The State of Customer Success Management in 2015

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

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

This report is about The State of Customer Success Management in 2015. Constellation’s research team delivers its inaugural series on the state of the state. The state of the state research explores the impact of digital transformation, next generation customer experience and matrix commerce from a systems perspective considering the political, economical, societal, technological, environmental, and legislative point of view. This research report explores a key area – Customer Success Management (CSM).

It goes into detail about how next generation customer experience is guiding the success of Customer Success Management. A shift to Customer Success Management is emanate because we live in the world of a continuous, opt-in economy, where the value of a customer is determined by how long they stay a customer and if they continue to increase their purchase amounts over time. As a result, companies must prepare themselves to deliver great, continuous and consistent customer experiences. Before the opt-in economy, businesses were focused on the initial sale. A great deal of money was spent advertising and marketing to potential prospects, enticing them to convert from a lead to a sale.

However, little attention was paid to the after sale experience, even though the ubiquitous poor customer experiences still exist today after decades of research showing that after sales service directly affects the financial stability of a company. It makes absolutely no sense to spend millions or in some cases billions of dollars in advertising, marketing and sales to then drive the customer to the competitor because the after sales service experience is horrible. Yet this occurs every single day in many, many companies. Customer Success Management is based on the ability to deliver consistent customer experience process, before, during and— in particular, after the sale which continuous loops into increase customer lifetime value, enhanced revenue, increased margins and profits.

The main themes in the paper are:

Delivering a brand promise instead of a product or service requires new approaches.
Clients who believe in customer experience build CSM organizations.
CSM delivers more customers, less churn, and higher margins, really!
Predictive analytics identify known and reveal unknown attributes that drive customer success and
Expect larger customer experience vendors to incorporate these principles or acquire in this space.

The reason some companies like Zappos, Nordstorm, Lexus, which are all considered “luxury” brands can offer excellent service is that their business model is built with enough margin to provide the people, process and technology that can deliver great experiences. Businesses must move away from the thinking that this type of service is limited to only luxury brands and they themselves must stop cutting corners on CSM. All businesses that expect to make it through the next several years must begin to change their business models immediately so that they have the margin to provide great, loyalty creating experiences.

Is your company ready to transform how it treats its customers? For information on this report, download a snapshot.

Next-Generation Customer Experience B2C CX Chief Customer Officer Chief People Officer Chief Human Resources Officer

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CEN Member Chat: Critical Big Data and Privacy Trends

Steve Wilson

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Steve Wilson is former VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, leading the business theme Digital Safety and Privacy. His coverage includes digital identity, data protection, data privacy, cryptography, and trust. His advisory services to CIOs, CISOs, CPOs and IT architects include identity product strategy, security practice benchmarking, Privacy by Design (PbD), privacy engineering and Privacy [or Data Protection] Impact Assessments (PIA, DPIA). Coverage Areas: -  Identity management, frameworks & governance-  Digital identity technologies-  Privacy by Design -  Big Data; “Big Privacy”-  Identity & privacy innovation Previous experience: Wilson has worked in ICT innovation, research, development and analysis for over 25 years. With double…...

Learn how companies can strike a balance between privacy and the business value derived from big data. Steve Wilson and R "Ray" Wang discuss major trends at the intersection of big data and privacy.

Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Chief Information Officer

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Analyst Event Best Practices - A year in review

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

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

As an analyst you attend a lot of events every year, user conferences and analyst briefings being the most prominent event types. So looking at the year in review – let me comment on some Dos and Don’ts and as well offer some suggestions for 2015.

But before that – my disclaimer: I know organizing these events is a lot of work. User conferences are the highlight of the year for many marketing departments, and a huge chunk of budget is spend on these. Careful considerations on agenda, speakers, location, and appreciation event need to be balanced with budgets. Not an easy task and as analysts we all appreciate to be invited to these events – this post is in the spirit to make these events (even) better.

