upward Growth Through Holistic Sales and Marketing.

There isn’t just one right move to fix a problem. Tiffani Bova, global customer growth and innovation evangelist at Salesforce, former distinguished analyst and research fellow, and author of “Growth IQ,” warns executives should constantly reevaluate and ask the tough questions, rather than wait for slowdowns or panic mode in order to stay on top.

Ask your team: What’s working? What’s changed? What’s not working? How are your customers different? What has happened around you? Where do you want to go? Bova explained that she discusses these questions in client sessions and then asks, “how has your sales and marketing changed?” The answer usually is: “it hasn’t…”

This disconnect is what sets companies apart. It also explains why 52 percent of the Fortune 500 have been merged, acquired, bankrupted, or fallen off of the list since 2000,” according to a stat from Constellation Research. Don’t let one business metric (or even a full business model!) change around you without adjusting your strategies.

Bova’s book takes a modern spin on tried and true marketing strategies, highlighting some great case studies from McDonalds, Red Bull, Starbucks and Kylie Cosmetics. She stresses the importance of focusing on technique and leveraging a combination of strategies to figure out the best sequence for your business to flourish.

2. Focus Your Investment Only on Results.

Flip the model on its head and pay only for results. Robert Glazer, founder & CEO at Acceleration Partners and author of Performance Partnerships,” explains that the value is in the results. We get into contracts and throw away money to gain menial results. You don’t have to get stuck in a contract with a partner for $20,000 a month, for example. This new model allows you to set specific goals and only pay for those agreed-upon outcomes. For every time you place me in X publication or X type of podcast, I will pay you $5,000. It’s much easier to track and measure these outcomes. You will get more value for your money and from your relationships by setting clear, actionable goals with the money tied to them.

3. Stand by Your Core Values.

It’s more damaging to have your “values” plastered on a wall or discussed only once, than to not have any values at all. Core values are key to successful teams and organizations. Hire by them. Promote by them. And fire by them. Be clear about where you are going and ensure the team is aligned. It’s as simple and hard as that, explained Glazer.

Make your team and your organization a place where people want to get on board with your values as a leader. Everyone - employees, contractors and partners – should align themselves and keep that focus in their day-to-day roles to ensure the short-term and the long-term direction is where you want it.

4. Diversify Ways of Thinking.

The HPPO (highest paid person’s opinion) is not always right. The strongest leaders know that the smartest person in the room is the room. Jen Grant, chief marketing officer at Looker, highlighted how in many organizations, teams are afraid to stand up to the HPPO or the HPPO wants to keep the data and insights locked at the top. Truly successful leaders understand the importance of everyone bringing their unique and diverse viewpoints to the table. It’s all about instilling empathy and trust.

Think about it. If we all lived in the same house, with the same family and attended the same schools, then we would all think along the same lines. Build your team with individuals from different backgrounds and locations, then they will bring different, unique ways of thinking to tackle the same problem. Use our differences to build strength in our outcomes. If everyone has access to the same data – sales and marketing, junior and senior employees, the HPPO – then we can remove the power struggle and work out the problems at a different, more successful level.

Glazer echoed these sentiments explaining that it’s important to also focus on time management, personal achievements, and health goals, for example, to really foster a strong, supportive culture for our diverse team members. Help everyone get over the bar in their own ways, and those strong accomplishments on the personal side will translate into business. Nurture your teams to grow your business on the inside and out.

5. Talk to a Person. B2B AND B2C Marketing Aren’t that Different.

It seems daunting to jump from B2C marketing over to the B2B world. The first instinct for many is, “it’s a business, so make it as boring as possible, and use lots of words and long sentences.” All joking aside, Grant highlights what seems to be a big challenge for marketers trying to make this shift.

Grant, who has successfully run marketing programs on both sides, reminded leaders that you are always marketing and selling to a person. Our goal is to inspire them, make them happy, support them, and build their trust. Whatever you are selling or promoting, it’s not to the “four walls” of an organization; it’s to a person who needs a problem solved.

