| Constellation Research

SAP SuccessFactors makes good progress - now needs appeal beyond SAP

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…...

We had the opportunity to attend the SAP SuccessFactors analyst summit this week, held in San Francisco, we were housed in the historic Argonaut Hotel and sessions took place at the California Museum of Sciences, a very good setup.

Take a look at the video I recorded shortly after:

If you want to read and have 2-3 mins – take a look at the 2 page Powerpoint:

SAP SuccessFactors Analyst Summit 2016 from Holger Mueller

More time to read? Read on:

Always tough to pick the Top 3 takeaways from 1.5 days of briefings and presentations – but here you go:

Broad Momentum – You can peg progress by a vendor to revenue, technical growth and reputation. While SAP does not break out revenues for SuccessFactors, they cloud revenues are up. 40M HCM cloud users pay their monthly subscriptions. We know that transactions are up 12x%+ YoY as shared by Kovalevsky– so here is the technical growth. And lastly the SuccessFactors team seems to have become the SAP ‘cloud’ team for enterprise – with being chartered to shepherd the launch of the cloud edition of S/4HANA. All this would not be happening if things were not well in SuccessFactorLand.

New User Interface – User interfaces across the different products varied quote a bit, with EmployeeCentral getting a lot of the love and latest and greatest techniques (it was needed, the longtime reader remembers the ‘Outlook’ and endless scrolling days) – not so much for the other SuccessFactors products. The start is compelling (see below) now we hope that a common UI will go all across the products, not be stalled at the high level entry screens.

Focus on Horizontal capabilities – With that SuccessFactors refers to investments that benefit all products, a good approach, especially when there is need for investment. We mentioned UI already, but this is also the consistent use of visualization (e.g. finally the InfoHRM (my guess) data is shown together with the rest of SuccessFactors, on one common UI. The UI is also Fiori or ‘Fiori like’ that helps cross product users of SAP. Equally the investments into reporting (now fully running SAP HANA). Same for the Extensions, that can be built across the product. Same for the new Intelligent Services, with more and events being exposed.

Analyst Tidbits

Performance Management – The new approach to performance management has been delivered, in a mobile first approach, as pertaining the 1 to 1 meeting management. Delivering 3 flavors of how Performance Management can be done is a good next step, so we did not see (or missed) how the substantial amount of data from 1 to 1 meetings is collected for performance reviews. And then – what to do in countries where prevailing management culture does not work with weekly 1 to 1s?

Payroll is making progress with now support for 30 countries, all run from all HR Core data coming from EmployeeCentral (this is the venerable R/3 payroll, hosted for cloud purposes, maybe ugly, but it works).

Analytics are delivered as announced at SConnect 2015 – for suggested Learning content and Flight Risk. SAP needs to deliver more and faster on ‘true’ Analytics (more here) in order to catch up with the leading vendors.

Cloud Infrastructure - With now 8 data center locations, and Brazil coming this year. SAP was probably the first HCM vendor allowing international customers to keep data in the Russian Federation, based on the October 1st 2015 deadline to have the primary store for customer, employee and financial data in the Russian Federation. The solution isn’t elegant, but works. And SuccessFactors is working on a better solution (like other vendors). More importantly SuccessFactors can also offer EU based data centers exclusively serviced by EU citizens, another differentiator / early industry achievement.

Services Innovation – SAP SuccessFactors shared some good and unique ideas on the services and success side, e.g. customers helping each other in a structured forum and many more. The role of a customer experience executive is a good setup that is crucial in SaaS success. Getting partners to build more extensions is going to be the ultimate test for a new way of dealing with partners, who now can / should build product intellectual property.

Hands on Mobile Experience – Always good for vendors to let the analysts play with their software. A more personal and unique experience. Kudos to SuccessFactors for doing this – but also with one more first: Real BYOD – as the software ran on the analysts smartphones (iOS and Android).

MyPOV

SAP SuccessFactors shows good progress. The departure of Dmitri Krakovsky seems to have been well transitioned, with product reins in the hands of Dave Ragones and Thomas Otter. The addition of former industry analyst and PeopleSoft veteran Yvette Cameron is also a good addition to an otherwise stable leadership team. On the Extensions and Intelligent Services SuccessFactors is showing good ideas and even industry leadership.

On the concern side, SuccessFactors operated on considerable technical debt incurred over the years, mostly before the acquisition. At some point SAP needs to address that, and that will be a substantial investment. It looks to me as if there are some resource constraints (they are always there, but focusing e.g. on ‘horizontal’ is an indication), that are not of immediate concern, but if SAP SuccessFactors wants to be appealing beyond the SAP install base, it needs to start investing in differentiating ideas now. Smart heads for ideas are certainly there, not sure if enough hands to code them are there today and the coming years, when the proceeds of seeds planted in 2016 can be harvested in the form of market share gains.

But for now good progress for SAP SuccessFactors, which is doing all the right things to build its lead as the most mature SAP cloud offering. Existing customer are in good hands and can see that SAP SuccessFactors delivers what it announced at SConnect 2015 – always a good thing to do for vendors. Now SAP SuccessFactors needs to build out differentiation and get customers to adopt new capabilities, e.g. the new Performance Management. We will be watching and analyzing.

Still not enough? Wait, there is more... see more posts on SAP and SuccessFactors below followed by a Storify of my tweets from the event, if you want to follow my digital exhaust tweet for tweet.

