| Constellation Research

First Take - NetSuite SuiteWorld - Zach Nelson Day #1 Keynote

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

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

We have the opportunity to attend NetSuite SuiteWorld conference in San Jose today. The conference is well attended with over 7000 attendees – up from 5000 a year ago – a great testament of NetSuite’s traction.

Here are my Top 3 takeaways from the keynote:

It’s about the Omnis – The challenges for enterprises are around the ‘omnis’ – referring to OmniChannel and (warning - newer term) Omni-Customer Experience. In the 2015 version of SuiteCommerce customers will be able to blend online and in store experiences, using a 360 degree profile and using a full featured POS. NetSuite has also made progress on the content management side announcing additional capabilities. And with the recent Bronto integrated acquisition NetSuite now has a good marketing automation capability.

The NetSuite Ecommerce Product Family

Microsoft partnership – Nelson unveiled a partnership with Microsoft, had a video message by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella for the audience – and it looks like for not all that has been done is the Active Directory integration of NetSuite into Azure Active Directory. But more exciting things to come are that NetSuite will use more Office365 integration but even more importantly NetSuite will move off Amazon AWS as its preferred cloud infrastructure platform for testing and developing (no word on production). See the press release here. And overall it is good to see how large the NetSuite partner ecosystem has grown.

Microsoft and NetSuite

Insights power the future – On many occasions Nelson talked about the importance of data, consumers and customers and how NetSuite has a lot of data available to provide more insights to its customers. Nelson stopped short of announcing DaaS (Data as a Service) and benchmarking products – but it seems clear that this is on the horizon for NetSuite.

NetSuite has a lot of aggregated data

MyPOV

A good start to SuiteWorld by Nelson, hitting all the key business trends and making clear that beyond ERP, NetSuite sees differentiation in powering commerce for its customers. Not a bad differentiation strategy.

The move to Azure will be one area to watch, as Azure gathers momentum on the IaaS side. It will be interesting how much of the PaaS side NetSuite will adopt. The good news is – Oracle RDBMS runs on Azure… And NetSuite customers use Office365 – so a tighter integration will be of great value for them.

It's early at SuiteWorld - so more to come in the next days - stay tuned - check my colleagues @rwang0 and @guycourtin tweets and more from the conference.

More about NetSuite

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

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here.

Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth Future of Work netsuite Microsoft SaaS PaaS IaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Operating Officer

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First Take - SapphireNow - Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

This morning SAP CEO Bill McDermott kicked off Sapphire in Orlando.

Here are my Top 3 takeaways:

HANA remains front and center – It was very clear from the selection of customer stories (Under Armour, ENI) that HANA remains at the center of the SAP value proposition – again at this Sapphire. Faster, more data, better insights are the value propositions of HANA, and we have heard them over and over. McDermott even referenced data compression capabilities.

McDermott opened Sapphire 2015

S/4HANA gets a roadmap tomorrow (!) – McDermott also referred to S/4HANA getting a roadmap tomorrow, pre-viewing what Bernd Leukert would communicate in his keynote tomorrow, on Wednesday. So a big tease, but the problem of having 3 keynotes in 3 days and McDermott said he didn’t want to spill the ‘beans’ – but then he did in regards of talking geographies and industries. We will know more in 24 hours.

Google's Schmidt talks about Google Docs and Google Cloud Platform

SAP attracts brands & partners – No matter where SAP is in re-inventing itself on HANA, S/4HANA, the HANA Cloud platform etc. – it manages to attract key brands to build on its platform or to partner with SAP. Today it was Under Armour (which has been used a few times already), but also partnerships with Facebook (!) and Google (around Google Docs and using Google Cloud Platform). But not only had I missed what SAP is partnering with Facebook about.

MyPOV

A good start for SAP’s Sapphire with a general preview of key things to happen. Never easy to kick off Sapphire and not give away too much – so a good start by McDermott. At some points it seemed to be all over the place though – of course simple came up often, outcomes were featured prominently, but I struggled to find the red threat at times (may have been the early start, too). Overall more of a light appetizer than substance – very much looking forward to the main course with Leukert tomorrow.

Tech Optimization Data to Decisions Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Innovation & Product-led Growth Future of Work Marketing Transformation SAP meta Google SaaS PaaS IaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service Marketing B2B B2C CX Customer Experience EX Employee Experience AI ML Generative AI Analytics Automation Growth eCommerce Social Customer Service Content Management Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

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Tale of the Tape: ReplyBuy vs. Twitter Buy

Russell Scibetti

Founding Editor, The Business of Sports
The Business of Sports

My name is Russell Scibetti and I have an extensive background in sports business, including CRM and database marketing, interactive and digital marketing, social media, corporate sponsorships and activation, and applied market research. From 2007 to 2014, I worked for Arizona State Athletics, Comcast-Spectacor (Philadelphia Flyers) and the New York Jets to manage and implement CRM, database marketing, market research and other technology-based sales and marketing initiatives. In 2014, I joined KORE Software as their VP of Product Strategy, where I am responsible for the strategic vision, planning and development of the KORE ProSports Ticketing, Sponsorship and Suites/Premium software products. I earned my MBA in Sports Business from the W.P. Carey…...

RBvTwitter It’s always exciting when new ways to buy and sell tickets emerge, both from the potential revenue impact they can have on properties to the ever-changing consumer experience. As these new sales and marketing channels appear, teams have to decide if they should spend their time and resources to pursue those options. When two fairly new options rise up around the same time, teams may have to choose between them.

So, I thought it would be fun to do a “Tale of the Tape” between the two most recent and buzz-generating sales options: ReplyBuy and Twitter’s Buy Button.

Round 1 – Reach: Twitter

twitterbuy

Teams already have hundreds of thousands (and sometimes millions) of followers on their official Twitter accounts. Meanwhile, ReplyBuy for most teams requires building a new audience audience of text message opt-ins from scratch. There’s no question that Twitter gives you the biggest audience in the shortest time.

