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Research Summary: Nine Starting Points For Digital Transformation In Manufacturing

Research Summary: Nine Starting Points For Digital Transformation In Manufacturing

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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Digital Trends Signal Manufacturing Renaissance Ahead

Western economies have faced an onslaught of negative developments in their domestic manufacturing bases over the past 40 years. With the rise of Industry 4.0, the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies, manufacturers now have new opportunities to undergo digital transformation. Constellation finds that digital transformation in manufacturing will not only jump start growth, but will also create the environment for a manufacturing renaissance. Through in-depth study of successful digital transformation projects, Constellation identified nine entry points for manufacturers to begin their digital transformation journeys. Research also revealed six organizational features present in all successful digital transformations.

This report explains the nine entry points for digital transformation in manufacturing and highlights the six features of organizations that succeed in digital transformation (see Figure 1). It concludes with five recommendations to ensure digital transformation success in manufacturing.

Figure 1. The Nine Entry Points To Digital Transformation In Manufacturing

Click here to purchase the report and get started on digital transformation

Your POV.

Ready for a renaissance in manufacturing?  Do you have a digital transformation strategy?   Looking to upgrade?  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

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

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

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

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy,stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website. * Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions.  However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Copyright © 2001 – 2017 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.

Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience

The post Research Summary: Nine Starting Points For Digital Transformation In Manufacturing appeared first on A Software Insider's Point of View.

 Matrix Commerce Innovation & Product-led Growth Leadership Chief Information Officer Chief Experience Officer

Microsoft Build Day One: Databases In the Spotlight

Microsoft Build Day One: Databases In the Spotlight

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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Microsoft is beefing up its database options for Azure in a big way. During the first day of its Build developer conference, Redmond unveiled a new "planet-scale" database platform, new support for open-source databases, and a database migration service. Here's a look at each announcement and what they mean.

Azure Cosmos DB

The biggest database announcement out of Build is the general availability of Cosmos DB. It's a superset of DocumentDB, the NoSQL service Microsoft introduced in 2015. All DocumentDB customers will be migrated to Cosmos DB automatically and at no additional charge. 

Microsoft is betting the advanced features found in Cosmos DB can draw in many new customers, however. Here's the short version of what it delivers, courtesy of Microsoft:

It is the first cloud database to natively support a multitude of data models and popular query APIs, is built on a novel database engine capable of ingesting sustained volumes of data and provides blazing-fast queries – all without having to deal with schema or index management. And it is the first cloud database to offer five well-defined consistency models so you can choose just the right one for your app.

Azure Cosmos DB makes global distribution, turnkey. With a single click, you can add/remove any number of Azure regions to your Azure Cosmos DB database, anytime. Azure Cosmos DB will seamlessly replicate your data wherever your users are.

Azure Cosmos DB allows your application to elastically scale throughput and storage on demand, worldwide. You can elastically scale up from 1000s to 100s of millions of requests/sec around the globe, with a single API call and pay only for the throughput (and storage) you need. Azure Cosmos DB is the only cloud database which allows you to scale throughput at both second and minute granularities. 

Microsoft is setting the bar high for Cosmos DB's performance, saying it will "guarantee single-digit millisecond latencies at the 99th percentile to your app, anywhere in the world." 

It is also guaranteeing high availability globally even in the event of a regional disaster. 

Meanwhile, Cosmos DB's flexible consistency model goes well beyond the usual choice between persistent and eventual consistency. The five options give customers a more granular way to tradeoff performance for consistency, depending on a particular application's needs. 

Microsoft is putting money behind its claims for Cosmos DB, through SLAs for high-availability, low latency at the 99th percentile, consistency and throughput.

It also claims that on a TCO basis, Cosmos DB can be up to 10 times cheaper to run than competing open source offerings running on-premises or virtual machines, and up to three times less costly than Amazon Web Services' DynamoDB "for high volume workloads."