Disrupting the Status Quo With Rookies Leading the Way

Aubrey Coggins

Constellation Research

Aubrey (Levinstone) Coggins manages Constellation's marketing and communications programs and is the producer of DisrupTV, a weekly Web series on innovation and the enterprise.  She previously served as a senior manager of corporate communications at Egnyte and held account roles at Access Communications and The Hoffman Agency. Born and raised in Texas, she received a bachelor's degree in Public Relations from The University of Texas at Austin – Hook ‘em!   ...

“It’s not what you know; it’s how fast you can learn.” Great insight from Liz Wiseman, author of “Rookie Smarts” and President of The Wiseman Group.

This statement captures the theme from last week’s episode of DisrupTV, where our hosts Vala Afshar and R ”Ray” Wang caught up with two influential business leaders who are both shaking up the status quo - Liz Wiseman and Sharon Wienbar, CEO of Hackbright Academy.

The world is changing. When it comes to business, it’s not always about rank or title when looking for new ideas. We’re in a world with new technologies and vast amounts of data hitting the market every day, changing the way we think, do business, and grow as individuals. Liz illustrated the importance of continually learning and looking for resources typically overlooked - the young and aspiring interns and rookies.

This is great advice, and I am grateful to have worked with mentors and managers from the start of my career who asked my opinion and pushed me to grow by challenging his/her and even my way of thinking. Reverse mentoring helps leaders continue to grow, while motivating their staff. A great piece of advice I will keep with me as I continue moving up the ladder.

During the show, Sharon Wienbar explained how women are amping their learning and earning potential through taking a different path, one less traveled. They are changing their careers and switching industries to go into coding - a still male-dominated role - at Hackbright Academy. In an intense 12-week program, women from all walks of life learn the skills to work and succeed (eliminating that dreaded imposter syndrome) as an engineer.

This is a powerful message for all women who may have started in different careers; they aren’t stuck and have the resources and mentors to tackle a job that will dominate in the not-so-distant future. Think about it - we spend way too much time looking at our phones, computers, TVs and other devices. Coding is a language everyone should learn - even with a basic understanding. It’s what connects us to the rest of the world.

This is similar to one of our previous guests Whitney Johnson, the author of “Disrupt Yourself.” She talked about not letting your career go stagnant and looking for the fastest growth curves to continually learn and grow. Sometimes that curve means leaving your cushy job to take on a role in a completely different industry or something new altogether. Whitney actually left her prestigious job on Wall Street to get where she is today. To be successful, you have to constantly learn and challenge yourself. Yes, I’m going to quote Ace of Base: “No one's gonna drag you up to get into the light where you belong.”

“It’s not what you know; it’s how fast you can learn.”

Whether you’re part of a company looking to adopt the next big technology, someone looking to switch careers, working your way up the ladder, or just making your way through life, this is a must-watch episode. Personally for me, these women are inspirational and great role models, especially for women looking to climb the ranks in male-dominated industries. Pave the path you want by taking the leap and learning from everyone around you. If you are interested in meeting like-minded executives and mentors, check out the Constellation Executive Network.

DisrupTV Episode 0011: Featuring Sharon Wienbar & Liz Wiseman

Check out DisrupTV every week on blab at 11 AM PT. See you on Fridays!

Innovation & Product-led Growth Data to Decisions Future of Work New C-Suite Tech Optimization DisrupTV Leadership

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Hadoop Hits 10 Years: Growing Up Fast

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,…...

Hadoop security, data management, data governance and analysis options remain works in progress, but a rich ecosystem is emerging to fill gaps and democratize the platform.

Apache Hadoop marks its 10th anniversary as an open source project this year, a fitting milestone to review its (betwixt-and-between) state as an enterprise computing platform.

Inspired by a Google white paper, born at Yahoo and embraced in its early years almost exclusively by Internet giants, Apache Hadoop is today accepted as a de facto standard platform for any enterprise interested in taking advantage of big data. Over the last five years, the top three Hadoop software distributors, Cloudera, Hortonworks and MapR, have cracked all major vertical industry categories and have collectively gained more than 3,000 paying customers for their supported enterprise editions. Tens of thousands more firms are self-supporting free community distributions of Hadoop, though the largest share of these deployments are no doubt about experimentation rather than production use.

Equally significant – and now the fastest-growing part of the Hadoop user community, by most accounts – are the thousands of organizations using cloud-based Hadoop services, such as Amazon Elastic MapReduce, Microsoft Azure HDInsight, Altiscale, Qubole and various managed Hadoop service offerings.

Looking beyond these sheer numbers, I heard plenty of fresh evidence of proven industry use cases at recent Cloudera and Hortonworks analyst events. Cloudera detailed an impressive list of vertical industry use cases at its event while Hortonworks cited unnamed customers at “55 out of the top 100 financial services firms, 75 out of the top 100 retailers, eight out of the top nine telecommunications companies in North America, and eight of the world’s top 20 automotive companies.”