The Bottom Line

As market leaders upend traditional sales and marketing myths, expect a balance of a more data-driven approach with a personalized authentic message. Brand still matters in sales and marketing, and every interaction with a prospect and customer must reflect the brand.  However, how we engage will continue to evolve and brands and enterprises must be prepared for constant change.

What’s Next?

Where do you want to be in five years, 10 years, next month? As an executive, ensure everyone is focused on the same destination. Focus on the people – employees, partners, audience, etc. If you stay true to your guiding “light,” then growth and success will follow. For more knowledge sharing from smart executives, change agents and thought leaders, check out DisrupTV every Friday at 11 AM PT/2 PM ET.

 

Event Report: Slack Frontiers 2018

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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Sep 5 and 6 Slack held their user conference Frontiers in San Francisco. The flow of the keynote was very well done, with Slack executives and customers (including 21st Century Fox, WeWork and others) working together to tell a consistent story around how Slack is evolving from just group messaging (a place for people to chat) to a collaboration hub (a place that integrates together multiple applications to enable people to do work). This theme of stream or newsfeed based tools becoming a place to "get work done" fits in well with the concept of Purposeful Collaboration that I've been writing about since 2013.

Logistically Frontiers was very well done, with a combination of entertainment, education and philanthropy. They recapped product highlights of 2018 including

• Improved search (speed as well as interface)
• Application actions (enable posts in the stream to be interactive, not just information)
• Shared channels (allow two companies to collaborate securely via Slack)
• Acquisition of Missions.ai (a workflow/automation product that enables people to define trigger events and actions)
• Atlassian partnership (the shutdown of HipChat and Stride and ideally migration to Slack)

and discussed several future features (ranging from Q42018 to "sometime in 2019")

• Enterprise Key Management (EKM) which will allow administrators to encrypt channels
• Improvements in administration features like device-level security, compliance and governance
• Making the editor more usable for non-technical people - example WYSIWYG rich text editing
• Improved initial experience for new Slack users, showing fewer features when they first start
• A new web and desktop client that is significantly faster (ex: 1s load time vs 6s), uses less memory, and even supports offline usage
• Network channels - the next phase of Shared Channels, enabling multiple companies instead of just two

but unfortunately, there was not a lot of "new and available now" type news.  I would have liked to have heard:

• Updated statistics about growth. They cited the same 8M daily active users and 3M paid users numbers that they announced in May.
• News around partners and the Slack Fund
• Advancements in how they are using AI

 

Here is my quick video recap of Slack Frontiers 2018

 

MyPOV:

Slack certainly deserves credit for reinvigorating the enterprise collaboration market. Their rise to tech-stardom caused the traditional tech giants Microsoft, Google, Cisco and IBM to react and develop their own similar channel-based collaboration tools. But now with the market being so competitive, what comes next for Slack? I would have liked to have seen more emphasis on Slack Enterprise Grid, their platform for use at large companies.
 

As I pointed out on Twitter, I believe their future will involve more native functionality that enables them to evolve beyond just messaging to becoming more of a platform for executing core business workflows.

News: @SlackHQ raises another $427M via series H funding.
MyPOV: Slack's future is expansion beyond group messaging or even being an integration hub to include more native collaboration functionality.
VIDEO: https://t.co/iiKQzho1L2#futureofwork #employeeexperience #socbiz #esn

— Alan Lepofsky 🇨🇦 🇺🇸 Future of Work (@alanlepo) August 21, 2018

 

The way most people work today, struggling with information overload as they constantly switch between multiple applications is not the optimal way to work. Slack as well as several other vendors know this, and are working on ways to improve the employee experience. I've written about this future of work in what I refer to as Digital Canvases, and I look forward to seeing Slack continue to try and help employees work better together.

 

Future of Work

DisrupTV Episode 120 - 3 x 3 Key Takeaways on Engagement, Learning and Enterprise Acceleration

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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Last Friday we had the opportunity to record the 120th episode of DisrupTV, and with we I mean usual host Vala Afshar, and yours truly stepping in for the always on the move Ray R Wang. The show focus was on the Future of Work / HCM research area, so I doubled as moderator and as guest.

 

Here are the top 3 takeaways from the guests of episode #120 (it can be found here).
 