The Bottom Line: Cosmos DB's capabilities appear to be considerable and already battle-tested by early adopters. Moreover, there are tens of thousands of existing DocumentDB customers who can start experimenting with its additional features immediately, which should spark uptake and momentum. Cosmos DB also gives Microsoft a clear answer to the likes of Google Spanner, its recently introduced global-scale database. While Spanner is a relational store, it makes similarly grand promises about scalability and uptime. 

MySQL and PostgreSQL Are Now First-Class Azure Citizens

A less flashy but sure to be popular move from Microsoft is are new managed services MySQL and PostgreSQL databases on Azure. Previously, those who wished to use those platforms had to run them in a virtual machine and manage the stack themselves, or use a third-party service. 

Now in preview, both databases will run on Azure's database services fabric, taking advantage of its high availability, scalability, flexibility, security and monitoring features. They will also be integrated with Azure Web Apps from the start. Both will use the community editions of the database.

The Bottom Line: Both MySQL and Postgres remain popular databases, currently ranking in the top five overall, according to the DB-Engines ranking service. It should be noted that DB-Engines bases its scores on factors such as social media and developer forum mentions, job listings, LinkedIn profile data and search engine results, and does not address factors such as the number of installations of a given database. But buzz certainly counts for something, and for that reason alone, Microsoft is wise to add native support for MySQL and Postgres. It's a sure-fire way to draw new workloads to Azure while giving developers more options. 

Azure Database Migration Service

Finally, Microsoft showcased a limited preview of a new database migration service aimed at moving on-premises Oracle, MySQL and SQL Server workloads to Azure. Pricing and general availability weren't disclosed. 

This can justifiably be seen as a "me-too" announcement in response to Amazon Web Services, which has touted the success of its own database migration tool.

AWS CTO Werner Vogels recently said customers had moved 23,000 databases to AWS through the service, a number that is largely meaningless without context, such as the size and strategic importance of the workloads.

The Bottom Line: Microsoft didn't spend much time on this announcement at Build and it's easy to see why. The success or failure of this migration service will likely depend on cost, and how seamlessly it can transition workloads to Azure. Hence the limited preview, which suggests there remains plenty of tweaking to do along with early adopters.

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Data to Decisions Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer

Microsoft Build Day One Keynote: Nadella's Impassioned Pitch to Developers

Microsoft Build Day One Keynote: Nadella's Impassioned Pitch to Developers

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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Microsoft's Build developer conference kicked off with a keynote featuring CEO Satya Nadella, who set the tone for the event in clear terms: Microsoft views developers not as cogs in the machine, but creators. 

“We are a company that started as a developer tools company," Nadella said. "[Today], we want to think about people but also about the institutions people build. It’s not just celebrating any platform or technology but about celebrating what you can do with that technology to have a broad impact. That sense of purpose has been driving us in this cloud-first world."

Nadella moved on to list the opportunities developers have within Microsoft's ecosystem, citing the ability to reach 500 million Windows devices in a secure manner through Windows Store, and the 100 million monthly active users of Office 365. "These are users in the core of the enterprise, using these tools every day," he said of the latter.

The CEO also used his Build keynote to introduce a significant new piece of strategic messaging. “We’re moving from a mobile first cloud first world to a new world that’s made up of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge," Nadella said. 

This new world has three fundamental characteristics, he added. 

“The user experience is getting distributed across devices," Nadella said. "It’s not about an application model for one device. The user experience itself is going to span your devices.” Nadella cited the advent of personal digital assistants such as Microsoft's own Cortana: “As you move between devices, it’s going to be there helping you get your tasks done.” 

Data is the currency of this platform shift, driven by IoT (Internet of things). He cited the massive amount of "edge" data being generated by IoT devices on cars, for example. "Data has gravity," Nadella said. "Computational power will move to it." Moreover, "the AI you create will be by definition more distributed," he added. “We’re reaching a point where you can’t rendevous the data for [machine] learning in the cloud.”

The third pillar of the paradigm shift is serverless computation, according to Nadella. "We've got to change how we think about logic," he said. "You want to be able to write logic that reacts to these events, not a piece of logic bound to a single server."

Those comments suegued into an announcement of Azure IoT Edge, a runtime for Windows and Linux that can run on devices even smaller than a Raspberry Pi. The idea is to have computation for analytics and AI run on endpoints, speeding up the process compared to shipping data back to Azure.

Microsoft provided a couple of scenarios—one real-life and one planned—showing the potential of edge computing.

The first was a dashboard developed by Swedish tool maker Sandvik Coromant to monitor equipment at its plants around the world. With the use of IoT Edge, Coromant's implementation allowed it to spot equipment problems and take action much more quickly. 

A second demonstration showed how a combination of IoT Edge, commodity cameras, facial and object recognition, rules, alerts and messaging could be used to create a workplace safety system. To wit: A camera sees that a jackhammer is propped precariously and poses a hazard, sparking an alert to a nearby worker telling them to remedy the problem. 

But in the end, what resonated more with Build's audience wasn't technical talk and product announcements. Rather, it was a moving video depicting how Haiyan Zhang, research director at Microsoft's Cambridge Research lab, developed a wearable that helped reduce hand tremors in Emma Lawton, a 29-year-old graphic designer suffering from Parkinson's, allowing her to write and draw clearly again.

After the video ended, Zhang and Lawton appeared live onstage to a roar of applause of the sort not often heard at enterprise-oriented technology conferences, if ever. 

While Nadella refrained from connecting the dots explicitly, instead heading backstage after a few moments, the womens' appearance drove home the high-level message of his keynote: The ability individual developers have to create things that impart major change. Overall, Nadella's presentation was a welcome attempt at empowering Microsoft developers, rather than merely evangelizing to them.

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Data to Decisions Future of Work Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer

Marketing Dividends – Is it Time to Re-evaluate Digital?

Marketing Dividends – Is it Time to Re-evaluate Digital?

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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The promise of digital targeting has had marketers salivating for years. We would be able to identify, reach, engage and convert consumers one-to-one at scale thanks to technology. Better yet, with mobile devices, we could bring an offer to a consumer who was physically close to our retail outlet thanks to big data, mapping and location services.

Accordingly, substantial investments have been made in a wide variety of technologies from CRM and data mining, to automation, analysis and beyond. In fact, Scott Brinker’s infographic on the landscape of marketing technology (2016) suggests that there were almost 4000 marketing technology solutions vying for your attention and purchase. With so many choices, it’s hardly surprising that marketers wonder where to start with the MarTech stack.

But Byron Sharp, Professor of Marketing Science at the University of South Australia says that the promise of digital marketing is unfulfilled. Or perhaps, we have over stated the role of digital at the expense of brand. This video segment by the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) touches on these topics, raising interesting challenges for us all.

Marketing Dividends Episode 10 featuring Byron Sharp, ?Professor of Marketing Science, ?University of South Australia

The final episode ?of the Marketing Dividends series presented by the AANA (Australian Association of National Advertisers with Byron Sharp) with Professor of Marketing Science, Director Ehrenberg-Bass Institute – ?University of South Australia. Marketing Dividends is a content series on SKY NEWS BUSINESS aimed at elevating the profession of marketing and explaining the value marketing brings to businesses and the wider economy.

Now, there is plenty that I could argue with. There is a huge assumption that analogue marketing metrics are/were valid, and also that marketers are not following through on data, analytics and measurement of business value. But these are quibbles – because the most interesting aspect of this interview is the refocusing of marketing towards strategy.

In many ways, the pursuit of digital marketing and technology has seen us become reliant on tactics masquerading as strategy. We put some technology in place and think that the strategy will magically be enabled.

But this is never the case. As Byron reminds us, “We are in a battle for attention – for physical and mental availability … people [consumers] just don’t think of you enough”. Segmentation, data and technology alone won’t solve that problem – only a tightly threaded strategy and approach to execution will. And that means doubling down on your marketing skills. So don’t just re-evaluate digital – re-evaluate your team and yourself.

