Hey Atlanta, Let's Talk Digital Disruption Y'all!

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

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

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On May 14th, join my colleagues Ray Wang, Guy Courtin and me as we talk about how digital technologies are changing the way business are getting work done.

>>> Register Now! <<<

Showcasing the content from his new book Disrupting Digital Business, Ray will be keynoting on what it takes to build an organization in the digital age.

Guy will be discussing the Digital Supply Chain and how disruptors like IoT, 3D printing and wearables are changing the landscape.

My talk is going to cover how the intersection of analytics and collaboration tools will power the next generation of productivity software.

The is open to VP or C-level executives and is free of charge.

The team at Consteallation Research and our sponsors from WiPro and Adobe look forward to seeing you there.

>>> Register Now! <<<

 

Future of Work

First Hand with Microsoft HoloLens

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&nbsp;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.&nbsp; Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization &amp; Innovation&nbsp; 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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On the prelude of Microsoft’s yearly Build conference I had a firsthand opportunity to demo Microsoft’s HoloLens. In one of the best choreographed events I have attended, Microsoft gave 20 analysts a firsthand experience and demos, using the HoloLens themselves. 

 

Microsoft is still developing the HoloLens, so understandably secret about the device, e.g. we had to surrender all recording devices, including smartphones – but here are the takeaways on the specs I can share:

• HoloLens is not a companion, but standalone device
• HoloLens is for all practical purposes 
• The design is beautiful and functional, attached to the head similar to modern biking helmets with a screw adjusting the hold of the Hololens
• To work properly, the HoloLens needs to know the pupillary distance of the user. For the demo Microsoft measured us – the later product is supposed to be able to do this automatically.
• The HoloLens creates a (surprisingly small) viewing area which to my subjective sensation was maybe 20% of my visual field, leaving plenty of room to see the surrounding area, rest of the room I was in.
• Positively I could wear my glasses under the HoloLens, with no perceivable loss of functionality and quality.
• The speakers on the HoloLens are very good – supporting a good user experience even more.
• The critical fist – tap motion – equivalent to a click works for both hands, but needs some adjustment – the first needs to be visible to the Hololens for it to capture the action, so the fist needs to be in (for me) a little bit intuitive position. It’s great to see it works for left and right hands, though in my tests a little better on the right.
• The projection is flawless, speedy and looks all along real. No slow rendering, stumbling etc. 

 

We missed key specs such as on processor(s) – apart from Microsoft saying that the HoloLens is ‘stuffed with sensors’, memory, battery life, connectivity etc. etc. – as Microsoft is not ready to share them.

 

 

We were able to go through the following demos:

• In partnership with a construction material vendor, Microsoft allowed us to fill one of the most ugly voids in the USA, downtown Denver, the empty block between California, Welton St and 15th and 16th street. A model is in place, but the planned construction is virtual, only visible in the Hololens. We were able to change color, angles and zoom the whole structure – apart from moving and placing it. 

 

 

• Next was the inside view of a construction building and we saw the blocked door dilemma, a construction classic: Where there is supposed to be a door is in reality a structural key column, pillar, etc. Finding it, creating a workaround is laborious and expensive. We were able to see the problem (actually someone left a note for us) and inspect the solution, which triggered another problem (a pipe) that we discovered and left a voice note to the plumbing team. A convincing demo. 

 

 

• Next we were in a living room setting, where we could place objects, pin them and move them in the room. We could instruct HoloLens to scan the room (incl. people) and then leverage that information. Next was extending a 3D model – we added fishes in different colors and angles to an underwater 3D Diorama – using a toolbox – all with our hands and fingers.

• Lastly Microsoft demonstrated a Skype demo, where the Skype window can be placed like a monitor and place anywhere. Interestingly HoloLens recognizes real world surfaces. The Skype users were able to swap 3D models (of course a Seattle Space Needle with a mandatory 12th man flag) and modify them.

 

Overall very cool demos and it looks like HoloLens is ready at least for short demo sessions and settings. 

 

 

What are the implications of HoloLens?

• The most immediate value to me was general user experience. Today most of us operate with the 2nd (and 3rd) monitor. It looks like every Windows application can be ‘pinned’ and put somewhere. Not so good news for monitor makers, but totally different productivity for Windows users.

• The Skype demo was also convincing – but building 3D models is not something you can do in a few minutes. 

• Gaming will be revolutionized by HoloLens. 

• The 3D Diorama showed some creative potential for consumers and professionals. Being able to create something and then used in the immediate room, walk around it like a real object opens for many, many applications.

• Visualizing complex objects - e.g. learning or diagnosing the human body will be great applications. 

• Augmented reality - as a physical robot getting a virtual Hololens personality will be great use cases, too.

• 3D Objects need to be built. No surprise Microsoft shows this at its developer conference Build, HoloLens developer will be the newest job title in the long lists of jobs / functions Microsoft has created. 

 

MyPOV

Great progress by Microsoft since the 121 event – where the HoloLens was the combo of night vision googles with small life support unit attached. No dates are set for the release (so far) but the potential of a virtual reality / augmented reality device like the HoloLens is very clear. Being PC based will give HoloLens a lot of runway for basic tasks, as well as dissolve any IT fears in the corporate world of another device to understand, maintain and secure. A lot more still has to happen to make it a consumer, real world ready product, but Microsoft has shown the value of HoloLens, now it needs to show that it can make it real for businesses and consumer from a product maturity, ecosystem, and content and price perspective. Stay tuned.

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

Future of Work Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth Data to Decisions New C-Suite Microsoft Chief Customer Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Experience Officer

The Digital Disruption: Is Your Brand Ready?

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

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

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Many clients ask about what all the fuss is about the digital disruption; why do I need to be concerned about this? Is this really new? Haven’t we been dealing with this for a while. And the answer, at least in my opinion, is that most brands have missed the point of the digital disruption. Many think it’s about having a Facebook Page or a Pinterest account or counting the number of “Likes” they have or improving the SEO on their website or the content….

The digital disruption is really a new way to approach business. It incorporates some tried and true business concepts like, “Listen to your customers” — only now you really have to do it and not give it lip service. The consequence of not “listening” could be a failed PR campaign or some other rumor or issue — that gets picked up in social, gets posted about on blogs and reviews sites (digital) and becomes a trending, online topic. Listening in this context means using some sort of online listening tool. That’s only part of the tactics of it. But it also means listening to what your contact center agents are hearing about your products and services, taking survey’s and focus groups seriously… It means listening to your customers and your employees and then taking action.

And once you have that feedback, it’s really about doing something about it – whether it’s improving the product or the service or both. It’s really about changing how you do business. And in a world that is now very transparent (meaning that when a company doesn’t respond, an online and offline conversation starts and as we know from the book, the Cluetrain Manifesto, markets are conversations.) What people think and say about your company can determine the success or failure of the brand. Edward Deming spoke about this back in the 1950’s, only what they now call listening back then was quality control. Nobody cared much for it back then. At least not in the US. Japan did take Deming’s teaching to heart and transformed how they did business. And that’s what everyone needs to do now.

So if you want to learn more about businesses that are doing this and what you can start thinking about if you have not already, you can come here a distinguished group of people speak about it in San Francisco, May 4 at the W Hotel at 181 3rd St, San Francisco, CA 94103. If you are wondering who should attend, here’s a short list below – and if this conversation is appealing to you – you’ll find many more like-minded people there to hang with… people that want to talk more about this topic include:

• Innovation-minded business and technology executives
• Corporate strategy and development executives
• Board members seeking input for annual planning
• Executives who use disruptive technologies and digital business models

Space is limited. Complimentary seats are reserved for qualified executives and typically include Directors and above. and others are included at Constellation Research‘s discretion. The event hours are 2:30 pm – 8:00 pm. And the event is powered by the Constellation Executive Network. You may want to make reservations!

Hope to see you there! I’ll be speaking!
@Drnatalie

VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

 

Data to Decisions Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Future of Work Marketing Transformation Matrix Commerce New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth Marketing B2B B2C CX Customer Experience EX Employee Experience AI ML Generative AI Analytics Automation Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Growth eCommerce Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps Social Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI HR HCM business SaaS PaaS IaaS Supply Chain Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration IoT Blockchain CRM ERP Leadership finance M&A Enterprise Service Chief Customer Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief People Officer Chief Procurement Officer Chief Supply Chain Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Operating Officer Chief Human Resources Officer

Spread the Word About The Friendship Bench - Supporting Mental Health Groups at Universities

Partner, Sensei Marketing
Partner, Sensei Marketing

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

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We launched!  

The friendship bench is a non-profit organization that has been established to support existing mental health groups on college and university campuses across the country that raise awareness about anxiety and depression among students and the corresponding rise in student suicides. The bench will serve as a catalyst for peer-to-peer conversations about mental health and to encourage students to ask for – and give support – when needed. The initiative will also provide a donation of $1,000 to the on-campus support group and our team of social and digital marketers will work with local groups to improve online and offline awareness campaigns.  

More about the program can be found online: www.thefriendshipbench.org. Watch the introductory video for some background. 

The program was inspired by my 19 year-old son, Lucas who, before succumbing to depression and taking his own life, reached out to others who were also suffering in silence and in many cases considering suicide. His actions saved the lives of many by providing an ear or a shoulder to lean on. Throughout high school and college Lucas actively encouraged people to get help from parents or professionals and when they wouldn’t, he was there to listen. In every case we’ve heard about, those he reached out to are now doing well and getting help. They’ve credited Lucas for saving their lives. 

With an increasing number of students dropping out of school and/or attempting suicide (1 in 4 college kids today suffer from some form of mental health issue and of those, 50 percent don’t ask for help), it’s my goal to continue Lucas’s efforts by encouraging future students to talk about mental health, to ask for help, and to offer it.  

I need your support. 

I would appreciate you sharing this program with your personal and/or business contacts. First and foremost, we’re trying to raise awareness about the increasing threat our students are facing. Secondly, we’re trying to raise money from individuals and corporations who want to support our efforts. 

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/friendshipbench/timeline

Website http://thefriendshipbench.org/promote/

Website http://thefriendshipbench.org/donate/

Twitter: @Yellowis4hello  #YellowIsForHello 

 

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Marketing Transformation

Don't miss - Digital Disruption Tour 2015

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&nbsp;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.&nbsp; Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization &amp; Innovation&nbsp; 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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As a small ‘boutique’ analyst firm, we can’t chase and cover every business trend and every technology space. So at Constellation Research we choose to look at key business trends that are relevant for forward thinking businesses. Technology per se is cool, but way too hard to deal with for fun and no direct impact on a business, so we leave that coverage to our friends, the geeks (though we geek off pretty deeply sometimes, too). 

 

 

One of the most prominent business trends is Digital Disruption – that changes the way how enterprises operate from the front to the back office and back. The trend has a major impact when it happens in an industry – we are all great at looking at it in the rear view mirror. It is pretty clear what has happened e.g. to the newspaper industry and the taxi industry. 

 

But it is very hard to predict when change will reach the industry one works in. Even harder to take the action to be the leader, the risk taker, the pioneer to transform an industry. It takes a lot of guts to be such a leader, and not only risk and gamble ones enterprise, but change the direction of the whole industry. For the few who have done it, it has been an exhilarating journey and truly transformational – on any level.

If you want to learn more about digital disruption – then join my colleagues Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, Ray Wang, many more and me for a fast paced, informational and fun sprinkled half day in San Francisco on May 4th. Seats are filling fast - but there is room to bring a colleague. 

 

Looking forward to see you there!

RSVP here. For more Digital Disruption Tour events – check here.

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

 

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

Cost increases due to currency will accelerate asset based services in Europe and Australia

Founder, capioIT
calitolIT

Phil is the founder of capioIT, a research analyst firm focussed on driving change in the analyst and research market through innovation and collaboration, with a strong focus on IT services and BPO strategies in the Asia/Pacific region. He has 17 years' experience in corporate strategy, consulting and market intelligence, gained in a diverse range of organisations and industries. Prior to founding capioIT, he established the Australian and Services business units at Springboard Research. Prior to Springboard Research, Phil was responsible for driving analyst firm IDC's research in the services marketplace across the Asia/Pacific region. During his 6 years at IDC, Phil led a large multi-national team of analysts across a range of IT related services with a particular focus on IT…...

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The shift towards asset based services, IP, or automation has finally accelerated. This has been a long time coming, and the slow pace of change has been an ongoing frustration for capioIT. Many SI and services organisations have finally begun to apply the required innovation and change in business process that clients have been demanding for way too long. That is, services configured at speed with prime cost considerations. Virtually every acquisition by a services organisation now is expected to provide the scalability and “hustle” on offer for asset services.

Concurrently one of the major shifts in the broader global economic viewpoint has been the relative readjustment of currencies, in particular the return of the US dollar. Against the US dollar, the Euro has fallen approximately 30% in the last 12 months, and the Australian dollar, by 20%. This clearly has had a major impact on everything from fuel prices, to the price of a new iPhone. Clearly it has a material and significant impact on the economics of offshore service delivery (or any transaction priced in US dollars). The economic goal posts have shifted substantially.

At the same time, in certain key sectors of the technology services market, particularly around skills in analytics, cloud and mobility there are defined shortages of available skills increasing pricing and delivery model pressure.

For a range of reasons offshore services delivery is the current optimum model with most significant SI engagements having a majority of resources offshore or nearshore depending upon the geographic perspective and definition. Of course, Western Europe, and Australia has been one of the largest adopters of offshore outsourcing. When the Euro and Australian dollar was so high, In US$ terms there was limited incentive to focus on asset based and non-labour service delivery. A vendor could afford to simply throw more labour at the problem and not execute on improved process.

With the increased cost for service deliver, if offshore based vendors are to keep their margins (aside from the inevitable reduction in pure headcount) they need to focus on productivity and efficiency to drive successful customer outcomes. Clearly this is an increased acceleration of IP or asset based services. Finally economic factors will lead to an increase in automation, and faster outcomes to clients without having to rely on an old and increasingly broken model of headcount after headcount increase.

The final thought is that not every vendor will be able to make that shift. Whilst it is accelerating, just as there were laggards to offshore outsourcing, there will be many existing providers who either cannot make the shift, or like Fujitsu, CapGemini, EDS et al as offshore outsourcing accelerated,  have to spend significant capital to still fail to play catch up.

Capture Point

The acceleration towards asset based service delivery is starting to live up to the promise. This changes the economics of services delivery. Currency shifts are going to only accelerate this and change the service delivery landscape in markets such as Australia and Europe.

New C-Suite Chief Information Officer

Qlik Morphs Into A Platform Vendor

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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Does it scare you when a favorite, once-small vendor gets big and starts adding products and changing pricing structures? BI market disruptor Qlik is clearly going through such a maturation, but that doesn’t mean it has lost sight of its roots.

This week in Dallas at its annual partners’ conference, Qlik announced a number of new products:

• Qlik Sense Enterprise 2.0. Due in June, this is the first major upgrade of the self-service, data-visualization-oriented product the company introduced last year.
• Qlik Sense Cloud. Previously in beta, Qlik Sense Cloud was made generally available on Monday as a free way to share Qlik Sense Desktop analyses with up to five users. Later this year Qlik will add paid cloud service levels that will give you the ability to create analyses in the cloud and to share them with more than five users.
• Qlik Sense Charts. This cloud service lets you embed interactive charts – including the underlying data – into Web sites.
• Qlik DataMarket. This cloud-based resource will enable any Qlik customer (cloud or on-premises) to bring vetted third-party public data and syndicated data into analyses.

Qlik also announced the Qlik Analytics Platform, a developer platform, on which the growing portfolio will rest, but don’t think of all this as a sprawling BI suite. In fact, Qlik is becoming even less IT-centric, slowly evolving away from QlikView, the product that got it where it is today – 34,000 customers, millions of users, and $557 million in revenue last year.