So there’s plenty of reason for confidence in this platform, and we continue to see steady maturation. But Hadoop still has weaknesses and gaps, and plenty of experiments have failed. Even the hand-picked customers attending the Cloudera and Hortonworks events, who shared mostly success stories, had to admit to ongoing challenges:

“Better data governance is the number-one priority on our [Hadoop] wish list,” said a VP of platforms and data architecture attending the Hortonworks event. His employer, a digital marketing company, has been on an acquisitions tear, and segregating, securing and otherwise governing specific data sets has proven difficult as the company has consolidated separate Hadoop deployments.
“It was messy on the data-lineage end,” confessed a director of analytics attending the Cloudera event. This warehousing and logistics firm pulls data from dozens of legacy database applications to calculate how to jam more products into its distribution centers. But before it could begin the optimization work, the firm “spent months working out the details for data ingestion.”
“We have three people working with Hadoop, but we have more than 150 business users who need access to the data,” said a BI solutions architect at an aerospace firm that is using Hortonworks’ distribution. “I’d like to see better ease of use for business users,” he said, noting the wonky, coding-intensive nature of many Hadoop components and data-management tools.
“The sooner we can have an all-purpose [tool] for getting data into Hadoop, the better,” said an IT executive of a data services company using Cloudera. “We use a lot of RDF-linked data, but there’s not a lot of support for that in Cloudera.”

MyPOV on Hadoop Maturity

So is the glass half empty or half full? In my view you should be optimistic but realistic about this ten-year-old platform. I relate it to my experience as a parent. We never left my son home alone when he was 10 years old, but now that he’s 14, I trust that he’ll be safe and will even get his homework done if we get home late from work. In much the same spirit, an executive at a major e-retailer shared in a recent briefing that his firm isn’t ready to open up wide access to the firm’s Hadoop cluster until data-access, governance and security controls are more mature. Maybe if PCI data wasn’t involved he’d feel differently? Just as a parent has to know the child, you have to understand your data, your users and your risks. Maturity and trust will come.

Fortunately, we're seeing a rich ecosystem emerging around Hadoop that will help make data access, data management, data governance and data analysis easier, less coding intensive, more repeatable and, in many cases, more accessible to business users. Some of these capabilities will undoubtedly be duplicated within open source tools. But we’ll also see data-management and governance capabilities that will extend beyond Hadoop, supporting data pipelines and data-driven applications that span multiple platforms.

Next week I’ll be discussing the possibilities and positive developments in the educational webinar, “Democratizing the Data Lake: The State of Big Data Management in the Enterprise.” Set for Tuesday, April 26 at 1pm ET/10am PT, this webinar will delve into data access, data cataloging and metadata management options for Hadoop as well as big data integration and data-prep options. We’ll also discuss Apache Spark and its role in data processing, stream processing and data analysis in the context of Hadoop. Click on the link above to register for the event.

Data to Decisions Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer

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Smart Cities – the missing business services 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…...

There is no shortage of City Authorities sponsorship, nor engagement support from the big technology vendors, plus a mass of â€˜newâ€™ Smart technology products from startups, but there is a missing ingredient; the vision to create a Business Service architecture to transform the parts into a commercially, technically and deliverable viable Smart City.

City Authorities are not commercial enterprises able to invest in expectation of a profitable future; nor can major commercial enterprises invest in activities without short-term revenue. Both sides want to, and can, facilitate success, but are missing the quick â€˜resultâ€™ to kick-start their projects into real and visible success.

The previous post â€˜Smart Cities are Ecosystems of IoT enabled Smart Services on a Sophisticated Infrastructure. So why does the focus always seem to be on a product?â€™ addressed this question. The answer was framed by the commercial requirements for large-scale investment necessitating leading Technology vendors to have to â€˜leadâ€™ their involvement around a product sale. Smart Cities need to gain the involvement and support of their increasing Smart Citizens who already use a wide selection of Apps in their cities.

The creation of the 21^st century Smart City using IoT technology to connect and integrate its citizens and commerce to producing wealth and cultural richness echoes many of the challenges of the 19^th century creation of Industrial Cities driven by the rise of manufacturing. With out city planning, to bring investment in the basic infrastructure of roads, railways, water, gas, even with time electric power, little could be accomplished.

In 19^th century Industrial Cities private sector utilities worked in concert with the City planners to build wealth-enabling infrastructure; real wealth came from companies and citizens using, and paying, for utility services.

In 21^st century Smart Cities the focus on building a wealth enabling infrastructure is necessary, but if this provides no value creating capabilities that citizens and business are prepared to pay for, then the investment will produce no tangible return.

The 19^th century industrial city could not have flourished without city planning starting with a physical â€˜architectureâ€™ of the fabric of the city. The city architecture enabled a mass of activities by companies and citizens starting from building plots with utility services through to providing transport services to get workers to and from employers. Our 21^st century Smart Cities are very little different in needing an architecture to allow citizens and business to â€˜buildâ€™ their activities and operations, albeit virtually a technology architecture rather than a physical one.

The Smart City vision can seem more 20^th century driven in using IT Technology based centralization for cost reduction, rather than the 21^st vision of de-centralization for value creation. Smart Cities have to engage with their Citizens and Businesses who have already started using Smart Services and have expectations as to how their City will become â€˜Smartâ€™ and value creating.

The blog defining a Smart City by means of the Smart Services used by Smart Citizens using IoT for Business disruption and Service level improvement through Decentralization explored the citizen/business role in more detail. The following diagram appeared in the blog previously mentioned on Smart City Ecosystems relating the standard three zones of IoT solutions to a Smart City. Real-Time â€˜readâ€™ data coming sensors on the left side to feed â€˜reactâ€™ Smart Services in the center whilst City Analytics are on the right. It is the Smart Services in the center zone that are the critical â€˜high valueâ€™ success factor that kick starts new data flows and produces the revenue support Smart City operations.