Round 2 – Conversion: ReplyBuy

The immediate counter to the reach difference is the level of direct impact. With Twitter, a large percentage of the audience is non-local and therefore unlikely to buy. Additionally, it’s dependent on the team’s followers choice to look at their Twitter feed when the ticket buying messages are available, which may or may not happen. However, with a text message from ReplyBuy, you are essentially guaranteed to have your message received and engaged with by those that have opted-in.

Round 3 – Immediacy: ReplyBuy

ReplyBuy has the shortest and most direct path from message to sale by transacting through a simple text message reply. Twitter is still dependent on the message first being seen in a fan’s feed and then completing a traditional e-commerce style purchase.

Round 4 – Flexibility: Twitter

The flipside to the immediacy of ReplyBuy is the flexibility of Twitter. Their Buy button could theoretically be used for any type of ticket sale, from exclusive pre-sales to last-minute released seats (not to mention merchandise or other items). ReplyBuy is very specific in its focus on last-minute ticket purchases.

Round 5 – Adoption: ReplyBuy

Sports teams tend to wait and see what other teams have success with before jumping in. While Twitter itself has universal adoption, the use of the Buy button has only been leveraged by a couple of teams to date. Meanwhile ReplyBuy has seen a real spike in adoption and press coverage over the past couple of months. (Update: I learned that Twitter’s Buy option is not universally available yet, so that definitely has an effect.)

Round 6 – Brand Fit: ReplyBuy

Even though executives love to talk about how to monetize social, there still seems to be a general resistance to direct sales messages vs. the long-term goal of fan engagement (side note: these things to me do NOT need to conflicting concepts, but that’s an article for another time). As a result, I think there is more comfort in the use of ReplyBuy since the fans are specifically opting in for a sales message.

Round 7 – Compliance: Twitter

Text messaging can be a dangerous place when it comes to legal compliance and teams have been burned by lawsuits in the past. I’m sure ReplyBuy as a third-party provider is following all the appropriate rules and regulations, but I could see some teams deciding the risk isn’t worth the return. Twitter has no such legal concerns, at least as of now.

Round 8 – Long Term Revenue: Twitter

I’m hypothesizing here a bit since neither of these have “long-term” anything right now, but when you consider the reach and flexibility of Twitter, I feel it will provide more revenue generating opportunities to more audiences than ReplyBuy. Simply, would you rather spend time figuring out how to sell multiple products to an existing, large audience or sell a small subset of tickets to a new, smaller audience.

So after eight intense rounds (well, at least as intense as Mayweather/Pacquiao), we have a dead heat! What does that mean for teams? To me, if your needs are tied to short-term, single game sales, jump in to ReplyBuy now and keep an eye on what people start doing with Twitter Buy over the next few months as they extend past their current beta phase.

Matrix Commerce Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

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Microsoft SQL Server 2016: First Take

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,…...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Monday announced the next major release of the company’s flagship database management system, Microsoft SQL Server 2016. It's a significant milestone for a product has grown into a $5-billion-per-year business for Microsoft, second only to Oracle Database in revenue.

Introduced at this week’s Ignite Conference in Chicago, the new database will be released as a public preview this summer. As the name suggests, Microsoft SQL Server 2016 won’t see general availability until next year, but Microsoft offered plenty of feature tidbits to stoke anticipation. Here are a few highlights:

Stretch Database: A tie to the Microsoft Azure that lets you push warm database data or cold data into the cloud. Think cloud- or mobile-integrated apps with warm data or archiving of cold data.

In-memory enhancements: Last year Microsoft introduced in-memory OLTP for transactional application performance improvements. SQL Server 2016 will deliver in-memory analytics.

In-database analytics: The headline here is R integration, which certainly isn’t new in the industry. But given Microsoft’s recent Revolution Analytics acquisition, the company could do give Oracle and Teradata stiffer in-database analytics competition.

Always Encrypted. This feature will please the security crowd, as it will protect data at rest and in motion.

Diving deeper, the Stretch Database feature is about supporting hybrid scenarios. For example, as transactional tables grow in size, Stretch gives you a way to archive historical (cold) data. This reduced the size and cost of the core database deployment while maintaining fast performance. In a different hybrid scenario, operational (warm) data could be “stretched” to Azure to bring fresh data to a cloud- and/or mobile-integrated app.

In-Memory Analytics

Oracle promises both analytical and transactional performance gains through the Oracle In-Memory Database option introduced last year. Microsoft introduced in-memory analytics with its in-memory columnstore with SQL Server 2012?. If focused purely on transaction processing gains with its In-Memory OLTP option for SQL Server 2014. With SQL Server 2016, Microsoft says in-memory columnstore enhancements will deliver up to 100X faster query performance for “real-time” operational analytics by running on data that is already benefitting from in-memory OLTP. This is a step up on the analytical side where Microsoft needed to show more in-memory performance improvement.

This in-memory option will become even more important when it’s made available as part of the Azure SQL Data Warehouse service announced last week at Microsoft’s Build Conference (see Holger Mueller’s complete coverage). This Azure cloud-based version of Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, due as a preview in June, will compete with Amazon Redshift and other followers in that category including IBM DashDB and HP Vertica OnDemand. All are columnar databases that can take advantage of memory, but I suspect Microsoft’s in-memory option could give it better memory capacity and control.

Of course, SAP has been touting both transactional and analytic performance benefits for years because its Hana platform is entirely in memory. The Oracle and Microsoft features are just that – add-ons to conventional databases that rely mostly on disk-based storage. The upside with this approach is that existing applications don’t have to be rebuilt to run on the new database. To take advantage of the in-memory feature (which is an extra-cost option on Oracle versus a build-in feature of Microsoft SQL Server), you use administrative features to place selected indexes in memory or to query against in-memory columns.