Radical Transparency fosters Engagement with David Ossip

Ceridian Chairman and CEO David Ossip shared the transformation journey that the vendor has undergone – from a managed payroll provider using mainframe technology to a cloud-based SaaS vendor. Here are the top 3 takeaways:

Culture needs a Purpose. Ossip shared that culture cannot be an empty shell, needs to be tangible, needs to be lived. He shared two examples on how obviously wrong and suboptimal processes got changed, as part of a regular location visit schedule. The purpose is key to galvanize a cross-generational workforce on what ultimately matters, customer success. 

David Ossip talks transformation on DisruptTV

If you wonder why Vala looks sceptical - watch the show!

Innovation & Product-led Growth Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Future of Work Data to Decisions New C-Suite DisrupTV Leadership AR AI ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI Analytics Automation B2B B2C CX EX Employee Experience HR HCM business Marketing SaaS PaaS IaaS Supply Chain Growth Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology eCommerce Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP finance Customer Service Content Management Collaboration M&A Enterprise Service Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Operating Officer Chief Experience Officer

Event Report: BoxWorks 2018 the road to Cloud Content Management

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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This week Box held their annual conference BoxWorks, with the 2018 theme being "The blueprint for the future of work".

In the two videos below I provide my thoughts on the key themes and product announcements.

Part 1: Three Key Themes in Box's evolution to Cloud Content Management

• Evolution from Cloud File Storage to Cloud Content Management
• Digital Workplace - A seamless Employee Experience for content and collaboration
• Content Intelligence - Automating tasks and extracting insights

Part 2: News and Overall Thoughts

• Lots of integrations, including GSuite
• Box Feed
• Activity Stream and Recommended Apps
• Box Skills, Metadata, Tasks and Automations 

 

My Analysis

• Box continues to hold their own and grow in a market could have easily been commoditized by Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive
• They continue to improve the user experience, solving common ECM issues like finding content
• Until now, Box was more of a service than a destination. With Feed, Activity Stream, Recommended Apps, Automation and other features, the amount of time people spend in Box itself will increase.
• Customers would like better clarity and a more specific roadmap around ”announced features” versus shipping.
• Business Partners are unsure of which features will remain 3rd party add-ons and what areas Box will add with native functionality
   

Future of Work Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Marketing Transformation Revenue & Growth Effectiveness Data to Decisions box AI Analytics Automation CX EX Employee Experience HCM Machine Learning ML SaaS PaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Enterprise Software Enterprise IT Leadership HR Chief People Officer Chief Human Resources Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Revenue Officer Chief Experience Officer

Updates: Q3 2018 Constellation ShortList Portfolio Release - Week Three

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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Today, we rolled out the final lists for this quarter's update to the Constellation ShortList™ portfolio. Below is the 20 lists released today:

B2B Marketing Automation
B2C Marketing Automation
Cloud Identity Management
Digital Asset Management (DAM) for DX 
Digital Asset Management (DAM) for High Volume Commerce
Digital Canvas Applications  - New
Digital Experience (DX) Integrated Platforms
Digital Transformation Target Platforms
Enterprise File Sharing and Content Management
Enterprise Group Messaging
Enterprise Low Code Tools and Platforms
Field Service Management
Integration Platform as a Service (IPaaS) 
Marketing Analytics 
Payroll Vendors for North American SMBS
Price Optimization Solutions
Quantum Computing Platforms - New
Smart Services Digital Monetization Platforms
Social / Digital Media Listening / Monitoring / Engagement Platforms
Workforce Management Suites

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.

Constellation ShortList Evaluation Services

Constellation clients may work with analysts and the research team to conduct a thorough discussion of a Constellation ShortList, vendor selection, and contract negotiation. Request a meeting here.

For more information, visit https://www.constellationr.com/shortlist.

Data to Decisions Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Future of Work Marketing Transformation Matrix Commerce New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Revenue & Growth Effectiveness Innovation & Product-led Growth AI Blockchain PaaS SaaS IaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service 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 Chief Experience Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief AI Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Product Officer

Slack Raises $427M Series H funding

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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Slack has raised another $427M bringing their total to $1.2B, yes... with a B. This is their 11th funding round. In the video below, I discuss how I expect Slack's future to involve expansion of native functionality, extending them beyond their roots of group messaging (IRC) to include more core collaboration, coordination and content creation capabilities.