The product of the future is Qlik Sense, which is more visual and self-service-capable than QlikView, with less scripting required. Think of the Qlik Analytics Platform as the development bridge between the two products and into cloud services. The platform bundles up the vendor’s QIX in-memory indexing engine (the underpinning of data-exploration within QlikView and Qlik Sense) along with data-mashup capabilities, APIs and a visualization toolkit to give developers a platform of their own.

Qlik customers can work in QlikView, Qlik Sense or the new Qlik Analytics Platform, but there’s no requirement to buy or use it all. Long-time customers tell me in only makes sense to move business users to Qlik Sense. Power users can keep doing their development, admin, and management work in QlikView, but that work will eventually transition to the Qlik Analytics Platform. There are multiple releases of QlikView still on the roadmap, so die-hards needn’t worry. But Qlik Sense is clearly the go-forward product.

One change introduced with Qlik Sense wasn’t entirely a hit, and that’s token-based licensing that can be allocated per-user or based on access time. Several customers here in Dallas said the approach can be confusing, making it hard to predict costs -- particularly in embedded and extranet scenarios where you can’t predict how many users you might have. Qlik says it has heard these complaints and intends to address them with new licensing options.

The move to a platform approach is absolutely necessary if Qlik and its customers are going to transition to Qlik Sense and, over the long haul, into more cloud deployment scenarios. Sometimes maturation brings growing pains, but Qlik is going about these changes methodically and customers I spoke to here are happy with what they describe as a clear and credible roadmap.

Qlik is evolving into a bigger, broader company, and the platform strategy is binging more connectivity and data-management options. The new products and services are aimed at providing options and flexibility, not creating the next legacy suite of the kind Qlik has been known to disrupt.

Data to Decisions Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer

First Take - Apple wants to change the Future of Work. Works with cloud apps vendors and Workato

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&nbsp;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.&nbsp; Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization &amp; Innovation&nbsp; 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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The way how, when, and what we work is a key research area for us at Constellation Research, that we call ‘Future of Work’ (FoW). As such we track the events in the industry that may affect the FoW – and one key player in the space are technology vendors, e.g. Apple given the pervasiveness of iOS powered devices in the enterprise and its popularity with today’s workers.

On the Apple earnings call on April 27th we heard a hidden ‘nugget’ of information in the prepared statement of Apple CFO Luca Maestri mentioned the following in its prepared statements: [14:30 into the conference call]

In fact we are seeing very high interest from companies, who want to transform how work gets down. […] In addition to IBM we are working closely with more than 2 dozen other leading software and solution providers, including Box, Docusign, Microstrategy, Revel and Servicemax – to bring a broad range of innovative mobile solutions to more customers on iPad.

In the past the problem with working across software portfolio has been integration of the different products that enterprises needed to integrate. If Chief Human Resource Officers are polled today what their largest problems are, software integration makes the Top 3 issues – all the time. And integration has not really been solved by the cloud, as integration between cloud based products can break the same way as it used to break on premise.

Integration tools have been traditionally built for IT workers and system integrators, not really empowering the business user to integrate solutions by themselves. Instead of that business users / owners had to wait for IT, consultants, vendors, system integrators being ready – or ready again – with their integration working. During the wait time business owners face funding costs and delays in getting best practices implemented for their enterprises.

So to who did Apple turn to solve this integration problem? Not to the traditional vendors in the space, but surprise, to a startup called Workato, located (no surprise) in Silicon Valley. Workato makes it easy and intuitive for a business end user to connect the relevant business applications they need – in a do it yourself (DIY) fashion.
 

Workato itself is a modern platform that has all the attributes of a next generation product, it uses the cloud, can elastically scale, uses a consumer grade UI and can be used on the go, in a mobile or tablet environment.

Implications for the Future of Work

• End user empowerment becomes real – even mobile. DIY style integration is becoming real with this partnership, and even more conveniently, on popular iOS devices - on the go if needed.
• Ease of Use wins the integration game. Business (end) users can now create the integrations they need and want to build.
• The Business owns the integration. Ownership of integration used to be fragmented between vendors, system integrators, IT and the business – now it is close to be in business hands only (granted with help of the vendor and a platform like Workato’ s).

 

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Data to Decisions Future of Work Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite ipaas Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Experience Officer

SAS Takes Next Step To Democratize Analytics

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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There aren’t enough data scientists and deep analytics experts to go around, as we all know, so the race has been on to make advanced analytics more accessible to the average business user. SAS on Monday announced its latest effort in this vein through tighter integration of its SAS Visual Analytics (SVA) and SAS Visual Statistics (SVS) products.

The product is among the announcements this week at the SAS Global Forum in Dallas, where I'm among the nearly 5,000 customers and influencers in attendance. The event kicked off Sunday night with CEO Jim Goodnight and executive VP and CMO Jim Davis spotlighting a range of products including SAS Customer Intelligence (aimed at marketing), SAS Visual Investigator (aimed at problems such as insurance fraud), and SAS Cyber Security, the company’s push into security due out this Fall.

The integrated SVA/SVS release is hugely important to SAS as it’s the company’s next-generation platform spanning business intelligence – with self-service data-exploration, visualization and reporting handled through SVA – as well as advanced analytics – with prediction, statistical analysis, and modeling methods addressed in SVS, which was introduced at last year’s Global Forum. These products are also SAS’s big data platform. The SAS LASR in-memory server behind SVA and SVS is capable of running on Hadoop or on a dedicated distributed cluster as well as on popular relational database platforms.

SAS is far from alone in trying to bring business users and deeper data experts together. IBM has blended Cognos BI and SPSS analytics capabilities through various software and services offerings in recent years, and in 2014 it introduced cloud-based Watson Analytics, a freemium service aimed at truly broad “any user” adoption. SAP’s latest attempt is the March release of SAP Predictive Analytics 2.0, which integrates the more business-user-oriented InfiniteInsight product SAP acquired along with KXEN in late 2013.

Many other vendors are pursuing business-user/data expert collaboration, coming at it from both BI backgrounds (like Qlik announcing its Qlik Analytics Platform this week) and from the advanced analytics world (with Alpine Data Labs offering a shared business user/expert analysis workflow). Look for Microsoft to up its game in this area, too, in the wake of its recent acquisition of Revolution Analytics. Microsoft already exposes the Azure Machine Learning Service through its broad Power BI cloud offering. You can expect more predictive and statistical services from Revolution to show up in Azure and Power BI.

All of these vendors are obviously going to make it as easy and cost-effective as possible for existing customers to take advantage of their latest products aimed at promoting business-user/data-scientist collaboration. But for customers who aren’t steeply invested in or otherwise committed to a single vendor, the question is, which product is the most user friendly, collaborative, capable and cost effective?    

Unfortunately, no one product is best by all these measures, and they target different user groups and deployment scenarios. The latest SVA/SVS release is entirely new, so it’s hard to difinitively say, based on an announcement, how it stacks up. My suspicion, based on earlier releases of SVA and SVS, is that it’s the most analytically capable among these products, but likely best suited to more data-analysis savvy users. Think business analyst rather than everyday business user.

I’m set to get a closer look at SVA/SVS here in Dallas and at some of the other products mentioned here in the weeks ahead, so watch for a deeper report on how business users and data scientists are coming together.

Data to Decisions Marketing Transformation Tech Optimization Chief Customer Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Digital Officer

Social Media May Not Be Helping Your Business

Partner, Sensei Marketing
Partner, Sensei Marketing

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

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Social media was heralded as the greatest thing to happen to brand marketing since, well, since ever. Consumer-generated advocacy and publicity, direct conversations with customers and advocates, and free advertising through YouTube and other social networking sites were supposed to turn garage-based businesses into mega-conglomerates and save businesses tens of thousands in marketing costs.

Yeah, right.

Social media has certainly revolutionized the manner in which brands engage their audiences; however, the windfall predicted for businesses has fallen short for most. Viral videos can’t be created on-demand; you can neither predict nor control online brand conversations, and social media marketing is most definitely not free.

Potential and existing customers, as well as influencers and advocates, are certainly more accessible to more businesses but is it easier to reach them? Is it more cost-effective? Does it drive more sales?

Social Media May Not Be Helping Your Business

Has social media helped businesses? This is the conversation that we’ve been having with clients lately. Here’s a glimpse into those conversations.

1. Has social media improved brand conversations or simply diluted them?

   Certainly we have more conversations with more people but is that a sign of success? Are they the right customers? Are they in the buying cycle? Are they the most profitable customers? When I look at my own and my customers’ experiences, I have to conclude that social media has definitely diluted conversations.Remember that we’re speaking about business value here. Our goal in marketing is not just to drive more leads but better, more convertible leads. Social media marketers who push their clients to actively engage customers in all the current and hottest social media networks are doing them a disservice. There is a strong chance that the brand and the conversation are being spread too thinly to be of value.

2. Is this direct access to customers online more cost effective?

   The more social networks a brand is engaged in the larger its social graph becomes; the larger the social graph becomes the less focused the conversation, which then requires more resources to filter and segment business value from noise.   There’s an indirect correlation between community building and business success; however, there are too few case studies that directly and accurately move this link from correlation to causation. So what is the investment being gambled? Until social media marketers get over themselves, and businesses start to integrate online conversations – and the tools and people that manage them – into customer life cycle management, the longer we’ll waste budget on social media experimentation.

3.  Has social media engagement improved customer insights?

   Social media marketers tout the virtues of crowdsourcing and big data, yet the value in the growing amount of online data is costly and difficult to mine. We may have created a monster that we just can’t control. Due in part to the limitations of big data analysis tools and software, the amount of unrelated consumer-generated data being produced and collected, and the number of sources for which this data is produced and collected from, data science models are unpredictable.Cloud and hardware storage firms continue to warn us that the amount of data being produced around the world is growing at an exponential rate – and that we must race to buy into storage devices and services. We’re spending too much time collecting data and too little time culling that data and its sources. The result? We’re not gaining significant increases in customer insights compared to pre-social media days.

4. Has social media marketing driven better marketing and business results than traditional marketing?

   If we’re being honest, comparing the amount of time and money many businesses spend experimenting on social media with a list of measurable and repeatable bottom-line results, will answer this question. But it requires honesty, not the typical spin that marketers and PR specialists put on the campaign results.

The fact is that while social media has opened up a new world of possibilities, many marketers are still chasing quick-fix, ego-driven campaigns.

Experimentation is to be expected with any new technology or medium in which businesses can engage consumers; however, we’re now at a point where we’ve had enough experimentation for some simple truths to be realized.

1. The biggest online community or social graph does not win.
2. Social media is not a magic bullet for small or large businesses. It will not guarantee success.
3. Social media cannot be run as a standalone initiative. It must be fully integrated into the overall operations of the business and linked to customer lifetime value.
4. Engaging “social media influencers” who have tens of thousands of followers does not guarantee long-term business value – or short term sales, for that matter.
5. Social media marketing is not free; the opposite is true in fact. The volume of people generating content across an unlimited number of networks through an ever-growing list of devices means that consumer insights and value driven from these channels are faulty, time-consuming, and costly.

 

Should We Stop Marketing In Social?

The obvious next question is: “Does this mean we should stop investing in social media marketing?” The answer is no.

Social media is not a panacea for marketers seeking to improve their business’s fortunes; however there is value there.

What’s required is an adjustment in how we look at the vastness of social media. Instead of spreading audience and conversations across every new online platform that emerges, consider focusing on just one or two that can be marketed – and managed – well.  Instead of relying on third party social networks to host (and own) your brand-consumer conversations, build stronger communities on owned-properties like your corporate blog or dedicated communities like the ones available from TicTalking Communities.

Build, own, and manage conversations with qualified prospects, customers, and advocates that can be more easily analyzed and converted to true business value.  It’s not rocket science. In fact, it’s just plain old marketing…you know, the kind we practiced before social media.

Sensei Debates

Has the value of social media marketing truly been realized by businesses today?

Sam Fiorella
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego

The post Social Media May Not Be Helping Your Business appeared first on Sensei Marketing.

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