In this model the case for infrastructure investment is relatively straight forward; starting with the need for improvements in networking capacity to support increasingly levels of traffic. However, the traffic formats and patterns can be very different to those experienced in IT Networks as thousands, rising quickly to hundreds of thousands of IoT sensors communicate in very, very small data packets through constantly shifting data patterns driven by events rather than the planned activities familiar in IT.

Edge, or Fog, Computing models are a significant feature of Smart City network design, together with new protocols involving Gateways. Local events, produce localized reactions, CityMapper, Uber, or any of the other Smart Services, that have generated huge take up from Citizens, (in the limited number of towns in which they are available), all create localized traffic patterns. More particularly they require Cellular networks to merge seamlessly with Wireless and Wired networks.

The all-important Smart Services donâ€™t only require high bandwidth connectivity they probably will require a localized cloud-hosting provision. There are many commercial hosting companies ready to provide the necessary capabilities, but the Smart City management may wish to sponsor a local hosting company as part of creating new localized business growth.

City â€˜planningâ€™, or Governance, is required to ensure the creation, and ongoing success, of a City App Shop. Citizens and visitors will expect a single link to take them to the selection of Smart Services that can be downloaded to offering localized unique value to life in the Smart City, with the focus on businesses, citizens and visitors.

Data, or Information, is at the heart of all of this, and introducing data flows into the conceptual architecture, (shown in the following version of the diagram), brings the Smart City Infrastructure to life. The diagram is larger this time to be able to read what each arrow representing a data flow indicates.

The use case illustrated is a citizen request to â€˜Find me a Parking Spaceâ€™ in a given area of the city selected as the destination. This requires a â€˜real timeâ€™ continued optimization of the ever-changing situation in respect of parking availability and traffic conditions during the journey using Smart Service interactions and shared access to IoT Sensors.

Opening the App â€˜Find me Parkingâ€™ from a Smart Phone, or direct from an Internet Connected car, starts a search using IoT parking bay sensors, and perhaps older systems using in/out counting of capacity. The results are placed in order of proximity to required location whilst an interactive Service-to-Service API call is made to the traffic App for route information. The overlay of traffic congestion is used to reassess the best parking choice using total travel time, traffic plus walking, to destination.

Smart Services are not just about finding a static answer when the question is posed, but will continue to actively maintain a best choice through out the journey in respect of dynamic changes in parking bay availability and traffic conditions.

Clearly these types of localized Smart Services providing a new generation of â€˜real timeâ€™ choice are a very popular element to any Smart City, but more importantly they are largely self-funding. Already those that are established in the major cities of the World gain income from a mix of subscription, advertising, and sponsorship, (e.g. parking companies in the example). What is required is for a proposed Smart City to encourage their participation with infrastructure and the supply of local data on which to build their service.

Citizen targeted Smart Services provide City Administrations with an entirely new source of data about how people, and business, which live in their city, use its faculties. For the first time data as where citizens travel from and go to for parking in relationship to traffic congestion is not only available for planning, but for real-time traffic management of traffic lights, smart signs etc.

A Smart City is more than the ubiquitous connectivity of â€˜thingsâ€™ it is the ability to use â€˜real timeâ€™ responsiveness to understand how everyday activities can be made to function better, both for the citizen and for the City Administration.

City Administrations already have access to huge amounts of data and deploy extensive data analytics. However this data is almost without exception historic, even if only by a few days, and collected from more limited traditional sources.

Historic data forms the basis for strategic analysis and planning, but adds little, if anything to tactical â€˜real timeâ€™ improvement of everyday operations. It cannot drive continuous interactive changes in traffic signaling using not only traffic congestion monitors but also drivers intended routing.

The coverage and type of data provided from Smart Services and directly linked city sensors is at the heart of the break through in more efficient City operation. Efficiency is directly linked to optimization of real situations and events, such as a broken down bus, both requiring a replacement and introducing a localized traffic jam. Historic data analysis provides strategic planning optimization, but real-time data drives tactical optimization.

Many IoT Sensors and their attached functions will need to be accessed by both the City and multiple Smart Services providers. Each provider cannot, and will not, want to add their own sensor and connection to monitor each and every car park bay, any more than the placement of sensors on the city metro system would be allowed by multiple private companies.

Sensor data needs to be widely shared requiring â€˜directoryâ€™ information as well as security control as a generally unforeseen infrastructure requirement. Centralized aggregation of â€˜eventâ€™ data with some type of forwarding structure immediately removes â€˜real-timeâ€™ responsiveness, as well as introducing a huge centralized overhead that will be difficult to scale.

Smart City projects such as Manchester Verve have realized this, and incorporated an Asset Mapping directory for the registration of IoT Devices and sensors into the enabling Infrastructure project. The importance of making it possible to search for IoT Assets by Developers for incorporation into Smart Services, the management of the shared Asset itself, the need for security, are, with other operational issues, explored in the blog â€˜the challenge of the final mileâ€™.

The so called â€˜Final Mileâ€™ connectivity and operational management of IoT Devices and sensor is for many IoT and Smart Services projects the make or break success factor. The Final Mile is by definition a decentralized environment that depends on both scale, and diversification, for success, it must be addressed in Smart City Architecture, just as in a previous generation of city governance.

This blog can only outline the issues faced, and the case for Smart City architecture, by encouraging the recognition of the usually less recognized elements to be addressed in developing a fully functional vision. A Smart City Architecture is merely the extension of the good city governance developed during previous generations of growth to include the technology age.