Built-in Advanced Analytics

For years now, data scientists have been pushing advanced analytic workloads into databases because they offer much more processing horsepower than dedicated analytic servers. What’s more, you save time because you don’t have to move data to a separate server for computation and then move result sets back to a data warehouse. The idea is to bring the analytics to the data instead of the other way around.

So in-database analysis is nothing new, but given that Microsoft now owns Revolution Analytics, it only makes sense to make the most of this vendor’s curated portfolio of R-language-based analytics into SQL Server. Revolution has had an in-database alliance in place with Teradata since 2013, and Microsoft says that's not going away in the wake of the acquisition.

Microsoft will also build the Hadoop-access-tool PolyBase into SQL Server 2016, so you’ll be able to access unstructured data from Hadoop as well structured data within the database using T-SQL skills. Teradata and Oracle also offer Hadoop-data-access options, so we’ll need to see more details on the advantages of having PolyBase built into the database to understand just how it stands out.

First Take: Evolutionary, Not Revolutionary

All of these moves make sense, but they’re not industry firsts. Teradata has had the ability to move hot and cold data to speed- and cost-appropriate storage options for years. The novel twist with Stretch is that it’s moving data into the cloud. If it’s easy, or better still, automated, it could power novel hybrid apps, performance gains and real database license savings. We’ll see if Oracle tries to match a feature that could diminish database revenue.

The in-memory and in-database analytics features and Hadoop data access promised in SQL Server 2016 look like they’ll deliver state-of-the-industry rather than state-of-the-art capabilities. But these aren’t the only new features in store for the new database. Microsoft is also promising row-level security and dynamic data masking, native JSON support, faster backups, high-availability improvements and more. I’ll reserve final judgement until Microsoft takes the wraps off the preview release later this summer.

Media Name: Microsoft SQL Server 2016 In-Memory OLTP.jpg

Data to Decisions Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer

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Event Report - Microsoft Build - Microsoft really wants to make developers' lives easy

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

We had the opportunity to attend Microsoft’s Build conference in San Francisco. The conference is targeted at developers and development managers using Microsoft tools and technology stack. As traditional the conference sold out quickly and was as well attended as last year. Comparing it with other events held at Moscone (West), we can say that Microsoft attracts probably the biggest developer audience, especially considering international aspects…. In less than half a day I could hear all 5 other languages I speak on many occasions. But San Francisco was just the kickoff to an impressive 25 city world tour.

The leitmotiv of the conference was all about developer enablement on innovative platforms. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella went all the way back invoking the first Microsoft product – Basic – to exemplify that making developers productive is in the Microsoft DNA. But developers only build on platforms that are popular and that can monetize their work. So Nadella shared that Microsoft wants to see 1B Windows 10 devices 3-4 years after the launch.

Microsoft announced a ton of really interesting things, so very tough to select the Top 3 – but here you go:

Azure becomes the intelligence cloud – Microsoft has built out Azure to 19 regions, Guthrie said that over 1M servers now make up Azure and Microsoft will keep investing billions into the platform. Almost no surprise – Docker runs on Azure now – demonstrated by Russinovich. ‘salvaging’ a .Net application running in Docker on a Windows machine. And the same runs on Docker on Linux. So the formerly exclusive to Windows .Net runs now on Linux and Mac (preview for now). The benefit for developers is that they don’t need to rewrite .Net apps, of who often code and details are no longer as present. Instead of that Microsoft wants them to build new applications. For instance using the new Azure App Service, an improved SQL Server and more.

Azure stats shared at Build 2013-2015

SQL Server (or is it Azure DB?) grows up – Good to see Microsoft not forgetting that most enterprise applications need a RDBMS at some point, and Microsoft keeps investing into SQL Server. Guthrie shared that SQL Server DBs are created (and taken down) at a rate of 160k DB a day. Among many innovations the SQL Server elastic pool was the most exciting enhancement from my perspective. Azure uses an elastic data base pool, Microsoft said it uses machine learning to create a resource pool to pick the right resources, a huge de-mystification of the resource pool creation. Sizing is no longer a critical design step, but Azure will size database up and down. That elasticity is key for cost savings and performance and makes the capability critical for next generation applications. Elastic Database query across databases in the resource pool is shipping as a beta in a few weeks from now.

The Azure Data Lake

On the BI / Analytics side Microsoft announced SQL Data Warehouse, creating the foundation for more advanced analytical services. SQL Datawarehouse can scale up and down dynamically, and it is easy to integrate all sorts of data (Guthrie mentioned SAP and Dynamics). Valuable code creating insights gleaned from machine learning can be wrapped as an API and made available via the Azure App Service. And Microsoft is certain that SQL Data Warehouse is more elastic than its major competitor, AWS Redshift.

All Azure Analyic Services

And of course no conference without IoT – the coolest example was the NFL. Microsoft also announced the Azure Data Lake service, a feature rich version 1 to create the base for IoT projects. It exposes data via HDFS, opening itself to standard Hadoop jobs. It also supports Hadoop clusters built with Cloudera, Hortonworks and Pivotal.

The Windows Universal App

Windows 10 makes Windows different – Nadella was clearly proud of the latest version of Windows, which also is now becoming one single platform, updated and run as a service with a unified access and delivery to platform features and code constructs build on top of Windows 10. The appeal to developers per Myerson was to make Windows 10 the most innovative platform to build applications on, mentioning Cortana intelligent voice recognition service, and e.g. the new Hololens experience. And the Universal Windows App that delivers the same binary across all the different Windows powered devices. Microsoft has thought this through, as it announced carrier billing, already integrated with 90 carriers. Enterprises will appreciate the creation of a Windows Store for Business. And Microsoft thinks that 3-4 years after the launch of Windows 10 there will be more than 1 B Windows 10 devices out there – eclipsing both the Apple (iOS) and Google (Android) ecosystems as Microsoft shared its ambitions. Microsoft created 4 new types of Windows applications: The first being web sites, with the capability to re-use existing code. And Win32 and .Net code will run on Windows 10 too. The coup is that Android applications can also run on Windows 10, using (my guess) and Android player, but also Java and C++ applications. And finally ObjectiveC applications can run (re-compiled) on Windows 10, too.

The 4 Applications that will power Microsoft to 1B Windows 10 devices

Analyst Tidbits

Office goes standard to become a platform – Office gets easier to integrate and to add integrations, as Microsoft exposes unified APIs to Office, including group and security access. The Me-token is a powerful concept to get data out of Office in an easy way. My guess is that Microsoft is opening up APIs it has built for the Office Graph (aka Delve, aka Oslo). . It was a positive surprise that the Graph can now be extended by 3rd parties, one of them being Skype.

An improved Windows Store for Business

Windows 10 - it is Windows but it is different – The Start menu is back, tiles are becoming livelier, translucency from Windows 7 is back and more features are showing that Microsoft is working hard to undo errors from the past. Dynamic app aging is a nice feature, lock screens become more personal. And Microsoft re-uses what works, Bing quality like pictures come to the Windows lock screen, with personalization. Continuum is a powerful new technology that allows to extend e.g. Windows Phone to HDMI connected displays. Thanks to the Windows Universal App technology, the same functionality as on a PC is available on the display, but only powered by the phone. The goal as Belfiore shared is that any display can become as powerful as a PC, but powered by a phone.

The Start Menu is back

Project Spartan becomes Edge – It was the honor to Belfiore to share the official name of the new browser in Windows10, now called Edge (bye bye Explorer). It is pretty cool that Microsoft writes Edge as a Universal Windows App – talking about drinking your own champagne. Belfiore shared that Explorer is being currently opened more than one billion times a day. And again along the lines of re-using other platforms code, Edge can leverage web extensions, e.g. Chrome extension, with only ‘minimal’ modifications.

The Edge differntiators

Hololens changes the way we work – Mixing digital content into the real world is a very powerful concept, and the demos were convincing. The biggest advantage I thought is that every application in side of Windows can be pinned somewhere in the visual perimeter of a user. And yes – there is a holographic start menu. Read more on the Hololens in this separate blog post.

The Hololens demo

MyPOV

The Microsoft strategy to remain relevant and maybe win in the fight of the platform of the future is becoming clear, it is built on three pillars:

Openness – Microsoft knows that it has for now lost the mobile race. It wants to attract developers by making it easy to bring non Microsoft code to the new Microsoft platforms, e.g. iOS and Android applications, Java code etc.

Value creation – Microsoft wants to make it easy to re-use code and the Windows Universal Platform is the tool for it – build your code once, port it once and deploy it on any Windows device. Platform capabilities like the ones added to Azure, like Edge, like Continuum, like Hololens allow for platform differentiation that is intended to attract more developers and customers.

Investment protection – There are platform changes ahead for Microsoft, but the vendor has understood well that it will be more successful when it can free as much developer’s capacity to build new applications on the new platforms. So not forcing existing Windows developers to go back to re-build applications is key and hence .Net applications keep running not just on Windows but other platforms, too. Nothing allows developers more to build new applications than giving them the most valuable resource of our age, time to build new things.

Overall good progress by Microsoft and a good mix between organic platform innovation and growth, as well as a more aggressive stance towards competitors in order to win over developers. But Microsoft knows that ultimately money rules and needs to attract a larger platform that attracts developers through better monetization. But Microsoft has been playing catch up mode for most of the platform capabilities. It is only now catching up, but has created differentiators that are systemic, and allow for an optimistic outlook on Microsoft's future. The absence of a PaaS message and product is remarkable though.

Finally the ambition to 1B devices is a lofty one, we will all be there to see if Microsoft will be reaching that goal 3-4 years from today.

More about Microsoft:

First Hand with Microsoft Hololens - read here
Event Report - Microsoft TechEd - Top 3 Enterprise takeaways - read here
First Take - Microsoft discovers data ambience and delivers an organic approach to in memory database - read here
Event Report - Microsoft Build - Azure grows and blossoms - enough for enterprises (yet)? Read here.
Event Report - Microsoft Build Day 1 Keynote - Top Enterprise Takeaways - read here.
Microsoft gets even more serious about devices - acquire Nokia - read here.
Microsoft does not need one new CEO - but six - read here.
Microsoft makes the cloud a platform play - Or: Azure and her 7 friends - read here.
How the Cloud can make the unlikeliest bedfellows - read here.
How hard is multi-channel CRM in 2013? - Read here.
How hard is it to install Office 365? Or: The harsh reality of customer support - read here.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here.

And finally some of the key tweets from the conference:

New C-Suite Tech Optimization Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Data to Decisions Future of Work Innovation & Product-led Growth Next-Generation Customer Experience Microsoft developer PaaS SaaS IaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Executive Officer

Read more about Event Report - Microsoft Build - Microsoft really wants to make developers' lives easy

Event Report - Microsoft Build - Microsoft really wants to make developers life easy

Azure stats shared at Build 2013-2015

The Azure Data Lake

All Azure Analyic Services

The Windows Universal App

The 4 Applications that will power Microsoft to 1B Windows 10 devices

Analyst Tidbits

Office goes standard to become a platform – Office gets easier to integrate and to add integrations, as Microsoft exposes unified APIs to Office, including group and security access. The Me-token is a powerful concept to get data out of Office in an easy way. My guess is that Microsoft is opening up APIs it has built for the Office Graph (aka Delve, aka Oslo). . It was a positive surprise that the Graph can now be extended by 3rd parties, one of them being Skype.