 

 

Future of Work

Updates: Q3 2018 Constellation ShortList Portfolio Release - Week Two

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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Today, we released 21 new and updated lists from across our coverage areas in the Constellation ShortList™ portfolio. Below is the full list released today:

Campaign to Commerce
Cloud-Based Performance Management
Cloud Customer Service and Contact Center Software
Customer Experience (CX) Services: Global
Customer Experience (CX): IOT Platforms
Customer Loyalty
Data Cataloging
Data Lake Management
Digital Adoption Platforms
ERM/GRC
Hybrid- and Cloud-Friendly NoSQL Stores
Hybrid- and Cloud-Friendly Relational Database Management Systems
Matrix Commerce Order Management
Next-Gen Databases - RDBMS for On Premises
PaaS Tool Suites for Next Gen Apps
PaaS Suites for Next Gen Apps
Partner & Alliance Relationship Management (PARM)
Sales Force Automation
Sales Productivity
Smart, Augmented Business Intelligence and Analytics
Synchronous Ledger Technology Services

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 last round of updates next Wednesday! 

Constellation ShortList Evaluation Services

Constellation clients may work with analysts and the research team to conduct a thorough discussion of a Constellation ShortList, vendor selection, and contract negotiation. Request a meeting here.

For more information, visit https://www.constellationr.com/shortlist.

Data to Decisions Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Future of Work Marketing Transformation Matrix Commerce New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Revenue & Growth Effectiveness Innovation & Product-led Growth AI Blockchain PaaS SaaS IaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service 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 Chief Experience Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief AI Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Product Officer

The Digital Transformation of Back-End Customer Experience: What Leaders of The New C-Suite Are Thinking

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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While the marketing and sales side of customer experience (CX) still receives by far the lion's share of attention and investment today, it's the back end part of the customer journey (support and service) that remains one of the most essential elements, at least as far as the customer is concerned.

In fact, in today's increasingly customer-centric operating environment, this particular experience segment has become a core area of focus by leadership in the enterprise too. This is despite the fact that customer care and contact center efforts are offered perceived as necessary overheads and cost centers, given that they do not usually directly drive revenue growth. 

Nevertheless, across the board, we can see that organizations that invest in the most vital aspects of customer experience are exceeding their business goals at nearly twice the rate of those that do not according to a recent study by Adobe. More tellingly, it's the back-end of customer experience -- namely the journey that the customer takes and the experience that they encounter when they need help with a company's products and services -- that can most actively drive retention.

This makes the all-too-frequent neglect of customer care unfortunately, as even modest investements in retention can have major business impact: Bain reports that a 5% increase in customer retention spending can increase a company's profitabilty by a relatively dramatic 75%.

It was with this backdrop that I attended CCW Executive Exchange this week in Chicago, an exclusive confab of senior executives who are charged with transforming the customer care experience in their organizations. From the nearly two dozen conversation I had with customer care leaders in some of the top industries in the world (banking, insurance, manufacturing, healthcare, and consumer social media), I was able to derive the current issues and mindset of those seeking to uplevel their customer care, customer service, and contact/call center efforts.

A few insights from this week are gratifying: Namely that there is a general acceptance that the world is rapidly changing and that new customer engagement methods are needed that are simpler, faster, and more satisfying (for what these are, see below.) The second is that investment is clearly up, especially in digital channels, and there is more appreciation for technology that can actively improve customer satisfaction and retention.

Some trends are more problematic: In clear from my many conversations on the topic, which was top of mind, that industry regulation is greatly hampering what technology can do to help customer experience. GDPR is getting the focus right now given its recent introduction and hefty penalties, but existing regulations are also limiting what companies are willing to do to push the envelop and make back-end CX better. In addition, too many organizations are looking at new digital approaches and channels merely to reduce operating costs, instead considering the potential to transform their brand, enthrall customers, and raise their overall level of customer attractiveness and satisfaction (which in turn drives more strategic goals, like overall customer retention.)