So let’s start with some general suggestions:

Analyst schedules are almost always busy. We often don’t know from when and where we are flying in to the event until the last minute. Especially March to May and September till November are ‘crazy’ months when regular work (advisories, consulting, speaking etc.) collide with the conference schedule. So the earlier you can get your event schedule shared, the better, including the days and times for the analyst track. Then vendors should understand that analysts often don’t know till a few weeks before the event from where they will be flying to and back from.

Monday starts are popular for conferences, which mostly means Sunday travel to get there. It may seem little to vendors as this happens a few times a year, for analyst it means a few dozen times in the year (32 times for me in 2014). So travelling to the conference on Mondays will not only be appreciated by analysts – but also customers, who often attend more events than most of the vendor personnel.

For better coverage, it helps if you can share – under NDA as needed – the key announcements for the event beforehand. Some vendors do a very good job to brief analysts ahead of the event on key announcements and events, e.g. IBM and Informatica stuck out in 2014. You certainly get more coverage and a more attentive analyst crowd if you brief us ahead of time.

Analysts need the conference content to blog, report and advise shared customers and prospects about it. Ideally vendors would share that before – under NDA is fine – or as real time as possible. In 2014 one vendor shared documents of the conference 20 days later… needless to say the trains had left the station. And I would not play the silly game of giving feedback and in return getting the materials. Personally I am happy to play it as long as reasonable, but first priority for an analyst is to understand, tweet, blog, report on the event – not to provide feedback on it.

Events are exhausting, for all participants. But the follow up in the next 3-5 days with the analyst community is crucial, the faster questions can be answered, the better. Bringing the executives together at the end of the analyst track is a great best practice, e.g. done so by e.g. Amazon, Ceridian, IBM and Kronos in 2014. Providing high quality pictures of keynotes and slides is ensuring a vendor’s content looks great in blogs and reports. Otherwise it will be missed completely on the visual side or the best effort of an analyst taking his best picture…

Next – how do you seat analyst and press in keynotes… Tables and multiple power plugs are a must. Even though you get a first row seat but you need to balance smartphones (for tweets with pictures) and a notebook on your lap with two colleagues sitting next to you and trying to do the same – it definitively does not make our life easy. And is certainly detrimental to coverage. So it does not have to be the personal LazyBoy (as some of us were joking in fall) – but a decent table, power outlets and an ok chair will go a long way. And bio breaks are needed, too – so don’t do 4 hour keynote sessions as one vendor did in 2014.

And lastly – always a challenge – if you want the analysts to cover live / tweet from the keynotes - make sure that they have a working Wifi network. I realize that is a huge challenge, but with more regular attendees being active on social media – it is better to err on the side of spending more for Wifi than less. Providing a separate media / press / analyst network is a good practice, though I don’t like the two class society… a tweet is a tweet from anyone attending and using your conference hashtag. And the work around with wired connections is certainly a good one, but let us know ahead of time as not all of us carry the needed network adapter cables most of our devices require these days…. Lastly columns in the line of sight don’t help attention and visual coverage either.

On the subject of covering the event, in case you stream it – make it even easier to do so. I am waiting for streaming clients to have the respective social media buttons to share the slide / picture that is currently streamed right away to the social network. If a vendor wants more social coverage of the event, that is the biggest trick in the trade for 2015.

And then comes the bigger picture. We understand that vendors don’t want to share / cannot share information early some times. But give us a hint that major things are happening. Last year we had the case that a vendor announced very major new products – when all analysts were either already in the air or at the airport. Not only do vendors miss on the coverage, the previously written takeaways are obsolete or need a massive change. It’s ok not to give away the news, put tell us to pay attention at a certain time or day. Or not be on a plane at the time. Wink, wink.

Next comes the event coverage. Analysts understand that most vendor staff is exhausted, for you it’s a big event vs. for us analysts it is just one of many. I’d recommend vendors to keep some spare capacity for factual reviews and inquiries during and right after the event – as you want to stay in the news cycle. Often analysts are off to the next event and if their blog / report is not out quickly, things start piling up. The result is less, later and less accurate coverage, all things you don’t want as a vendor.