An improved Windows Store for Business

Windows 10 - it is Windows but it is different – The Start menu is back, tiles are becoming livelier, translucency from Windows 7 is back and more features are showing that Microsoft is working hard to undo errors from the past. Dynamic app aging is a nice feature, lock screens become more personal. And Microsoft re-uses what works, Bing quality like pictures come to the Windows lock screen, with personalization. Continuum is a powerful new technology that allows to extend e.g. Windows Phone to HDMI connected displays. Thanks to the Windows Universal App technology, the same functionality as on a PC is available on the display, but only powered by the phone. The goal as Belfiore shared is that any display can become as powerful as a PC, but powered by a phone.

The Start Menu is back!

Project Spartan becomes Edge – It was the honor to Belfiore to share the official name of the new browser in Windows10, now called Edge (bye bye Explorer). It is pretty cool that Microsoft writes Edge as a Universal Windows App – talking about drinking your own champagne. Belfiore shared that Explorer is being currently opened more than one billion times a day. And again along the lines of re-using other platforms code, Edge can leverage web extensions, e.g. Chrome extension, with only ‘minimal’ modifications.

The Edge differntiators

Hololens changes the way we work – Mixing digital content into the real world is a very powerful concept, and the demos were convincing. The biggest advantage I thought is that every application in side of Windows can be pinned somewhere in the visual perimeter of a user. And yes – there is a holographic start menu. Read more on the Hololens in this separate blog post.

The Hololens demo

MyPOV

Finally the ambition to 1B devices is a lofty one, we will all be there to see if Microsoft will be reaching that goal 3-4 years from today.

More about Microsoft:

First Hand with Microsoft Hololens - read here
Event Report - Microsoft TechEd - Top 3 Enterprise takeaways - read here
First Take - Microsoft discovers data ambience and delivers an organic approach to in memory database - read here
Event Report - Microsoft Build - Azure grows and blossoms - enough for enterprises (yet)? Read here.
Event Report - Microsoft Build Day 1 Keynote - Top Enterprise Takeaways - read here.
Microsoft gets even more serious about devices - acquire Nokia - read here.
Microsoft does not need one new CEO - but six - read here.
Microsoft makes the cloud a platform play - Or: Azure and her 7 friends - read here.
How the Cloud can make the unlikeliest bedfellows - read here.
How hard is multi-channel CRM in 2013? - Read here.
How hard is it to install Office 365? Or: The harsh reality of customer support - read here.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here.

Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer

Read more about Event Report - Microsoft Build - Microsoft really wants to make developers life easy

Microsoft really wants to make developers' lives easy

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Azure stats shared at Build 2013-2015

The Azure Data Lake

All Azure Analyic Services

The Windows Universal App

The 4 Applications that will power Microsoft to 1B Windows 10 devices

Analyst Tidbits

Office goes standard to become a platform – Office gets easier to integrate and to add integrations, as Microsoft exposes unified APIs to Office, including group and security access. The Me-token is a powerful concept to get data out of Office in an easy way. My guess is that Microsoft is opening up APIs it has built for the Office Graph (aka Delve, aka Oslo). . It was a positive surprise that the Graph can now be extended by 3rd parties, one of them being Skype.

An improved Windows Store for Business

Windows 10 - it is Windows but it is different – The Start menu is back, tiles are becoming livelier, translucency from Windows 7 is back and more features are showing that Microsoft is working hard to undo errors from the past. Dynamic app aging is a nice feature, lock screens become more personal. And Microsoft re-uses what works, Bing quality like pictures come to the Windows lock screen, with personalization. Continuum is a powerful new technology that allows to extend e.g. Windows Phone to HDMI connected displays. Thanks to the Windows Universal App technology, the same functionality as on a PC is available on the display, but only powered by the phone. The goal as Belfiore shared is that any display can become as powerful as a PC, but powered by a phone.

The Start Menu is back!

Project Spartan becomes Edge – It was the honor to Belfiore to share the official name of the new browser in Windows10, now called Edge (bye bye Explorer). It is pretty cool that Microsoft writes Edge as a Universal Windows App – talking about drinking your own champagne. Belfiore shared that Explorer is being currently opened more than one billion times a day. And again along the lines of re-using other platforms code, Edge can leverage web extensions, e.g. Chrome extension, with only ‘minimal’ modifications.

The Edge differntiators

Hololens changes the way we work – Mixing digital content into the real world is a very powerful concept, and the demos were convincing. The biggest advantage I thought is that every application in side of Windows can be pinned somewhere in the visual perimeter of a user. And yes – there is a holographic start menu. Read more on the Hololens in this separate blog post.

The Hololens demo

MyPOV

Finally the ambition to 1B devices is a lofty one, we will all be there to see if Microsoft will be reaching that goal 3-4 years from today.

More about Microsoft:

First Hand with Microsoft Hololens - read here
Event Report - Microsoft TechEd - Top 3 Enterprise takeaways - read here
First Take - Microsoft discovers data ambience and delivers an organic approach to in memory database - read here
Event Report - Microsoft Build - Azure grows and blossoms - enough for enterprises (yet)? Read here.
Event Report - Microsoft Build Day 1 Keynote - Top Enterprise Takeaways - read here.
Microsoft gets even more serious about devices - acquire Nokia - read here.
Microsoft does not need one new CEO - but six - read here.
Microsoft makes the cloud a platform play - Or: Azure and her 7 friends - read here.
How the Cloud can make the unlikeliest bedfellows - read here.
How hard is multi-channel CRM in 2013? - Read here.
How hard is it to install Office 365? Or: The harsh reality of customer support - read here.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here.

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Customer Loyalty Does Not Equal Customer Advocacy

Partner, Sensei Marketing
Partner, Sensei Marketing

Sales & 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.     ...

“We have very loyal customers; we don’t need a customer advocacy campaign.” I’ve been in a senior sales and/or marketing position for more than 20 years and the one constant mistake I still see and hear is a lack of understanding in the difference between customer loyalty and customer advocacy.

Making the distinction is not difficult.

Customer loyalty is earned through consistently positive experiences with the brand’s product, customer service, value for price, etc. The net result is that customers are more likely to look to you first when in need of additional products and/or services, which increases the likelihood that they’ll purchase again.
Customer advocacy is an action taken by existing loyal customers to promote a business or product to their colleagues and, more importantly, to encourage those colleagues to purchase as well.