Here were the top takeaways from my conversations with customer care experience leaders at the CCW Executive Exchange:

• Operational complexity remains the leading barrier to back-end CX success. In my conversations this week with customer care executives, it was evident it is just plain difficult to provide good, consistent support across a large and growing number of channels. It's also getting harder as social media, intelligent chatbots, voice assistants, and other new technology channels increasingly becomes central to the experience. What's more, channel fragmention within the contact center itself, a too-neglected and highly impactful topic in my experience, is getting worse even faster. From my sampling of well over a dozen organizations, it was commonplace for back-end CX staff to have to learn and operate 20-30 software applications (or more) to meet customer needs today. This makes the job hard to do for relatively unskilled labor and is contributing significantly to attrition according to those I spoke with. Thus, channel and app fragmentation is making complexity management in back-end CX one of the top strategic objectives according to the executive I encountered. Integrated digital experience tools and customer experience management platforms were some solutions discussed, but it's abundantly clear that the industry has a lot more work to do to resolve and make the end-to-end experience better for both customers and contact center agents.
• Regulation is limiting experimentation and innovation in customer care CX. There are two major headwinds here: a) The very constrained customer care experience possible in open digital channels due to regulation and, b) the limited supporting feature set that digital platforms such as consumer social networks make available to organizations to safely engage in customer conversations involving personal data. These two barriers are holding back many organizations from realizing more impactful results in certain digital channels. GDPR is wagging the dog right now in conversations, but it was also clear that it's actively having a chilling effect on CX innovation right now. My take: Industries must rapidly engage their regulatory entities at scale to make needed remediation before further regulation makes great customer experience much harder. This is a tough boat to row, but the only other choice is to take the consequences, and this was a very real and active debate that I with executives at the event: Are the regulatory penalties going to end up as the new tax that companies simply must pay to be CX leaders?
• Emerging tech is finally exciting line-of-business CX leaders with the possibilities. Most of the executives I talked with are experimenting with or have rolled out customer care bots of one kind or another. These were almost exclusively business execs and not IT types, so emerging tech is breaking through in a way I've not seen before in back-end CX. It was also clear that there is a bot proliferation/silo issue with marketing and sales, with some execs complaining that chat and bot interfaces are appearing all over their customer experiences with insufficient strategic planning and coordination. Other new technologes that excited executives were automation assisted agents that gave just-in-time aid to human contact center agents, or even acted as contact center agents themselves, unless the scenario escalated beyond what the automated system could handle. Gamification remains a hot topic to drive back-end CX performance, especially in the contact center. Atteendees were also widely considering various AI-powered bots that provide natural language interfaces, often with translation into other languages, in common digital channels like e-mail, voice, chat, and social channels. Alexa also came up numerous times as a new support channel. Language translation itself emerged as an important topic in many conversations and it was evident that this remains a problematic item to provide consistent cross-language CX, especially in regulated industries. Disappointingly, was that high leverage, highly strategic customer support options, like online communities -- which the data shows have the biggest bang for the buck of all -- are still of limited interest and comprehension by the executives I spoke with. The big takeaway: Business interest and investment in emerging tech in this segment of customer experience is up considerably in 2018.

Overall, back-end CX is suffering from many of the same leadership/laggard issue as the rest of the industry, as new innovations and regulation go hand-in-hand to both give and take to make life complicated for executives who have to plan, invest, and execute to meet market, investor, and customer expectations. However, real solutions are increasingly being explored and discussed and tech providers are maturing their approaches and products to become more federated, integrated, and exclusive.

Personally, I believe the burgeoning level of interest and investment evident at the CCX Executive Exchange is representative: It's a more exciting time to be in this segment than in quite a while. It's also one in which improved business results, while they may be indirect at times, are more accessible and cost-effective than ever before. I encourage those in The New C-Suite and in digital leadership in general to keep closely abreast of and incorporate the latest back-end CX technology methods into their end-to-end customer experience strategies.

New C-Suite Tech Optimization Next-Generation Customer Experience B2C CX Chief Customer Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief People Officer Chief Human Resources Officer