Top 5 Data-to-Decisions News Trends of 2015

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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Apache Spark, real-time, cloud BI & analytics, IoT, and self-service where the trends to watch in 2015, and they’ll continue to make waves into 2016.

It’s that time of year again. Here’s a look back on the big stories of 2015 and a look forward on the trends that will carry on into 2016.

1. Spark Lights A Fire. In 2015 companies and vendors started to realize that the opportunity with big data isn’t just to scale up BI and the data warehouse. Thus the Apache Spark open source framework and other analytical options that go beyond SQL were hot in 2015. Spark was embraced by scores of vendors and hundreds of big companies in 2015. IBM was the most visible vendor advocate, but plenty of other data-integration and big data platform companies joined the bandwagon.

 

A key driver of the interest in Spark’s ensemble of analytics – which encompasses SQL, R, graph analysis and machine learning — is the fact that in an increasingly digital world, companies are generating and need to analyze a variety of data types. As companies do more marketing and business online, for example, clickstreams, social data and mobile data become much more important. SQL is good for analyzing the transactional data behind those interactions, but graph, machine learning and other techniques shine with these new types of data. And companies want to look forward, not just back, so they can make the right moves to maximize sales and profits. That’s what is driving interest in predictive capabilities, such as those available in R.

2. Real-time gets real. Streaming data analysis (a.k.a., real-time data analysis) was another hot category in 2015. Recent announcements by Amazon, Cloudera, Confluent (the Kafka support company), Microsoft, MapR, SAP and plenty of others point to the demand for low-latency data capture and analysis capabilities. Online advertising, marketing and retail scenarios have been a big driver, as companies seek to trigger ads, launch campaigns, and serve up cross-sell and up-sell offers while customers are still online. Real-time fraud detection, risk analysis, IoT (see below) and security threat detection are other scenarios where time is of the essence. Look for the wave of real-time announcements to continue into 2016.

3. Cloud-based analytics and business intelligence options take off. Some vendors (like BIRST and BusinessObjects) were very early to cloud-based (Software-as-a-Service-style) business intelligence. But the first-generation of options that emerged seven to ten years ago didn’t exactly set the world on fire. Early pioneers including LudicEra, Oco and PivotLink didn’t survive.

Times have changed. Now that huge volumes of data are originating and accumulating online (think Amazon RedShift, Google Analytics, Google BigQuery and Salesforce) cloud-based BI and analytics options are starting to take off. Vendors including IBM, GoodData, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP all upped their stakes in cloud-based BI in 2015 while upstarts Tableau and Qlik prepared to deliver deeper cloud services 2016. Stay tuned for yet more announcements in 2016 and check out these six tips for success in cloud-based data analysis.

4. IoT Services: Will they bear fruit? The question isn’t which vendor did but which didn’t introduce an IoT suite or IoT-related services portfolio in 2015? The list of players announcing new or expanded IoT capabilities in 2015 included IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce and SAP. (Others deeply invested prior to 2015 included General Electric, Cisco and Intel, among others.)

In my view, IoT is often a new marketing spin on analytics against sensor-based data – something in use in manufacturing and industrial settings for quite some time. Add in ingredients including geospatial data, automotive telematics, smart mobile devices and, of course, Internet-based apps and services, and you can give it a more modern “of things” twist.

The question for 2016 is how quickly will businesses adopt and prove out real-world, IoT-based used cases. Our deepest thinker on this topic, Andy Mulholland, points out that there’s a last-mile problem whereby the IT infrastructure and services are useless if you can’t make the final connections and make sense of the data streaming from the sensors and devices on the front lines. In Andy’s book, line-of-business people are crucial to IoT deployment success, and IT-centric suites and vendor portfolios won’t succeed without business leadership of IoT initiatives.

5. Self-service options proliferate. The trend toward self-service reporting and data analysis emerged five to seven years ago. Now that trend is moving into new areas, and it reached a fever pitch in self-service data prep in 2015, with announcements from data-integration vendors like Informatica , SnapLogic and Talend, and from BI vendors including Qlik (Smart Data Load) and Logi Analytics.

Interest in self-service advanced analytics is also on the rise. One of my most important reports of 2015 was “The Era of Self-Service Analytics Emerges,” which looked at leading examples including IBM Watson Analytics, SAP Lumira and SAS Visual Analytics/Visual Statistics. Other vendors and products pursuing this self-service advanced analytical trend include Alteryx, Microsoft Power BI, Qlik and Tableau.

Hope you enjoy the read on these trends as we head into 2016 and have a happy and healthy New Year!

Data to Decisions Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Chief Customer Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer

My New Book: Skills for the 21st Century – It’s Marketing But Not As We Know It

Gavin Heaton

Founder
Disruptors Co

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

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It is clear that the skills that brought us through the 20th Century have not prepared us for the next 100 years. Or even the next decade. Technology, social media and consumerisation has disrupted industry after industry, and while marketing operates in most firms at the forefront of customer experience, many marketers feel out of their depth with the vast array of skills and capabilities that are required. The disruption adds to the anxiety that ripples out across the organisation. Over the last year I have spoken at conferences and forums in Australia and internationally, consulted with organisations and governments and helped develop new capability roadmaps, skilling programs and events. And the challenges and fears are largely the same. What I have found, is that this anxiety is reverberating far beyond the marketing department. In the 21st Century, we are all marketers, and we are unprepared for this new future.

In response, I have written an eBook that builds on a series of blog posts and articles, observations, projects and presentations that I have made throughout the year. It looks at the shifting landscape and suggests ways forward for individuals and teams.

This eBook is available for immediate download as a PDF.

Marketing Transformation Chief Marketing Officer

Box, Microsoft and Citrix Update Their Enterprise File Sharing Offerings

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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In today's File-sharing Friday news, oh wait, it's Wednesday. In today's Web-Content Wed news... ugh, never mind!  Today was a busy news day in the enterprise file-sharing market with three stories:

• Bringing Box’s Modern Content Platform to Salesforce
• Sony Releases New Firmware Upgrade with Extensive Performance Updates for Digital Paper
• OneDrive for Business update on storage plans and Next Generation Sync Client

Here is a short video with my thoughts on these 3 announcements.

Links mentioned in the video:

• Salesforce Files
• Citrix Synergy 2015 Keynote Demo: Sony Digital Paper
• Microsoft Office Lens
• Box Capture

 

My Constellation colleague Chris Kanaracus has written more about the Box/Salesforce announcement here: Salesforce, Box Deepen Partnership: How It's Good for Customers

 

 

 

 

Future of Work Sales Marketing Next-Generation Customer Experience Revenue & Growth Effectiveness box Microsoft Chief Marketing Officer Chief People Officer Chief Revenue Officer

Slack Advances Their Efforts To Evolve From Product To Platform

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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Today Slack made 3 announcements that help advance their efforts to evolve from just being a product to being a platform. This is very important, as you've heard me say over and over again, one of the key's to the success of any vendor is the strength of its partner ecosystem. The announcements are:

1. The Slack Fund, "a new $80 million dollar fund backed by Slack and six of our investors: Accel, Andreessen-Horowitz, Index Ventures, KPCB, Spark, and Social+Capital"

MyPOV:  Developers have several options in the social business market. Should they spend their time building for Office365, Google for Work, Jive, Salesforce, etc? This fund should help motive developers to build applications and extensions that interact with Slack.

2. Botkit, "a new framework for Slack development that greatly simplifies the creation of apps (especially bots) with a flexible codebase that handles things like authenticating apps to a team and the sending, receiving, and processing of messages with our API"

MyPOV: This new framework should help developers who have been attracted by announcement #1 get started quickly. Removing the need to code the backend processes allows developers to focus on the business workflows of the applications.

3. New an improved Application Directory, "where you can find over 160 apps that can extend the capabilities of your Slack team" 

MyPOV: Announcement #1 provides the incentive to build applications, announcement #2 helps developers do it, #3 is all about easily surfacing those new applications. The vast amount and variety of integrations available for Slack have been one its primary keys to success. Until now installing those integrations required a few steps and may have been too technical for some people. The new directory makes adding functionality to your Slack channels much easier, which will help drive adoption.

Here is a short video where I discuss today's news:

 

 

Are you currently using Slack? Are you planning to? Are you a developer building for Slack? Are you planning to?

I look forward to your feedback.

Future of Work

IBM Announces IBM Connections 5.5 and IBM Docs 2.0

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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IBM has announced the latest versions IBM Connections and IBM Docs. These new versions are for on-premises customers who have not yet made the move to IBM Smart Cloud. While these are not innovative new releases, the do allow on-premises customers to catch-up on the features which IBM has been rolling out this year to their cloud-based offerings.

 

 

Future of Work

IoT; Improve, Innovate, Market Partner, or Market Disrupter? Strategic Business Choices for your IoT initiative

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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The pace that Digital initiatives and IoT is forcing on the market makes it difficult to know when to act. ‘Fast follower’, the normal preferred stance for many Enterprises has huge risks in IoT as first movers have literally taken over and closed off market sectors to following competitors. A significant feature of IoT moves is the impact runs from small-scale innovative moves, such as Uber, to big market ecosystem disruptions by global giants such General Electric.

Research report now available: The Foundational Elements for the Internet of Things (IoT)

Even moves to improve existing operating capabilities such as Harley Davison IoT deployment transforming their custom bike manufacturing can make impacts and create direct business value greater than many current planned Digital, or IT, investments.

How to plan your enterprise approach to IoT starts by considering which of four main business strategic approaches listed below offers the best alignment to your Enterprise business strategy and business model. The definitions provided below are outlines to help initial thinking;

1)  Improve – adding IoT data inputs to an existing process improve the accuracy and quality of its current performance

The internal use of simple sensors for factory floor Operational Technology systems is a mature technology, but has developed as a separate environment to IT with specialized protocols and GUIs. Enriching the type and quality of sensed data, or adding new more intelligent IoT sensors to feed data faster, with integration into Enterprise Manufacturing or Logistics IT application can improve dynamic efficiency by a considerable factor. Some Enterprise Application IT vendors, and some leading automation OT vendors, offer direct connecting IoT sensor solutions for this purpose.

External remote, off site business activities that requiring scheduled manual inspection, such as management of Merchandising machines can gain a reduction in visits and costs by sensor signaled refill requirements. Improve IoT projects do not involve any significant change in business activities, instead offering simple straightforward improvements.

2)  Innovate – introducing a new higher value Smart Service based on reacting to events using IoT sensors

Changing a current business service such as maintenance of equipment on a set schedule, or in response to a breakdown call, into an event reactive, or even proactive Smart Service. Proactive maintenance of critical systems, e.g. air conditioning units, to forestall breakdowns by monitoring the change in crucial parameters, has a higher value to a customer as well as cutting unproductive routine service visit costs.

Innovative IoT deployments introduce the need for intelligence and insightful outputs through a Smart Service, and as such are prime candidates for business activities where time to read and respond changes has a value to the customer. Other examples include critical event responses to emergencies, optimization of capacity, or energy use. Many Enterprise claim to be seeking ‘innovative’ new market offerings around ‘services’ and this is where their own specialized market, or sector, knowledge can be applied aligned to the new capabilities of IoT Smart Services.

3)  Market Partners – making use of a market leader providing a Smart Services Platform and a customer base

The most obvious examples relate to IoT based Smart Services Apps delivered for Apple and Google Smart Phones and Tablets, but there are other Platforms in industrial markets as well. Consumer markets are rich in opportunities from the developing interest in Smart Homes and Cars as well as Smart Service Apps such as Uber. Market partnerships lower technology risks and challenges, but increase the pressure to compete by finding unique smart value as differentiating Intellectual Property. It requires careful consideration as to whether the Market Partners Platform provides enough IoT data inputs to be able to makes use of the complex event processing insight that makes your Smart Service unique.

Market Partners are not only to be found in the consumer market as in an increasing number of Markets face a dominant player introducing a disruptive IoT Platform that supports and empowers the introduction of Smart Services from other market players. See market disrupter example in next section.

4)  Market Disrupter – a market dominant player moves to take advantage of their existing position and product span to introduce new competitive rules

The example of John Deere in the agricultural market is a good example of a market leader using IoT to create a market disruption. Introducing Smart IoT sensing on a variety of John Deere implements with interaction allows measurement of a wide range of conditions. The resulting insightful inputs not only enable the John Deere machinery to function optimally, e.g. using less fuel, but additionally provides data inputs on soil conditions, fertility, local micro climate conditions, etc. This data is made available to John Deere Market Partners who gain an effective route to market, and are able to ensure their products, seeds, sprays, fertilizers etc. are used in the optimally manner for the best results.

Market Disrupter Ecosystems offer very high value to the end customer, in this case the farmer, such that the primary proposition and form of market competition is fatally disrupted. In this case the previous factors of choice in buying agricultural machinery are of less importance than the value the integrated Smart Services Ecosystem provides. A classic example of a shift to a ‘Services’ economy.

These four major headings are by no means an exhaustive list of the possibilities that IoT brings to an Enterprise, but offer a quick summary of four major business recognizable types of initiatives.

Resource

The Foundational Elements for the Internet of Things (IoT)

Footnotes

A list of IoT case studies based on using ThingsWorx  http://www.ptc.com/internet-of-things/customer-success

A Cisco published IoT case study of Stanley Black & Decker http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/manufacturing/stanley-black-decker.html

An SAP published list of IoT case studies http://www.sap.com/pc/tech/internet-of-things/case-studies.html

Explanation by MyJohnDeere.com as to features and benefits https://www.deere.co.uk/en_GB/products/equipment/agricultural_management_solutions/myjohndeere/myjohndeere.page

General Electric explains their IoT solutions ecosystems http://www.ge.com/digital/predix

New C-Suite

Collaboration Platforms versus Best of Breed Solutions

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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“Should we use a group of products from a single vendor or purchase different features from multiple specialized vendors?”

This question, otherwise known as “suites versus best-of-breed”, is one of the oldest and most important that IT decision makers have to answer. But is the question still valid? Suites are no longer proprietary offerings with long development cycles, but rather open and extensible platforms which are frequently updated. Best-of-breed vendors can still fill niche gaps, but their unique features can quickly be commoditized. Thus, a more accurate question would now be “which platform should we be looking at, and are there niche products that we should integrate into it?”

The purpose of this report is to show how collaboration platforms provide a more seamless and secure user experience, while reducing costs and administrative complexities from piecing together multiple tools. This report covers two important topics:

• How vendors are releasing software in much shorter cycles than before
• The advantages of platforms over best-of-breed solutions

Click here for more details about the report and to purchase/download a full copy.

The following video provides a brief overview of the report.

Here is the Table of Contents:

• How the Innovation Life Cycle Hastens the Shift from Differentiation to Commoditization.
• Evolution of the Employee Collaboration Portfolio.
• Silos of Collaboration Hinder Ability to Effectively Get Work Done.
• Why Collaboration Platforms Trump Standalone Solutions.
• When Standalone Products Make Sense.
• Capturing the Best of Both Worlds.
• Vendors Approach Collaboration Platforms from Different Angles.
• Conclusion: Preparing for the Next Wave of Innovation.

I look forward to your feedback.

Click here for more details about the report and to purchase/download a full copy.

 

Future of Work Sales Marketing Next-Generation Customer Experience Revenue & Growth Effectiveness Data to Decisions Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief People Officer Chief Revenue Officer Chief Experience Officer

New Report: Few Companies Have Evolved Into a Digital Organization

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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The report by Capgemini, “Organizing for Digital: Why Digital Dexterity Matters” — conducted in collaboration with MIT Center for Digital Business — reveals that digital organizations reported outperforming competitors on key performance indicators, such as customer satisfaction and innovation. The ‘digital masters’, just 7% per cent of companies, display “digital dexterity” – the ability to rapidly change organizational design to realize more value from digital technologies – such as forging new partnerships or identifying and deploying internal expertise.

MY POV: This makes sense as most companies are still trying to decide if they should or need to pay attention to digital — like it’s a channel or a app. It’s really a mindset of how a business is run and how decisions are made and whether or not departments understand their individual contribution to the customer experience as it fits into the overall, brand customer experience. Individual departments can no longer remain silos. They must do their part in the context of the whole. Otherwise the customer experience, as some point in the value chain ends up not meeting or exceeding customer expectations. And not meeting customer expectations means customers will no longer be customers. They will patronize competitors who have maximized their digital dexterity because the customer experience will be more optimized to be customer-centric.

Digital Dexterity Self-Assessment: Based on the research results, the report provides a high-level self assessment guide allowing executives to gauge where their organizations are on the digital dexterity continuum. It also reveals that advanced levels of digital dexterity allows organizations to seize opportunities and respond to disruptions much more quickly than their traditional competitors. In today’s volatile and disrupted world, capability leadership is not enough. Organizations also need to be nimble and flexible – dexterous – if they are to respond to ever-changing technology advances, emerging competitive disruptions, and changing customer needs

This report comes after two years of research that was conducted in collaboration with MIT’s Center for Digital Business from January 2014 to September 2015. Together, the team conducted in-depth interviews with thirty-one industry leaders representing enterprises from a range of industries to assess the qualities of companies that were able to quickly adapt to the increasing use of digital technologies and data. A survey of 274 industry executives, representing 138 different enterprises across 28 countries was then conducted to validate the relationship of an organization’s key characteristics with abilities that help firms easily adapt to new technologies.

Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

Workday Tech Summit - Progress Report

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

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We had the opportunity to attend Workday's TechSummit, held at the beautiful Cavallo Point resort in Sausalito.

 

So take a peek at my takeaways:

 

 

I you cannot watch - read along: Always tough to pick the Top 3 takeaways - but here you go:

 

• Insights Architecture - Workday gave us an update on their Insights Apps architecture - and no surprise it uses all the right ingredients for a next generation Application - Spark, Hadoop etc. - always good to learn more. Deployment options and locations was something we did not get to. I asked CEO Bhusri if Workday is slowing down on Insight Apps and his response was that customers are figuring out how to use them. Good problem to have.

• Data Center Locations and Operations - For the first time we got an official update on data center locations (3 in the US, 2 in Europe) and how they are connected in (AWS similar) high availability zones. Workday has done a lot in the past to achieve higher resilience and continues to work along these lines, a key area for customers who are putting more and more, larger and larger and more critical (e.g. Finance) applications on the Workday infrastructure.
• Presentation Services - The Workday extension story has initially been non existent, then was extended object by object (on my question where the vendor is - the answer was that customers do not prioritize this high anymore, as enough has been done) and now has an interesting new chapter with Presentation Services. The service allows customers to create their own screens and UIs, a major step forward. It is also the technology base for the partnership with ADP in regards of Payroll, where the service is being used to render, enter and validate the fields and information exposed by ADP via the REST interface chosen as integration technology between the two vendors. I expect more modern, next generation interfaces (and partnerships) to leverage this capability. Finally Presentation Services could also mark the first foray of Workday thinking of providing not a full fledge PaaS - but a 'paaS' (with a little 'P') - that allows the further customization / configuration, extension and creation of critical enterprise processes on the Workday platform. Departmental / End use programming knocks at all enterprise vendors doors these days...  

 

Tidbits

• iPad Product - We were handed iPads and had the chance to use the Workday HCM iPad app, a very good move that I can only encourage more vendors to follow. Of course I went off script and the iPad app was easy to use, very little 'not so intuitive' pieces and few loose ends (e.g. found 3 different date pickers). Overall a well done tablet client, that is easy to use and powerful enough for a business line manager to do what they need to with their HR application.
   
• TCO Reduction - Vendors always need to work on reducing TCO - not only on the operations but also on the implementation and upgrade side. With O'Toole and Holincheck Workday has tasked two experienced professionals to reduce the cost of implementation and upgrades - always a good thing to see and stay tuned for 2016.
   
• ADP Partnership - A key partnership for Workday, pushing the number of supported countries for payroll to 100 (read more here) - it leverages the above mentioned Presentation Services capability of the Workday framework. 

 

MyPOV

Workday is continuously making progress on its platform in terms of extension for new use cases (e.g. Insights Apps), resilience (e.g. Availability Zones), core capabilities (e.g. Presentation Services) and overall TCO (e.g. Lifecyle Management plans). All good housekeeping a vendor should and needs to do, to stay on top of the game. 

 

On the concern side Workday has chosen to operate on a proprietary architecture, that only Workday knows, understands and operates. This concern is alleviated by the capability of Workday to run its applications on common cloud architectures (e.g. development and test environments run on Amazon's AWS), the adoption of CIO accepted standards like OpenStack (though we heard little of this earlier in the week) and ultimately by Workday growing and creating a large enough ecosystem and scale to alleviate these concerns. Getting to over 5000 employees soon is such a milestone. 

 

But technology for applications is built to run the application - and there is the Finance product which has not seen as much adoption as a successful product should. Workday is bullish to have it 'ready' now - 2016 will tell. Hindsight is always 20 / 20 - but as of today Finance is not a showcase for return of R&D Investment. With Workday eyeing further investment areas (SCM, Verticals were mentioned) it needs to make product development bets with a faster return of investment / better customer adoption. On the flipside for HCM, with the announced Learning product, Workday closes the wagons with a fully integrated suite of Core HR, Payroll (USA, Canada, UK and 2016 France more with ADP), Talent Management and some forays into Benefits and Workforce Management, that is very competitive in the market place. Not short changing HCM customers and product momentum will be a key area for Bhusri and team to manage in 2016. 

Overall Workday is doing the right things on the technology side to become the long term partner for enterprises, who run key enterprise processes over multiple decades with the same vendor, through thick and thin. Every year of growth, adoption and investment brings Workday closer to that league / echelon. We will be watching. 

 

More on Workday

• News Analysis - Workday and ADP partner to Deliver a Seamless Customer Experience for Global Payroll - read here
• Event Report - Workday Rising - Learning is there and good housekeeping - read here
• News Analysis - Workday completes Talent Management with Learning - Finally - or too late? Read here.
• Event Preview - What I would like Workday to address this Rising read here
• News Analysis – Workday to Expand Suite of Applications for Healthcare Industry - with a SCM twist - read here
• News Analysis - Workday supports UK Payroll - now speaks (British English) Payroll  - read here
• Workday 24 - 'True' Analytics, a Vertical and more - now needs customer proof points - read here
• First Take - Top 3 Takeaways from of Workday Rising Day 1 Keynote - The dawn of the analytics era - time to deliver Insight Apps - read here
• Progress Report - Workday supports more cloud standard - but work remains - read here
• Workday 22 - Recruiting and rich Workday 22 are here - read here
• First Take - Why Workday acquired Identified - (real) Analytics matter - read here
• Workday Update 21 - All about the user experience and some more - read here
• Workday Update 20 - Mostly a technology release - read here
• Takeaways from the Salesforce.com and Workday partnership - read here
• Workday powers on - adds more to its plate - read here
• What I would like Workday to address this Rising - read here
• Workday Update 19 - you need to slow down to hurry up - read here
• I am worried about... Workday - 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 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

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

The Battle For The Digital Corner Office, #CDO

1
Article written in partnership with Roger Beynon.

Whether they are spooked by the specter of "digital disruption" or just afraid that the bandwagon will leave before they can jump on, organizations are desperately looking for C-level talent with digital credentials.

"Digital credentials," however, can cover an array of competencies, and organizations have produced their own array of titles for the potential occupant of the newly allocated "digital corner office."

A quick search on LinkedIn illustrates the title diversity among the digital leader cohort.

So which title will win the battle for the digital corner office?

The answer, we suggest, is to be found not so much in the title as in the role.
Interviews conducted with 100 C-level executives over the last 12 months reveal that the "digital leader's" mission can differ widely from company to company. At retail clothing chain, for example, digital leadership means weaving technology seamlessly into the purchase process. At a hi-tech manufacturer, the job of the VP, Digital is to bring discipline and message coherence to the company's marketing and social strategy. At a century-old furniture manufacturer, digital leadership means process reengineering from the shop floor to the top floor.

Variations notwithstanding, the business imperatives behind any digital transformation strategy dictate a set of responsibilities that begin to define the role of a "generic" digital leader. Those same executive interviews point to a set of priorities common to the adoption of transformational digital leadership:
 

1. Developing the next generation P&L and driving, if necessary, corporate-wide self-cannibalization. (Digital transformation must manifest itself in the P&L or it's not worth the effort.)
2. Facilitating horizontal transformation and digital literacy within a company. (The effective digital leader should work him/ herself out of a job, once the organization is digitally positioned.)
3. Hacking the product/service requirements loop to understand what customers will need and what they will pay for. (Before these requirements become known to the competition.)

Given these priorities, how do the top-level digital titles and their accompanying responsibilities match up?

• The Head of Digital Innovation/ Chief Innovation Officer focuses on exactly that - innovation. It is typically a job for an out-of-the-box thinker, but not necessarily someone with P&L experience.


• The VP, Digital tends to occupy a marketing communications role. "Digital" is often synonymous with using technology to build ever higher levels of social engagement with an emotional attachment by the customer. That said, a VP is often someone who has General Management experience that qualifies him/ her for the P&L requirements that underpin the digital transformation imperative.


• The Chief Data Officer owns Big Data in whatever form that takes for any given organization. Big data can certainly help shape digital transformation but the Chief Data Officer is unlikely be the driver of change.


• The Chief Technology Officer tends to be an inward-focused role, essentially a facilitator and coordinator of the technology next generation infrastructure needed to meet the rapidly changing needs of the CTO's internal customers such as the CIO.


• The Chief Information Officer may, in isolated cases, don the mantle of transformation agent, but the CIO role is rooted in maintaining service stability and continuity. Disruption is anathema to the CIO and asking them to embrace change as a way of life would, in most cases, would be asking for trouble.

The executive interviews point to the CDO as the title most aligned with the digital transformation mission. Here's why.

To point #1 (inventing a new P&L/cannibalizing the old):

The digital leader is often brought in with the single focus of preventing her/his organization from being the victim of digital disruption - to the point of going out of business. Richie refers to this as "preventing companies from having their Kodak moments" - more currently, their 'Zune Moments'". This can involve radical self-cannibalization in the way that you see right now with GE, which is divesting itself of financial companies and transforming its commercial and industrial portfolio into a model for the Internet of Things. GE has become a software company in the vanguard of the IoT.

Point #2 (working horizontally across the organization):

Any digital leader missioned with company-wide transformation must be able to bring a horizontal purview to the organization and operate across functional silos. To identify, develop, and roll out new digital products or services, the digital leader might need to work with (but have no direct authority over): customers, designers, product developers, finance, marketing, sales, legal, compliance, operations, and customer support. Consider the logistics that confront a 2,500-store grocer like Kroger when it wants to roll out a click-and-collect capability -- adding drive-thru lanes, creating a picking process from an inventory system organized in huge, wrapped pallets, integrating store return credits to customer accounts and inventory systems, etc. The digital leader must bring all the vertically-minded disciplines together and move them toward a digital paradigm. (Richie believes that a digital leader in this sort of role should not have a job in about three years, because they would have worked with the rest of the organization to pivot towards the digital opportunities and make their role obsolete.)

For point #3 (figuring out future opportunities in the marketplace):

The digital leader is tasked with identifying market opportunities that can be best exploited through digital execution. To be able to see opportunity before it becomes visible to others, the digital leader must be able to work with and win the trust of customers. The digital soothsayer must divine how customers are internalizing technology-driven paradigm shifts, since those shifts will generate future requirements. IMS Health's customers include the major Pharma companies small, large, regional and global. Richie works with Pharma companies to figure out their own paths toward transformation and in doing so is able to capture their aspirations for the future. He then interprets those aspirations and delivers them to the IMS Health's digital product team to be able to build the company's next gen P&L.

The digital leader must therefore operate (and be welcome) on the customer side as well as the product side. This, as describe by Richie, differs significantly from product development practices of the past, in which "our product guys build whatever the hell they think the future is going to be and it's left to the marketing team to describe it in a way that makes sense to customers who don't really want the product but need to be convinced they do."
 

What are the characteristics/competencies to look for in a Chief Digital Officer?

Companies can hire and allocate digital responsibilities to any and all the titles listed above, but if the transformation imperative covers the entire company and is seen as essential to survival and success, then they will more than likely want to hire a Chief Digital Officer. For what, therefore, should they be looking?

The research identified these primary attributes:

1. A technologist who is fluent in business:
The CDO will typically have computer science or engineering as a first degree, often bolstered with an advanced degree in business and a macro-economic world view. At core, they are technologists, but fluent in language and lore of C-suite business because they will have accumulated P&L responsibility along the way. This is important because the P&L perspective guides prioritization. Digital expertise along the whole of the value-creation chain, moreover, allows the CDO to distinguish digital value from "digital noise" and to be able to evaluate opportunities consistently spawned by technology change.

2. An Internet veteran:
This is not a mandatory qualification, but the experience accumulated while riding the Internet wave cannot be overstated. Many CDO's have been involved in the Internet world for 20+ years. The majority of these have climbed the corporate ladder on the back of their technological prowess and then used that prowess to jump from IT to e-commerce to digital innovation and now to digital transformation. Having lived through the most explosive years of digital's relatively short history, they better understand its evolution and have the best chance of anticipating its direction.

3. A skilled, agile communicator:
The CDO must be articulate and persuasive. It helps if they exhibit what one CEO called "contagious confidence." The CDO's motto could be: "It's not hubris if you can back it up." They tend to be acutely conscious of their own brand, and they know its value to their corporate employer. They make digital "cool" for everyone within the organization, not just the geeks and the marketers. The CDO makes digital a corporate an idiom as well as an emblem. As a result, both the brand and the culture carry a different vibe.

4. A digital anthropologist:
The CDO is an observer and analyzer of customer behavior. Their job is to interpret that behavior for the digitally impaired by "parsing" customer needs and aspirations into digital (or digitally supported) products and services. CDO's who have multi-industry backgrounds bring added value to this capability. The more a CDO understands the nuances of parsing customer needs for B2B as well as B2C, or international and domestic, or CPG and electronics, for example, the greater the anthropological asset s/he brings to the hiring company.

5. A risk-taker:
Even though the dominant career path has been along the corporate Internet highway, CDO's often exhibit strong entrepreneurial characteristics and it is not uncommon for them to have started (and sold) their own companies. This background gives the CDO a high tolerance for ambiguity. Change is their constant. They are hyper-inquisitive -- seekers and synthesizers of ideas, preferably in an "alpha state." That said, every effective CDO carries scars. The learning that took place in the earning of those scars dictates that, having embraced and accepted risk, the CDO will constantly look to reduce risk levels within their digital initiatives. Consistent, disciplined, risk minimization is not antithetical to hubris.

6. A thought-leader:
New ideas fuel the CDO's intellectual and professional engines. CDO's seek out the type of high-fliers who speak at TED events because they identify with them. They follow and respect people like Ray Wang (at Constellation Research) and Scott Galloway (at L2inc). They network naturally and copiously with their peers and they are plugged into the start-up and investor communities. Many are mentors to incubators or innovation labs because digital is driven by disruption and the CDO's radar must continuously scan 360. Richie describes this as: "There's a lot of value to be found on the fringes, out where it can get a bit weird."

7. A time-jumper:
CDO's create the future out of the past. They must be able to move readily and rapidly between the past (constraints of culture and legacy systems) and the future (the limitless world of digital possibility). To succeed, a CDO must be under no illusions about the legacy constraints under which the company operates. The most common constraints are out-dated platforms, but might also be ossified practices, processes, or people. Legacy constraints restrict the boldness of the vision the CDO can present. Pizza Hut, for example, had 9 POS systems at one point in time, so creating an app needing to link to all nine rendered the cost of digital innovation moot. Legacy burdens also impact the CDO's budget and thereby restrict the speed with which the CDO can move. And speed is critical. CDO's seek permission to fail, so long as they do it quickly. They operate on the belief that rapid failure leads to quicker success. Richie describes this as "de-legacy" activity, suggesting that it is more important to "stop or reverse un-innovation anchored on the wrong side of history" than to only look forward.

8. A trust-builder:
The most effective CDO works hard to be seen as an asset to his/her peers. Because a CDO's appointment often indicates that a company feels threatened by digital forces outside its control, a CDO's digital initiatives carry an implicit threat. The CDO must demonstrate by actions and results, as well as by words, that they can be trusted to make their colleagues as well as their customers successful. To that end they must be skilled in the creation of emotional capital, and even more adept at its allocation and cultivation.

The digital corner office: most CDOs we spoke with, do not have a physical office, the digital corner office is completely virtual, or constantly hoteling! Marketing Transformation Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer