SAP's Acquisition of Altiscale: It's About Next Gen Apps Not BigData

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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Long rumored (see my colleague’s Doug Henschen pre-acquisition take here) and now it’s official, SAP has acquired Altiscale, a Big Data as a Service vendor.

 

 

So let’s dissect the press release in our customary style – it can be found here:

Today, September 27, SAP officially announces its completed acquisition of Altiscale, which provides a high-performance, scalable Big Data-as-a-Service (BDaaS) solution that uniquely includes full operational services.
[…] Altiscale will operate as a focused and integrated BDaaS offering from SAP to help accelerate and operationalize Big Data deployment in the enterprise.

MyPOV – Good point on what Altiscale does and how it helps, key SAP will keep operating Altiscale. Important for existing customers, but also going forward.

Several key factors drove SAP’s decision to acquire Altiscale.
The two companies have complementary approaches to implementing enterprise Big Data solutions. SAP has taken the approach to build its distributed based on deep understanding of requirements coming from enterprise applications, analytics, data platform, data warehousing and cloud platform. Altiscale has focused on cloud and data infrastructure with its Altiscale Data Cloud offering, which starts with a highly optimized cloud infrastructure, continues with a Spark and Hadoop data platform.
Altiscale is a natural fit for SAP, as we share our overall focus of helping enterprises derive business value from data – and successfully leverage Big Data. Since Altiscale is a leader in Big Data-as-a-Service based on Hadoop and Spark, it enables SAP to drive end-to-end value in Big Data across the technology, data platform, PaaS, analytics, and application stack.
Altiscale offers high job performance, reliability, and economic performance for Hadoop and Spark in the cloud. It has an established and very satisfied customer base that includes a variety of industries, including financial services, telecommunications, media, ad tech, and marketing analytics.
SAP’s initial foray into Big Data processing began with its investment in SAP HANA Vora, a distributed computing framework that extends Spark’s execution engine to address some key inefficiencies in processing Big Data for business use. Through this experience, SAP saw the unique challenges faced by businesses in the provisioning, scaling, and operation of Hadoop in a production environment. Altiscale directly addresses these challenges, providing the customer with full-service Hadoop and Spark in the cloud to boost performance, eliminate roadblocks, and accelerate customer go-live. The combination of Altiscale and SAP HANA Vora will enable SAP to provide a holistic and accelerated Big Data solution, allowing businesses to quickly achieve positive business impact from Big Data.
Altiscale is a great fit beyond SAP’s Big Data strategy. It is also integrates well with a number of SAP strategic initiatives, such as SAP HANA Cloud Platform, IoT, analytics, LoB cloud apps, and business networks. Altiscale’s Hadoop-as-a-Service (HaaS) capabilities enable SAP to offer a much more comprehensive and robust enterprise solution that meets the unique needs of customers on their digital transformation journey.

MyPOV – All points describe well how Altiscale is a fit for SAP: SAP has been slow warming up to Hadoop – as stated SAP HANA Vora was the first foray – but lots of questions had to be addressed till SAP would from in memory SAP HANA and SAP HANA Vora to ‘spinning rust’ on HDDs managed by Hadoop. This is truly complimentary to SAP – has Altiscale offers yhat SAP does not have and would have had to build from scratch: The dynamic provisioning of large scale BigData implementation for its customers.

There are many use cases for Altiscale in the following areas and industries:
IoT: Uses include manufacturing, utilities, transportation, smart cities, and more.
Financial services: Applications include fraud detection, cybersecurity, and achieving a 360-degree customer view.
Media: Examples include advertising optimization and recommendation engines.
Ad tech and marketing analytics: Uses include multi-channel analytics and advertising attribution.
Pharmaceutical: Drug research, market segmentation, and supply chain optimization are all examples.
Telecommunications: Altiscale can be used to optimize billing and facilitate churn analysis.

 MyPOV – Exactly, it is at the end not about Hadoop and BDaaS (which both are key for SAP extending functional capability and use cases as well as addressing the Hadoop know how / expert shortage questions) – but ultimately all technology is about enabling customer benefits through powering hands on use cases. It’s a good list. Sticklers will note the absence of security, which Altiscale featured high, replaced now with what matters to SAP customers at the moment – IoT). Fair enough 

 

SAP and Altiscale are currently working to synchronize both companies’ technology, products and market perspectives. We will be systematically evolving the Altiscale Data Cloud for integration into the SAP portfolio. […]

MyPOV – No surprise – looking forward to learning more specifics on the roadmap.

As we go forward, SAP remains committed to honoring all customer contracts and ensuring high customer satisfaction. SAP and Altiscale will work closely with customers in the coming months to determine how SAP’s future Big Data and other data analytics offerings can best meet each customer’s unique needs.

MyPOV – Good to see SAP honoring Altiscale contract – especially in BDaaS, because – it is BigData.

Overall MyPOV

A good move by SAP – that needed to have native Hadoop, HDD based BigData capabilities to operate use cases where in memory was either commercially or not even technically feasible. With Altiscale SAP now only addresses this part – but also the know-how challenge that is surrounding BigData. At Constellation we see more than 66% of BigData projects that are live and delivering value seeing interruption because of know how-issues, vendor changes, new software, new consultants etc. So SAP gains both product capabilities and services capabilities, the combination is crucial.

On the concern side, SAP took long to get here and needs to move fast. Clarity on where data resides, which IaaS platforms will be supported etc. needs to come soon, as enterprises make decisions on the providers and platforms for their next generation applications. SAP is always in the picture for ERP content, how much SAP can be in the picture for more of the next generation applications business will be determined by speed and clarity on moving to full Hadoop support.

But for now a truly synergistic acquisition for SAP, which also gets a Hadoop pioneer and its team with Raymie Stata, let’s see how far and fast it can get SAP to power a more complete set of next generation applications – that always need… Hadoop.

 

 

 

And more on SAP

• First Take - SAP BW/4HANA - Data Gravity and Cloud win - read here
• Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SConnect - Push on all fronts - read here
• Event Report - SAP Insider Vienna - HCP, BI and SuccessFactors are the takeaways - read here
• Event Report - SAP Sapphire 2016 - Top 3 Positives & Concerns: SAP changes - probably for the better - read here
• First Take - SAP Sapphire Day #2 Keynote - read here
• News Analysis - SAP and Microsoft usher in new era of partnership to accelerate digital transformation in the cloud - read here
• First Take -  SAP Sapphire Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote - read here
• Event Preview - SAP Sapphire 2016 - What to expect and look for - read here
• News Analysis - Apple & SAP Partner to Revolutionize Work on iPhone & iPad - read here
• Progress Report - SAP SuccessFactors makes good progress - now needs appeal beyond SAP - read here
• News Analysis - SAP HANA Vora now available... - A key milestone for SAP - read here
• Event Report - SAP Ariba Live - Make Procurement Cool Again - read here
• News Analysis - SAP SuccessFactors innovates in Performance Management with continuous feedback powered by 1 to 1s  - read here
• Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Good Progress sprinkled with innovative ideas and challenging the status quo - read here
• News Analysis - WorkForce Software Announces Global Reseller Agreement with SAP - read here
• First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Day #1 Keynote Top 3 Takeaways - read here
• News Analysis - SAP SuccessFactors introduces Next Generation of HCM software - read here
• News Analysis - SAP delivers next release of SAP HANA - SPS 10 - Ready for BigData and IoT - read here
• Event Report - SAP Sapphire - Top 3 Positives and Concerns - read here
• First Take - Bernd Leukert and Steve Singh Day #2 Keynote - read here
• News Analysis - SAP and IBM join forces ... read here
• First Take - SAP Sapphire Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote - read here
• In Depth - S/4HANA qualities as presented by Plattner - play for play - read here
• First Take - SAP Cloud for Planning - the next spreadsheet killer is off to a good start - read here
• Progress Report - SAP HCM makes progress and consolidates - a lot of moving parts - read here
• First Take - SAP launches S/4HANA - The good, the challenge and the concern - read here
• First Take - SAP's IoT strategy becomes clearer - read here
• SAP appoints a CTO - some musings - read here
• Event Report - SAP's SAPtd - (Finally) more talk on PaaS, good progress and aligning with IBM and Oracle - read here
• News Analysis - SAP and IBM partner for cloud success - good news - read here
• Market Move - SAP strikes again - this time it is Concur and the spend into spend management - read here
• Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors picks up speed - but there remains work to be done - read here
• First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Top 3 Takeaways Day 1 Keynote - read here.
• Event Report - Sapphire - SAP finds its (unique) path to cloud - read here
• What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire - read here
• News Analysis - SAP becomes more about applications - again - read here
• Market Move - SAP acquires Fieldglass - off to the contingent workforce - early move or reaction? Read here.
• SAP's startup program keep rolling – read here.
• Why SAP acquired KXEN? Getting serious about Analytics – read here.
• SAP steamlines organization further – the Danes are leaving – read here.
• Reading between the lines… SAP Q2 Earnings – cloudy with potential structural changes – read here.
• SAP wants to be a technology company, really – read here
• Why SAP acquired hybris software – read here.
• SAP gets serious about the cloud – organizationally – read here.
• Taking stock – what SAP answered and it didn’t answer this Sapphire [2013] – read here.
• Act III & Final Day – A tale of two conference – Sapphire & SuiteWorld13 – read here.
• The middle day – 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
• A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
• What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire – read here.
• Why 3rd party maintenance is key to SAP’s and Oracle’s success – read here.
• Why SAP acquired Camillion – read here.
• Why SAP acquired SmartOps – read here.
• Next in your mall – SAP and Oracle? Read here

 

And more about SAP technology:

• Event Prieview - SAP TechEd 2015 - read here
• News Analysis - SAP Unveils New Cloud Platform Services and In-Memory Innovation on Hadoop to Accelerate Digital Transformation – A key milestone for SAP read here
• HANA Cloud Platform - Revisited - Improvements ahead and turning into a real PaaS - read here
• News Analysis - SAP commits to CloudFoundry and OpenSource - key steps - but what is the direction? - Read here.
• News Analysis - SAP moves Ariba Spend Visibility to HANA - Interesting first step in a long journey - read here
• Launch Report - When BW 7.4 meets HANA it is like 2 + 2 = 5 - but is 5 enough - read here
• Event Report - BI 2014 and HANA 2014 takeaways - it is all about HANA and Lumira - but is that enough? Read here.
• News Analysis – SAP slices and dices into more Cloud, and of course more HANA – read here.
• SAP gets serious about open source and courts developers – about time – read here.
• My top 3 takeaways from the SAP TechEd keynote – read here.
• SAP discovers elasticity for HANA – kind of – read here.
• Can HANA Cloud be elastic? Tough – read here.
• SAP’s Cloud plans get more cloudy – read here.
• HANA Enterprise Cloud helps SAP discover the cloud (benefits) – read here

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth Hadoop Chief Information Officer

First Take - Microsoft Ignite - AI, Adobe and FPGA [From the Fences]

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 could not make it to Microsoft’s IT management focused in Atlanta, but that did not hinder us to watch the event from the fences. The conference is well attended, Microsoft says over 22k attendees, a very good turnout considering this was only the 2nd edition of the Ignite conference. 

 

 

 

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

 

 

First Take - Microsoft Ignite - AI, Adobe and FPGA from Holger Mueller

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

All about AI, democratize AI – In the afternoon keynote Satya Nadella coined a new marketing slogan we will hear more often from Microsoft – Democratize AI. Not surprisingly for Microsoft this means bringing Machine Learning to all its products – we saw Office, Dynamics, Hololens, Security, IoT, of course Cortana and more. Nadella was proud for Microsoft to win 2 world championships in Machine Learning – congrats – we need to see who participated. Voice and Conversation as a Platform that Nadella was very much about at the developer Build conference in spring (see my Event Report here), was less prominent, as was the push for voice is the new UI. But overall messaging was consistent – all the way to the Nadella very early days with MobileFirst and CloudFirst.

Adobe chooses Microsoft – We have written often about Microsoft needing to acquire additional load to fuel the growth of Azure, once Office365 conversions run out of steam. Beyond Office Microsoft does not have too much organic load in house, so it is key for Microsoft to attract ISVs, as ISVs provide a lot of load – and best – transform the load to their IaaS. Adobe is moving out of multiple clouds, but mainly out of AWS, where Adobe was certainly a Top 10 customer. We would not be surprised if commercial terms for Adobe were very attractive. Both vendors have more synergies, like Adobe integrating its marketing products with Dynamics (explicitly mentioned), and longer term Adobe using Microsoft Machine Learning capabilities (more implicit). My colleague R “Ray” Wang has also covered the decision in a News Analysis blog post – check it out here.
 

Azure is (almost) 100% FPGAed – Out of the R&D project Catapult that a brave researcher got passed former Microsoft leader Ballmer, Microsoft not only found a way to accelerate Bing, but all of Azure. Effectively Microsoft now has equipped almost each server in and every new server that comes to Azure with a FPGA, that allows to scale the server better. Especially for Machine Learning, as Microsoft impressively demonstrated that all of Wikipedia could be translated into Spanish in less than 0.1 seconds using all of Azure. So the FPGAs must be doing some very smart balancing across even hundreds of thousands of servers. An interesting approach, that has the flexibility of the programmable FPGA, but is very hard to code. It will be interesting to see how often Microsoft will re-program the FPGAs, for different purposes – or even open them up for Azure customers. But early days and kudos to Microsoft to come up with a unique architecture. 

 

MyPOV

A good start for Ignite, that not only showed innovation across all products, but also the depth and breadth Microsoft has from its R&D team and how it can differentiate offerings. It is clear Microsoft is on a good course, creating new products, innovating, adding new capabilities (e.g. Docker to Azure, normally a bigger announcement, but did not make the Top 3) – and attracting load – Adobe is certainly a big fish to catch. Strategy and messaging has remained consistent compared to the other two major events.

On the concern side Microsoft needs to stretch the rubber between where it needs to be vis a vis the competition (there most notably AWS and Google) and at the same time where its customers are. There is a lot for customers to digest, understand and bring back to their executive teams for the adoption conversation. Making the case to a CIO’s peers was something that Microsoft has room to improve on, and at the same time needs to make sure their customer base does not get overwhelmed. Sometimes less is more. But a good problem to have.

Overall a good start at MS Ignite and interesting and differentiating offerings shown and announced. No surprises – even on the FPGAs (more a question if Microsoft really pushed this out to all Azure Server, but it says it has). Interesting and exciting times stay tuned.