Marketing Transformation Chief Marketing Officer

4 Memorable Digital Marketing & Sales Effectiveness Quotes

4 Memorable Digital Marketing & Sales Effectiveness Quotes

Carole Low
Director of Customer Programs, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Carole oversees the Constellation Executive Network, an executive community for innovative senior leaders who value strategic guidance from trusted advisors who understand the power of disruptive technologies. Carole brings over 15 years of marketing, strategic account management, and operations experience, specializing in high technology and professional services. She holds a BA from Santa Clara University and a MBA from Thunderbird, School of Global Management.     ...

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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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Even if you are not a natural disruptive thinker or leader, thinking creatively about innovation and and the role that technology plays can be easily stimulated by seeing a quick tweet, quote, or hearing a joke. After a quick online search, I found inspiring innovation quotes from current leaders and spotted general technology quotes like these. 

Business Insider - 27 Insights About Creativity That Every Entrepreneur Should Read
Forbes - 20 Great Technology Quotes to Inspire, Amaze, and Amuse

At Constellation Research, our analysts share ideas related to their business and disruptive technology research. In that context, the meaning of each quote, especially for business leaders interested in these topics, can be more useful and relevant than a generic one whether it's a quote about technology optimization, the increasing changes in the executive office, which we call "the new c-suite", or digital marketing and sales effectivess among many others.

We update these weekly for anyone interested in non-mainstream disruptive thinking from our seasoned Constellation analysts and keep an archive of the entire collection for our Constellation Executive Network members.

DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S ANALYST QUOTES - DIGITAL MARKETING & SALES EFFECTIVENESS - Cindy Zhou |  VP & Principal Analyst | Constellation Research 

"#CEO & Boards want predictability in the business. Embrace your inner #datascientist." - @cindy_zhou #CMO 

"Command of #marketing financial metrics helps change the #CEO perception from cost to growth center." - @cindy_zhou #CMO 

"It doesn’t matter if #sales or #marketing generated the lead, what matters is closing the deal." - @cindy_zhou @constellationr #CMO #CX

"Every great #CMO started somewhere. Build expertise, become known for it, then broaden skillset." - @cindy_zhou @constellationr 

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

Connected Planning and Promising Account Based Solution Demonstrated at Anaplan Hub17

Connected Planning and Promising Account Based Solution Demonstrated at Anaplan Hub17

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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A few weeks ago in San Francisco, I attended my first Anaplan Hub conference along with over 1500 other attendees. This year’s Hub marked a new milestone for Anaplan with the debut of new President and CEO Frank Calderoni. A noted tech veteran, Calderoni previously served as the CFO of Red Hat and Cisco. In the keynote, Calderoni emphasized his commitment to deliver the promised innovation to customers with the company’s “significant” investment in R&D. Calderoni also cited that the company’s momentum is strong, adding 250 new customers in the last year. While Anaplan has broad business planning and modeling capabilities, I want to focus specifically on the sales performance management and marketing operations areas of their platform in this blog.
 
Anaplan has experienced solid traction in the financial and sales performance management arenas but their marketing operations planning capabilities have been in a supporting role. Often, the marketing use cases are uncovered after the platform is deployed in another department. According to Anaplan’s Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Grant Halloran, the company’s sales performance management and commission modeling solutions are core but the marketing budgeting and planning solutions are gaining traction.
 
With the CMO’s budget increasing as they take on more responsibility along with a diverse mix of channels, geographies, verticals, etc. to support, solid planning is critical to their success. With ROI to justify, more CMOs need the insight required to cross-reference between what’s happening outside of marketing in sales, service, and finance. The common process for most mid-sized company's marketing departments involves running spreadsheets to manage a diverse mix of martech, adtech, campaign, and content spend. Unfortunately, spreadsheets just don't cut it anymore when looking to perform more complex marketing-to-sales forecasting. Anaplan’s marketing planning solution provides goal-based modeling and the ability to parse budget allocations with a broader view into the data from CRM, marketing automation, and finance systems.
 
From my vantage point, what I saw at the Hub event was planning software that bridges the sales and marketing divide, particularly with the preview I received on their upcoming account based marketing (ABM) solution. In my view, Account Based Marketing is beyond marketing, it requires the organization to align to what I’ll call an account based strategy (ABS) for marketing, sales, and service. The problem with most of the “ABM” solutions on the market are that they provide a specific view into a specific area of campaign execution, marketing engagement, ad placement, data augmentation, etc. Anaplan’s upcoming solution fills in the white space currently in the market by providing insight into how to plan and re-align budgets, territories, quotas, account distribution, to make an account-based strategy successful. Anaplan’s solution provides the ability to perform sales rep territory and quota planning by account, which helps ensure the alignment of compensation and fairness in account distribution. Account, engagement, and intent scores help provide insight into overall prospect close-viability and the ability to allocate budget by vertical, geography, etc. provides a method for marketers and sellers to determine if there’s enough money to fuel ABS activity. Anaplan’s solution looks like a good complement to the other ABM solutions out in the market. Please note that this was a pre-launch preview I received, but Anaplan’s been using the product in-house for their own marketing and sales efforts. As I hear more use cases with customers, I’ll update my findings.
 
Screenshot of account segmentation configuration courtesy of Anaplan
 
 
Screenshot of account segmentation to budget dashboard courtesy of Anaplan
 
Regarding Sales Performance Management, a few casual conversations I had with Anaplan customers during the conference highlighted their love of Anaplan's quota and commission management solution. One customer, a publicly traded multinational software and engineering services company, stated that with Anaplan they removed much of the headaches associated with territory division, account distribution, and sales commissioning. As a result, sales reps were paid two months faster than before. Through Anaplan’s integration with the company’s CRM solution, sales reps can see where they stand at any given moment and the sales ops team is no longer bombarded with questions.
 
Combine solid customer growth, a new CEO, and innovation such as this promising Account Based Planning solution, and Anaplan has the ingredients for continued growth to fuel the IPO buzz.
 
Finally, kudos to Anaplan for having one of the most inspiring keynote speakers I’ve come across in years of hosting and attending events, former NASA Astronaut and the first women of color in space, Dr. Mae Jemison. Dr. Jemison is an inspirational role model and I know her upcoming Lego figurine will propel more girls to enter STEM fields.
 
Below is a Storify collection of my tweets from Anaplan Hub17 and my colleague Doug Henschen, who has been covering Anaplan longer than I have, also wrote a great blog comparing this year’s Hub with prior year events. Read his thoughts here.
 
 
Marketing Transformation Data to Decisions Future of Work Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Marketing B2B B2C CX Customer Experience EX Employee Experience AI ML Generative AI Analytics Automation Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Growth eCommerce Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps Social Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Chief Financial Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Revenue Officer

NVIDIA Wants to Train 100,000 Developers in Deep Learning, AI this Year

NVIDIA Wants to Train 100,000 Developers in Deep Learning, AI this Year

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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GPU (graphical processing unit) maker NVIDIA launched the Deep Learning Institute one year ago, offering low-priced training to developers on a variety of AI and machine learning technologies. Now it has significantly ramped up its ambitions, saying it intends to train 100,000 coders this year, compared to 10,000 in 2016. Here are the key details from its announcement at the GPU Technology Conference:

The institute has trained developers around the world at sold-out public events and onsite training at companies such as Adobe, Alibaba and SAP; at government research institutions like the U.S. National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Science and Technology, and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center; and at institutes of higher learning such as Temasek Polytechnic Singapore and India Institute of Technology, Bombay.

In addition to instructor-led workshops, developers have on-demand access to training on the latest deep learning technology, using NVIDIA software and high-performance Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 P2 GPU instances in the cloud. 

Beyond reaching more developers, NVIDIA is adding to the Institute's curriculum. New areas of study include the application of deep learning for self-driving care, healcare, robotics and financial services. 

NVIDIA is not attempting to reach 100,000 developers on its own. It will partner with AWS, Facebook, Google, the Mayo Clinic and Stanford to co-create training labs. The labs will focus on the Caffe2, MXNet and TensorFlow deep learning frameworks. 

In addition, NVIDIA has teamed up with Facebook AI research head Yann LeCun to create a teaching kit for educators. It says hundreds of professors at Oxford, UC Berkely and elsewere are already using it. 

Lab content is being ported to Microsoft Azure and IBM's cloud. And finally, NVIDIA plans to introduce formal certifications for DLI students. To date, DLI has issued certificates noting the completion of a course, but does not offer certification tests.

Analysis: The AI Opportunity Is Far From A Game to NVIDIA

GPUs are better suited than CPUs for deep learning due to their architecture. While CPUs may have only a couple or several cores, GPUs have thousands of smaller ones that are geared for massively parallel processing of simple tasks. This maps well to compute-intensive deep learning workloads.

NVIDIA's GPUs have long been dominant fixtures in graphics and video cards for gaming and other purposes, but the company's investment in deep learning extends back nearly 10 years, long before the current awareness and hype level around AI.

An aggressive expansion of DLI now makes sense, since the market for GPUs in deep learning remains nascent and NVIDIA should make every effort to expand on its early lead. Its chief competitors, AMD and Intel, are only bringing specialized deep learning GPUs to market this year.

While Intel in particular will have plenty of money to throw behind its products, NVIDIA's other edge lies in the extensive libraries and mature software frameworks it's already developed for deep learning workloads. The more it can train up developers, the more GPUs it can sell, both in specialized hardware or to cloud service providers. In turn, AI developers who align with NVIDIA for GPU acceleration benefit from its early-mover maturity and expertise.

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Data to Decisions Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer

CEN Member Chat: Data to Decisions Trends 2017: Analytics, Big Data, and AI

CEN Member Chat: Data to Decisions Trends 2017: Analytics, Big Data, and AI

Doug Henschen
Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

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

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Constellation Research VP & Principal Analyst, Doug Henschen, reveals truths and 3 imperatives on which new disruptive business models are gathering the greatest momentum for data analytics, Big Data, and AI. Join our Constellation Executive Network to exchange ideas and solve business problems in real time. 

Data to Decisions Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer
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CEN Member Chat: How Artificial Intelligence Will Help People Get Work Done

CEN Member Chat: How Artificial Intelligence Will Help People Get Work Done

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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Find out how artificial intelligence will help people get work done in the Future of Work with Constellation Research VP & Principal Analyst, Alan Lepofsky. Join our Constellation Executive Network to exchange ideas and solve business problems in real time. 

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Making Snapchat Facebook Takeover Proof

Making Snapchat Facebook Takeover Proof

Sam Fiorella
Partner, Sensei Marketing
Partner, Sensei Marketing

Sales &amp; marketing veteran with almost 30 years’ experience and now 1800 digital projects to his credit for clients including Morgan Stanley, AOL, Hyatt Gaming Management, Snyder's of Hanover, Hitachi, the Home Depot, Kraft Foods, Drees Homes, American Idol, and hundreds more, including leading agencies around the North America. &nbsp; &nbsp; ...

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Facebook, the social media juggernaut, seems intent on swallowing up any social media network that poses a threat to its soon-to-be monopoly over the world’s mindshare.

Facebook is a precursor to The Borg: Assimilating competitive networks until all that’s left is one large, ubiquitous social network.

Facebook Acquires Instagram, Assimilates Audience Data

Facebook acquired Instagram, the mobile-focused image sharing network popular among a younger audience because its demographic (Millennials) were slowly but surely leaving Facebook, which they saw as their parent’s social media.

Adding Instagram to its roster of companies was smart as it allows Facebook to combine data analysis and sell advertising to a wider range of businesses.

Facebook Clones Google Plus’s Best Features

Not even the mighty Google could not depose Facebook of its reign. Google Plus, it’s failed attempt to compete with Facebook, had the right concept and, some will argue, a more intuitive and robust network.

The problem was, it could not create a unique differentiator that Facebook could not duplicate, and do better. Unable to buy Google, Facebook cloned the Google Plus services we loved and in a very surgically way, made Google Plus redundant.

Google Plus offered a few differentiators, including hangouts, real-time chat, and “groups.” So, Facebook introduced Messenger to provide real-time chat and video chat and expanded its Business Pages format to offer a Google Plus-comparable groups function.