And after the even it is expense time. Making the expense process easy will be welcome by all analysts. Some vendors have given analyst ‘carte blanche’ for flight booking, setting limits to what they will approve amount wise. Giving the analyst the freedom to book their own flight is a win / win – so certainly a best practice to consider. One vendor has gone so far to do so for the whole event, setting limits for hotels, airport transfers, taxis etc. – a very good step all other vendors should take note of and ideally imitate. Bonus to consider for 2015: Do an expense drop when the analyst leaves the event, credit same cost for return to airport and incidentals for the rest of the day – and vendor and analyst are done. With the bonus that analysts are likely to show up when they leave your event.

And lastly cookbooks and other large items and gifts are certainly appreciated, but offer the analysts a shipping option. Last year I came back with three cookbooks in a week…

MyPOV

It is always great to be invited to an event by a vendor. It gives analyst prime insight into the people and product as well as customers, prospect and the overall ecosystem. A lot of work and investment goes into them, we are aware of that. With this blog posts I tried to point out some areas where these events can be even made better. Hope it is helpful.

If you are a vendor – let me know what you think – if you are an analyst – please do the same – and add what I have missed.

Marketing Transformation Tech Optimization Data to Decisions Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Innovation & Product-led Growth Future of Work Openworld amazon SAP Chief Marketing Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

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Research Preview: Digital Transformation Services Take Center Stage For 2015

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…...

Constellation State Of The State Report: Digital Transformation Services Take Center Stage For 2015

The latest Constellation Research state of enterprise technology report, Digital Transformation Services Take Center Stage for 2015, explores the impact of digital transformation on the services front. As so many different pieces of the digital transformation space come together, Constellation believes that the Digital Transformation Services category is set to explode in 2015, and we forecast it to surpass $100.7B in 2020.

Since the Digital Transformation Services have been poorly defined and often confused, in this state of the state report, Constellation defines the space, provides a high level overview of the seven key pillars, and notes various provider categories.

Digital Transformation Services Take Center Stage for 2015

At the core, this report is about a big shift that has occurred with customers. When it comes to Digital Transformation Services, most customers seek turn-key solutions and no longer have time for extensive vendor selection efforts. In fact, customers now prefer close knit partnerships between service providers and technology vendors versus an objective arm’s length relationship.

On the other hand, the pace of change coupled with customer desire for quick results will lead service providers to develop the last mile solutions, and technology vendors to partner with service providers to guarantee a successful outcome. Constellation believes that this shift in digital transformation services will initiate the blurring of product and services for years to come. As with the core digital transformation market, neither technology vendors nor service providers will be selling products or services. In fact, they too will be delivering on outcomes and experiences.

This report sets the premise for Constellation’s forthcoming reports on the Digital Transformation Services category; and offers insights into five of Constellation’s business research themes — Data to Decisions, Digital Marketing, Matrix Commerce, Next generation customer experience, and Technology Optimization and Innovation.

Your POV.

Ready for digital disruption by starting with mobile? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

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

Developing your digital business strategy
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Resources

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy,stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Copyright © 2001 -2015 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience

The post Research Preview: Digital Transformation Services Take Center Stage For 2015 appeared first on A Software Insider's Point of View.

Tech Optimization New C-Suite Data to Decisions Marketing Transformation Innovation & Product-led Growth Leadership Chief Information Officer Chief Experience Officer

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The state of the state: Privacy enters Adolescence

Steve Wilson

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Constellation Research recently launched the "State of Enterprise Technology" series of research reports. The series assesses the current state of the enterprise technologies Constellation consider crucial to digital transformation, and provide snapshots of the future usage and evolution of these technologies. Constellation will continue to publish reports in our State of Enterprise Technology series throughout Q1.