More Apps / SaaS vendor and IaaS vendor partnerships (in chronological order):

• Infor runs on Amazon AWS (read here)
• SAP on IBM Cloud (read here) 
• Lumesse on Salesforce Cloud (read here) and
• NetSuite on Microsoft Azure (read here)
• JDA chooses Google Cloud Platform (read here)
• SAP chooses Microsoft Azure (read here)
• Salesforce chooses AWS (read here) 
• Workday chooses IBM for DEV and TST (read here)

And more on Microsoft:
 

• News Analysis - GE and Microsoft partner to bring Predix to Azure - Multi-Cloud becomes tangible for IoT - read here
• Market Move - Microsoft acquired Linked - Tons of synergies, start with Cortana, maybe too many - read here
• News Analysis - Microsoft opens Windows Holographic to partners for a new era of mixed reality - read here
• News Analysis - SAP and Microsoft usher in new era of partnership to accelerate digital transformation in the cloud - read here
• Musings - Will Microsoft's Hololens transform the Future of Work? Read here
• Event Report - Microsoft Build 2016 - A platform vision and plenty of tools for next generation applications - read here
• First Take - Microsoft Build 2016 - Day 1 Keynote Takeaways - read here
• Event Preview - Microsoft Build 2016 - Top 3 Things to watch for developers, managers and execs...  read here
• News Analysis - Microsoft - New Hybrid Offerings Deliver Bottomless Capacity for Today's Data Explosion - read here
• News Analysis - Welcoming the Xamarin team to Microsoft - read here
• News Analysis - Microsoft announcements at Convergence Barcelona - Office365. Dynamics CRM and Power Apps 
• News Analysis - Microsoft expands Azure Data Lake to unleash big data productivity - Good move - time to catch up - read here
• News Analysis - Microsoft and Salesforce Strengthen Strategic Partnership at Dreamforce 2015 - Good for joint customers - read here
• News Analyis - NetSuite announced Cloud Alliance with Microsoft - read here
• Event Report - Microsoft Build - Microsoft really wants to make developers' lives easier - read here
• First Hand with Microsoft Hololens - read here
• Event Report - Microsoft TechEd - Top 3 Enterprise takeaways - read here
• First Take - Microsoft discovers data ambience and delivers an organic approach to in memory database - read here
• Event Report - Microsoft Build - Azure grows and blossoms - enough for enterprises (yet)? Read here.
• Event Report - Microsoft Build Day 1 Keynote - Top Enterprise Takeaways - read here.
• Microsoft gets even more serious about devices - acquire Nokia - read here.
• Microsoft does not need one new CEO - but six - read here.
• Microsoft makes the cloud a platform play - Or: Azure and her 7 friends - read here.
• How the Cloud can make the unlikeliest bedfellows - read here.
• How hard is multi-channel CRM in 2013? - Read here.
• How hard is it to install Office 365? Or: The harsh reality of customer support - read here.

Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below (if it doesn’t show up – check here).

 

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

New C-Suite Data to Decisions Innovation & Product-led Growth Revenue & Growth Effectiveness Future of Work Tech Optimization Next-Generation Customer Experience Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Microsoft Leadership ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI AI Analytics Automation business Marketing SaaS PaaS IaaS Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP finance Healthcare Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Chief Executive Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief AI Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Product Officer

The Business Phone System Reinvented: The Next-Generation Cloud Communications and Collaboration Tool

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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My latest research report is a case study of Dialpad, an enterprise cloud phone system. This report examines the ROI of Dialpad and Dialpad's effect on collaboration. Learn more about the report here: Next-Generation Cloud Communications and Collaboration Tools. 

The only way to build a truly innovative and collaborative culture is to give everyone a voice. In working with Dialpad, I just completed some ROI research to understand how quickly, easy and affordable it is today to plug every employee into your business with a very innovative phone system. They way it works is that Dialpad turns all of your devices into your business phone, letting you make high-definition calls over Wi-Fi or your carrier network from anywhere. And businesses can let their  remote workers and global offices feel like a part of HQ with peer-to-peer HD video. This is especially great for field service, where video often can solve the problem like no other solution because you can SEE the issue. In these new systems, modern business communications integrate seamlessly with the productivity apps that employees use every day, making it easier than ever for them to collaborate with docs, emails, and calendar invites.

With this system, a brand can move a phone call from their WiFi to their carrier or from a desktop to a mobile device very easily, so in essence it is very easy to switch calls from device to device (phone, tablet, desktop…) It is also easy to transfer calls between colleagues or departments simply by looking up a name in the directory.

In the ROI research we interviewed two companies, Vivant Solar and a large communication services provider to see how they transformed their on-premises telephony systems to a purely cloud-based communications solution using Dialpad. The change, depending on the situation, resulted in six- to seven- figure cost savings. Both companies previously had legacy, on-premises PBX (Private Branch Exchange) technology, which is a private telephone network used within a company.

Dialpad provides a secure, enterprise communications cloud solution that incorporates traditional PBX features into a modern cloud-based, business communications VoIP system. The solution integrates with Google Apps for Work and with Office 365, with a user interface built to satisfy the needs of a modern workplace but without the typical costs of traditional enterprise, on-premise telephony systems.

The platform offers messaging, voice, video, conference calling in the cloud, attributed call transfer, auto-attendant, IVR, business SMS, MMS, and group messaging, call recording, live-call device switching, international outbound calling, local telephone numbers, multi-device functionality, toll-free numbers, visual voicemail, contact profiles, a company directory and fax support as well as core social profile applications, such as LinkedIn and Twitter for context about the caller. In case you are wondering, has anyone else discovered this service, Dialpad’s customers include 60 percent of the Fortune 500, high-growth enterprises, and forward thinking organizations and start-ups. The service is built on the WebRTC framework and runs on a redundant global network of nine data centers on four continents.

CUSTOMER ROI CASE STUDY: VIVINT SOLAR 

In the evaluation of various technology infrastructure systems, Mike Hincks, Director, IT Infrastructure at Vivint Solar, found that traditional IT voice systems come with hundreds of thousands of dollars of yearly infrastructure and hosting costs, all designed around employees using desk phones. The catalyst for change was to use a system not tied to a desk phone. One of the many interesting features was that Dialpad had no upfront capital expenditures or maintenance costs, which made it easier to get the technology approved by senior leaders at Vivint Solar.

In addition, Hincks looked at the money the sister company was spending on long-distance contracts. With Dialpad, there were no long-distance carrier costs. Hincks also looked at the cost of the team he would need to hire in order to maintain an on premise, hosted solution. The sister company had had a five-person team to manage voice applications. In addition, Hincks would have needed to schedule the IT team’s time to provision a new phone for each employee, with at least one hour of training per employee and some additional time from the IT team for troubleshooting. Dialpad required less than one full-time equivalent employee.

Another one of the biggest conveniences was that Dialpad integrated with Google for Work without any authentication process. “I found the Millennial workforce wants technology to work right away. They don’t want to set up an application, have to go through training or troubleshoot it. They want to click on an app and see it work immediately,” said Hincks.

The positive feedback about Dialed from Vivint Solar’s more than 4,000 mobile workers includes:

• Improving the ease of signing up and using the communications technology
• Increasing agility to work anytime and anywhere on any device with technology that doesn’t get in the way of productivity
• Increasing productivity by being able to use a simple user interface
• Boosting the ability to make bigger sales at a faster rate.