The key differentiation here is that strong customer loyalty will certainly increase repeat purchases from those customers but it does not guarantee an increase in qualified leads in the sales funnel.

We’ve often heard the platitude: “It costs five times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing customer.” This is a long-held belief by business executives and as a result, much effort is placed into keeping customers happy and loyal, and rightly so. But is it being done for the right reasons?

Customer Retention Isn’t Less Costly Than Customer Acquisition

The Ipsos Loyalty group has debunked the theory that customer retention is less costly than customer acquisition.

For this rule to be true, we must assume that existing customers will: (a) increase their level of spending at an increasing rate; (b) purchase at full-margin rather than discounted prices; and (3) create operating efficiencies for the business. Their studies have proved these not to be universal truths.

Further, the assumption that the advertising costs to earn a new customer are greater than those to keep existing customers happy is not accurate. The problem is that advertising isn’t just about acquiring new customers anymore. Digital and social media marketing may have changed that forever; advertising and marketing is no longer just about lead acquisition, it’s about community building, online customer service, brand reputation management, etc. The marketing costs that are most often allocated to customer acquisition are, in reality, used to manage and encourage existing customers.

Customer Loyalty Does Not Equal Customer Advocacy

This blending of customer loyalty and customer acquisition further highlights the need to separate customer loyalty from customer advocacy campaigns but also to understand how they’re linked.

Customer advocacy is the next stage in the customer lifecycle and one that too few businesses invest in. Loyal customers may be less swayed by competitive offers and may be less likely to abandon their brand-love when small customer service issues arise.However, that does not mean they will actively promote your business in order to improve the quality of your sales funnel.

Customer loyalty can be earned by providing consistently positive customer experiences but for advocacy to thrive, the business must invest in what is best for the customer. Often this means that the corporate culture must change in order to change the customers’ view of their relationship with the brand. Customers must no longer see and think “value for price” or “good customer experience” when they engage with the brand, they must feel that their patronage of your business is improving their lives and that the relationship forged with your business is a personal choice, not one of necessity.

Exceeding Customer Expectations

For brands with lower marketing budgets, a simple way of achieving customer advocacy is to understand that customer loyalty can be earned by meeting the customer’s expectations, whereas customer advocacy is earned by exceeding them. What would it take to exceed those expectations? What campaigns and budgets are in place to understand what that really means to the customer? What efforts are being exerted to exceed those expectations once identified? How are they being measured?

Referencing the Ipsos Loyalty study, we understand that that customer retention, while important, is not a business maker in and of itself. It is, however, the best investment toward filling the new customer pipeline with more qualified and more convertible leads. Countless studies have proven that prospects referred by customers from a business with a high NPS or Net Promoter Score (those where the majority of existing customers rate their likelihood to recommend the business 9 or 10 out of 10), are more profitable and generate a higher lifetime value.

Achieving a high NPS requires an investment in converting loyal customers to advocates and that means ensuring your marketing team understands the difference. Keeping customers happy and loyal is a good strategy, but not because they’re cheaper to keep than new customers are to acquire. Loyal customers must be managed along the customer lifecycle to the point of advocacy, at which point they ARE your new customer acquisition campaign.

Sensei Debates

Do customer loyalty and customer advocacy require independent campaigns and budgets?

Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Sam Fiorella
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego

Next-Generation Customer Experience B2C CX Chief Customer Officer

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Book Summary: Lesson 1 From Disrupting Digital Business

R "Ray" Wang

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

R “Ray” Wang is the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and blogs at www.raywang.org. His ground-breaking best-selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray's new book about Digital Giants and the future of business, titled, Everybody Wants to Rule The World was released in July 2021. Wang is well-quoted and frequently interviewed by media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, and Bloomberg. Short Bio R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He…...

Kicking Off The Lessons Learned From Disrupting Digital Business

As with the beginning of every revolution, those in the midst of it can feel it, sense it, and realize that something big is happening. Yet it’s hard to quantify the shift. The data isn’t clear. It’s hard to measure. Pace of change is accelerating. Old rules seem not to apply.

Sometimes when you are in the thick of it, it’s hard to describe what’s happening. In the case of digital business, these models have progressed over the past 20 years. However, non-traditional competitors have each exploited a few patterns with massive success. However, as the models evolved, winners realize there are more than a handful of patterns.

However, the impact is significant and now quantifiable with 52% of the Fortune 500 gone since 2000 and the average age of the S&P 500 company down from 60 years to a little more than 12 since 1960. That is a 500% compression that has changed the market landscape forever in almost every industry.

Over the course of the next 10 weeks, I’ll be sharing one lesson per week. For traditional businesses to succeed, they will have to apply all 10 lessons from Disrupting Digital Business in order to not only survive, but also relearn how to thrive.

Start By Transforming Business Models And How We Engage

Digital disruption is more than just a technology shift. It’s about transforming business models and how we engage. To succeed, we can’t just look at the latest cool set of technologies of the day. We have to think bolder about transforming business models. This means understanding the one or two key metrics that a business must measure to ensure their success.

For airlines, the key metric is revenue per passenger per kilometer not safety, customer satisfaction, nor on-time performance. For professional services firms, the key metric is profit per employee, not average deal sizes nor certified professionals.

This shift to understanding the business model is the heart of digital transformation. However, success requires leaders to move beyond incremental innovation, which is what organizations normally do to push the next set of product improvements. Transformational business models require out of the box thinking and the creative destruction of multiple business models. I often use the iPhone as an example of a device that destroyed 27 business models. These are industries that will never recover from $400 digital camera makers, one-hour photo development, record stores, book stores, navigation GPS devices, thermometer manufacturers, watches, and yes, even the flashlight.