When a city has autonomous â€˜Smartâ€™ responsiveness to the events and activities of its Citizens, its wealth creating Business, together with optimization in provisioning its own Services, then it has become a Smart City.

However traditionally City Administration has been concentrated on the provision of infrastructure, and this, together with the challenge of technology and culture change, makes it difficult to construct, and manage, the project with the necessary integration of a new generation of Smart Service providers that are crucial to success.

New C-Suite

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CEN Member Chat: Framework for Assessing Digital Transformation Maturity

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…...

Bestselling author of Disrupting Digital Business and founder of Constellation Research, R "Ray" Wang, shares the 10 components of a framework for assessing an enterprise's digital transformation maturity.

Marketing Transformation Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Digital Officer

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Five Mistakes that Derail Your New Business Efforts

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. ...

New business development will make or break your business. And agency owners often find themselves suffering a famine or a feast of new business. But there are some common mistakes that can be relatively easily overcome. The Agency Management Institute has a great presentation on this topic, with FIVE clear tips that will help you avoid new business mistakes. And if you want to go into more detail, listen in to their fantastic podcast with Lee McKnight on the subject of new business development.

Marketing Transformation Chief Marketing Officer

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Event Report - Equifax EFXForum16 Good progress and CaaS looming

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

We had the opportunity to attend the Equifax Workforce Solutions (going forward just Equifax) user conference – held at the beautiful Lone Pine Resort East of Austin. The event is well attended, with more 15% more attendees joining than last year’s edition, showing the traction of the Equifax workforce services division. Compare the earlier editions of this conference from New Orleans (see here) and Scottsdale (see here).

I recorded a short video of the Top 3 takeaways – take a look here:

No time to watch? Read on:

Always hard to pick the Top3 of such an event – but here you go:

New Leadership – The division has seen a change at the helm with Dann Adams (he has become the President of the Equifax Personal Solutions business) handing the reins to Rodolfo Ploder, who previously ran the US Information Solutions for Equifax. From early impressions both employees and customers are excited about the new leadership, which is likely going to explore more synergies with the rest of Equifax.

Compliance Progress – The Compliance Center offering is making good progress, this is the area of Equifax that offers I-9 and e-Verify, Direct Deposit and W2 consent, WOTC with eSignature and federal and state tax compliance services. The biggest advancements has been the expansion of the offering beyond the federal to the state level, with all 50 states being supported now. There is market for this, as e.g. 40 states with new hire notice requirements (overall) and 35 bills that have been introduced in 2016 alone with new hire form requirements. Moreover, Equifax makes it easier to integrate with other HCM players, providing out of the box integration to Oracle (Taleo) and iCIMS for a start.

Unemployment Management – A large part of the Equifax business is the area of unemployment cost management. Equifax is providing key value for customers, in 2015 alone the vendor has recovered more than $380M in incorrect charges to client accounts. Overall the vendor has managed over 4.8M unemployment claims in the same year. It is good to see that Equifax has reached very high Compliance as a Service (CaaS) levels for this service, offering customers to be the inbox / outbox for all unemployment data and concerns both at a federal and state level.

MyPOV

Compliance and Integration both vie for the top concern for HR professional. Enterprises will pay a lot for getting rid of ‘California headache’ and ‘Pennsylvania drowsiness’ in regards of compliance worries. In conversations with CxOs and payroll executives, these professionals peg the value of CaaS close to the same costs as the paycheck. Considering that worldwide payroll and payroll related services are close to a 100B US$ market, CaaS can / could double the addressable market for all existing and potential players. Equifax is well positioned to capture a piece of that market, but is also uniquely positioned to become a much bigger player in this field. As other potential players are concentrating on software challenges and opportunities, CaaS is a unique opportunity for Equifax.

On the concern side, Equifax needs to keep investing in modern tools and platforms to enable its business. Next to CaaS the vendor has a unique opportunity in DaaS (Data as a Service) helping customers to benchmark themselves, better understand their performance and integrate data into their decision processes. But that is only possible with an advancement in business best practices and investment into platform, coupled with a desire for strategic investment. The good news is that Equifax overall is not a stranger to the insights business and has the financial resources to make this a workable strategy.

Overall a very good event for Equifax, that is delivering on the insights solutions that the vendor name point to. We will be watching.

Investing in the Future of Young People

Gavin Heaton

Founder
Disruptors Co

Through Vibewire I have been working with young people for over seven years. It’s a not for profit association whose aim is to be a launchpad for young change makers. In the time that I have been involved, I have been astounded by the way that, given an opportunity and some nurturing, young people can truly accelerate their professional and personal trajectory. We have run hundreds of events – some large scale and some barely more than a meeting. We have provided project experience and internships for hundreds of people who have gone on bigger and better things. And we have seen dozens of social impact and tech startups incubate, grow and scale.

But it is largely a thankless task. Just as soon as we launch one cohort of young people into the world, another comes along. The challenges remain the same:

Lack of opportunity for meaningful work
Soft skills require substantial work and support
Challenging and entrepreneurial roles are few and far between.

And in many ways, Vibewire’s programs of spaces (coworking for young people), skilling (workshops), startups (mentoring and support) and showcasing (amplifying the work of young people through events and online promotion) have been designed to consistently deliver these outcomes. But it’s difficult to maintain. Hard to attract sponsorship and support. After all, Vibewire has always been youth-led and youth-run, and as such, our teams are constantly learning the ropes. Learning what it takes to build corporate relationships. Learning what it takes to deliver on project promises. Learning the business of creativity and business.