The ROI: Costs were reduced by several hundred thousand dollars, year over year. Savings came from:

• No upfront capital expenditure and maintenance costs
• No long-distance carrier costs
• No need to hire a team to manage the cloud based communications
• No need to train employees or engage the training department
• High user adoption rate because of the simple user interface
• Improved ability to attract talent by reducing recruiting costs and increasing retention of top talent

A GLOBAL COMMUNICATION SOLUTIONS AND SERVICES COMPANY

In the second company, the Director of Digital Workplace Technologies set up a proof of concept (POC) with Dialpad. He found that the best way to meet the needs of workers in the modern enterprise was using cloud technology. He wanted to re-conceptualize how communications services could be presented to users and to eliminate deterrents to productivity, especially for the geographically distributed workforce that used telephony systems. The Director of Digital Workplace Technologies said, “It was important to look at an IT project as an organizational change management project. We learned this lesson when we moved our users to Google Apps for Work. Technology changes that affect how productive workers are should be seen as organizational change projects. If you can’t find something you are looking for, it makes you less productive and frustrated. So we always overlay organization change management with our IT rollouts.”

DON’T FORGET ORGANIZATION CHANGE MANAGEMENT

The company needed to have a new communications system that could be completely up and running in minutes, compared to months or even years required for deploying global on-premises systems. Applications built in the cloud reduce costs because they are more flexible, extensible, and easier to work with while making collaboration intuitive. And this company found organizational change management was a key element for a successful implementation of this new communications system.

The ROI

Using Dialpad, the company was able to retire several of its old telephony systems and realize millions of dollars in cost savings by reducing:

• Maintenance agreements
• Infrastructure
• Service and support for the infrastructure
• Phone lines from service providers.

Today, the company has deployed about 6,000 VoIP lines on Dialpad, which cover about 40 percent of its global employee base. It is looking to expand coverage every quarter. The company’s savings were several million dollars, year over year. Savings came from:

• No upfront capital expenditure
• No maintenance costs
• Reduced reliance on IT helpdesk
• No long-distance carrier costs.

GIVING EMPLOYEES MORE CHOICE, RESULTING IN HIGHER PRODUCTIVITY

After implementing Dialpad at just one large site, the global company reduced the site’s cost per minute of call time by double digits. In addition, the new system offered features that the old telephony systems could not. For instance, the PBX system had been tied to a particular device – the desk office phone. However, most people are now mobile, working from various devices and remote locations. Clearly, workers could not take their desk phones outside of their offices. When workers were away from their desks, they had to use cell phones or other alternatives – from multiple phone numbers – that created additional costs for the company.

Dialpad, however, allows employees use to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony. When the company moved to Dialpad, employees could use their computers to place calls, essentially replacing desk phones. They could also use the Dialpad application on their Android or iOS mobile devices. To the person receiving the call, it all comes from the same phone number, whether the VoIP call is made from a computer or from a mobile device.

Employees could also become more productive. With the ability to communicate from any place, using any device, while still being accessible from a single phone number, people could connect with each other more easily. As collaboration was made easier, the ability for teams to work more effectively with remote employees was also improved. In essence, the company had a new potential to increase the agility and adaptability of its workforce. Employees could be more productive, collaborative and feel more connected to each other using Dialpad.

MODERNIZING THE WORKPLACE 

The new technology enabled the company to modernize its workplace. The company realized that it needed to give employees – as well as new hires and interns – technology tools that are modern, intuitive and easy to use, unlike traditional enterprise tools. The company found employees could easily pick up how to use Dialpad because they were familiar with Google Apps for Work. While moving to Dialpad, the company was also able to shift a portion of its traditional help desk activity to a self-service and community-supported model. In the community, users can ask influencers an guides questions.

WHAT YOU SHOULD CONSIDER IN CHOOSING NEW TECHNOLOGY

Hardware costs and desk phones traditionally have driven the voice communications industry. While struggling for decades to bring down hardware costs, providers attempted to shift to a software model that yielded some feature and cost improvements. However, these changes have not significantly reduced costs, improved scalability, boosted agility or simplified use. In contrast, a revolutionary, exponential change occurs in the telephony industry from using a 100 percent cloud based system designed with the user in mind that is extremely easy to deploy and use while slashing operating costs, eliminating call charges, and offering rapid, unlimited and affordable scalability.

GIVING EMPLOYEES THE RIGHT TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY RESULTS IN BETTER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES

At the end of the day, it’s really the employees that create the customer experience. And employees can’t do that unless they are given the right technology. It’s up to companies to evaluate the technology they are using and to provide them the latest technology that allows them to be their best.

@DrNatalie Petouhoff, VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Creating Great Customer Experiences By Empowering Employees

Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

Adobe Microsoft Partner For Marketing Cloud, Azure and AI

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…...

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Adobe Move To Microsoft Azure Signals Closer Partnerships Ahead

On September 26th, 2016 at the Microsoft Ignite conference in Atlanta, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, and Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, announced a strategic partnership between the two companies.  Constellation sees the announcement from three points of view:

• Adobe makes Microsoft Azure the preferred cloud platform.  Adobe intends to move Adobe Marketing Cloud, Adobe Creative Cloud, and Adobe Document Cloud onto Azure over the next few years.  Adobe will gain access to Microsoft’s machine learning services through Microsoft Cortana Intelligence suite and also access SQL Server.
  
  Point of View (POV): While Adobe currently uses multiple providers and data centers for its cloud operations, the move to Microsoft Azure will provide a global, Tier-1 environment for work loads as well as security.  More importantly, Adobe gains another tool for machine learning.  However, access to SQL Server remains questionable as performance issues for SQL Server on Azure remain for heavy transactional apps.

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Enterprise Edition adopts Adobe Marketing Cloud.  Dynamics 365 Enterprise Edition brings three Azure hosted Microsoft Services together with Office 365 and the Office Graph and LinkedIn:  Dynamics CRM Online, Project Madeira (financials), and Dynamics AX ERP suite.  As the preferred service for Dynamics 365 Enterprise Edition, Microsoft signals that they will resell Adobe Marketing Cloud in Azure.  Full details have not been disclosed on yet on pricing and general availability..
  
  (POV): Observers and insiders believe that while the Marketing features acquired from Marketing Pilot will continue to be available from Dynamics CRM, the long term shift will cede Marketing capability to Adobe.  As Adobe builds out more functionality in the Adobe Marketing Cloud, expect development from the Microsoft Dynamics team to focus on intelligent business applications that integrate more tightly with Adobe for the marketing function.  One of the key features with Dynamics 365 is the ability to license by applications or role based licensing.  Constellation believes customers will benefit if this licensing model extends to the Adobe offering.

• Both vendors agree to data model standardization.  For marketing and business applications, the two firms greed to coordinate on data model design.  Both vendors also agreed to provide shared, extensible data models to customers, partners, and developers.
  
  (POV): Microsoft and Adobe have decided to counter Salesforce.com with a joint coordination on the marketing front and the artificial intelligence front through the alliance.  After Microsoft’s failed attempt to acquire Salesforce, the move to align on not only cloud delivery, but also business applications will provide a formidable challenge to Salesforce.

