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Rimini Street Expands Database Support, Security Offerings In Bid for Growth

Rimini Street Expands Database Support, Security Offerings In Bid for Growth

Chris Kanaracus
Chris Kanaracus
Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
Constellation

Chris Kanaracus is managing editor of Constellation Insights.  Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members.  Prior to joining Constellation, Kanaracus spent seven years covering the enterprise software industry for IDG News Service, where he frequently broke exclusive stories with a focus on end-customer issues. Kanaracus has also held various managerial and reporting roles at newspapers in New England since 1998. Twitter: @chriskanaracus , Title: Big IdeasConstellation Insights Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members. ...

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Constellation Insights

Rimini Street is expanding its third-party software support portfolio significantly about a month after announcing it will soon become a publicly traded company. It will now offer support services for six additional database platforms, as well as a security service delivered in partnership with McAfee.

The company had already provided support for SAP HANA and Oracle database. Now it will also support IBM DB/2, Microsoft SQL Server, SAP ASE, SAP IQ, SAP SQL Anyhere and SAP Advantage Server. 

As with its Oracle and SAP application support programs, the database support services will be offered at 50 percent lower cost than vendor maintenance. They will provide proactive health checks; technical services for integration and other matters; security services; and database performance tuning.

In its release, Rimini included a quote from existing customer Rodobens, a Brazilian company with divisions focused on banking, real estate, auto sales and more. Rodobens previously selected Rimini Street to support its SAP ECC 6.0 installation, which uses SQL Server as the underlying store. SAP has said it will support ECC 6.0 until 2025, but has been working to move customers to the next-generation S/4HANA suite, which only supports HANA as a database.

The four additional SAP databases Rimini will be supporting were gained through its 2010 acquisition of Sybase. While HANA has received most of SAP's investment and attention, the former Sybase databases have ample installed bases and SAP has made no public indications of sunsetting any of them.

Meanwhile, DB/2 and SQL Server remain widely used by the ECC 6.0 installed base, although Oracle has been the most popular choice for those customers historically. 

Rimini Street is also getting into database security services using technology created by McAfee. It incorporates "virtual patching" to block attacks before they can reach a database instance, along with monitoring for vulnerabilities. Virtual patching provides a gateway that allows for attacks to be spotted and blocked without need to directly apply patches to the core database. This approach is superior to traditional patching methods due to its speed as well as alleviating the need for regession testing, Rimini says.

Rimini had long been expected to file for an IPO, but last month instead announced it was merging with GPIAC, an entity known as a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company). It was not a merger with another operating company but rather a merger "with a big pile of cash," as Rimini CEO Seth Ravin put it in a recent conversation with Constellation Research.

One reason for the move was a $124 million judgment Rimini had to pay to Oracle over an intellectual property lawsuit, which put a lot of debt on its balance sheet, Ravin said. Rimini expects to get some or even most of the $124 million back on appeal but that won't play out until the end of next year, he added.

The company sees a $81 billion total addressable market for on-premises maintenance, and the move into broader database support is an attempt to get a bigger piece of that pie.

Rimini's fastest-growing product line of late has been Oracle database support, Ravin added. The company also sees a growth opportunity in offering premium SaaS maintenance.

The idea is to exploit the trend in which SaaS vendors sometimes require new licenses for additional functionality rather than including key new features in the monthly rent, angering customers, along with offering poor SLAs unless customers pay a hefty premium for higher-level support. Rimini sees an opportunity in offering its traditional level of high-touch support but at a reduced price compared to SaaS vendors, Ravin said.

Going forward, Rimini is going to ramp up user conference appearances, self-produced events and thought leadership speaking opportunities as its key marketing strategy going forward. "We don't want to be just the '50 percent off guys," Ravin said. Rather, Rimini wants to be seen as more of a consultative resource for CIOs jugging on-premises and cloud strategies. 

POV: The ambitions laid out in Ravin's final comments will put Rimini Street in closer competition with the large systems integrators of the world. To date, those players have been loath to enter the third-party maintenance market lest they alienate the likes of Oracle and SAP, whose ecosystems provide ample revenue streams around implementation services, along with the type of strategic consulting Ravin outlines. 

At the same time, for Rimini to gain credibility as a strategic consultant, it must also acquire expertise and offerings for a bigger slice of the IT budget, which makes the move into database support and security a logical step. 

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Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer

Cornerstone on Demand Confluence 2017 - Back to Learning Basics

Cornerstone on Demand Confluence 2017 - Back to Learning Basics

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 Cornerstone’s yearly user conference Confluence in San Diego, held from June 5th till 7th 2017, at the San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina. The conference was very well attended with over 1000 attendees, and almost 30 influencers. The show floor saw a wide range of partners – including – as it’s in the time of the marketplace – coopetitors. A good sign for customers. 

 
 

 
So, look at my musings on the event here: (if the video doesn’t show up, check here)

 

No time to watch – here is the 1-2 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):

 
 
Want to read on? 
 
 
 
 
Here you go: Always tough to pick the takeaways – but here are my Top 3:


 
Conerstone on Demand Confluence Holger Mueller Constellation Research
Miller opens keynote

Back to the [Learning] Basics – Cornerstone started in the Learning area of Talent Management and that is where till today the bulk of its customers are. But the focus in the last years has been on adding more Talent Management capabilities, notably in Recruiting and Performance Management, and most recently (last year) even beyond Talent Management with HR Core. In the meantime, software technology has progressed in regards of video capabilities, publishing, machine learning etc. and that requires a re-visit on how Learning best practices are evolving or have changed. So, its timely for Cornerstone to go back to the basics and revisit Learning. Inspiration came from Netflix (see content that’s relevant) to Spotify (serve next relevant content – like the next song), with that Cornerstone is heading in the right direction. But Cornerstone has more than a software direction, the vendor also has a content ambition, starting with the launch of CyberU a year ago – but even more so now, trying to become a content aggregator for all things (enterprise) learning. It’s good to see that the 21st century Learning experience is understood as the combination of functionality and content.
 
Conerstone on Demand Confluence Holger Mueller Constellation Research
The new learner experience

New Products – Engagement and Benchmarking – The demand around engagement remain strong it seems, as Cornerstone was compelled to add its own engagement capabilities. This is a valuable mover for customers, as they don’t have to look for a separate vendor to address the employee survey / engagement needs. It’s too early to tell if Cornerstone can play well enough in the engagement game compared to the best of breed vendors, but it’s the consequential strategy of the suite vendor to add new functionality when demand is there. On the Benchmarking side, Cornerstone follows a general trend. With cloud scale backends, customer want to (finally) see answers on how they are doing compared to peers and other enterprises. So, good to see Cornerstone launching its product in the space. 
 
Conerstone on Demand Confluence Holger Mueller Constellation Research
Cornerstone Engage

Overall on the right track – In previous years I have shared my concerns around Cornerstone’s architecture, technology, user experience and implementation cost. To make it short, Cornerstone has advanced in all four areas. While most of the technology and architecture changes are still under wraps, the direction with smaller services, looking at cloud native deployment - are the right steps. The user experience is much improved when compared to 12 or 24 months ago, something that wasn’t left unnoticed by customers. And Cornerstone has always listened to customers when it came requirements and implantation, the latest push is the new customer advocate Karla. All things moving in the right direction for customers, who want easy to use, easy to deploy and flexible to run HCM offerings. Cornerstone is working hard to get in that direction.

 
Conerstone on Demand Confluence Holger Mueller Constellation Research
Cornerstone Benchmark
 

MyPOV

A good user conference for Cornerstone customers and partners. The vendor is growing and that always generates a good vibe at user events. Customers are expanding their Cornerstone footprint. The new HR Core offering, launched only a year ago, (not surprisingly) is seeing more traction in Europe than North America. Cornerstone is working hard to get a bigger footprint in the Japanese market as well.

On the concern side, Cornerstone is in a transition mode on many fronts. Its architecture and deployment must change successfully in the next 12 months, it is building for new best practices that customers will have to adopt and it is pushing for more growth overall. On the bright side the vendor has turned to profitability, a financial state it now needs to maintain, if not improve. So, a lot of challenges in the next 12 months, no reason or indicators that Cornerstone cannot handle them, nonetheless – there is a lot on the plate for the vendor and a lot of change coming for customers.

Exciting times ahead, stay tuned. 



Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below about the conference and about the analyst event here (if it doesn’t show up – check here).
 
     
     
     Tech Optimization Future of Work Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Data to Decisions Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity AI Analytics Automation CX EX Employee Experience HCM Machine Learning ML SaaS PaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Enterprise Software Enterprise IT Leadership HR IaaS Disruptive Technology Enterprise Acceleration Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service Chief Information Officer Chief Customer Officer Chief People Officer Chief Human Resources Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Executive Officer

    IBM Enhances IBM Connections with Acquisition of TIMETOACT

    IBM Enhances IBM Connections with Acquisition of TIMETOACT

    Media Name: ibm-timetoact.jpg
    Alan Lepofsky
    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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    On May 31st, IBM announced the acquisition of TIMETOACT XCC (the product, not the company and staff), an intranet platform that is built on top of IBM Connections. IBM plans to bundle XCC with IBM Connections in Q32017 as a new offering named IBM Connections Engagement Center. The additional cost for Engagement Center has not yet been announced.

    While IBM Connections is a very good community platform offering, it was lacking some features needed to make it a true corporate intranet. XCC adds things like custom page layouts, page based branding, personalization based on job role, location or areas of interest, and workflows for content publishing. In the past IBM would promote the use of IBM WebSphere Portal along with IBM Connections for corporate intranets, but that was often seen as costly and complex. With XCC, IBM Connections customers will be able to install, configure and manage a single platform, since Engagement Center is built on Connections. Alternatively, customers can choose IBM’s cloud based deployment option and leave the administration to IBM.

    I want to highlight that I get pitched on hundreds of products a year, but I have to say TIMETOACT’s founder Felix Binsack is one of the most persistent marketers out there! Congratulations to him on the hard work and dedication that lead to this deal.

    Growing the Base?

    I’ve often criticized IBM for a lack of investment in their collaboration portfolio, so I am happy to see this transaction take place. Corporate communications, news, knowledge bases, and employee engagement are all an important part of company intranets. With competition such as Microsoft SharePoint, Google Sites, Jive Interactive Intranet, Salesforce Communities, Igloo, ThoughtFarmer and Jostle, it is good to see IBM bolster the features of IBM Connections. However, I don’t see this acquisition increasing IBM’s customer base, as XCC customers are all already IBM Connections customers.  Perhaps IBM will announce migration tools from some of these competitors to Engagement Center? If not, this is a good opportunity for business partners.

    If IBM wants to get the attention of the industry and gain new customers, my guidance would be to take a more aggressive approach. For example, what if IBM were to acquire Evernote and seamlessly integrate it across IBM Connections, Verse (email) and Watson Workplace (group messaging)? How about acquiring a CRM vendor to enhance the way Sales and Marketing professionals work? How about a task management vendor to augment (or replace) the IBM Connections Activities feature? (similar to XCC, they could acquire Kudos Boards since it’s already based on IBM Connections)

    So while the acquisition of TIMETOACT is good news for IBM Connections customers, I hope this is just the beginning of IBM’s strategy to enhance and expand their collaboration portfolio and customer base.

     

    Vodafone Seeks to Quell Interoperability Concerns Over Low-Power IoT Standard

    Vodafone Seeks to Quell Interoperability Concerns Over Low-Power IoT Standard

    Chris Kanaracus
    Chris Kanaracus
    Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
    Constellation

    Chris Kanaracus is managing editor of Constellation Insights.  Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members.  Prior to joining Constellation, Kanaracus spent seven years covering the enterprise software industry for IDG News Service, where he frequently broke exclusive stories with a focus on end-customer issues. Kanaracus has also held various managerial and reporting roles at newspapers in New England since 1998. Twitter: @chriskanaracus , Title: Big IdeasConstellation Insights Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members. ...

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    Andy Mulholland
    Andy Mulholland
    Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
    Constellation Research

    Andy Mulholland is Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on cloud business models. Formerly the Global Chief Technology Officer for the Capgemini Group from 2001 to 2011, Mulholland successfully led the organization through a period of mass disruption. Mulholland brings this experience to Constellation’s clients seeking to understand how Digital Business models will be built and deployed in conjunction with existing IT systems. Coverage Areas Consumerization of IT & The New C-Suite: BYOD, Internet of Things, IoT, technology and business use Previous experience: Mulholland co authored four major books that chronicled the change and its impact on Enterprises starting in 2006 with the well-recognised book ‘Mashup Corporations’ with Chris Thomas of Intel. This was followed in…...

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    Constellation Insights

    We've all heard the predictions of how the IoT (Internet of things) will connect tens of billions of devices in the near term. In many cases, those devices won't require a high-bandwidth connection. A low-powered remote sensor on a piece of equipment may only need to send a few communications per day, while staying online for extended periods through the judicious use of battery power. 

    Several years ago, the telecommunications industry standards group 3GPP began work on the narrrow-band IoT (NB-IoT) standard, which is mean to leverage the global cellular network infrastructure. When the specification emerged, critics noted that it was far from ideal, since its implementation guidelines had two variants, reflecting the desires of differing groups of telcos. (Go here for an excellent, in-depth rundown of the issues by Nick Hunn.)

    One of the participating telcos, Vodafone, in February announced what it dubbed the first commercial NB-IoT service, in Spain. Now it is hoping to quell rumbling concerns about interoperability around NB-IoT. Here are the details from Vodafone's announcement:

    Luke Ibbetson, Vodafone Group’s Head of Research & Development and Technology Strategy, said: “As a company committed to a multi-vendor strategy, we understand the importance of a healthy device and network ecosystem in delivering the best service to customers at a competitive price. We have tested devices from Neul and Qualcomm against Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia systems in multiple regions. All of these vendors’ NB-IoT Radio Access Network (RAN) technology has been successfully interconnected with Vodafone’s IoT core network.”

    The release also included supporting quotes from Huawei and Ericsson. Vodafone says it's going to test more devices over the coming months, and will worth with "the wider industry to ensure that NB-IoT has multi-operator, seamless and predictable coverage around the world."

    Overall, Vodafone's announcement should be viewed with some healthy skepticism. Again, if NB-IoT is perceived as having interoperability problems, that will impede investment in it while helping alternative low-power IoT networks such as SigFox and LoRaWan pick up traction. Vodafone position is essentially that all is well, despite the conflicts within the standard.

    In short, the jury remains out on NB-IoT, but hopefully industry forces will reach true consensus sooner or later, giving enterprises another viable choice for IoT connectivity.

    "The future is said to be ubiquitous IoT with every kind of device connected and interactive, but this requires connectivity formats and standards to suit every circumstance," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Andy Mulholland. "The variations are many between speed, cost, coverage, even battery life, and yet interoperability is the most basic requirement of all."

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    Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer

    Apple to Introduce Business Chat for Customer Service and Commerce

    Apple to Introduce Business Chat for Customer Service and Commerce

    Chris Kanaracus
    Chris Kanaracus
    Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
    Constellation

    Chris Kanaracus is managing editor of Constellation Insights.  Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members.  Prior to joining Constellation, Kanaracus spent seven years covering the enterprise software industry for IDG News Service, where he frequently broke exclusive stories with a focus on end-customer issues. Kanaracus has also held various managerial and reporting roles at newspapers in New England since 1998. Twitter: @chriskanaracus , Title: Big IdeasConstellation Insights Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members. ...

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    Alan Lepofsky
    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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    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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    Constellation Insights

    Apple is set to take another turn toward the enterprise—and into competition with the likes of Facebook and Twitter—with an upcoming service called Business Chat. While Apple is set to formally unveil Business Chat during the Worldwide Developer Conference on Friday, a page on its website provides some basic details:

    Business Chat is a powerful new way for businesses to connect with customers directly from within Messages. Using Business Chat, your customers can get answers to questions, resolve issues and complete transactions on their iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Customers can find your business and start conversations from Safari, Maps, Spotlight, and Siri.

    Apple has said there are more than 1 billion active iOS devices in the world, giving iMessage a broad footprint. But iMessage isn't as widely used as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, both of which report more than 1 billion unique users. That's in part due to the fact that there are more than 2 billion active Android devices, and also because unlike Messenger and WhatsApp, iMessage runs only on iOS. Moreover, many Apple users have more than one iOS device, which shrinks the overall pool.

    Still, iOS devices users are notoriously loyal to the brand, and therefore iMessage presents an ideal additional way for businesses to reach customers.

    "The key is providing in-context experiences," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Alan Lepofsky. "People don’t want to leave what they are doing."

    Constellation estimates that mobile messaging will reach 1.9 billion users worldwide this year and grow nine to 12 percent per year through 2020. 

    Chatbot customer support has already become popular within Facebook Messenger, Twitter, WhatsApp and WeChat in Asia, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Cindy Zhou. "These mobile messaging platforms have the majority of the business chat market share," Zhou says. "Apple iMessage has an opportunity to compete in this space with its native app." 

    The chatbot support trend is spreading fast. Other companies such as the Dutch airline KLM, rolled out chatbot support on Facebook messenger last year to provide customers booking confirmations, boarding passes, and seat change services.

    Moreover, Apple plans to integrate Business Chat with Apple Pay. That ties into the trend toward messaging commerce, where customers can go from service requests to completing transactions in a single chat session, Zhou says. (Read a summary of Zhou's in-depth report, "A CMO’s Guide to Mobile Marketing Opportunities in 2017 and 2018.")

    Business Chat is listed as being in developer preview, but presumably will become generally available as part of the launch of iOS 11 later this year. 
     
    What remains to be seen is how many important enterprise features Apple will provide for Business Chat out of the gate, such as integrations with popular CRM, e-commerce and help desk applications. Without these, Business Chat will be little more than another communication silo. It's also not clear how much Business Chat will rely on chatbots, versus serving as a communication channel to live customer service representatives. Hopefully, those questions and others will be answered during Apple's presentation on Friday.

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

    If You Can Only Try

    If You Can Only Try

    Gavin Heaton
    Founder
    Disruptors Co

    Gavin is the Founder of Disruptors Co, one of Australia’s leading independent strategy and innovation companies. Gavin advises firms on strategy, marketing, product development and innovation. He is also a member of the Orbits program, the influencer network of award winning analyst and advisory firm, Constellation Research. Gavin advises boards and leadership on innovation strategy, marketing, data-driven product development and corporate venturing. Gavin is on the board of Vibewire, a youth-led social enterprise based in Sydney, Australia and on the Technology Advisory Group for Good2Give – the workplace giving platform. ...

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    1
     

    Living, as we do, in a time of rapid change. Of transformation and uncertainty. It can be difficult to see what our long term future holds.

    You can see it in the words we use to describe our lives. These words are flat. Uninspired. Transactional. We have entire governments swept to power on the back of the laziest of phrases and political slogans masquerading as thought-through policy agendas.

    But we have not arrived in this desolate landscape randomly. It is the end-result of a thousand micro choices that consolidate our misery.

    It is as if we have abdicated our personal responsibility for imagination in favour of a strange wariness of close fears. Today, in Australia, it was announced that we now hold the record for economic growth without a recession. We have experienced 26 years without interruption to our prosperity. Twenty six years without a downturn.

    We have a generation of people who have known only growth. There have been few labour strikes. Precious few public protests. This perceived prosperity has dulled our senses to our own personal agency. The storytellers who ignite our hearts and passions no longer tread the public boards of our most important debates – they pop up in our Facebook news feeds, talking at TED or singing on “Insert Your Country Here’s” Got Talent.

    But this can change. The story is the trick. And if we do want to reclaim our sense of the future, then there’s much to learn from the careful crafting that goes into the stories of digital media’s emerging heroes. Just watch this clip from America’s Got Talent. Think about the one clear message. See how you are drawn in to this story. Understand how and why you respond to what you see and what you hear. And see how the foreground, backstory and framing create the conditions for you to take the story into your heart.

    Then think about what you can do to change your sense of what is possible. You only need try.

    Marketing Transformation Chief Marketing Officer

    Introducing Digital Adoption Platforms

    Introducing Digital Adoption Platforms

    Alan Lepofsky
    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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    Introducing Digital Adoption Platforms

    > Click here to purchase and download the report <

    The portfolio of business software, websites and mobile applications employees use to get their jobs done is growing rapidly. With each tool having a different look and feel, different features and different processes, learning how to effectively use all these tools quickly becomes a big challenge. If these hurdles are not overcome, adoption of the tools suffers, support costs go up, and the value of the tools goes down. On the external side, prospects and customers face similar challenges when navigating the wide variety of websites and social media applications required to engage with their favourite brands. This type of friction reduces customer loyalty, hurts sales and creates a bad reputation for the brand.

    To solve these challenges, a new category of software is emerging that can be integrated into applications and websites to help guide people from right within the context of the task they are trying to perform. Constellation Research refers to this category as Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) and organizations of all sizes are using this new type of software to coach people toward more successful adoption of applications and websites.

    This report, which is part of Constellation Research’s Future of Work research theme, defines the business need for Digital Adoption Platforms, discusses their benefits and provides example use cases.

    TABLE OF CONTENTS
    - Executive Summary 
    - Four User Experience Issues That Impede Software Adoption 
    - Trends Contributing To The Emergence Of Digital Adoption Platforms 
    - Digital Adoption Platforms: Modernizing Legacy Help Systems 
    - Categorizing The Maturity Of Digital Adoption Platforms 
    - Getting Started: Focus On Core Use Cases 
    - Conclusion

    > Click here to purchase and download the report <

     

    Chief Customer Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Digital Officer

    'Subscription Economy' Player Zuora Gears Up for Its Next 10 Years with Zuora Central

    'Subscription Economy' Player Zuora Gears Up for Its Next 10 Years with Zuora Central

    Chris Kanaracus
    Chris Kanaracus
    Managing Editor, Constellation Insights
    Constellation

    Chris Kanaracus is managing editor of Constellation Insights.&nbsp; Insights&nbsp;delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to&nbsp;Constellation Executive Network&nbsp;members.&nbsp; Prior to joining Constellation,&nbsp;Kanaracus spent seven years covering the enterprise software industry for IDG News Service, where he frequently broke exclusive stories with a focus on end-customer issues. Kanaracus has also held various managerial and reporting roles at newspapers in New England since 1998. Twitter:&nbsp;@chriskanaracus , Title:&nbsp;Big IdeasConstellation Insights Insights delivers exclusive, daily analysis of breaking news across Constellation’s eight business research themes to Constellation Executive Network members. ...

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    Constellation Insights

    Zuora has taken the wraps off Zuora Central, a cloud-based hub for coordinating order-to-cash operations across an enterprise's systems. It's the result of a top-secret project that's been in the works for two years, and it will define the next 10 years of the company, CEO Tien Tzuo said during a keynote at the company's Subscribed conference this week.

    Zuora sells a series of SaaS applications for businesses that run on a subscription model. The company sees the "subscription economy," which has already enjoyed robust growth over the past decade, as set to explode thanks to changing consumer expectations about how they want to buy, as well as trends such as the IoT (Internet of things), which is allowing enterprises to create new types of subscription service and product offerings with the use of connected devices and data analytics.

    Central uses a microservices architecture and sits between a company's CRM and ERP systems—of which there can be many indeed due to acquisitions, divisional requirements, runaway procurement practices and other types of technical debt. The clutter makes it difficult for companies to make pricing and packaging changes, for example, without a lot of manual labor addressing each system. It's the kind of problem that stifles any company looking to become a dynamic, subscription-based business, Tzuo said.

    In hub-and-spoke fashion, Central connects to all these systems by leveraging order-to-cash engines decoupled from Zuora's applications. The engines target subscription orders, subscription accounting, subscription metrics, a central pricing engine and a global payments engine.

    Central will serve as Zuora's core central platform and a target for continued investment, while its six products will continue to work and be sold independently, Tzuo said. Customers who buy Central will be able to integrate it with third-party applications, such as a CPQ (configure, price, quote) system that provides specialized features not available in Zuora's offering.

    Analysis: Zuora Central Is the Natural Evolution 

    It's notable that with Central, Zuora is making no attempt to usurp the likes of Oracle, Salesforce or Salesforce from customer environments. Rather, the strategy is to accept the messy reality of enterprise IT environments and present Central as the solution for companies looking to subscription offerings for growth. 

    Zuora was able to convince three extremely high-profile customers to take the keynote stage during Subscribed: General Electric, Caterpillar and Ford. While it wasn't clear whether they are initial Central customers (their appearances came before Tzuo's big reveal of the platform), that seemed to be the implication.

    GE has been selling its IoT software platform Predix on a subscription basis, while Caterpillar's CAT Connect initiative offers digital value-added services across its construction, mining, energy and transportation businesses. Ford, meanwhile, has developed the Fordpass mobile app as part of a bid to develop deeper, ongoing customer relationships. Ford's longer-term vision sees subscription models playing a role in car ownership as well as other modes of transport. All in all, it was a solid set of references for Zuora to get onstage. 

    Zuora has spent the past roughly 10 years building out its application set through organic development and acquisitions (the most recent being Leeyo, maker of revenue recognition software). Central's two-year gestation period shows good foresight on the part of Zuora's leadership. Today, the GEs of the world are placing big bets on subscription business models and as they scale, a unified platform will be what they require.

    Moreover, Zuora's technology is mature, as the company will make its 100th overall release this year. What to watch now is for how well Zuora Central, version one, delivers on usability and time-to-value. The last thing its target customers need is another data-integration hairball. 

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    Digital Market; Defining Your Enterprise Value Proposition

    Digital Market; Defining Your Enterprise Value Proposition

    Andy Mulholland
    Andy Mulholland
    Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
    Constellation Research

    Andy Mulholland is Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on cloud business models. Formerly the Global Chief Technology Officer for the Capgemini Group from 2001 to 2011, Mulholland successfully led the organization through a period of mass disruption. Mulholland brings this experience to Constellation’s clients seeking to understand how Digital Business models will be built and deployed in conjunction with existing IT systems. Coverage Areas Consumerization of IT &amp; The New C-Suite: BYOD, Internet of Things, IoT, technology and business use Previous experience: Mulholland co authored four major books that chronicled the change and its impact on Enterprises starting in 2006 with the well-recognised book ‘Mashup Corporations’ with Chris Thomas of Intel. This was followed in…...

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    To exist at all, let alone prosper any Enterprise has to create something of tangible value in the form of a proposition that will match buyers’ requirements. Digital Markets, by definition, are based on new value propositions, mostly around services more than products, a point exploited by new entrants. Recent events have shown how these circumstances are forcing existing enterprises into competitive re-evaluation of their value proposition, and Go To Market strategy.

    The maturity of many current Markets has lead to relative low levels of Product innovation, and a stronger focus on finding competitive advantage through automating key processes and cost reduction strategies using IT. Increasingly non-core activities, which are non-differentiating, are being outsourced, a trend often started by IT**(see footnote), but now including Business functions such as Invoicing. The goal is to focus management time, and investment, on the critical business activities to create and sell the Products with maximized competitive differentiation.

    The impact of the Internet and the Web, have forced Enterprises to develop and extend their traditional sales and marketing activities to meet changes in the expectations of customers, culture, and market places. Though these may have seemed to be major changes, or even transformations, in almost all cases they are extension of the existing core value proposition and products.

    The Digital Economy creates entirely new Market places with new value proposition that result in a transformation to creating value and re-occurring revenues from Services as opposed to the one time invoice of a product. Enterprises must redefine what is the value to be created and from this what are the core activities that must work in an optimized chain of activities.

    It used to be popular for Business Schools to refer to the ‘Golden Thread’ to define the coherent chain of critical activities spanning the Enterprise to create unique Business propositions/values. As an example in the case of General Motors the common activity description ‘GM makes cars’ misses defining General Motors Golden Thread. The reality is that GM competes by using its expertise in locating market niches, then designing and marketing a specific car model to compete for the selected customers; see diagram. The manufacturing of cars is carried out by an ecosystem of suppliers, or partners, providing their own specialized expertise to particular elements.

    Obviously GM’s Golden Thread has, as for most other established Enterprises, been tied to selling a Product as the outcome. The same technique can be applied to define the activities that are critical to creating a Digital Markets Services outcome. GM has recognizes this and is working to develop new Golden Threads for the entirely different market around Services of the Digital Economy.

    GM vision has two publically declared interlocking strategic initiatives to create high business value Services for consumption through the Digital Economy. The investment in Lyft and Driverless cars is to create new ways of providing transportation, whilst AtYourService aims to build long term relationships with ‘drivers’ to provide all their personal, individual transportation needs. Both are ‘pay by use’ subscription Services, and nether looks to sell a car as a product. Every major ‘car’ company has similar initiatives as the Industry Sector faces up to the disruptive pattern of change driven by several factors.

    At the heart of this transformation is a rethink and redesign of the Golden Threads that GM must build and connect to deliver these exciting visions. The technologies that enable and deliver these Golden Threads are themselves part of the Digital Market and Services economy; namely CAAST, Clouds, Apps, AI, Services and Things. The new management generation looks to a hybrid skill base of technology and business in order to create its competitive success.

    The acquisition by Samsung, known for its entertainment products, of in car entertainment specialist Harmon is a further example of a repositioning from Products to Services. Samsung Digital Services strategy focuses on providing the consumer with the Service of continuous ubiquitous personal entertainment whether in the home of on the move. Whilst Samsung may not be a direct competitor to the automotive companies it is an example of realignment within traditional market sectors introducing new competitors for a slice of the transformed Digital Services market.

    The graphic below Publically published by VentureScanner.com shows the extent to which new startups are aiming to take some part of the revenues from the new connected car, or transportation market. The sheer numbers of new innovative value propositions will drive the market transformation as consumers find, and take up, new value choices.

    For an established enterprise/brand to continue to its dominance into the new Digital Services Economy it has to move to completely new value proposition that offers a different experience through Services than their current product based offering. Existing customers and experiences should provide the foundation, but it will be the use of innovative technology in a new Golden Thread that is the underlying success factor.

    Competitive success lies, as in the past transformations, in Business Process Re-engineering the enterprise to deliver the value proposition. Unlike the internal Back Office process revolution of ERP based client-server technologies, this time it is an external Market place driven revolution built on new technologies that will redesign the Enterprise Business model

     

    ** Footnote; The recent example of British Airways Globally visible three day outage of all passenger systems due to an IT failure is a reminder that outsourcing does not remove the requirement for a Board to understand, and retain competencies in core business operational areas.

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    Microsoft Build: How Developers Can Redefine Productivity

    Microsoft Build: How Developers Can Redefine Productivity

    Alan Lepofsky
    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:&nbsp;https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo &nbsp; &nbsp; , Title:&nbsp;Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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    At Microsoft Build, their annual developer conference, they emphasized the opportunity that the Microsoft platform (Office 365, Azure, Windows 10, etc.) provides for developers to help redefine personal productivity and team collaboration for hundreds of millions of people.

    Here is a quick summary of the key topic areas:

    Here is a video where I provide my thoughts, feedback and analysis of the key items from Microsoft Build.
    00:00 - 01:30: Introduction
    01:30 - 09:14: Microsoft Teams
    09:14 - 10:27: Microsoft Graph
    10:27 - 13:48: Artificial Intelligence, Microsoft Cognitive Services
    13:48 - 15:19: OneDrive Files on Demand
    15:19 - 18:21: Mixed Reality, VR/AR, Hololens
    18:21 - 19:42: Windows Story Remix
    19:42 - 21:45: Intelligent Meetings
    21:45 - 24:52: Recap/Conclusion (and Project Emma)

     

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