I am often asked what keeps me involved.

My involvement in Vibewire is beautifully summed up in this great speech by Eric Thomas. It’s a gift of love. An investment in the next generation. And a mark of respect for the futures of the young people who come through Vibewire’s doors.

Marketing Transformation Chief Marketing Officer

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The Era Of The Intelligent Cloud Has Arrived

Bottom line: Enterprises are impatient to translate their investments in cloud apps and the insight they provide into business outcomes and solid results today.

The following insights are based on a series of discussions with C-level executives and revenue team leaders across several industries regarding their need for an Intelligent Cloud:

In the enterprise, the cloud versus on-premise war is over, and the cloud has won. Nearly all are embracing a hybrid cloud strategy to break down the barriers that held them back from accomplishing more.

None of the C-level executives I’ve spoken with recently are satisfied with just measuring cloud adoption. All are saying the want to measure business outcomes and gain greater insights into how they can better manage revenue and sales cycles.

Gaining access to every available legacy and 3rd party system using hybrid cloud strategies is the new normal. Having data that provides enterprise-wide visibility gives enterprises greater control over every aspect of their selling and revenue management processes. And when that’s accomplished, the insights gained from the Intelligent Cloud can quickly be turned into results.

Welcome to the Era of the Intelligent Cloud

The more enterprises seek out insights to drive greater business outcomes, the more it becomes evident the era of the Intelligent Cloud has arrived. C-level execs are looking to scale beyond descriptive analytics that defines past performance patterns. What many are after is an entirely new level of insights that are prescriptive and cognitive. Getting greater insight that leads to more favorable business outcomes is what the Intelligent Cloud is all about. The following Intelligent Cloud Maturity Model summarizes the maturity levels of enterprises attempting to gain greater insights and drive more profitable business outcomes.

Why The Intelligent Cloud Now?

Line-of-business leaders across all industries want more from their cloud apps than they are getting today. They want the ability to gain greater insights with prescriptive and cognitive analytics. They’re also asking for new apps that give them the flexibility of changing selling behaviors quickly. In short, everyone wants to get to the orchestration layer of the maturity model, and many are stuck staring into a figurative rearview mirror, using just descriptive data to plan future strategies. The future of enterprise cloud computing is all about being able to deliver prescriptive and cognitive intelligence.
Consider the following takeaways:

By 2018, 40% of B2B digital commerce sites will use price optimization algorithms and configure/ price/quote (CPQ) tools to dynamically calculate and deliver product pricing. (Source: Gartner Inc., Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce, March 9, 2016)

By 2018, Cloud Becomes a Preferred Delivery Mechanism for Analytics (Source: IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Cloud 2016 Predictions — Mastering the Raw Material of Digital Transformation, Nov. 2015)

By 2017, 50% of large B2B organizations will invest in predictive analytics solutions for prospect qualification, opportunity automation, forecasting automation or renewal management. (Source: Gartner, Evaluate Emerging Sales Performance Management Technologies to Improve Sales Execution, September 15, 2015)

9 out of 10 enterprise leaders believe analytics is essential or very important to their overall business strategies and operational outcomes.Also, 84% of high performers are projecting that the importance of analytics will increase substantially or somewhat in the next two years. Source: Salesforce Research Defines The 2015 State Of Analytics. November 1, 2015.

81% of enterprises are relying on analytics to improve their understanding of customers and their purchasing process (Source: 81% of Enterprises Are Relying On Analytics To Gain Greater Customer Insights, Forbes, July 26, 2015).

Who Is Delivering The Intelligent Cloud Today?

Just how far advanced the era of the Intelligent Cloud is became apparent during the Microsoft Build Developer Conference last week in San Francisco. A fascinating area discussed was Microsoft Cognitive Services and their implications on the Cortana Intelligence Suite. Microsoft is offering a test drive of Cognitive Services here. Combining Cognitive Services and the Cortana Intelligence Suite, Microsoft has created a framework for delivering the Intelligent Cloud. The graphic below shows the Cortana Analytics Suite.

Apttus, a leader in Quote-to-Cash automation, cloud-based enterprise software is announcing the Apttus Intelligent Cloud today. The Apttus Intelligent Cloud drives desired behaviors from everyone on the revenue team and provides prescriptive information to company decision makers to significantly enhance Apttus’ category-defining Quote-to-Cash applications, maximizing revenue for Apttus customers. The Apttus Intelligent Cloud includes the full Apttus Quote-to-Cash Suite, Incentives Suite, and Intelligence Suite. The graphic below defines the Apttus Intelligent Cloud. In the interest of full disclosure, I am an employee of Apttus.

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NetSuite speaks BeNeLux - expands into Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Earlier this week NetSuite released a SuiteWorld like barrage of press releases – to the point I checked if I missed a SuiteWorld conference – but it was ‘just’ all about opening the vendor’s beachhead on the European continent – with opening operations in The Netherlands and expanding the NetSuite product serving the Benelux markets… and yes – the title is a little joke – there is no BeNeLux language, people speak Dutch, Flemish, Belgian French and Luxembourgish (and German is an official Belgian language, too).

So let’s take a part the main press release in our customary style (it can be found here):

LONDON—13 April 2016—NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), the industry's leading provider of cloud-based financials / ERP and omnichannel commerce software suites, today announced the expansion of its business operations into The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg (Benelux). This accelerated expansion includes the opening of NetSuite’s Benelux headquarters in Amsterdam; a strategic alliance with Deloitte in Belgium; and new customers such as Transavia, ESOMAR and Qardio in Holland and Zembro in Belgium. In conjunction, NetSuite unveiled NetSuite OneWorld for Benelux-headquartered companies. This move is in response to the growing opportunity for cloud ERP and rising demand for NetSuite in the Benelux region, particularly from innovative, fast growing and international businesses.

MyPOV – Good intro, summarizing well what NetSuite is up to. Good to see a physical presence with a headquarters, good to have customers in the first paragraph. And yes, the BeNeLux region has attracted an above share of international company headquarters, for a number of reasons.

“Our new Benelux operations are the latest steps in NetSuite’s European expansion and our commitment to providing businesses in the region with software and services that meet both their regional and global needs,” said NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson.

MyPOV – Good quote from Nelson, addressing the usual European concern with US based vendors – are they really committed to the complexities in the region...

Since its inception in the UK in 2002, NetSuite has established a strong footprint in Europe and has taken the lead as the #1 cloud ERP software vendor in the region. Due to NetSuite’s powerful OneWorld product, NetSuite has a large number of global enterprise customers operating subsidiaries in Europe and in the Benelux region. In the Benelux region alone, NetSuite has more than 850 subsidiaries and legal entities of companies like Misys, American Express Global Business Travel, Commvault, and Meltwater running their mission critical business processes on NetSuite OneWorld. The NetSuite OneWorld solution provides companies with multi-subsidiary management and global financial capabilities to run business operations in the region in a two tier model, implementing NetSuite at the subsidiary level while maintaining their legacy, on-premise systems at headquarters.

MyPOV – Good to see the traction for NetSuite – but also interesting to see that the vendor has followed its customers – who have taking the OneWorld product earlier with no in product vendor support to run countries on the European continent. Given NetSuite arrived to the UK 14 years ago – a very prudent expansion strategy for NetSuite, slower even than e.g. client server era based expansion in Europe of e.g. Oracle or PeopleSoft.

Market Opportunities

Offering a friendly business environment and home to fast-growth companies in technology, media, banking and other industries that have embraced cloud computing, Benelux represents the latest step in NetSuite’s commitment to Europe. Gartner estimates the ERP applications market for Netherlands and Belgium to be $724.1 million in 2015, growing to $849.8 million in 2018 (Source: Gartner, “Enterprise Software Forecast, 2015 Q4,” December 2015).

MyPOV – Always good to quote the market opportunity. Local vendors with presence of SAP and Oracle on the high end, Unit4 all the way to specialists like Raet will see a new competitor that usually isn’t shy in the market place.

“Businesses in the region are already seeing the advantages that a flexible, scalable system with rich international capabilities like NetSuite can provide,” said Mark Woodhams, SVP & Managing Director of NetSuite EMEA. “We’re excited to help more businesses in the Benelux countries transform their operations with the #1 cloud ERP.”

MyPOV – Good quote from Woodhams. BeNeLux companies will certainly see the value of a cloud based offering.

European Datacentres
NetSuite opened two major European datacentres late last year, one in Amsterdam, Netherlands and the other in Dublin, Ireland. The two datacentres support NetSuite's growth in Europe and meet the needs of the increasing number of European companies that are adopting NetSuite's cloud to more efficiently manage and transform their businesses. Both datacentres are fully operational with live customers. NetSuite has started provisioning new EU customers in the EU, and plans to move existing EU customers to the datacentres in the coming weeks.

MyPOV – A key move by NetSuite to address the European data residency and privacy concerns. With the invalidation of the EU / USA Safe Harbor act, the installment of the Privacy Shield and related uncertainty (more here) can only be countered with EU based data centers (nice move on the localization to British English on the headline!). NetSuite has been relatively late to have EU based data centers, so good to see the vendor addressing this in late 2015. A must have table stake for business in Europe.

New Partnerships
NetSuite and Deloitte partnered to extend the strategic alliance to Belgium. Deloitte Consulting in Belgium provides implementation, finance transformation, change management and a full breadth of consulting services to businesses in the Belgian market seeking to gain business efficiency, grow revenues and expand globally with NetSuite cloud ERP.

MyPOV – Good to see a partnership announcement as part of the initial come to market. Shows NetSuite has done its homework before the announcements. It also speaks to the power of the NetSuite brand and reputation that the vendor could sign up a major partner like Deloitte.

In addition, NetSuite also has a vibrant partner ecosystem in the region. Solution providers such as E-Litt and ERP FastForward have helped NetSuite establish a strong footprint in the Benelux region.

MyPOV – Good to see there is more than Deloitte in the partner system.

New Customers
New customers announced today include Transavia, ESOMAR, Qardio, and Zembro.
Transavia Airlines, a leading low-cost carrier serving Europe, has selected NetSuite OneWorld to help execute its ambitious plans for growth. Transavia will replace a legacy AS 400-based system at its office in the Netherlands and an Infor system in France with NetSuite OneWorld. Transavia plans to use NetSuite to run its mission-critical business processes across Europe including financials, financial consolidation, multi-subsidiary management, procure-to-pay, reporting, and support for multi-language (English, Dutch and French), multi-currency and multi-country tax compliance.
ESOMAR, the global trade association for market, social and opinion researchers founded in 1948, has implemented NetSuite OneWorld to drive global business and membership growth. ESOMAR is now relying on NetSuite OneWorld for enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and website content management after replacing Exact ERP, an on-premise CRM and a content management system (CMS) that used to support its website. NetSuite OneWorld can deliver ESOMAR key benefits including increased efficiency and a real-time view of its business across its 5,000 individual and 500 corporate members in more than 130 countries and business intelligence for management at its headquarters in Amsterdam, as well as 50 of its local representatives.
Qardio, fast growing smart health solution provider, has implemented NetSuite OneWorld to fuel its business growth and expansion into new global markets. Qardio uses NetSuite OneWorld to manage its mission-critical business processes including accounting, financial consolidation, procure to pay, order management, inventory management, customer relationship management (CRM), multi-currency (US Dollars, British Pounds, Euros), and multi-country tax compliance across its head office in San Francisco, and subsidiaries in the UK, the Netherlands and Asia.
Zembro, the Belgium-based creator of the first intelligent armband specially designed for the elderly, has selected NetSuite to meet its ERP and CRM needs. The company is now running its mission-critical business processes including billing, inventory management, customer relationship management (CRM) and multi-currency management for Euros and British Pounds on NetSuite.

MyPOV – Always powerful to have customers on a press release – especially when it is the launch to new countries / regions. Good to see different industries and different countries covered.

New Product: NetSuite OneWorld for Benelux-Headquartered Companies
NetSuite OneWorld gives today’s businesses the ability to expand and transform their organisations and reinvent their business models to meet the ever-changing demands of their markets and the expectations of their customers. NetSuite OneWorld supports tax compliance in more than 100 countries, 20 languages and 190 currencies, along with the capabilities for global businesses to transact in more than 200 countries and dependent territories around the world. It allows multinational corporations in the region to more efficiently manage their subsidiaries without the high upfront costs and deployment hassles of on-premise software.

MyPOV – Good to see not only sales and marketing and delivery extension – but also product extension. Obviously doing business only pitching NetSuite to subsidiaries is missing out on a lot of the market. But having the necessary product extension and localization ready in time shows good timing.

NetSuite OneWorld for Benelux-headquartered companies is localised and designed to meet the business needs, regulatory and tax compliance of regional businesses, and brings them an agile and flexible cloud software application to run their mission-critical business processes with unmatched global financial capabilities in the industry. This comprehensive set of capabilities include: global currency and accounting, comprehensive tax compliance, country-specific tax support, country-specific reporting, local bank and payment support, local language support and robust development platform that allows businesses in the region to customise the software to their specific needs and integrate with other third-party applications. For more information about NetSuite OneWorld for Benelux-headquartered companies please see the separate release issued today.

MyPOV – Good to see all statutory, regulatory and localization demands addressed. Not a trivial task and good to see it achieved in product today. Next step will be go lives of customers, and never an area for a vendor to rest.

“The Benelux countries are home to many vibrant, innovative and fast-growing businesses – whether they be local disruptors or regional HQs of global organisations - exactly the sort of organisations that have created efficiencies, grown and transformed their operations with NetSuite,” said Craig Sullivan, Senior VP of Enterprise and International Products for NetSuite. “We see the region as the natural place to expand and hope to become NetSuite’s next European success story.” […]

MyPOV – Good quote from Sullivan. A common beachhead for US vendors, avoiding the larger and usually more demanding larger economies of Germany, France and Italy in a first step.

Overall MyPOV

Good to see NetSuite expanding into Europe. For our taste the vendor may have waited long, possibly even too long to achieve a similar market position as in North America. But Europe is expensive not only for sales and marketing activities but also for the product and operational extensions required to be build and maintained. The good news is that NetSuite has been able to watch the market for a long time from the UK, so we can assume the vendor knows exactly what it is getting into. Europe has entrenched vendors, starting with SAP and every country has local vendors with strong customer bases, take e.g. Unit4 in The Netherlands and Belgium. But NetSuite has the understanding of more in tune with the 21st century business processes such as omnichannel support and more. As these practices become required best practices in Europe over the next years, it will be good to see NetSuite leveraging this advantage.

On the concern side, NetSuite now needs a European roadmap. European companies are export oriented and very well connected, a common market with the E.U. has created inter-dependencies beyond what NetSuite customers in North America are used to with NAFTA. The Top 3 trading partner for The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg is… Germany. And close behind France. So BeNeLux based customers will ask for support coming for these countries soon – pretty sure NetSuite is aware of that and has a plan.

But for now congrats to NetSuite who has achieved a remarkable ‘all in’ the BeNeLux from a go to market (local headquarters), product (localized version), services (partnerships with service providers) and delivery (local data centers) capability. Few vendors get that all done for a market launch and seldom we can dissect such a complete offering in a press release, so congratulations. Now we will be watching for the next round of local customer go lives.

More about NetSuite

News Analyis - NetSuite announces Cloud Alliance with Microsoft - read here
First Take - NetSuite SuiteWorld - Zach Nelson Day #1 Keynote - read here
First Take - Ultimate Software UltiConnect Day #1 Keynote - read here
Event Report - Netsuite powers on with targeted innovation - read here
Why NetSuite acquired TribeHR - read here
Act III the cloud changes everything - Oracle and NetSuite with a touche of Deloitte - read here
Act III and final day - A tale of two conferences - Sapphire and SuiteWorld - read here
The middle day - 2 keynotes and press releases - Sapphire and SuiteWorld - read here
A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases - Sapphire and SuiteWorld - read here

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

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NetSuite speaks BeNeLux - expands into Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg

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