Figure 1. Adobe and Microsoft CEOs announce partnership at Microsoft Ignite

The Bottom Line: The Marketing Cloud Wars Heat Up and Commerce May Be Next

While customers have a few big choices in the Marketing Cloud from Adobe, IBM, Marketo, and Salesforce, the partnership between Adobe and Microsoft hints at more consolidation in the cloud wars around marketing functionality.  Adobe gains a strong partner in cloud delivery and enterprise scale and Microsoft gains a key asset in workloads and business applications.  Customers may actually benefit from this tighter integration as CRM shifts from core components of sales, service, and marketing into commerce.  As digital technologies transform CRM, the long term focus is not on selling products and services, but on delivering brand authenticity and outcomes, or experiences, from campaign to commerce engagements.  The ultimate result is either a conversion rate or click through.  All Microsoft and Adobe will need now is to add commerce to the mix and customers will have a more complete solution.  Why? commerce is the outcome of good CRM and CX not vice versa.

See the video on Future Campaign to Commerce vision below:

Your POV

Are you ready to try Adobe as a Microsoft customer.  Will Adobe customers move more towards Microsoft Dynamics 365? How will you build your strategy with Adobe and Microsoft?  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

 

Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth Event Report Microsoft Executive Events Leadership Chief Customer Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Experience Officer

From IT Transactions with BI to IoT Interactions with AI An argument for a ‘Mid Office’ architecture

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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Online Web Based Business showed first retail, and then, many other sectors, that Internet ‘location’ was rapidly becoming more important than the physical location in attracting business. As Internet based business expands and transforms with IoT then understanding the concept of ‘interactions’, rather than the format of IT based ‘Transactions’, becomes necessary. The Enterprise orchestrates IoT event ‘Interactions’ from the market into an the fastest optimum response using its internal IoT assets is the new competitive winner.

Each stage of development of Internet based capabilities has increased the focus on winning business through smarter competitive Internet connected interactions. The recognition of the differences between activities and technologies of the so-called ‘Front Office’ versus the ‘Back Office’ become even more apparent with the introduction of IoT.

A brief reminder; The distinction between Front and Back Office is an important one, broadly defining the difference between the external revenue creating activities and the internal operating efficiency/costs of operating the company. Prior to the year 2000 competitive status focused almost totally on reducing the cost, and improving, the efficiency of internal operating processes usually with ERP. Front Office as a term meant little more than defining the role of the operating departments of Sales and Marketing. The technology used by the Front Office such as the original CRM, or Customer Data, applications were operated from the internal Back Office IT applications and Systems.

The Architecture of IT Enterprise Applications integrated through EAI Middleware created the business model, and the technology (IT) skills, that dominate most Enterprises. The mantra of ‘do more of less’ reducing both products, and operating processes to gain volume pricing economies for goods undergoing conventional physical distribution was the business transformation competitive game changer of the late 80s into the 90s.

Since 2000 there has been a growing use of Internet based technologies to engage with, and win, both customers and orders, by increasingly flexibility in supply to match the buyer’s criteria. The path to 2016 is one of increasing ‘agility and optimization’ of responses to Internet connected ‘opportunities’ to win business. The concept of ‘the long tail’ with its increasing number of low volume products is well on the way to becoming the norm of mainstream business.

Add to this the Cloud revolution of supplying technologies as ‘Services’ and the foundation for the revolution into the Digital Services economy is established. But Services, both in selling and supplying call for a close alignment between supply and demand, coupled to huge flexibility, or customization, of the product.

IoT is not merely the current IT Transactional Back Office model with more Internet connections, it’s the true enabler of the ‘Agile Enterprise’ Business model. As an example; Lean Manufacturing should define an IoT Architected Enterprise business model based on supplier/customer Internet Connectivity to ‘read and react’ through Interactions to Orchestrate an Agile optimization of ‘real time’ opportunities.

The obvious IT approach of adding increased IoT sensing to optimize the sub set of internal Enterprise processes that apply to the act of manufacturing is not IoT Transformation. Whilst there is no doubting the benefits of the increased efficiency brought it is incremental improvement to the current Business model using IT Applications. This is not the Transformation of the Business model that the CEO of General Electric, and others, has been discussing and presenting at Business conferences round the World.

So what’s the problem? After years of developing best practice architecture and deployment IT staff find it difficult not to try to apply their experience and expectations to IoT. (In contrast business managers who are less concerned by the technology seem to find it easier to grasp the Business value). To understand IoT and its differentiation from IoT is made easier by grasping two simple basic ways differences; the first, (and the title of this blog), is the difference between IT Transactions and IoT Interactions; and the second is the dimension of Time, or Timeliness, connected to when and how data is used.

To define IT Transactions is to recognize that the majority of IT Enterprise Applications are deployed to register that a transaction has taken place by the creation of a data record. This data record is a known, defined outcome used to design an application process and required inputs simply to ensure that the Data record will conform exactly. Time stamped, State’ is required to ensure that multiple users have the latest and correct copy of the Data record to use and update.

Data Analysis comes as at a later Time, looking for correlations between the various data records and their formats that where not established in the original records. In the relatively stable World of the 90s continued honing of operating efficiency with the business intelligence gained from Analytics ensured a continuous competitive edge was maintained.

Contrast this with the ability of IoT to create ‘insights’, or outcomes that could not be reliably predicted. IoT makes use input sources that have previously been inaccessible from a huge range of low cost sensors that together provide a continuous picture of events and activities as they occur. And, perhaps most important of all, the data can be used in time frame to optimize reactions as the events and activities are happening.

IoT creates value from orchestrating the ‘read’ of spontaneous ‘Interactions’ into ‘Insights’ that a business can make a ‘response’ to in a ‘Timely’ manner to gain a competitive advantage.  The resulting ‘Agility’ in optimizing enterprise responses and resources, including suppliers, into a lean flexible competitive business creates the transformation of business models.

The ‘Front Office’, which was largely untouched by the IT revolution of the 90s is where this transformation is centered. The ‘Back Office’ will continue to require the internal transactions operation and recording for commercial and compliance purposes. The BIG question is how the Front and Back Office will integrate, and even more importantly how does this create an ‘Agile’ Enterprise.

The ‘Agile’ Enterprise has the potential to change not only how business processes are improved but also how modern workers can make better informed decisions by providing better ‘realtime context’ across the Front and Back office systems. Companies such as Abra uses Artificial Intelligence approach to an age-old challenge — how to increase the visibility of process changes – by helping visualize enterprise business process using data from transactions systems in the front office with data generated from IoT assets in the back office.

There is a potential answer to use as a ‘draft’ model and it comes from the   Financial Sector. Digital markets, and rapid deal optimization using ‘’real time’ market data feeds closely resemble the expectations of Digital Business with IoT. The Financial Industry has found it necessary to introduce the concept of the Mid Office to integrate and operate the Front and Back Offices successfully.

In Financial Trading companies the Mid Office is responsible for risk management, setting the rules, and overseeing trades being successfully transacted in a compliant manner. The Front Office of any Digital IoT Business model will require a similar support role and will need to consider the concept of the Mid Office in their Enterprise.

The Mid Office is also likely to be the home of Artificial Intelligence, or AI, as the ‘intelligent hub’ modeling the Enterprise and continually updated with data and information. In the case of a Lean Manufacturing Enterprise then internal IoT data monitors resources and assets, whilst external IoT monitors the market, supplies, and suppliers. Here AI, unlike BI, will read and react to events, trends and activities in time frames that allow intervention to optimize opportunities.

Studying the Financial Industry and the development of the role of the Mid Office as the Intelligent Operational center of that integrates the internal and external operations provides much to interest Business Managers who are considering the strategic development of their Enterprises business model.

Reltio a provider of modern data management Platform as a Service (PaaS) enables what they call the ‘the next wave in enterprise applications’. The Reltio Cloud PaaS contains built-in Master Data Management (MDM) for data reliability, traditionally only viewed as a Back Office function. They then combine transactions and interaction data at big data scale and have used added Commercial Graph technology to intelligently uncover relationships between entities providing a foundation for front-office facing business applications.

Relto provide an interesting example of bringing the Front and Back Office together in what they call data-driven applications. The bringing together of IoT, and business usersin concert with IT’s data management of a single reliable pool of data is a hugely important next step for many Enterprises. Get it right and it makes immediate business value out of many current individual activities. Getting it right also lays the foundation for analytics and AI with machine learning to be applied ushering in the new era of capabilities that make up an Agile Enterprise.

New C-Suite

DX is the New CX- Why Customer Experience Isn’t Up to Snuff

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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Having been a long-term customer experience advocate and studied the field, I as many others, have noticed that while companies are saying that customer experience is a key differentiator, that it’s at the top of their priority list of business initiatives, that they are spending more on it but when customers are asked, they don’t think it’s better. So how could that be?

I know many customer experience professionals who spend a lot of time mapping out their various customer journey’s for different personas or customer profiles, they have purchased and implemented some of the top omni-channel software, are conducting social media / digital media monitoring so they know what their customers are saying… So it’s not that customer experience professionals aren’t doing what they need to do. But if they are doing all that, why do customer still report, in large part, that their experience of most brands is not up to snuff?

What I discovered is that there are two groups of people that think about customer / digital experience, but in very different ways. One group of people tends to be the typical customer experience professional who has done all of the things I mentioned above and done them well. And then there’s another group of people, often in IT, that worry about digital performance management (DPM.) They look at the technology stack that is underneath the omni-channel customer experience technology and optimize it. They worry about things like page load speed, do shopping carts get hung up, etc…

And I found that often the two groups either don’t know they exist or they tend not to work together. And if that is so, the digital customer experience can suffer. Some brands have optimized both the customer experience, omni-channel technology as well as the technology stack underneath omni-channel technology. When that is done, the customer experience is truly optimized from both the DPM and DX perspective and the CX perspective.

If you’d like to learn more about this, please join me on Wednesday, Sept 28th at Sept 28, 2016 @ 10am PT/1pm ET for a Live Webinar and we will look at this topic in-depth! The topic? What the smartest brands know about CX and what they still may not be doing about it! And here’s a link to the research I just completed on The Business Imperative of Optimizing Digital Customer Experience. And here’s all the professionals who spend their days work making the customer experience the best it can be with customer experience professionals collaborating with IT professionals. If content is king, DPM is the ACE!

@DrNatalie Petouhoff

VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Covering Customer-Facing Applications that Create Amazing Customer Experiences

Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

#OOW16 – #IOT Is Really Asking Your Business What Outcomes Are You Looking For?

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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Many companies approach the internet of things by starting with a device, make it connectable and then are in search of a business use case. This is a typical process that happens when there is a new area of technology area. If a company uses that as a strategy, it can be the long road to #IoT innovation. What businesses need to ask themselves are, “What business outcomes are they looking for and what innovations could be possible to shift their business model?”

We heard from the @OracleIOT group several business scenarios:

• Break / Fix it – which drives a predictive prescriptive business process
• Static Analytics – which drives the use of real-time, big-data analytics
• Ownership – which drives as-a-service business models and
• Central Service– which drives self-service as well as self-guided service.

What they are finding is that there are various phases a business often goes through when deploying IOT. It can start with the devices or assets (trucks, phones, factories, etc…) which are then connected to a platform which are connected to a network. For a business to actually make use of IOT, the first phase, Phase 1 can be about Connecting Assets for situations like remote monitoring and asset tracking. Phase 2 is can be using Predictive Analytics which means designing predictive algorithms to transform decisions into proactive instead of reactive decisions and improving products and processes. Phase 3 can be about Service Excellence. This is where the customer or employee experience is affected. It is where IOT is being used to transform business processes by blending IOT into enterprise applications like ERP, SCM, Customer Support, CRM, HCM…

Some of Oracle’s IOT applications are in the areas of:

• Asset monitoring for the utilization, availability and data from connected sensors
• Production monitoring and prognostics of the equipment on the manufacturing factory floor
• Fleet Management for business who have fleets of trucks, buses, delivery and maintenance vehicles
• Connected worker for the tracking of employees, for instance in the mining, engineering construction industries.

Here are some examples of clients applying IOT to their businesses:

VINCI is building the next generation sensor-driven building automation to reduce the number of “truck rolls” which has a huge ROI. They are doing this with the integration or Oracle Service Cloud and SAP. Lochbridge is creating connected fleets where IOT and big data is being used for predictive maintenance in monitoring fleet / cargo to reduce the response time. GEMU is using real-time filtering and processing of valve events and proactive parts replacement with the integration of CRM, IOT and a service ticketing system. And SoftBank is using IOT to deliver mobility-as-a-service where they are monitoring vehicle location for billing and geo-fencing.

As the world of IOT expands and more and more companies start to see the value in connecting enterprise applications, with devices, and networks, we will see the transformation of workers, employees and customer experiences. When those experiences are transformed, the real value and ROI of the connected enterprise will come to life.

@DrNatalie Petouhoff, VP and Principal Analyst

Constellation Research, Covering Customer Facing Applications and IOT

 

 

 

Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

Early Oracle OpenWorld 2016 Keynotes Analysis

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 have the opportunity to attend Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco, happening from September 19^th till 22^nd 2016. With over 60k+ attendees, multiple show floors, Howard Street closed, it is the mega event that we always expect it is.

 

 

So catch the video of the key areas to watch:

 

 

No time to watch here is the one slide summary:

 

Event Report - Oracle OpenWorld - Top 3 Positive and Top 3 Concerns from Holger Mueller

<SlideShare>

 

Want more detail, then read on:

 

Oracle IaaS 2^nd Gen – Ellison unveiled what Oracle calls its 2^ndgeneration of IaaS. Coming from the ‘skunkworks’ project in Seattle, Oracle is operating on a new data center and networking design. Having challenged (and attracted) talent by starting with a green slate, Oracle now plans to provide 3 data centers at one location for redundancy, all of this highly abstracted between compute and storage, flat network, isolated cross site traffic etc. think of a modern SDDC data center times 3 for each location.

 

PaaS more ExaData, more development models – No OpenWorld without a new release of the Oracle database, so Oracle 12c Release 2 is here, with many housekeeping items – and a cloud based consumption model, at an aggressive entry point. Interesting is also Oracle’s push into visual programming – Ellison showed a graphical programming UI creating a chatbot (what else).

 

SaaS becomes intelligent – On the SaaS side (combined with DaaS) Oracle announced the Adaptive Intelligent applications. Oracle stopped short of calling them AI (we agree), as Ellison said ‘this is not AI’. But it is Oracle’s foray into Machine Learning – that was long overdue, with interesting use cases across CRM, ERP, SCM etc. All coming next year. My colleague Doug Henschen has a whole blog on this - check it out here. 

 

Customer Momentum - CEO Mark Hurd was up next on Monday, offered his usual keynote, this time behind a news desk setup. Economic changes, what is a CEO going to do, what it means for IT and what Oracle offers to help. Different this year were remarkable customer stories, Orange and HSBC (all in for SaaS on Oracle) stood out. 

 

 

MyPOV

A good start for OpenWorld, with over 18 announcements made in Ellison’s keynote – reminding us what a 5B+ R&D budget produces on all fronts of the stack. All eyes are on the new IaaS capability; Oracle needs to get this right in order to keep delivering its vision of the integrated stack. That vision would literally break in half if IaaS does not deliver. Stay tuned for more.

 

The Storify of the Hurd keynote can be found here - see below for Ellison's.
 

Recent blog posts on Oracle:

• Event Preview - Oracle OpenWorld 2016 - What to expect, what to watch for ... will IaaS start Clicking? - read here
• Market Move - Oracle acquires NetSuite - Oddly consolidation means more options for customers - read here
• News Analysis - Oracle Unveils Suite of Breakthrough Services.. or short: Oracle Cloud Machine - read here
• Progress Report - Oracle Cloud - More ready than ever, now needs adoption - read here
• Event Report - Oracle Openworld 2015 - Top 3 Takeaways, Top 3 Positives & Concerns - read here
• News Analysis - Quick Take on all 22 press releases of Oracle OpenWorld Day #1 - #3 - read here
• First Take - Oracle OpenWorld - Day 1 Keynote - Top 3 Takeaways - read here
• Event Preview - Oracle Openworld - watch here

Future of Work / HCM / SaaS research:

• Event Report - Oracle HCM World - Innovation around the Core - read here
• Event Report - Oracle HCM World - Full Steam ahead, a Learning surprise and potential growth challenges - read here
• First Take - Oracle HCM World Day #1 Keynote - off to a good start - read here
• Progress Report - Oracle HCM gathers momentum - now it needs to build on that - read here
• Oracle pushes modern HR - there is more than technology - read here. (Takeaways from the recent HCMWorld conference).
• Why Applications Unlimited is good a good strategy for Oracle customers and Oracle - read here.

Also worth a look for the full picture

 

• Event Report - Oracle PaaS Event - 6 PaaS Services become available, many more announced - read here
• Progress Report - Oracle Cloud makes progress - but key work remains in the cellar - read here
• News Analysis - Oracle discovers the power of the two socket server - or: A pivot that wasn't one - TCO still rules - read here
• Market Move - Oracle buys Datalogix - moves more into DaaS - read here
• Event Report - Oracle Openworld - Oracle's vision and remaining work become clear - they are both big - read here
• Constellation Research Video Takeaways of Oracle Openworld 2014 - watch here
• Is it all coming together for Oracle in 2014? Read here. 
• From the fences - Oracle AR Meeting takeaways - read here (this was the last analyst meeting in spring 2013)
• Takeaways from Oracle CloudWorld LA - read here (this was one of the first cloud world events overall, in January 2013)

And if you want to read more of my findings on Oracle technology - I suggest:

• Progress Report - Good cloud progress at Oracle and a two step program - read here.
• Oracle integrates products to create its Foundation for Cloud Applications - read here.
• Java grows up to the enterprise - read here.
• 1st take - Oracle in memory option for its database - very organic - read here.
• Oracle 12c makes the database elastic - read here.
• How the cloud can make the unlikeliest bedfellows - read here.
• Act I - Oracle and Microsoft partner for the cloud - read here.
• Act II - The cloud changes everything - Oracle and Salesforce.com - read here.
• Act III - The cloud changes everything - Oracle and Netsuite with a touch of Deloitte - read here. 

Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below (if it doesn’t show up – check here). Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

 

2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer

Oracle Vs. Salesforce on AI: What to Expect When

Doug Henschen

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

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

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Oracle and Salesforce are both promising artificial intelligence assisted apps with capabilities including machine learning and natural language interaction.  Here’s what’s behind the tech and when it gets real.

Oracle and Salesforce both announced “AI” initiatives this week, but there are differences in the scope and scale of what’s promised, the pace of their rollouts and even how they’re talking about artificial intelligence.

For starters, neither vendor is talking about to sort of sentient, general-purpose AI seen in science fiction depictions ranging from “Iron Man” and “Star Trek” to “The Terminator” and “2001 a Space Odyssey.” Rather, both vendors are talking about assisting humans with “smart” apps that apply closed-loop machine learning and data science to combinations of customer data and third-party data. In some apps you’ll also see human-to-machine and machine-to-human interaction capabilities including natural language processing, voice recognition and machine vision.

To do any of things well, you need lots of compute power, data, math and data science skills, and time to develop the capabilities. Here’s a look at what each vendor has to offer.

Inside Salesforce Einstein

Intent on being the first out of the gate, Salesforce preannounced Salesforce Einstein in early September and issued a formal press release on September 19, the same day as Oracle's AI announcement at Oracle Open World. Einstein is designed to enhance existing Salesforce applications, so you’ll see Einstein capabilities embedded within the Sales, Service, Marketing, Analytics, Commerce, IoT and Community clouds. Salesforce is also bringing Einstein services and APIs to its App Cloud development platform so customers can build their own “smart” applications.

Einstein is designed to discover insights, predict outcomes, recommend next-best actions and automate tasks. In sales, for example, expect Einstein features that provide insights into sales opportunities, offer predictive lead scoring, recommend connections and next steps, and automate simple tasks such as logging phone calls and other interactions with customers.

Salesforce expects to have 17 Einstein features embedded within five of its clouds by October and 35 capabilities within eight clouds by February. Some of these features will be free upgrades to existing app capabilities whereas others will be extra-cost options. Salesforce has yet to detail which features will fall into which category and how much Einstein options will cost. Predictive Vision (GA) and Sentiment (pilot) services will be added to the App Cloud next month.

 

Salesforce has been buying data science and machine learning companies very publicly, spending some $700 million since 2013 to snatch up companies ranging from RelateIQ and MinHash to PredictionIO and MetaMind. It has essentially bought time invested in AI as well as IP and the expertise of more than 175 data science and AI experts. Salesforce also has asset of Data.com, which has a stockpile of business-to-business data. For compute power Salesforce recently turned to Amazon Web Services for “Web-scale” computing power.

Inside Oracle Adaptive Intelligent Apps

As the name “Adaptive Intelligent Applications” suggests, Oracle is being much more conservative about throwing the term “artificial intelligence” around. Oracle’s lead executive on the project, Jack Berkowitz, said “we’re trying to avoid the hype and build apps that people can buy, use and make money with.”

Entirely cloud based, Oracle’s apps are adaptive in that they continually learn in real time, applying the context of in-the-moment behaviors to personalization, recommendations, offers and automated actions. They’re intelligent, says Oracle, in that they tap transactional and behavioral history as well as the in-the-moment context such as weather and location.

Oracle’s apps are neither rules-based or batch-oriented; new insights, content, offers and actions are generated click by click during each individual interaction. To avoid a black box approach, Oracle says the apps will include supervisory controls that will enable business users (not just data scientists) to tune and weight the priorities behind automated insights, offers and recommendations.

Oracle AI apps are, indeed, separate apps, but they will be tethered to and integrated with existing Oracle app clouds. The company’s public roadmap conservatively lists six apps: Adaptive Intelligent Offers and Adaptive Intelligent Actions on the Oracle CX Cloud; AI Candidate Experience on the HCM Cloud; AI Planning and Bidding on the Supply Chain Management Cloud; and AI Discounts on the ERP Cloud. It’s a shorter list of apps but a broad set of domains (well beyond the Salesforce CRM focus), and it will surely lead to many more apps.

Oracle is also being conservative about release dates, with the public statements saying the release will be “within the next 12 to 18 months.” In one-on-one briefings, executives said the CX apps are likely to show up by the end of 2016 with more apps to follow by the middle of 2017.

The key asset behind Adaptive Intelligent Apps is the Web-scale data of the Oracle Data Cloud (ODC). Built on the acquisitions of BlueKai, DataLogix, AddThis and Crosswise, ODC has (anonymized but addressable) profiles on billions of consumers (“more than Facebook,” said Oracle CTO Larry Ellison at Oracle Open World). ODC also recently added at business-to-business trove of 400 million B2B people profiles and 100 million U.S. businesses. Oracle has a deep analytical understanding of this data from a marketing perspective, so the CX apps (AI Offers and AI Actions) will come first. Oracle also has massive cloud investments including 19 global data centers, and Ellison is highlighting what it describes as its Amazon-busting, newly competitive Infrastructure as a Service offerings here at Oracle Open World.

MyPOV On Einstein and Adaptive Intelligent Apps

Salesforce currently has the edge on time, delivering more AI capabilities sooner. It also appears to have the edge, for now, in machine learning and AI expertise. Oracle is circumspect about its assets and expertise in these areas, alluding to open source machine learning IP and data scientists from DataLogix, Oracle Labs and application domains including advertising, real-time trading systems and predictive modeling. It says it's working on ensemble modeling approaches that are more practical than deep neural nets.

This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. As Salesforce has shown, expertise can be hired or acquired whereas compute capacity and, most particularly, data – where Oracle has a big edge — are expensive and hard to amass. Oracle Data Cloud has more than 1,500 data-supplier partners, relationships that BlueKai and DataLogix spent years cultivating. Oracle also has the edge and cost advantage on compute capacity, whereas Salesforce will have to rent from Amazon. In short, I see Salesforce as the first mover, but Oracle has significant long-term advantages.

For now, customers should keep their eyes on which features and apps are going to be free and which will be extra-cost add ons. Expect each vendor to add some easy automations and recommendations for free while charging for sophisticated capabilities. Where a vendor is playing catch up in the market, it might sweeten the deal with free AI features. If the product is dominant or entrenched, expect to pay extra for the magical time-saving and business-boosting capabilities.

Data to Decisions Future of Work Tech Optimization Chief Customer Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer

What You Don’t Know About Millennials Will Hurt Your Bottom-line

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio:&nbsp;As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service)&nbsp;solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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My latest research report, Delivering Customer Experience to Millenials, a Survival Guide is about how to use customer experience to turn Millennials into brand advocates. Why does it matter? They are different than other generations that have come before then. If you are in the Boomer Generation and are running a contact center there are some changes on the horizon that are key to know about and start preparing for now.

Let’s look at some of the stats.

There are >2 billion people in the world. Two billion are active on social media and 1 in 3 consumers prefer social to phones for service. Who’s leading the way? Those that were born into the world with nearly a device in their hand, well almost. And while this post is about customer service, we can’t really separate marketing, customer service and other disciplines. We’ll see why in a minute.

Millennials are the largest, most diverse, educated & influential shoppers on the planet. They are positioned to be the wealthiest generation to date and have influence over their Baby Boomer parent’s choices & will inherent their money / real estate. In fact, by 2018 in US, projected income = $3.4 Trillion/year & surpassing Baby Boomer income.

They are different than The Boomer Generation in that social networks & technology are their LIVES! Here’s some stats:

• 75% created a profile on a social networking site
• 55% visit those sites once/day
• 60% connect to the Internet wirelessly when they are away from work or home
• 88% text each other
• 74% new technology makes their life easier
• 50% use it to be closer to their friends
• 65% are disconnected one hour or less a day

And millennials take online action all the time!

• 70% recommend their favorite brands to family & friends
• 47% write about good online experiences
• 40% have criticized a brand on a social network
• 70% would create a video and post it online or write a review about their experience with a company

This post is about customer service, but the initial engagement of Millennials is typically through efforts that tend to fall into marketing – though can also be done in customer service. You want to ask yourself are you really ready for the Millennials generation? Do you understand how different they are?

So if you are wondering where to start here’s some tips:

Map Your Generational Customer Journeys. This is Maya. She is 22 and social is her life. She may do some research using google and find your website. They she may decide to buy something from  Facebook ad, then one the she’s using the product and finds it not up to her standards, she complains on twitter and then leaves critical feed back you your website.

Learn Why Millennials Trust Your Company Enough to Buy from Them

While 55% said “price” was most important reason, however, price is the least important in building their trust

• 30% cared more about product quality & quick service
• 20% cared more about the range of products offered
• Brand switching is common (least loyal of all generations)

Learn How Do Millennials Decide To Buy From You

A company’s reputation can matter as much as the performance of its products

• 34% bought from a brand because of the social or political values of the company
• 89% intentionally visit showroom to see product; then price compare & buy online at best price
• 90% tell their family & friends NOT to purchase the company’s products when they lose trust or respect for a brand

Engage Millennials Around Life Events

• They care about things that affect their life
• Graduating, getting married, buying a house, having children, getting a job, getting divorce, dating…
• That’s the type of content they are looking for from you – help them with their life events and they will reward you with their loyalty

But Know As You Engage Millennials, Don’t Separate Marketing and Customer Service!

Millennials don’t see the company from separate silos. They see the company as one large department and they expect that you know them and that you treat them the same in all channels, on all devices and from all interaction aspects – from marketing, to service to…. If a Millennial has a problem with a company, instead of calling customer service… 

• They text 5 friends & share frustration on Facebook
• Friends share the story with peer groups
• Result: Friends comment on the incident & share their own stories of disappointment
• A single event can spread like wildfire
• When seeking customer service <1% will call customer!

Empower WORD-OF-MOUTH Millennial From All Departments and Share Data About Customers Across All Departments

Know what Marketing said to the customer about a product and service. Know what the brand promise was and make sure the product lives up to it. And that customer service knows what that promised was so they can help transform a bad situation into a good one. Millennials want to trust your brand.

• Millennials are looking for great products and brands to share with their friends
• Focus on making an excellent product
• If you do, then your marketing efforts can be authentic
• As a result, WOM marketing will be done by Millennials.

So here’s some take aways and look forward to an upcoming report with much more details soon! I am speaking at OpenWorld on Tuesday Sept 20 at 11 AM in Moscone West. Come say hi! I want to hear your stories!

@DrNatalie Petouhoff, VP and Principal Analyst

Constellation Research Covering All Customer Facing Applications to Create Great Customer Experiences!

*Sources: Pew Research,  Javelin Strategy & Research Study  &  IRI study

 

Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer