Event Report - Microsoft Build 2018 - AI, IoT and bringing it together

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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We had the opportunity to attend Microsoft's developer conference Build, held from May 7th till 9th 2018 at the Seattle Convention Center in Seattle. Attendance with over 7k attendees, and a large global representation of the press colleagues makes this one of the best attended events from an influencer perspective. 

Prefer to watch – here is my event video … (if the video doesn't' show up – check here):

 

 

Here is the 1 slide condensation (if the slide doesn't show up, check here): 

Event Report - Microsoft Build - AI, Azure, IoT and Windows Push from Holger Mueller

Want to read on? Here you go:

Big push on IoT. IoT got a lot of keynote time across Nadella and Guthrie, Microsoft is pushing big on the IoT edge with its offering Intelligent Edge for IoT, where it can deploy a subset of its capabilities, in similar way like Azure Stack. It might be even that both capabilities share similar product features. For enterprises to be able to deploy the same code – e.g. for analytics, on Azure as well as IoT edge is an interesting product strategy and roadmap. Microsoft also announced support for Cloud Events, the CNCF Event Grid project, it's the only public cloud vendor at the moment to be able to consume and produce events. That matters as it can make Azure the preferred cloud for evend driven computing. Certainly the other IaaS players will not rest, and may well come up with the ability to product / publish events. We will have to see if this big push pays off on the next quarters. 
 

Nadella opens Build 2018

AI getting ready. Microsoft has a long history investing into AI, this Build conference was the culmination of that effort. In general, the vendor has adopted neural networks now, offering a collection of 25+ machine learning services, that can be easily consumed. The race is on to make every developer a data scientist, and Microsoft has tied the competition now – both on an algorithm and ease of adoption level. On the partnership side, Microsoft confirmed the progress on project Brainwave, as well as ONNX. Both are initiatives aimed at interoperability of ML algorithms and the desire to catch up to Google. The most prominent members are AWS, Facebook and Microsoft. Good to see the progress, but adoption vs. the popular Google Tensorflow will be the real test. Interestingly, the Windows ML capability that powers Windows intelligence processes, is as well ONNX based. That's a key step, to potentially open Windows ML / AI capabilities to ONNX build models. Microsoft also announced the availability of its FPGA infrastructure. Announced a few years ago, Microsoft reported in September 2016 (see here), at Ignite, that most of its Azure servers now have a FPGA. Not sure what took 1.5 years, but good for Microsoft to be here today. 
 

Nadella and the two Microsoft platforms: Azure and Microsoft 365

 

Windows with Innovation. The 2018 edition of Build marked the first time that Microsoft did not have a Windows keynote at Build. I have previously voiced my concern on the way how Microsoft split up Windows (see here), the job at Build for the most Windows messaging was with Microsoft veteran Joe Belfiore in the Tuesday keynote (as part of the Modern Worklplace keynote). And Microsoft has done a lot in Windows, especially in the April Update. The underlying magic sauce remains the Microsoft Graph, the ephemeral graph of users, their devices, and their digital assets. It was good to see the Graph in action as part of the developer demo. The new Timeline feature is an interesting innovation and making Windows a human operating system. Humans don't think in file and folder structures, but in time, so being able to get back to a document a user created last week – by the time and not by the folder is a key step to make the working with Windows more human. The same principles apply to the new Sets capabilities, which bring together browser assets as well as Win32 assets – all neatly in tabs next to each other. It's a key step to make Windows more of a workspace – than a collection of apps and files. Both Sets and Timeline are a key innovation with integrative DNA, bringing capabilities together that previously had to be take care of manually, through navigation by the Windows user – a change for the better. Lastly all these capabilities need intelligence, and Microsoft added Windows ML, the ability to run ONNX models. That's a nice compatibility move for the overall Microsoft AI / ML strategy – and gives ML developers an instant, huge install base. Smart move.

 

Belfiore opens the Day #2 Keynote

Azure with Innovation. Azure captured the post Nadella keynote spot, that Scott Guthrie executed in his usual reliable fashion. Kudos to Guthrie with the best keynote punchline at Build ("Let me add value" – when holding a microphone). Apart from more data centers, location and the above-mentioned Event Grid (that runs on Azure Service Fabric) the key attraction for enterprises in Azure remain Cosmos DB. Debuted last year, on the assets of the former DocumentDB, Cosmos DB is what powers the Microsoft Graph (my stipulation, never confirmed by Microsoft to my knowledge) and as such is a super powerful, distributed database, that runs in pretty much all Azure data centers. The synergies of Microsoft opening datacenters for Office, that requires Graph, that requires CosmosDB are at full work. If a CxO decides to build on CosmosDB it's highly likely it will be, in the latest version, in all Azure data centers. Adding the 5 9s to read and write reliability is an amazing SLA for next gen applications. 

 

Guthrie adds value (joke) w Hanselmann

Visual Studio gets more team support. Always good to see Microsoft's continued innovation in Visual Studio, it's Microsoft's premier IDE… and a key reason why developers attend Azure. More team and group support are coming, as well as more comprehensive DevOps support. All good progress coupled with former investments in Xamarin and more. The main concern remains the lack of a packaged PaaS offering from Microsoft, I asked Guthrie if that is coming, and it doesn't seem to be in the plans for the next 12 months. And with that Microsoft misses the opportunity to be the partner of the CIO / CTO who needs to build and deliver a next gen application – from the requirements collection all the way to device management. Microsoft has many of the required pieces, but the need to get stitched together on a project level – something which is additional, and if done incorrectly, risky work. CxOs want that from a vendor, not to be a task for their development teams.
 

Visual Studio Dashboard - can a developer portal look so good?

 

 

MyPOV

Another good Build conference for Microsoft, with almost too many announcements and progress across the board. The biggest impact is likely the AI push, that (finally) has moved to the new gold standard, neural networks (not just in pockets, but across the board). Good to see the FPGA feature getting delivered, but when compared to the hardware innovation of Google, it is slow progress, maybe even too slow delivery here. Between the announcement and delivery of the FPGA capability of Microsoft, Google has been comfortable to announce TPU 3.0 in the same week, an 8x improvement over the TPU 2.0 pods. Microsoft needs to move faster here, as next to data gravity, we are seeing a new gravity emerge, the one of the custom ML hardware, that is faster and cheaper than the competition to create and operate neural networks, powered by deep learning networks (DLN). Microsoft is not alone in the dilemma, its Seattle neighbor AWS has the same challenge here (a likely driver for Project Brainwave in in my POV. The cost of crating and running AI / ML is a key consideration of future next gen App deployments. Finishing the concern section, Microsoft, as the top three cloud vendor with the deepest enterprise roots and access, needs a better PaaS strategy to attract enterprises and their next generation application load. A partnership with CloudFoundry is not enough. An end to end, packaged PaaS suite that takes advantage of all the fast growing capabilities of Azure, AI, ML and more is what enterprises want and expect from Microsoft.

It's too early to say what will happen with the new Windows setup, I learnt positive aspects of the move, but my concerns remain intact at this early point after the announcement, future will tell. What is certainly true is that the elimination of Windows from a nominal platform perspective makes the overall Microsoft platform message simpler. It's now Azure and Microsoft 365 (Windows part of the latter). Compared to e.g. 5 years ago - where it was Windows, Azure and Office.

On the bright side, Azure service fabric, the push on IoT, the edge capabilities, Azure Stack, Cosmos DB are all valid differentiators for Microsoft and CxOs are paying attention to them. And the direction where Windows is heading, also based on a private conversation with Belfiore, towards a more human Windows, that brings together work artefacts in a better way, are all positive takeaways and differentiator. Now let's see what happens in the next months of 2018… stay tuned.

 

 

Tips to ensure a productive analyst briefing

Cindy Zhou

CMO
Level Access

Cindy Zhou is a practicing CMO.  Prviously, she was Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research covering Digital Marketing Transformation and Sales Effectiveness. With over 18 years of practitioner experience in corporate marketing, product marketing, product management, and sales operations, Zhou has spearheaded marketing transformation at multiple technology companies. She advised Constellation’s clients on strategies to light-up demand generation, prove revenue contribution, and maximize sales productivity. Prior to joining Constellation, Zhou was Global Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales Operations at BackOffice Associates, a global provider of data quality and information governance solutions to the Fortune 1000 and SAP SolEx partner. Before…...

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• Be respectful of the analyst's time. Our free briefings are 30 minutes, and if I’m able to, I will often extend to 45 mins (at my discretion).
• A little light research to understand who I am and my coverage areas (Marketing (B2B and B2C), Sales, and Customer Experience. I prepare by visiting your company website and learn about you on LinkedIn before the call, please extend that courtesy.
• The best way to utilize the 30 minutes is to have a concise/tight deck to walk me through the following:
  • 1 slide on company background - Where's your headquarters, who your investors are, revenue (or you can share a range), highlight any unique experience of your executive team, and the space/market you play in.
  • 1 slide on who your customers are - “Nascar-style" logo slides are fine, but please highlight 3-4 customers and tell me what you do for them. For example, I often see the same logo for multiple competing marketing companies. Tell me the group using your solution and the context. Also, Who is your target customer and their role?
  • 1-2 slides on your go-to-market strategy.
  • 1 Marchitecture slide to illustrate your product or market slide on your solution and where it fits.
  • Tell me about your pricing model, how do customers buy?
  • Share what's new or coming soon. Whether it’s an upcoming product launch, you sign(ed) a new customer, secured new funding, etc. You would be surprised how many times the news gets buried and forgotten in a briefing.
• Prepare a demo. Especially if I agree to extend to 45 minutes, I want to see your solution in-action.
• Send me your slides the day before the briefing. This way I can save you time by not asking questions answered on a later slide.

• Spend time to educate me on the market. If you looked at my background, you’ll know that I was a practicing marketing executive then an industry analyst. I do understand what the market challenge is for marketers and sellers and have the battle scars to prove it. So telling me the marketing technology landscape is more complicated than ever with 6000+ vendors or that the sales process is broken - is well, wasted time.
• Come unprepared and attempt to do a “discovery” call first in a briefing. Talking through your product architecture with no visual representation only adds confusion. Our time together is limited, preparation is key.
• Ask me or emphasize every 5 minutes, “This is under NDA right?”. As an analyst, I respect our confidentiality and take it very seriously as a matter of integrity. If there is something I’m interested in tweeting about or sharing publicly, I will ask you if the information is public or ok to share. Otherwise, understand our briefing is confidential.
• Say, “we don’t have any competitors” when I ask who your competitors are. I am not asking because I don’t know. I want to know who YOU think your competitors are.
• Follow-up with me asking what kind of “article” I will write after the “interview.” Please understand the differences between industry analysts and the press/media.

Event Report: ServiceNow Transforms From #ITSM To Experience Orchestration

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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It's The Experience, Stupid!

Over 18,000 customers, partners, prospects, and influencers gathered at the Sands Convention Center and Expo in Las Vegas for the annual ServiceNow Knowledge Event (see Figure 1). The vendor best known for its success in IT Service Management has been on a growth tear. In March 2017, CEO Frank Slootman handed over the reigns to John Donahoe of eBay and Bain fame. His goal is to bring a consumer experience and brand to the enterprise story as ServiceNow expands its reach within the organization to new roles from employee experience (EEX) to customer service management (CSM).

Figure 1. The Massive Investment In Four Pillars of Customer Success

While the Day 1 keynote with CEO John Donahoe felt like a long in the tooth Bain & Company purpose exercise in finding your mission, organization, and goals, the Day 2 keynote with Chief Product Officer C.J. Desai, showcased to customers, prospects, and partners the ServiceNow product pipeline and release schedule (see Figure 2). The demos artfully and deftly walked through cross-role, inter-departmental, business flows and how ServiceNow can pull from existing transactional and engagement systems to easily craft new experiences in a low code, no code democratized developer fashion.

In the traditional "hangover" Day 3 keynote, Senior VP of DevOps Pat Casey did an excellent job highlighting how organizations can use ServiceNow as a catalyst to bring artificial intelligence into existing systems, ease the pain of integration, and rapidly deliver experiences. As ServiceNow acquires more components of AI such as the recent Parlo acquisition for natural language understanding (NLU) and conversations as a service (CaaS), customers can bring an AI platform to existing systems with ServiceNow.

Highlights from the three days of keynote include (see Figure 3):

• Day 1 Keynote CEO John Donahoe focused on purpose. In his trademark approach to taking over as CEO, he brought back founder Fred Luddy's as chairman of the board.
• Day 2 Keynotes showcased new products and possibilities with new apps and offerings
• Day 3 Keynotes demonstrated the NowPlatform capabilities giving customers more choice
• Partnership announced with Microsoft Teams product
• Agent Workspace delivers a command center for next best action (limited release for London Q3 2018 and GA in Madrid Q1 2019)
• Virtual Agent goes from chat to resolution with prebuilt convos (London Q3 2018)
• Enterprise DevOps enables faster creation of apps in any org (London Q3 2018 and Madrid Q1 2019)
• NowPlatform powered for mobile apps (Madrid Q1 2019)
• Commitments made to two release schedules a year with London, Madrid, New York, Orlando, and Paris coming next

Figure 2. The ServiceNow Roadmap and Release Schedule

Figure 3. Event Report Summary For ServiceNow Knowledge 2018

The Bottom Line: Customers Use ServiceNow To Deliver On Last-Mile Experiences In The Cloud

Constellation's market leading and fast following clients often use ServiceNow to design, abstract, build, and orchestrate new experiences throughout the enterprise. After standardizing their cloud vendors for customer, employee, supply chain, finance, and commerce, they often have to bring these systems together. While customers may have started with ServiceNow for ITSM, their need for last mile experiences has moved beyond just the IT department. In fact, they often lock down their cloud systems from customizations, configurations, and extensions in their native cloud applications, but tell their teams to build new experiences in ServiceNow. Why do they choose ServiceNow? The capabilities of the NowPlatform alllow departments, entities, or roles to craft those new experiences and not have to worry about missing:

• ITSM
• Security
• Process Flow
• Integration
• UX including easy mobile (new)
• AI (new)

As organizations move from transactional systems to eventually AI and Cognitive systems, ServiceNow enables organizations a mechanism to keep their legacy systems and embark on a journey of digital transformation. This is the heart of Infinite Ambient Orchestration. ServiceNow has reached a unique point in the marketplace where they must understand how their platform plays a key role in enabling enterprises to succeed in their efforts. Constellation believes that ServiceNow will not only continue to grow organically with new offerings, but also apply its expanding free cash flow to acquire many other technologies and vendors over the next five years. This will create tension in the market as ServiceNow must determine if they are a platform ecosystem or a direct competitor to many of the systems they connect with. The partnership models must change over time and require partners who can help customers see the broader vision beyond their large ITSM practices. And all this comes back to ensuring that the leadership team truly understands their purpose at the enterprise level. This is more than a well heeled consultant study that sounds like motherhood, Chevy's, and apple pie or bringing back the founder for credibility. The good news - ServiceNow has much more substance in product than other vendors with older tech and smaller ambitions. Customers who make the plunge to expand from IT to business will expedite their ability to complete their digital transformation aspirations.

Figure 4. ServiceNow Helps Customers Move from Transactions To Engagement

Your POV.

Are you ready to craft new experiences in ServiceNow? Do you use ServiceNow for ITSM today? Are your business leaders ready to explore ServiceNow? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

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

Call for Applications - 2018 SuperNova Awards

Deadline for applications August 1, 2018

The SuperNova Awards honor leaders that demonstrate excellence in the application and adoption of new and emerging technologies. 

In its eighth year, the Constellation SuperNova Awards will recognize early adopters who demonstrate true leadership in digital business through their application of new and emerging technologies. We’re searching for leaders and teams who used disruptive technologies to transform their organizations. 

We’re searching for the boldest, most transformative technology projects out there. If you or someone you know transformed their organization with disruptive technology apply for a SuperNova Award. Fill out the application here: 

Apply

Apply for a SuperNova Award in two easy steps:

1. Download a copy of the application
2. Submit your application online

Timeline

• August 1, 2018 deadline
• August 28, 2018 finalists announced and invited to Connected Enterprise.
• September 3, 2018 voting opens to the public
• September 13, 2018 polls close
• October 26, 2018 Winners announced, SuperNova Awards Gala Dinner at Connected Enterprise

Rewards

• SuperNova Award finalists are awarded one ticket to Constellation's Connected Enterprise 2018
• Winners receive one ticket to Constellation's Connected Enterprise 2019

Judges

Technology thought leaders, analysts, and journalists selected for their futurist mindset and ability to separate substance from hype. The SuperNova Award Judges carefully evaluate each SuperNova Award application against a rigorous set of criteria. Judges will identify individuals who demonstrate true leadership in the application and adoption of new and emerging technologies. Want to catch a judge's eye? Judges look for projects whose elements can be replicated in other enterprises.

Categories

• Blockchain - The application of distributed ledger technologies across the enterprise. Constellation will accept research and development case studies for this category. 
• AI and Augmented Humanity - A culmination of technologies that attempts to attain human learning and intelligence capabilities of humans. This category addresses the business outcomes and preparations being made for a future in which software can improve itself.
• Data to Decisions - Employing data to make informed business decisions. (big data, predictive analytics)
• 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 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 as a means 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)• Matrix Commerce - Technologies supporting the future of commerce from payments through supply chain management (digital retail, supply chain, payments, 'ubiquitous-channel' retail)
• Next Generation Customer Experience - How organizations keep brand promises as business shifts to systems of engagement and mass personalization. (crm, customer experience)

Monday's Musings: Seven Common Failures Plague Board Room Strategy In Digital Transformation

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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Boardroom Failures Reflect Years Of Focus On EBIDTA and Return On Capital

Faced with massive pressure to embark on their digital journey, boards and CEOs have sought case studies and examples of success to avail without realizing that each journey remains unique. While there are many proof of concepts in play, much of the innovation in play requires a transformational mindset. When boards ask, "Has this has been done before and where", they miss the point. Why? The task at hand requires a shift from operational efficiency or regulatory compliance to a revenue growth and strategic transformation mind set.  Over a decade of digital transformation experience has shown that seven factors create mass board failures in digital transformation (see Figure 1):

Figure 1. Seven Common Boardroom Issues With Digital Transformation

1. Illogical deviation from brand mission causes confusion. While the brand mission can be expanded to a higher order, failure often arises when the brand attempts to solve a problem that the existing customer base finds too deviant. For example, Avis Rental Car has a stated mission to move from rental car company to fleet management. This is a shift from a transactional consumer relationship to an experiential B2B and outcomes based relationship based on their data driven skill of fleet management. Customers find this a reasonable extension. However, If an apparel brand jumped into a new space such as fast food without explaining a larger shift in their mission, that deviation would be too much.
2. Inability to attract top talent due to lack of leadership. Top talent attracts top talent. A players attract A players. B players attract C players. Tech companies in the midst of transformation know how to sell their company's higher mission to recruit top talent seeking a higher purpose. For years, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff sold a vision of no software that appealed to the tech community looking to transform the software business model. Today, his appeal on "tech for good" attracts the best and brightest. The founders of Ultimate Software started out with a People First mission that has stood the test of time. Meanwhile another large tech company has had years of a CEO who has failed to not only attract top talent, but also has failed to retain top talent by creating an environment of instability and insecurity across the ranks as that CEO enriches themselves despite a string of quarterly losses. Change in workforce policies disguised as a reduction in force and the promotion of unqualified individuals under the guise of diversity and inclusion have stripped the ranks of any sense of meritocracy and led to a brain drain that will require a new CEO to arrive prior to that CEO's retirement this year.
3. Laggard market perception cascades failure and customer disillusionment. Declining brands and organizations in laggard industries stripped of brand equity enter an era of negative market perception. Instead of redefining the mission and purpose with new business models, orgs often take a short cut of branding without substance. Seen as devoid of innovation with a commoditized non-differentiated offering, every stakeholder from employee, customer, partner, supplier, and investor lowers expectations of success. The result – leaders who focus on short term gain, declining employee morale, lack of interest by investors, and lower quality from suppliers. Partners lose interest in creating co-innovation and co-creation ecosystems with laggards. Customers no longer find an affinity for a brand that has sold its soul and will not pay for premium pricing when they no longer see value.
4. Short term profit mentality leads to lackluster leadership team. Modern leaders must be able to not only articulate the vision and mission, but also live the values of the organization. Leaders use stories and authentic purpose to attract the right talent. However, the battering of hostile take overs and transformation by fake growth based private equity (PE) firms focused on greater amounts of EBITDA have led to a generation of "Yes Person" CEOs without an understanding of growth. A focus on standard operating practices that focus on efficiency and not growth creates anorexic innovation environments. The definitiveness of cost cut impacts to growing share price result in leadership teams devoid of leaders who know how to create a culture of sustained innovation and long-term growth. This driving out of innovation and growth hurts organizations in the long-run.
5. Dearth of innovation leads to non-differentiated offering and fear of success. Nothing wreaks of failure more than the copycat offering that arrives a cycle late in the marketplace. Organizations who are just doing the bare minimum and rationalizing their product portfolios often have had the EBIDTA militants and legal teams dictate product direction. One can argue that playing it safe and riding on the remaining vestiges of brand cache can help a short term CEO and board hit their targets. Yet this leaves an organization without any differentiation and creates a long term hit. The US auto industry in the 1980s provides a great case study on how not to ruin a market entered by low cost challengers. If the goal is to be the most profitable copycat in the industry, that game has already ended in commoditized markets where the battle for return on equity leaves few players battling a digital death match with no winners. To be clear, there are exceptions. Korean electronics firms for a period of time managed to take innovations from the Japanese and build bigger and profitable challenges. But over time, they also realized they had to commit to innovation in order to not only grow but survive market annihilation.
6. Illusory superiority results in failure to partner while on top of the market. Delusions of grandeur and ego often beset successful market leaders. Thinking that their organization knows best and that others have little to offer create a divide the pie mentality that stifles grow the pie growth and transformation efforts. The result – arrogant partner policies, poor treatment of the ecosystem, and disregard for new adjacent opportunities. As egos take over rationality, a belief that the organization can create whatever a partner has to offer results in a cognitive bias and failure to understand limitations and capabilities. Blackberry's dominance in the 2000's came to a standstill as their failure to tap into the partner ecosystem reflected their overall market and leadership hubris as the management team could not believe they could be displaced by Apple's toy which didn't even have a physical keyboard. Today, one may question whether Apple still has the innovation chops to survive despite crushing it on EBIDTA and return on capital.
7. Short term thinking leads to poor deployment of capital for innovation. Decades of cost cutting, mergers and acquisitions, and activist shareholder fights have decimated the growth and innovation culture at many organizations. In a graph often cited from Clay Christensen, the average investment of profits in 1981 was 50% allocated to research and development and 50% to shareholder dividends. Today that investment number is allocated to 50% stock buy backs, 49% dividends, and 1% research and development (see Figure 2). This strangulation of capital funding for innovation has decimated legacy enterprises.

Jump Start Growth By Re-prioritizing Focus Areas

Over the next few months, Constellation will provide a model for helping boards and CXO’s understand where they sit in the continuum of growth and innovation.  Five focus areas will emerge that boards and CXO’s should consider in their digital transformation efforts to ensure success.  Stay tuned for more.

Your POV.

Ready to roll out your plans for digital transformation.  Do you understand the business model implications?  Are you ready to disrupt the board and jump start growth?  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

Event Report - WorkForce Software Vision 2018 - More Global and Crew Management

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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We had the opportunity to attend WorkForce Software 's Vision 2018 user conference held at the Grand Sheraton at Wild Horse Pass, South of Phoenix. The conference was well attended by customers, prospects and partners, substantial growth over 2017 in New Orleans.  

Prefer to watch – here is my event video … (if the video doesn't' show up – check here - pardon the bad sound quality at times, will have to record when time allows)

Here is the 1 slide condensation (if the slide doesn't show up, check here):

Event Report: Workfront LEAP 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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We all struggle to get work done. Too many tools, too much chaos, not enough time. That's where Work Coordination Platforms (WCP) come in. These tools help people bring organization and structure to projects and processes. It's a highly competitive market with several exciting things taking place including IPOs, funding rounds and acquisitions. This week I had the pleasure of both attending and speaking at Workfront LEAP 2018, Workfront's annual user conference where they introduced new features, new customer stories and a new product. 

The two main product announcements were:

• Workfront Home: A new starting page that makes it easier for people to see the items that need their attention and manage their time with highly functional calendar integration. Workfront customers will find this a very welcome addition, as it will make it easier to focus on where you need to spend your time without clicking through multiple projects. Interestingly, this comes just a few weeks after another WCP vendor introduced a similar feature, Trello Home.
• Resource Capacity Planner: One of the key elements of project management is the assignment and tracking of resources... meaning how many people are available and how much time do they have to work on things. This new Workfront feature uses AI-enabled planning to help find the right people at the right time to assign work.

The new product announcement was the launch of Workfront Fusion , a tool that enables people to connect business applications to Workfront to automate the data transfer between applications with no coding. It uses a drag and drop process to define events and actions that outline what should happen and when. This is along the same lines as commercial tools like IFTTT and Zapier, and enterprise tools like Workato, Nintex, Microsoft Flow and Zoho Flow.

Here is a short video where I share my thoughts on the items mentioned above:

More Thoughts

As mentioned in the video above, Workfront's mission is to become the "Operational System of Record" for work.

I view this as another way of saying they want to become the place that aggregates together the plethora of tools people use to get their jobs done. That's a popular theme these days, as several software vendors are realizing that the lack of context caused by using so many tools is a huge barrier to getting work done. Workfront has taken several smart steps in accomplishing this goal, starting in 2015 with the acquisition of ProofHQ to provide native asset management and publishing capabilities (called Workfront DAM ) to this week's announcement of Workfront Fusion. They also currently provide integrations with Outlook, Jira, Slack, Box, Adobe and others, and announced upcoming integrations with Microsoft Teams

and Salesforce

MyPOV

While I'm impressed with the Workfront products, I'm equally impressed with their executive team and their customers. CEO Alex Shootman has an impressive career in enterprise software including Eloqua, Vignette, BMC and IBM. Chief Product & Technology Officer Steven ZoBell is one of the more forward thinking and creative people I've worked with as a industry analyst and advisor, and they've recently brought on a very experienced CMO, Heidi Melin. The overall feeling I get from Workfront, both via my direct work with them as well as watching them at their events is one of humility and passion, not arrogance and entitlement. I was particularly impressed with Alex's opening keynote this week, as he discussed the hot topic of Digital Transformation, but emphasized that the changes taking place today are not the end goal, but rather just the beginning of the next era in business. 

When listening to what's new at these conferences is important, the more valuable experience is speaking with customers. Workfront has a very strong portfolio of customer references, including Disney, Prudential, Marriott, Thomson Reuters, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Black + Decker, Fender, Trek, Alaska Airlines, and Columbia and many more.

The Work Coordination Platform market is just getting started. Everyone has email, file-sharing, some type of messaging, web-conferencing and a few other tools, but not every employee currently uses a tool to structure and organize work. We're at an inflection point where people are overloaded and we can't simply keep producing more content, asking people to do more work, add more tools, and have more conversations. As the awareness of the benefits of these tools increases, their adoption will rise. Workfront is well positioned both in strategy and features, earning them a spot on the Constellation Research Shortlist for WCP.

What I'd like to see next from Workfront is more innovation on the automation across the entire lifecycle of tasks and processes, adding machine learning/artificial intelligence to proactively prioritize tasks, find expertise and create teams, create or curate content and other items that reduce the need for employees to be involved in task management all, freeing them up to spend more time doing the actual work.

Progress Report - SAP SuccesFactors - More SAP (technology)

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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We had the opportunity to attend SAP's SuccessFactors Analyst Summit 2018, held from April 30^th to May 2^nd 2018 in San Francisco at the St. Regis. Attendance with over 15 analysts was good, still a good atmosphere to get a pulse on where the vendor is now, especially as it was the first analyst event under the new leadership of Tomb, and the product leadership of Wilson and Harvey.

Want to read on? Here you go:

SuccessFactors is on the 'Enslin March'. Since SAP put the '5 sisters' (Ariba, Concur, Fieldglass, Hybris, SuccessFactors) under the leadership of Rob Enslin, it's clear that the long-stalled technology conversion of these five business towards the SAP technology stack was about to happen. More specifically it means the long talked, not much executed adoption of SAP HANA as the database, the adoption of SAP Cloud Platform as a PaaS, the use of SAP Analytics as reporting and Analytics platform, the usage of UX elements coming from Fiori (here the SAP Cockpit) and of course SAP Leonardo for machine learning and more. SAP customers will appreciate that change in direction, non-SAP customers using the 5 sisters may be a little more nervous, but as all is deployed in the cloud, they should not notice at all – except for improvement. Behind the 'Enslin March' is the expectation to be able to get more business capability being built by the '5 sisters' – an objective of great priority to customers – who always want more capabilities in return for their SaaS subscriptions.
 

Enslin presents

Focus on Mobile, with Leonardo ML and Co-Pilot. Mobile was the big headliner from SuccessConnect 2017 last year, so with some surprise it is also the big roadmap item for 2018. SAP has built a very good iOS app together with Apple, but ML wasn't ready inside of SAP 12 months ago and SuccessFactors is now adding ML capabilities to the mobile application. More interesting is the adoption of Co-Pilot which is SAP's chatbot platform, enabling conversation as a platform use cases. Most importantly it has support for Google's speech recognition baked in, pretty much the clear leader in this capability, which is crucial to make this application use case work. Still it feels like SuccessFactors is working around the main issue that it has – a necessary refresh of the UX and new consistency for the browser-based UX. Many vendors try to buy time for this with mobile apps and chatbots, but a lot of users still have to go back to the browser as a platform and an all nice UX falls into shambles. SuccessFactors needs to tackle that area to keep its (power) users happy and remain competitive.
 

Tomb talks, Harvey listens

Talent Acquisition bolstered by Onboarding and CRM. The other larger automation item from SuccessConnect was the new Onboarding and its good to see SuccessFactors delivering this capability now. Adding Candidate Relationship Management is a good extension of the Recruiting capabilities, and if done right recruiters using SuccessFactors will appreciate it. But both capabilities are built around an older Recruiting core, which needs an overhaul. And the overall Talent Suite inside of SuccessFactors needs an overhaul, maybe renovation if not replacement. At the core of Talent Management is Performance Management and SuccessFactors has done well innovating with the automation of the 1 to 1 meeting… but it needs to keep up innovating and experimenting in this area and reflect the move to Performance Management suites (which offer all ways to do Performance Management to enterprises and allow them to configure use the fitting practices to the right users and organizational units).

 

Wilson presents the Job Analyzer

SAP SuccessFactors Analyst Summit 2018

Qlik Hits Reset Button, Rolls Out New Cloud, AI & Developer Capabilities

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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Qlik introduces management team, licensing changes and new hybrid/multi-cloud, augmented intelligence  and development features. Here’s my take from Qonnections 2018.

“Under new management.” When you see these words in front of a local business, you take note, and it makes you wonder what has really changed?

Keynoting at the April 24-26 Qlik Qonnections event in Orlando, Qlik’s new CEO, Mike Capone, after just four months on the job, cut right to the chase and spelled out some important business changes made early in his tenure.

Explaining a reorganization that took place in January, Capone said the goal was to refocus Qlik sales and support efforts on large Enterprise customers while “getting out of the way” of channel partners catering to midsize and smaller commercial customers. The reorg brought a fresh round of layoffs (on top of the layoffs carried out in 2016 when private equity firm Thoma Bravo took Qlik private). Downsizing seldom looks good (except to Wall Street), but in a message to partners, Capone noted that Qlik is reinvesting savings from the reorg to boost partner support programs, including qualified lead generation.

Qlik's new CEO, Mike Capone, was previously COO at Medidata and VP, SVP/GM and CIO,
successively, at ADP.

In a message to customers, Capone promised accelerated development of advanced authoring and visualization capabilities in Qlik Sense, the vendor’s newer, webbier and more self-service oriented product. And despite an “inviolable” promise to maintain support for Qlik View, the company’s original product, Capone also announced new migration tools, a shared Hub interface for all Qlik apps and, most importantly, new licensing terms designed to make it easier to move from Qlik View to Qlik Sense. The licensing change will eliminate the need for a second license. Instead customers will pay a fractional increase in maintenance (somewhere less than 50% of current fees) to add support for Qlik Sense. The Hub and licensing announcements each got big applause from Qonnection’s 3,500-plus attendees.

Cloud, AI and Developer Announcements               

On product and product strategy, executives laid out Qlik’s evolved vision and capabilities on three fronts: cloud, smart capabilities (a.k.a., augmented intelligence) and developer support. Here’s the rundown:

Qlik will promote hybrid- and multi-cloud deployment in part by adding support for
containerization and Linux beginning in June.

Next steps to the cloud. Qlik's cloud vision is to support hybrid- and multi-cloud deployment of Qlik applications and services with a microservices-based architecture that will eventually span and unite all deployment approaches. Qlik will take the next step to deliver on this promise in June by enabling Qlik subscription customers to move Qlik Sense applications into containerized, cloud-based instances than can run on Linux in public or private clouds. The Kubernetes, Docker and Linux support are new to Qlik, and it will enable customers to self-manage instances on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) or their own private clouds.

Containerization and Linux support will also benefit managed-cloud services, which are available from Qlik on the Qlik Cloud or from many partners on private or public clouds of the customer’s choice. Qlik’s two-year-old, software-as-a-service-based Qlik Sense Cloud was scarcely mentioned at Qonnections, but it remains an option for workgroup and departmental multi-tenant instances.

To better support the new range of deployment options, Qlik is introducing a Hub interface that give users one view -- with one log-in, one user ID and one user entitlement – of all their Qlik applications, irrespective of where they’re running. What’s more, Qlik’s management console will enable administrators to set governance policies across all public cloud, private cloud and on-premises instances. Qlik demonstrated a role-playing scenario in which non-regulated (but still access- and security-sensitive) applications and data from a German subsidiary were exposed through a U.S.-based cloud instance. In contrast, privacy-sensitive data subject to compliance requirements in Germany was retained on premises in the demo, but it was made accessible with strict access controls.

“Smart” capabilities explained. Qlik announced an “augmented intelligence” initiative last year, stressing that it would support rather than replace human analysis. The company has been developing a Cognitive Engine that will power a number of features to Quick Sense. An Insight Advisor feature added in April recommends the most appropriate visualization options when you select a particular field for analysis. If you don’t actively choose one of these recommendations, the engine will automatically choose what’s seen as the best-fit option.

Coming in June, Qlik Sense will gain a hands-off approach whereby you can simply point the Insight Advisor at a data set (rather than a particular field) and it will automatically surface all statistically significant insights. After choosing one of these starting points, users can then select the particular field of interest, as noted above, and get additional recommendations to take the analysis even deeper.

Insight Advisor is designed to speed time to analysis for untrained users, but in the spirit of augmenting human intelligence you can interact with the tool and go against its recommendations. In this case, Insight Advisor will flash textual warnings explaining why a particular approach is not recommended. During a keynote demo, a Qlik exec selected a tree map view even though the Insight Advisor recommended a different visualization. Messages appeared noting that there were negative values in the selected data set and that tree maps can’t show negative values. Professionals who don’t want or need this sort of assistance can simply turn the Insight Advisor feature off.

In next steps expected sometime later this year, Qlik plans to enable its Cognitive Engine to start learning from the selections that users choose from among its recommendations. In addition, Qlik plans to team the Cognitive Engine with its associative QIX engine, which keeps entire data sets visible for analysis even as you focus in on selected dimensions of data. If you select customers who are buying X product, for example, QIX also shows you which customers are not buying that product. It’s an advantage over drill-down, SQL analysis where you filter out information as you explore, and Qlik says the combination will recommend powerful, serendipitous insights that other technologies would fail to see.