My first contribution to this series, "Privacy Enters Adolescence", focuses on Safety and Privacy. I've looked at information data privacy in 2015, and identified seven trends of which you should be aware in order to protect your customer's information.

Here's an excerpt from the report:

Digital Safety and Privacy

Constellation's business theme of Digital Safety and Privacy is all about the art and science of maximizing the information assets of a business, including its most important assets – its people. Our research in this theme enables clients to capitalize on cloud, mobility, Big Data and the Internet of Things, without compromising the digital safety of the business, and the privacy and trust of your end users.

Seven Digital Safety and Privacy Trends for 2015

State of Digital Privacy

Consumers have not given up privacy - they've been tricked out of it. The impression is easily formed that people just don’t care about privacy anymore. Yet there is no proof that privacy is dead. In fact, a robust study of young adults has shown no major difference between them and older people on the importance of privacy.
Private sector surveillance is overshadowed by government intrusion, but is arguably just as bad. There is nothing inevitable about private sector surveillance. Consumers are waking up to the fact that digital business models are generating unprecedented fortunes on the back of the personal data they are giving away in loyalty programs, social networks, search, cloud email, and fitness trackers. Most people remain blissfully ignorant of what's being done with all that data, but we see budding signs of resentment from consumers whose every interaction is exploited without their consent.
The U.S. is the Canary Islands of privacy. The United States remains the only major economy without broad-based information privacy laws.
Privacy is more about politics than technology. Privacy can be seen as a power play between individual rights and the interests of governments and businesses.
The land grab for "public" data accelerates. Data is an immensely valuable raw material. More than data mining, Big Data is really about data refining. And unlike the stuff of traditional extraction industries, data seems inexhaustible, and the cost of extraction is near zero. Something akin to land rights for privacy may be the future.
Data literacy will be key to digital safety. Computer literacy is one thing, but data literacy is different and less well defined so far. When we go online, we don’t have the familiar social cues, so now we need to develop new ones. And we need to build up a common understanding of how data flows in the digital economy. Data literacy is more than being able to work an operating system, a device and umpteen apps: it means having meaningful mental models of what goes on in computers.
Privacy will get worse before it gets better. Privacy is messy, even in jurisdictions where data protection rules are well entrenched. Consider the controversial new Right to Be Forgotten ruling of the European Court of Justice, which resulted in plenty of unintended consequences, and collisions with other jurisprudence, namely the United States' protection of free speech.

A snapshot at my report "Privacy Enters Adolescence" is available for download. It expands on the points above, and sets out recommendations for improving awareness of how personal data flows in the digital economy, negotiating better deals in the data-for-value bargain, and the conduct of Privacy Impact Assessments.

Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Chief Information Officer

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Tuesday's Tip: How To Plan For SAP's S/4 HANA Upgrade And Contract Negotiations Strategy #SAPHANA

R "Ray" Wang

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

Launch Of SAP S/4 Provides Catalyst For Organizations To Update Their Next Gen Apps Strategy

The February 3rd, 2015 New York City SAP S/4 launch event brought a positive closure for customers seeking the next generation apps strategy from SAP. At a high level, the SAP S/4 HANA offering offers:

a new suite of applications built only on top of SAP’s in memory database technology, also known as the SAP HANA platform
a user experience built from the SAP Fiori technology that also starts with a mobile first paradigm
delivery in the cloud, on-premises, and hybrid

At launch date, the first set of public SaaS offerings will include Simple Finance (SFIN), project delivery, and sales cloud for customer. Constellation estimates that the refactoring process of 400 million lines of code will take between 4 to 6 years. Constellation estimates that the functional parity on the vertical and micro vertical industries will take even longer.

The Bottom Line: Now Is The Time To Rethink Your Apps Strategy With SAP

While determining where to go in the future, Constellation recommends the following strategies in determining a go forward strategy with not only SAP, but also legacy ERP vendors on the journey to digital business and digital transformation. (see Figure 2).

Ask for all copies of previous order docs and price lists
Itemize every unit of software and cost per unit
Use third party maintenance as a lever
Battle indirect licensing
Understand your license usage
Never, ever, bundle your contracts
Focus on designing SOA Principles
Stabilize the core, invest in cloud
Remember you are the boss of the relationship

Figure 2. Four Paths Of Modernizing Your Legacy Apps

Your POV

How do you feel about your SAP investment? Is SAP meeting your needs or are you going elsewhere? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Please let us know if you need help with vendor selection or contract negotiation efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Copyright © 2001 – 2015 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience!

Data to Decisions Tech Optimization Future of Work Innovation & Product-led Growth Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity New C-Suite Event Report SAP SoftwareInsider Next Gen Apps Enterprise Software Enterprise Acceleration Cloud IoT Blockchain AI ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI Robotics Analytics Automation SaaS PaaS IaaS Quantum Computing Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service developer Metaverse VR Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership Data to Decisions eCommerce finance HCM HR B2B B2C CX EX Employee Experience business Marketing Growth Social Customer Service Content Management M&A Executive Events Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Product Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Operating Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Revenue Officer Chief Experience Officer

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Will the Internet of Things Change When the FTC Changes the Internet Into A Public Utility? AT&T and Verizon May File Lawsuits

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

We in the tech world have been focused on the Internet of Things and how everything is connected or will be. What will be interesting to see is how the Internet of Things may change if the FTC changes the Internet to a Public Utility. The story in Venture Beat talks about the how the FTC, Federal Communications Commission, chairman Tom Wheeler is going to release a new regulatory approach affecting the Internet. The change is set to be effective Feb 26. The source from Venture Beat suggests that after the Title II reclassification becomes official, AT&T and Verizon will file lawsuits almost immediately.

The reclassification of the Internet as a public utility-like telecommunications service as defined by Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. The Title II reclassification will apply to both wired and wireless broadband.

The bill is sponsored by a several Republicans — Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and has almost no support from congressional Democrats. The Republicans will need a certain critical mass of Democratic support to make the bill progress and to apply pressure on the president to sign it. And from what we’ve seen in Washington D. C. the ability for the two parties to collaborate on anything is pretty iffy.

The reason the FCC was forced to create a new “Open Internet” regulatory plan was because Verizon sued the commission over its legal standing to regulate network neutrality — and won. In the Venture Beat article it said that Hank Hultquist, AT&T’s VP of federal regulatory set the tone for his brand’s positioning on the change in a blog post. He says that AT&T’s position that the broadband service it sells is actually an “information service” and not a telecommunication service as described in Title II. It also says that the FCC simply has no authority to reclassify broadband without first completing a complete study of the existing marketplace. When the FCC has to defend reclassification before an appellate court, it will have to grapple with these and other arguments,” Hultquist wrote.

The reclassification to Title II will give the commission the legal framework and the authority to enforce network neutrality rules on Internet service providers (ISPs) like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast. The commission will be able to make sure no carrier gives priority to one Internet content provider’s data packets over those from another.

Those that are for the change for a Title II reclassification believe the move is necessary to permit the FCC to collect universal service fees on data service and to implement privacy regulations. The threat of the lawsuits, and prospect of months or years of legal wrangling, is making many people nervous. It will be interesting to see what happens. The Internet of Things has suddenly become the Internet of Controversy. Hopefully it won’t spoil the plans of all the people and tech companies that have built their dreams on the idea of the Internet of Things.

@drnatalie
VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

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What You Don’t Know About APIs Could Hurt Your Ability to Deliver Great Customer Experiences

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

What is the API Economy? Why not knowing about your APIs, could hurt your business? One of the issues is that the APIs you currently have may not be making that seamless, contextual transition in the ubiquitous channel / device world most customers live in daily. (Ubiquitous channel / device meaning customers don’t think about the channel or device they are going to use to interact with you- they just do.) This API issue can apply to many functional department’s software: Marketing, Advertising, Sales, Customer Service, Customer Success Management and can lead to the success or to the failure to meet customer expectations — i.e., to meet the brand’s promise, deliver products and services, as promised as, well as meet the business’s expectation on getting the interaction and engagement data so critical to knowing their customer’s behavioral patterns and creating mass systems of personalization, which has been promised by many a vendor.

With the enhanced capabilities of software and the automation of processes, transactions, and distribution across every industry and companies within those industries, the gap of effective APIs is widening. APIs not only leverage software but also expose software interfaces to others. This includes, but is not limited to internal developers, partners, customers… and thus, APIs can help the brand get more information out of the interactions with their customers and also to work towards making interactions into engagements that are seamless.

The ability to making interactions into engagements that are seamless is really important in the multi-channel, multi-device, omni-channel world – which doesn’t — in reality — always exist like the marketing by some vendors says it does. And with mobile driving ubiquitous channel and device engagement necessities, as customers don’t premeditate when and what channel or device they will reach out to you on or which device or channel they will continue that interaction on, businesses must move from the idea of multi-channel, multi-device, omni-channel world into the world of ubiquitous customer engagement and make sure their APIs are delivering all they possibly can.

As I was doing a briefing call with 3scale, as they put it, we are in The API Economy. It’s a new economy, that is beginning to boom as brands realize what that the software they bought doesn’t exactly work they way they thought it did / could / would. And there are many things that companies need to learn in order to succeed. To help ease the API process, 3scale, the San Francisco and Barcelona-based API Management solutions provider, released a comprehensive eBook about APIs entitled “Winning in the API Economy. The book is available for download free.

The ebook features commentary and insights from 3scale’s management team and a roadmap for using APIs to advance a business. The book is designed for any business leader who is in charge of software strategy, or is contributing to it, and is looking to bring their organization gains through efficiency and new market opportunities. Many of today’s internal and external IT challenges have common roots in the need for a sound API strategy for supporting software systems. This can range from the evolution of platform strategies to accommodating mobile distribution channels.

“This book will appeal to leaders across multiple industries as software is becoming an indispensable part of almost every process, and software’s interfaces have the potential to drive a great deal of positive change,” said Steve Willmott, CEO of 3scale and author of “Winning in the API Economy. “With the API industry expanding so quickly, it is important for organizations to understand the impact that APIs can have on their business and learn about how they can use APIs to grow their bottom line. ‘Winning in the API Economy helps make the world of APIs accessible through easy-to-understand examples and strategies.”

The eBook combines real-world case studies with clear explanations to give the reader an ‘API roadmap’ to guide them into this rapidly changing world. It is especially important to understand what you should be expecting from APIs and the differences between what you are getting and what you should be getting from them.

It is possible that software can drive new business opportunities presented by APIs and lead to success and innovation. But this again, may require that IT and the functional business units collaborate so that the external customer experiences turn into systems of engagement and mass personalization at scale.

@drnatalie

VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research Covering Customer Facing Applications To Create Great Customer Experiences

Marketing Transformation Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

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How SAP Missed An Opportunity

Hello, it’s me again. Your Friendly SAP — foe?

If you follow me you know that I admire the technical prowess of SAP, but despise about twice as much their marketing “acumen” (there are no other words that are politically correct and fit nicely between quotation marks).

I wrote about it in more detail in my post talking about their Reverse Dichotomy. They innovate in technology and throw it away in marketing.

The latest launch event, yesterday, of S4/HANA (S stands for simple, 4 is the release number, and HANA stands for — er, well… HANA #LeSigh) continued that trend, with a twist.

They were high points worth mentioning:

The reduced and centralized data model (finally, finally, finally — but wait, does that include SuccessFactors? I don’t think so… we are still not there)
The use of metadata (I think they call it customization, but by any words the concept is to allow customers to customize services via the use of metadata – one of the very few companies to do that)
A complete rewrite of the platform (yay, yay, yay – 30+ years of spaghetti code base and band aids had seen its day – good riddance)
Performance improvements galore (yes, finally – but seriously, 8 seconds responses are not something I’d brag about – even if 4-6x better than what they offer today – and don’t even ask the SuccessFactors clients for their opinion of those “great response times”)
A better way to cloud (will discuss the downside of this later in the post; but there were steps forward).

All in all, a good evolution for SAP as it introduces the first major innovation in their product since version 3 (R/3).

Good – right?

Yes – but mostly no.

SAP had been late to the cloud, to platforms, and to offer what their customers demanded in the form of a platform. Salesforce.com and Microsoft have already addressed this, Oracle is working some of their marketing magic to convince their customers they have it (although they don’t so much) but SAP had been very, very quiet.

Well, not really.

Marketing wise they have been playing marketing musical chairs for the past few years relabeling and renaming their products under different launches, names, and what-nots – but never with a centralized perspective.

This is why they were behind companies like Salesforce (who spent a good 4-5 years retooling to create the Salesforce1 platform, only to waste the opportunity with a mobile-client marketing message that was not so good… or as my iPhone auto-correct would say, ducking socks) and Microsoft (who recently launched XRM, but how long it took to build depends on who you ask).

It’s been several different incarnations and versions for CRM for cloud, HANA, on-premises, and on-demand with different names and mostly the same product or slightly repackaged for some time. Same happened to other products in the lineup.

I was looking forward to this release as it had been touted to me as the centralized, all-in-one release that will unite all products, fix the platform, change their approach to cloud and platform, and overall drive adoption for the next generation.

They fell short.

They had an opportunity to do that (I liked HANA from the very early conversations about in-memory and improved performance, and each time they showed what it could do with analytics and data management my mouth watered at the possibilities; they had some very interesting architectural approaches for CRM and the acquisition of SuccessFactors brought top quality talent to help them move forward; and more) but they did not take advantage of that opportunity.

They let the opportunity to deliver a market-leading platform that would match their competitors languish.

They missed the opportunity for the same reason Oracle chose not to chase it (as I wrote before): the biggest worry was to move forward with their late-adopter customer base versus doing something innovative and changing the conversation – or worse, leading the market (the necessary components and thinking are widespread throughout the company, just not properly utilized or in some cases even recognized)

I get it, I am not going to chastise them for doing the safe: retaining revenue and ensuring it continues to trickle in for the foreseeable future. Alas, they left behind the ability to both impress and capture new customers in exchange for servicing their existing ones. A safe move. A lost opportunity.

Some of the items that caused me to write this from their recent launch?

The admission that multitenancy may not all that’s cracked up to be (how i wish I’d’ve said that before… wait, I did) but still being offered (mostly because after many years of saying it is essential you can just walk away – and because…)
The insistence of offering on-premises version of the solution in addition to public cloud (and won’t even stop to answer questions about private and hybrid clouds… sigh); worse was the reasoning – some verticals cannot do it – which is antiquated and wrong, but that’s another thread/ topic/post.
Not building on the concept of three-tier public and open cloud in favor of retaining the “platform” in HANA with little ability to be replaced or to use supporting services from other vendors (yes, like any other vendor – they want to retain the “ownership” of the client via their platforms, old habits die hard for all of them)

Short version of the complaint? They stuck by the slow-moving, late-adopting mass of the majority of their customer base instead of using the potential of HANA to create new and innovative.

Just like Oracle before, it sucks - but I guess it is they way they had to go.

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Oracle doubles down on the cloud

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Guy Courtin was formerly Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research covering Matrix Commerce and how the Internet of Things drives the evolution of commerce.  Guy has over 15 years experience in the technology space and specifically in the supply chain space. Most recently he was the Vice President of Research at SCM World. Where he focused on the service providers that empowered supply chains. Prior to SCM World, Guy held numerous senior positions. He was responsible for product marketing at RSi, a retail supply chain solution provider. There managed RSi’s go to market strategy around their leading cloud based supply chain solutions. He also spear headed Progress Software’s supply chain group. Where he was responsible for driving revenue and market share as well…...

Last week I got out of Boston just ahead of the massive blizzard that covered much of the area with over 3 feet of snow (I was not so fortunate this week, as I watch another foot of snow fall). My destination? A much warmer and sunnier San Jose, where I spent a busy 2 days with Oracle at their annual Oracle Value Chain Summit. The main theme for the visit, similar to what was discussed at Oracle’s Open World conference at the end of the 2014 was the importance of cloud within the portfolio of Oracle solutions. Oracle also showcased the wide breadth of solutions and case studies they have in the supply chain space – a testament to the mega vendors solution portfolio.

Here are my take aways from the two days I spent on the west coast.

Oracle is doubling down on the cloud. The main stage sessions on Tuesday, January 27,placed a heavy emphasis on the efforts and growth of the Oracle cloud offerings. Both Oracle CEO Mark Hurd and Steve Miranda, EVP of Applications Development, spent extensive time discussing the success Oracle has seen with their cloud solutions and continuing to make the case for a greater number of solutions being moved to the cloud. Highlighting the success they have had with the cloud for their HCM (more than 950 new applications cloud customers), CX (more than 1100 new customers) and ERP solutions (more than 250 new customers), it is clear that Oracle is doubling down on the cloud for 2015. This next year should be interesting with regards to which solutions in the Oracle Value Chain portfolio get heavily invested into the cloud. Mr. Hurd has a vision of a few mega vendors providing a full suite of solutions that allow supply chain solutions to be fully stitched together. As we know, for the supply chain space that entails a complex and wide array of solutions. Oracle has already put many of these in the cloud, 2015 will be an interesting year to watch as this cloud push continues to pick up steam.
Oracle is happy to sell you the point supply chain solution you need. One strategy that has serviced Oracle well is their willingness and ability to sell some point solutions, which allow them to gain a foothold within accounts. Rather than always trying to push a larger suite solution sale, the point solution strategy gives Oracle great flexibility when it comes to account targeting. Organizations such as Mason Companies and Ricoh are leveraging the Oracle WMS offering to manage their distribution networks, but see this investment as a first step to address greater supply chain needs. Areas such as greater system optimization or after sale management could conceivably grow from this WMS foray. Oracle’s long running strategy of acquiring strong point solutions such as G-Log, Retek and Demantra to name a few, allows the flexibility to sell these solutions into accounts as opposed to have a “one mega size” fits all offering. Oracle will be well served to continue this tact.
However there remains room for best of breed providers. While Mr. Hurd argues for a handful, or fewer, of large vendors providing a one-stop shop, there will always remain room for best of breed vendors. Why? Because these mega vendors cannot service every solution and need of the user at the highest-level possible. That is no knock on these mega vendors. A recent article in the Economist pointed out that even in the world of mega vendors – such as Google in search – that smaller vendors still hold an important role. They are in existence to address specific areas that the larger vendors cannot properly address. For example, speaking with a manufacturer who looked to leverage Oracle’s global trade management (GTM) offering was disappointed in the level of maturity of the solution. They had to lean heavily on their solution integrator to fill in the gaps of the Oracle GTM offering. A candid story to say the least, but not surprising. These large vendors have such an extensive portfolio; across so many different industries that one cannot expect that each solution has received the same level of development and attention as one another. Customers need to keep this in mind when making vendor selections – sometimes a vendor that focuses on one specific supply chain problem offers the best solution.

As Mr. Hurd said from main stage “supply chain is hard,” there is no doubt about that! Oracle spent over two days giving us a host of case studies and presentations of how they are tackling these hard problems. The sessions I was able to attend provided a wide swath of stories about how companies from global automotive suppliers to General Electric Power & Water are leveraging Oracle to better manage their supply chains.

It will be interesting to watch how Mr. Hurd’s theory in the rise of the mega vendors plays out. Something to watch in 2015 and beyond.

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Oracle doubles down on the cloud