Further, it updated our ability to manage our network by adding a “friends category” function so we can group and share content with sub-sets of our followers, just like Google Plus’s Groups.

Facebook-owned the market; there was no longer a need for people to waste time building out a community on another network to access those services. It rolled over Google Plus.

Facebook Assimilates Whatsapp

Whatsapp, the digital messaging platform was a real competitor for Facebook’s continuing push to become a mobile platform. Facebook had Messenger, which it could have further developed into a “Whatsapp Killer” but Whatsapp’s ability to replace text messaging was a service that Facebook’s Messenger could never provide. Instead of cloning the service, it purchased Whatsapp.

Facebook & Instagram Clones Vine and Periscope Live Video Services  

Twitter took a stab at Facebook’s dominance with the introduction of the Vine and Periscope networks, which quickly grew in popularity among younger audiences seeking to become content producers, influencers, and receive more entertainment value from their social exchanges. And it worked, for a time.

Instagram’s video service crushed vine, and Periscope was taken out by Facebook’s introduction of Facebook Live, among other execution issues by Twitter.  Facebook’s cloning strategy beat them at their own game.

So who’s next?

Twitter? I don’t think so. Despite the “Trump Effect,” which has driven fans to the network to hang on his every word, and detractors to gawk at the train wreck, Twitter’s been relegated to a niche play.

Twitter’s value to advertisers is diminished – and has possibly become toxic – due to the platforms “too little too late” effort to control trolling and hate speech on the network. Advertisers are running, and potential buyers are following suit.

Still, there’s something Snapchat can learn from Twitter. The challenge is can it remain Facebook-proof but not become a niche network?

Can Snapchat Beat The Odds?

Snapchat, through its parent Snap, recently launched an IPO and is the next challenger for the attention – and dollars – of advertisers and marketers.

Despite the success of its initial IPO, some believe Snapchat is the believe Snapchat is the heir apparent for Facebook’s next takeover. The question, in my opinion, is not if, it’s how?

Will Facebook acquire Snapchat the way it did Instagram? Or, will it simply clone the technologies that make Snapchat appealing to younger audiences, starving the growing network’s growth of digital oxygen like it did with Vine?

If the writing is on the wall, what’s Snapchat to do to grow? Or remain relevant? Or stay in business, for that matter?

It does seem that there’s no beating Facebook, which has innovated, spent, and cloned its way to an omnipotent social media juggernaut. Can Snapchat survive the inevitable takedown by Facebook?

The solution is not technological.

The One Thing Facebook Cannot Do

Snapchat will never beat Facebook. Facebook has proven it will buy or clone what it wants, assimilating and cloning technologies. Its only chance to remain independent and a competitor to Facebook’s advertising prowess is to do the one thing that Facebook cannot: Stay relevant to younger audiences.

The Millennial generation has proven they do not want to be a member of their “parent’s social network.” Now that Boomers have become digitally savvy themselves, Millennials – and each generation after them – will always jump to newer, hipper, and sexier networks. Any network their parents join will become instantly irrelevant.

Facebook may clone Snapchat’s self-destructing social post model, or it may just buy the network, but that will just send the next generation in search of a social channel of their own.

Snapchat has an opportunity to beat the odds but staking a claim on the official “voice of the next generation.”   In other words, Snapchat could be the first one to beat Facebook at its own game: Buy and clone new technologies and channels relevant to younger audiences, driving a bigger wedge between what’s hip and “my parent’s social networks.”

Doing so could replicate Apple’s success in becoming a cultural brand rather than a product or technology. Becoming the “cultural voice of a generation” would render it toxic to a Facebook takeover.

Just imagine Apple being purchased by Microsoft. What would that do to Apple’s cache among its core audience? Would they continue to be as blindly loyal and fanatic – even if the technology didn’t change – if owned by Microsoft? Of course not.

In the same vein, Snapchat has a chance to make itself toxic to predators.

Will it?

The post Making Snapchat Facebook Takeover Proof appeared first on http://www.senseimarketing.com.

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