Targeting developers and embedded analytics. Perhaps the most surprising and, to me, forward-looking initiative at Qlik has been its effort to promote analytic customization, extension and development both within and outside of the confines of Qlik applications. As one Qlik executive put it, “analytics shouldn’t just be a destination [as in a report or a dashboard], it should be part of the journey.” The idea is to support embedding of analytics into other applications, including transactional applications, so you can turn insights into actions. An app could even be autonomous, quickly taking action based on insights without even requiring a human interface or interpretation.

Qlik Core, set for beta release this summer, exposes Qlik analytics capabilites as API-
accessible microservices for cloud-oriented development.

To open up new possibilities, Qlik introduced Qlik Core, set for beta release this summer. Able to run on containers and Linux in the cloud, Qlik Core exposes the QIX engine through a microservices architecture and APIs. I talked to the CTO at Measur.io, a development partner and customer, who has been using and helping to guide the development of Qlik Core for more than a year. He said Qlik Core is powering the analytics behind the company’s Internet-of-Things (IoT) sensor applications and giving it all the cloud scalability and deployment flexibility the company needs.

Pricing for Qlik Core has yet to be set, but the licensing approach will combine free development with consumption-based charges for production workloads. Qlik has also open sourced libraries of capabilities, such as data loading with Halyard.JS, Qlik backend services with Enigma.JS, and charting with Picasso.JS, to facilitate cost-effective development and deployment. Qlik’s Qlik Branch developer community is promoting all of the above, and it’s said to growing quickly, with more than 27,000 registered members.

MyPOV on Qlik’s Progress

Overall I was impressed by Qlik’s new management team. Capone went straight to the customer hot buttons, including licensing and accelerated development. He’s also putting an emphasis on driving success through better customer outcomes, whether that’s through direct sales or channel sales. Customers that have better outcomes will naturally buy more software, so the company says it will do more to help customers succeed. Shelfware, meanwhile, is viewed as a failure and an outcome that should be avoided (and perhaps even dis-incented in sales incentive programs).

My consistent lament about Qlik, shared in my analyses from Qlik Qonnections 2016 and 2017, has been its slow pace to innovation. The criticism still applies on the cloud, AI and big data fronts, where Qlik is still delivering on capabilities initially announced 12 to 24 months ago. On cloud, for instance, the multi-cloud deployment option set for June release will initially be limited to consumption. Apps will have to be authored on-premises and then deployed for read-only access in the cloud. Cloud authoring, write-back capabilities and pull-through access to on-premises data sources are all on the roadmap. Similarly, the (late-to-the-game) Big Data Index that Qlik announced last year and demonstrated at Qonnections 2018 won’t see beta release until June or July. I don’t expect general availability before Q3, at the earliest.

I do like Qlik’s platform and QIX associative analysis strengths. I also like the push to enable developers to customize and extend Qlik apps and to create original apps that transcend conventional thinking about analytics. Where there’s confidence in an analysis, human interaction shouldn’t be required. That’s particularly true in emerging streaming and low-latency scenarios where there’s no time for human analysis.

My hope is that Qlik’s new management team continues to be responsive and that it will accelerate innovation. If I had to set the priorities I’d accelerate the practical stuff that customers care about today, such as hybrid-, multi-cloud and developer capabilities, while letting demand for AI capabilities build over the longer term.

Related Reading:
Domo Focuses Its Cloud-Based Analytics Message, Adds Predictive Options
MicroStrategy Makes Case for Agile Analytics on its Enterprise Platform
How Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence Will Change BI & Analytics

Event Report - NetSuite SuiteWorld 2018 - NetSuite goes Global and Oracle

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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NetSuite leverages Oracle. Not surprisingly, NetSuite uses Oracle on all levels possible. Starting from go to Market, branding, events, sales force, support, the platform, localization ability etc. That comes as no surprise as the stand-alone NetSuite never made a push from a global perspective… the attempt to go to English speaking countries shows the often seen, but wrong approach for Globalization, as the countries are not there where the largest opportunities are … see more below. Good to see the platform leverage – NetSuite using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) in Germany soon, NetSuite using 12c pluggable database capabilities and even mentioning to look at Oracle Graal – are all good proof points that the Oracle technology and platform is in good shape to power NetSuite (and other SaaS vendors, if they dare).

 

 

Globalization is the Focus. Good to see NetSuite moving faster on the topic, which has been a sore spot for customers and a missed opportunity for the vendor. NetSuite is committing to Brazil, China, Germany, India, Italy and Japan -all large economies, with a need for a ERP Suite that runs in the cloud. The good news for NetSuite and prospects is, that it is not too late, but local competition and alternatives are growing quicker and quicker… so speed and urgency is off the essence, and NetSuite management showed that at SuiteWorld. Enterprises in the target / priority countries should take a thorough look at the offering, even all the Oracle backing, making a North America centric product a global product is not trivial. Also, time for NetSuite to unveil the next set of countries as well, customers need to know more than the first step of the Globalization journey.

 

Goldberg with the investment