Homework

So, your homework for this lesson is to think about your core business model. What metrics matter the most? Once you’ve spent time prioritizing the one or two metrics that matter, focus on transformational innovation. Keep in mind, the goal is to sketch out transformational business models and then find the supporting technologies. Technology for technology’s sake is just plain stupid. Now go off and take the time to think. We’ll catch you next week!

The Complete 10 Lessons Learned From Disrupting Digital Business

For those attending the full keynotes and book tours, you’ll get the complete session and, in many cases, a signed copy of the book. For those following virtually, I’ve provided the slimmed down slide share deck for your use.

You now have the 10 lessons learned to disrupt digital business in your hands. You can take this information and change the world in front of you or choose to sit on the knowledge as the world passes you by and digital Darwinism consumes your organization.

I trust you will do the right thing. And when you want some company, come join us as a client at Constellation Research where we’re not afraid of the future and the art of the possible.

Get The Book Now Before Digital Darwinism Impacts You

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Your POV.

Are you ready to disrupt digital business? Have you ordered the book?

Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

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

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The post Book Summary: Lesson 1 From Disrupting Digital Business appeared first on A Software Insider's Point of View.

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 SoftwareInsider AI ML Machine Learning Generative AI Analytics Automation B2B B2C CX EX Employee Experience business Marketing SaaS PaaS Growth Cloud Digital Transformation eCommerce Enterprise Software CRM ERP Leadership Social Customer Service Content Management Collaboration LLMs Agentic AI HR HCM IaaS Supply Chain Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain finance M&A Enterprise Service Metaverse developer Quantum Computing Healthcare VR CCaaS UCaaS Robotics 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 Revenue Officer Chief Experience Officer

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SAP S/4HANA Qualities by Plattner - play by play

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to attend SAP’s S/4HANA launch in New York. It is always a privilege to be part of a new product launch and see how much thought, time and energy vendors put into their next generation of products.

It reminded me of Larry Ellison launching the Fusion effort at Oracle (I think 2004) – and he was radical in its commitment to standard back then – e.g. admitting and calling venerable Oracle PL/SQL proprietary, not the future of enterprise software and that Oracle would commit to build Fusion on standards.

So equally kudos to Hasso Plattner to put down the thoughts and design principles for S/4HANA – even more in detail than Ellison did back with Fusion (at least as I recall).

The SAP Product Eveolution

So let’s look at SAP’s S/4HANA launch – the video recording is here and after a 10 minute intro by CEO Bill McDermott Plattner takes stage.

The #1 Rule Plattner put out was to have a DB with 0 response time – and what is possible to innovate business applications with that design paradigm. Of course this means in memory, columnar, combination of OLTP and OLAP aka analytics today etc. Plattner gives a short run up how SAP got to S/4HANA from via research at the HPI in Potsdam and so on.

But let’s jump in when Plattner walks us through the qualities – about 18 minutes in:

S/4HANA qualities as discussed in this blog

Built on HANA

MyPOV – Central to the S/4HANA DNA is HANA – with all the rationale on why SAP built HANA in the first place and the related benefits. But DNAs have strong and weak parts, and the weak part that concerns me is that the in memory nature of HANA will not allow SAP to address all business relevant data. SAP counters that with compression and falling memory prices it can is by itself rebutted by business relevant data growing faster than memory prices fall – so SAP needs to be careful not to be at the losing end of this trend.

New UI (with Fiori)

MyPOV – SAP has long time been criticized on the quality of its UI. While supporting power users well, it was never a great UI for casual users. Kudos to Plattner to admit that SAP was afraid to change the UI. But now Fiori provides a good new alternative and the project is the largest UI innovation SAP has done since ‘enjoy SAP’ – sometimes 15 years ago. Many questions remain but it’s a good start.

Guided Configuration

MyPOV – This is the more fundamental change than even HANA in my view. Business is accelerating and people in business need to move faster than ever before. And that will not change, so empowering business users to setup business applications is one of the strong points of S/4HANA. Kudos to Plattner again for admitting that SAP now has ‘what everybody else has’ – but I think Plattner is a little too tough on SAP here – as self-service setup (as I like to label it) is not (yet) pervasive in enterprise software.

Subscription

MyPOV – The right move no question, challenges for SAP’s traditional licensing model and revenue streams but that is another story.

1/10 of data footprint

MyPOV – SAP’s efforts and breakthroughs of reducing storage are impressive, but SAP risks at optimizing what was a cost and issue of the past – high memory costs. Memory costs are falling, SSD costs are falling even more and HDD cost is close to 0 cost. So the benefits of compression are commercially less and less relevant, but with SAP monopolizing HANA to run on the most expensive storage medium (RAM) it has to focus and optimize on this aspect more than its competitors. Providing subscription / SaaS it of course becomes even more relevant for SAP as it determines the TCO to operate S/4HANA. Again kudos for Plattner to raise that openly.

3-7 higher throughput

MyPOV – Performance is always good for business. So well done by SAP, nobody does not like speed and doing the same faster. It actually becomes a mandate in the 21st century.

Up to 1800x faster analytics

MyPOV – No question a columnar, in memory design beats tables on HDD aka spinning rost, but fair of course for SAP to raise the performance advantage. What SAP still needs to do and do more is how that performance advantage helps their customer run their business better. SAP had done good work on this, but still needs to do more to make the business case for HANA clear and tangible.

ERP, CRM, SRM, SCM, PLM in one system

MyPOV – Plattner stated because of compression all these former ‘satellite’ systems can now come together in S/4HANA. Kudos to share that 40% of the SAP install base IT load is data exchange between SAP ERP and SAP CRM. What Plattner does not mentions is, that it was an explicit design decision to separate these system at the time, in order not to disrupt customers. But certainly one single system is the right approach. SAPs needs to explain though if it means a single database system (something SAP has achieved as (almost) all SAP products run on HANA) or a single enterprise system (S4HANA?) which is a little more out.

No locking, parallelism for throughput

MyPOV – Definitively a strongpoint of HANA – the insert only paradigm has massive advantages and is a key design technique for modern next generation applications, good for S/4HANA to have it.

Actual data vs historical data

MyPOV – Plattner cites co-founder Wellenreuther as the one responsible for a schema separation efforts in the early SAP days between actual and historical data. SAP did the same for S/4HANA – seeing performance gains between 2x and 5x. Definitively a good design paradigm that has come over from the old enterprise world.

Unlimited workload capacity

MyPOV – By replicating between actual primary system and read only system(s), throughput goes up, a good design principle. What Plattner did not address is – what are the design / scale limitations of the primary (data entry) system. I am sure SAP has thought of that, but I don’t know the answer yet.

Predict, recommend, simulate

MyPOV – A new technology platform like HANA enables new ways of doing business like simulation, prediction of outcomes and recommendations. Again kudos to Plattner for openness and historic tidbit, that former CEO Kagermann (while being a development leader) tried to do simulation in the 90ies, but technology would not allow to do pull that off. In 2015 SAP needs to show more how predict, recommend and simulate enable next generation best practices.

HCP Extensions

MyPOV – Not sure why Plattner skipped over this – but a PaaS (HCP) is a key quality for a modern business application. Not only for hard core developers, but also for customers – ideally business users – who need to be able to change certain qualities of the system to adapt and differentiate the business process they need to run. No trivial feat to find the right mix between enablement and closure, but SAP with its vast experience of enterprise applications should be in a unique position to get this balance right. More to learn about this would be great.

HANA multi tenancy

MyPOV –Kudos for Plattner to share that multi-tenancy is not that crucial for SAP with ERP than it is for the smaller footprint network applications. With that Plattner shared that SAP maybe operating with 2 ‘to be’ tenancy paradigms which is good to hear from a pragmatic standpoint, but more complex to operate and engineer for.

All data, social, text, geo, graph, processing

MyPOV – A key aspect to raise that HANA can store and process all these data types for better insights, but if we e.g. pick social, we don’t see enterprises using HANA as their exclusive social data storage and processing platform. Back to the argument of cost of the storage medium.

Overall MyPOV

SAP deserves credit for building (finally) its next generation application and sharing qualities openly. My concerns remain on cost to operate, limitations on use cases given super large amounts of data e.g. in social, IoT, BigData in general cannot be held in memory, in HANA as the platform for S/4HANA.

SAP has done well on the roadmap side for Financials, but enterprises need much more than Financials (HCM, CRM, SCM etc.) and SAP owes customers, prospects and the ecosystem a roadmap how and when it will get to bring all these together with the S/4HANA qualities. Sapphire May 4-9th 2015 in Orlando will be the next stop to find out.

And more on overall SAP strategy and products:

First Take - SAP Cloud for Planning - the next spreadsheet killer is off to a good start - read here
Progress Report - SAP HCM makes progress and consolidates - a lot of moving parts - read here
First Take - SAP launches S/4HANA - The good, the challenge and the concern - read here
First Take - SAP's IoT strategy becomes clearer - read here
SAP appoints a CTO - some musings - read here
Event Report - SAP's SAPtd - (Finally) more talk on PaaS, good progress and aligning with IBM and Oracle - read here
News Analysis - SAP and IBM partner for cloud success - good news - read here
Market Move - SAP strikes again - this time it is Concur and the spend into spend management - read here
Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors picks up speed - but there remains work to be done - read here
First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Top 3 Takeaways Day 1 Keynote - read here.
Event Report - Sapphire - SAP finds its (unique) path to cloud - read here
What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire - read here
News Analysis - SAP becomes more about applications - again - read here
Market Move - SAP acquires Fieldglass - off to the contingent workforce - early move or reaction? Read here.
SAP's startup program keep rolling – read here.
Why SAP acquired KXEN? Getting serious about Analytics – read here.
SAP steamlines organization further – the Danes are leaving – read here.
Reading between the lines… SAP Q2 Earnings – cloudy with potential structural changes – read here.
SAP wants to be a technology company, really – read here
Why SAP acquired hybris software – read here.
SAP gets serious about the cloud – organizationally – read here.
Taking stock – what SAP answered and it didn’t answer this Sapphire [2013] – read here.
Act III & Final Day – A tale of two conference – Sapphire & SuiteWorld13 – read here.
The middle day – 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire – read here.
Why 3rd party maintenance is key to SAP’s and Oracle’s success – read here.
Why SAP acquired Camillion – read here.
Why SAP acquired SmartOps – read here.
Next in your mall – SAP and Oracle? Read here.

And more about SAP technology:

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

Tech Optimization Data to Decisions Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Innovation & Product-led Growth Future of Work Next-Generation Customer Experience SAP SaaS PaaS IaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Executive Officer

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Customer Loyalty Does Not Equal Customer Advocacy

Customer Retention Isn’t Less Costly Than Customer Acquisition

Customer Loyalty Does Not Equal Customer Advocacy

Exceeding Customer Expectations

Sensei Debates

Book Summary: Lesson 1 From Disrupting Digital Business

Kicking Off The Lessons Learned From Disrupting Digital Business

Start By Transforming Business Models And How We Engage

Homework

The Complete 10 Lessons Learned From Disrupting Digital Business

Get The Book Now Before Digital Darwinism Impacts You

Your POV.

Resources

Reprints

Disclosure

SAP S/4HANA Qualities by Plattner - play by play

Built on HANA

New UI (with Fiori)

Guided Configuration

Subscription

1/10 of data footprint

3-7 higher throughput

Up to 1800x faster analytics

ERP, CRM, SRM, SCM, PLM in one system

No locking, parallelism for throughput

Actual data vs historical data

Unlimited workload capacity

Predict, recommend, simulate

HCP Extensions

HANA multi tenancy

All data, social, text, geo, graph, processing

Overall MyPOV