Weekly Recap - Week ending October 3rd 2014

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

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

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• My takeaways form the Oracle HCM Analyst Meeting (read here)

• My takeaways from the Oracle Database and Fusion Middleware Analyst meeting (read here)

• 5 tips for Oracle HCM and Oracle Technology customers when dealing with Oracle

• Constellation Takeaways from Oracle OpenWorld with Natalie, Guy, Ray and me (watch here).

Other key news / events of the week - I wasn't able to blog about

• Tibco goes private, acquired by Vista Equity Partners - read here
• IBM launches Kenexa Talent Insights - read here

Some of the news coverage from press who talked to me:

Constellation Research takeaways of Oracle OpenWorld

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

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

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It was both a technology challenge (Holger lost network as moderator and could not rejoin in video & audio, Ray did a good jop roping him in via chat) and a bad hair day as Guy did not turn on his camera... 

Enjoy and let us know what your Oracle OpenWorld Takeaways have been!

More News from the Information Revolution Front: Who's More Progressive - Airports, Movie Theaters, or the NFL?

Chris Meyer

Chris Meyer is a thought leader focusing on the information economy, globalization and business innovation. His latest book is "Standing on the Sun".
Got Nerve

Chris's mission is to anticipate and shape the future of business. He has pursued this goal as an entrepreneur, executive, consultant, author, and the leader of a think tank.

 Based on the ideas in his 2002 book Future Wealth, Chris developed a plan for a business based on a network of thought leaders. He joined The Monitor Group in 2006 to develop this idea as Monitor Networks, where he was Chief Executive from 2004 to 2009. In 2006, he co-founded Monitor Talent, to take these ideas forward operationally. Prior to joining Monitor Group, he was the Director of the Center for Business Innovation at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, from 1995 until its closing in December 2002. The Center fostered the conversation of leading issues among the business community, developed public conferences,…...

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Three industries provided connectable dots today.

First, the FCC announced that the blackout rule — which has prevented the broadcast of NFL games in a team’s home market unless the stadium is sold out — “has become outdated,” and will repeal it to eliminate unnecessary regulation and leave the question “to private solutions negotiated by the interested parties.”  The New York Times article points out that when the rule was created, ticket sales were a large contributor to a team’s income, but today most revenue comes from television.  And in 2013, only two of 256 NFL games were blacked out. Note that this doesn’t require the teams to broadcast the games that don’t sell out.

Nonetheless, the NFL “is fighting desperately to keep the FCC rule intact", filling terrifying briefs to the Commission saying “the eventual result likely would be decrease in the amount of professional sports on broadcast television.” Meanwhile, the National Cable Television Association sensibly points out that ticket prices have a lot more to do with whether fans go to the stadium. (You’d think temperatures would matter, but half the games blacked out in 2011 were in San Diego and Tampa Bay.)

In a second skirmish, Netflix announced a deal with the Weinstein Company and IMAX Theaters to open it first original movie, the sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, simultaneously on Netflix and in IMAX theaters. The Weinstein Company has already agreed to make Netflix it’s exclusive U.S. subscription TV service for its first-run films stating in 2016. These moves attack the “windowing” paradigm of studios releasing films to theaters exclusively for three months.  Netflix, of course, already challenged television’s release model when it offered the entire season of House of Cards at once, arguing that their approach fit consumers’ wishes to binge. “What I am hoping is that it will be a proof point that the sky doesn’t fall,” said Netflix Content Officer TED Sarandos. “These are two different experiences, like going to a football game and watching a football game on TV.” Hmmn. 

In this performance, the role of the monopolist will be played by the three dominant theater chains.  Regal Entertainment, AMC Entertainment, and Cinemark, “have aggressively opposed any encroachment on their release window, maintaing that any shortening would encourage consumers to stay home,” according to one report.  “Regal..has wasted no time in slamming” the deal, and AMC will “boycott” the movie, and its “parent company Wanda may not carry it in China,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.  “‘No one has approached us to license this made-for-video sequel in the US or China, so one must assume the screens Imax committed are in science centers dn aquariums,' AMC said in a terse statement.” Terse doesn’t quite cover referring to a movie with a budget of ten times the original Crouching Tiger’s $23 million as “made for video.” And, umm, Imax. The Reporter headline was “Major Blow for Netflix, Imax,” by the way, apparently taking little interest in the customers or industry evolution.

Today's final threat to life as we know it is United Airlines’ decision to include the ability to book Uber through it’s smartphone app.   The marketing director for the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority told United’s VP for Marketing that “a lot of airports…are against Uber, because the drivers are not vetted and not regulated,” displaying more faith in the local Hack Bureau than crowdsourced reviews. United “want[s] to provide functionality. Our customers want it. They told us they like it and they’re using the product.” Weird, right? 

So, the answer to “Who’s More Progressive” is none of them — in each case the owners of the “bottleneck facility,” as we used to call the RBOCs back in the day, are protecting their ability to collect economic rents, while United, Weinstein, Netflix and the FCC have the customer's back. The NFL, theater moguls, and airports seem unconcerned with whether they are actually creating value for anyone but themselves. How many times do we have to see this movie?  Oh, I mean video.  – CAM

Event Report - Oracle OpenWorld - Oracle's vision and remaining work become clear - both are big

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

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

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Oracle’s vision - It became once more clear what Oracle’s vision is - an integrated technology stack engineered by Oracle, from storage beyond SaaS all the way to value added services like DaaS (if not familiar that's Data as a Service). Operated by Oracle for the customer - or if the customer wants to, operated by them on premises. Even though Oracle is now ‘all in’ on the cloud message - it was last year that Larry Ellison admitted he gave up and would now use the ‘buzzword’ - the company strictly supports the dual deployment capabilities. Interesting enough the deployments options are important for customers, in one of the Q&As Thomas Kurian shared that there were over 20 customer that have gone full circle - moving cloud to on premises and back or vice versa. It is also clear that Oracle sees cost competitiveness on the IaaS layer as critical, as various executives said that Oracle will match Amazon AWS or Google Cloud platform prices, whoever is cheaper. It is clear that Oracle tries to commoditize the IaaS tier as much as possible, making up for revenue and profitability on the PaaS and SaaS side. Certainly an attractive strategy for Oracle.

Computing Eras (from Mendelsohn's presentation)

12c comes along - It is over 2 years now that Oracle has announced 12c. We talked to some customers and they attest it is working and they are seeing benefits. If these TCO benefits were similar or in the range of what Oracle talked about at OpenWorld 2012 remains to be seen. The real scale test for 12c is anyway Oracle’s usage for DBaaS and moving its SaaS apps to it. Andy Mendelsohn multiple times mentioned that Oracle will be moving the Taleo Talent Management products to 12c first - which should make an interesting showcase. But 12c had to be ready also to enable Larry Ellison’s ‘2 click keynote’ of moving both a database and an applications from on premises to the cloud. And it looks like that works - even though Ellison joked ‘it could break anytime as it is live software’. But it was more than the 2 clicks announced in Ellison’s Sunday keynote - nonetheless Oracle has created a huge value proposition for customers - to move on premise applications to the (Oracle) cloud. For customers tired of maintaining their older apps (and paying their DBAs) - there is now (or soon) a viable alternative to run these apps. Ellison was (rightfully) proud that Oracle lived up to its commitment to move customers along, as the company has through all recent technology changes.

Oracle's in memory approach (from Mendelsohn's presentation)

The in memory features of 12c seem to be working well, too. Mendelsohn gave a few database 101 lectures on the pros and cons of row vs column storage and how Oracle enables both - on disk and in memory flavor - at the discretion of the customer. And Oracle was not tired to point out that to take advantage of in memory applications did not have to be re-written (positioning vs SAP HANA) and could write to memory, too (positioning vs Microsoft SQL server in memory option). Surprisingly there were few customer success stories and use cases - but they may not have been surfaced to me. But in general an indication that Oracle customers are conservative to move to new database releases - I heard a number of customers saying that the never move to R1 - but wait for R2. 12cR2 is coming soon so it will be time to check in on the uptake of both in memory and pluggable databases / multi-tenancy. But even if customers may be slow to uptake these features, they are core to power Oracle’s ‘as a Service’ business. So one way or the other the 12c features will get a lot of usage soon.

Database (not Application!) Multitenancy (from Mendelsohn's presentation)

The platform - If you attended and read about OpenWorld and did not hear about platform as a service (PaaS) message something has gone badly missing. In keynotes and sessions Oracle speakers would not get tired of stressing how Oracle is shipping a PaaS - but also uses and makes the same available for customers to do work on higher in the stack products, like SaaS and DaaS. The demos Ellison showed in his 2nd keynote like e.g. creating an employee of the month application for Fusion HCM showed that in action (though much was prepared beforehand). The work horse in the platform is Fusion Middleware, less with its traditional middleware features around SOA and ESB, but more on its composition, mobile and integration capabilities. And there is some merit to the argument, in the past Oracle Applications would certainly use the Oracle Database - but the uptake of Oracle tools and later Fusion Middleware were another story. The challenge was Oracle Applications was always only one customer of the technology stack - an important one certainly - but Oracle platform products usually had to run on faster cycles than the applications could. Enters the SaaS world with multiple releases per year and all of a sudden release - and with that uptake cycles between enabling platform technology and applications consuming those can be synched. It remains a heck of a prioritization effort – balancing the Oracle internal Applications requirements vs best of breed market requirements – but Oracle is deep pocketed enough to fund probably most of both. The vision is certainly remarkable and it’s good to see that e.g. where we have the insight – with Oracle’s cloud HCM products – the work has already begun to uptake, expose, elevate to the Oracle PaaS platform.

Oracle PaaS Portfolio (from Kurian's presentation)

Engineered Top Down? – My impression of the Oracle endeavor has been that it is heavily top down oriented, starting with the Applications. Quick reminder – Fusion started around 2004. So Oracle has been working on SaaS applications much longer than e.g. PaaS / DBaaS / DaaS or IaaS. All the former are lower level components of the tech stack. In the ideal world engineers want to start bottom up normally. When I asked Thomas Kurian about this, his view was that the SaaS applications have been built on these services all the time, citing Java as the example. And that is certainly a valid point – but it would be phenomenal if Oracle would not have to do some kind of re-work to make its SaaS applications run on all the just into live coming technology and platform products.

Oracle SaaS Portfolio (from Kurian's presentation)

Massive Task – The creation of the next Oracle technology effort is a massive effort with a five digit number of engineers working on it. To make sure all these project run well together and synch up on time is a massive task. When I asked Kurian was fair enough to say the latest (and probably newest) effort – IaaS – is what is giving him the most gray hair. So customer need to watch for product maturity and keep an eye on quality, not that they would not anyway – but a more complex (and powerful) technology stack needs appropriate attention. To put it into perspective – only the combined R&D efforts of IBM are in similar scale – and IBM does not claim (and does not need to) for all of it to work together. Oracle has accepted a much tighter locking of its tech stack components. That is more work and risk to create – but has benefits on the upside for customers when it all works together. 15 or so years ago Oracle had a similar vision - the database and the combination of Forms and Reports would run its Applications. Well that never took off back then (separate blog post sometime) - and it's a different age. Both capabilities and challenges are a magnitude 2 2 larger than back then. So Oracle needs to get it done.
 

Oracle Cloud Scale as of June 2014 (from Kurian's presentation)

Adoption – When even a vendor builds something new – it not only needs to get it done technically with the right quality – but also get adoption in the customer base. And that happens through sales people and partners. It was good to see that Oracle has acknowledged that its salesforce was one of the first sceptics initially, but now the vendor has put in the incentives to get the new products sold. At the same time Oracle is looking at partner enablement, not only on the services side, but also on the product side. Kurian shared that Oracle has already had conversation with over 60 ISVs. Nonetheless Oracle needs to look at this area and produce the numbers in customers and revenue dollars. When I asked Mark Hurd on this he shared that Oracle doubled the applications sales force and will be on top of the challenge. Glad to hear it’s realized – but it needs to be tackled and addressed.

MyPOV

For the longest time I have been critical of how Oracle may be able to match the prices of Amazon and / or Google. But a back of a napkin calculation showed me how: If Oracle can only convert 20% of existing load that it run on premise with DB and Java in the next 5 years – then it is larger than AWS and / or Google, easily. And with that comes purchasing and bargaining power with the suppliers Oracle needs to deal with in its cloud roll out. And we all know cloud is a scale game.

The next area to watch is how well integrated vs. consumable the Oracle stack will be at the end of this exercise. There will be customers who will want to consume it all – and then there will be customers who only want pieces of that technology stack – lock in fear and other reasons will apply. Oracle uses standards – as far as available and applicable at these intersection – but if this will allow Oracle to capture both sides of the business, remains to be seen.

Overall things are coming together for Oracle in 2014 – which was by OpenWorld 2013 blog post header (see here) – a number of announced products are being made available in the next few weeks, more in winter, then spring and summer 2015. OpenWorld 2015 will have in place all that Oracle announced at this OpenWorld – in the meantime there needs to be a lot of precision flying – for customers, partners and Oracle. Mistakes will be costly on either side. Stay tuned.

7 Tips for CX customers and Prospects

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

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

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Why is CX or Customer Experience So Important Today?

Attending OpenWorld 2014 brought to mind the importance of making sure your customer-facing organizations are really focused on the customer.  While this may seem like a very obvious thing to say, most studies show a large gap between what customers think about the experiences they have with their customers and what the company thinks about the experiences they provide.

7  Tips for CX customers and Prospects

The craze of CX or Customer Experience is rampant, with many definitions and many different meanings to customers, companies and vendors. It’s time to get some things straight. You must first decide is CX means Marketing, Sales and Customer Service or does CX mean to your company, just Customer Service? In the new world of modern Customer Experiences, it means any customer-facing interaction. Here’s some things to think about:

1. The customer doesn’t think about interacting or engaging with a company per department or silo – i.e., Marketing, Sales, Customer Service….

2. The company must begin to understand what they have in each department – Marketing, Sales and Customer Service before then can even begin to dream of being “of service” to a customer.

3. Understanding what each department has means that each department needs to understand what software they have, what it does, does is experience when internal people use it create the experience their customers want and see and will those customers return because the experience is so good?

4. Each department needs to understand what processes, policies, people, skill sets, resources, etc… it has to  create the experience their customers want and which ones are most important to make sure they will return because the experience is so amazing.

5. Once a company has a good handle on what they have, they then need to understand where the gaps are — not only within each department, but how each department interacts with each other to make the overall customer-facing experience great.

6. Once those gaps are defined, they must be quickly closed before competitors do so, otherwise customers will walk away- either with their feet or their mouse.

7. The last piece of advice? Pivot, shift and change or get out of the way so your competitors can take care of your customers.

The take-a-ways from the CX part of OpenWorld were essentially to:

• Discover how to deliver a seamless customer experience regardless of where or how customers connect with you
• Learn how to differentiate your brand by creating a unified web, social, and contact-center experience
• Gain insight into how to deliver proactive, highly personalized customer communications using closed-loop marketing and integrated analytics.

Oracle provided examples of companies that are currently in progress or have accomplished some of these goals from brands like General Motors to Insperity. (Those sessions were held in Moscone West otherwise known as CX Central)

A report by Global Insights on Succeeding in the Customer Experience Era, Oracle, 2013, showed that there is a 20% annual loss in revenue for business who don’t deliver great customer experiences. And that makes sense, because if the experience is not positive – customer will either return products or not even return to buy products and worse they will tell their friends and family. And not just in the small circles they can reach in person.

What social and digital media has basically done is to create a large megaphone for customers to share how good or bad their experiences are, in a nanosecond online and that content or those postings are permanent. As permanent as cave paintings that last thousands of years. And that’s why using a technology partner like Oracle is very important. What I learned at the conference is that they realize that it’s a lot to take in and to understand how to take existing systems and integrate all the new things. And they want to be the company you come to to get help with this. So hold them to this promise.

• Eloqua (a marketing automation platform as the base for marketing automation)
• BlueKai (cloud-based big data platform that enables companies to personalize online, offline and mobile marketing campaigns with richer and more actionable information about targeted audiences)
• Responsys (e-mail marketing, web-hosted marketing technology for reaching consumers on mobile devices and social networks, display advertising and other online channels)
• Compendium (content marketing)
• ReadyTalk (audio and web conferencing as well as webcast hosting)
• Vitrue (a cloud-based social marketing and engagement platform that enables marketers to centrally create, publish, moderate, manage, measure and report on their social marketing campaigns)
• RightNow (Knowledge Cloud Service combines knowledge management software technology with social media collaboration for a consistent, superior customer experience.)

Here’s More Details on each of these acquisitions:

• Eloqua: builds upon Oracle’s previous acquisitions of RightNow and Vitrue. The point of Eloqua is so that brands using Eloqua’s technology are better able to track, capture and analyze a potential buyer’s digital body language, including their preferences, behavior and decision-making processes, to more accurately score and qualify leads and identify high quality prospects.

• BlueKai: includes its Data Management Platform, which centrally organizes a company’s customer and audience data in the cloud to help implement personalized marketing campaigns across all channels and deliver better results and higher marketing ROI. BlueKai also runs the world’s largest third party data marketplace to augment a company’s proprietary customer data with actionable information on more than 700 million profiles.

 And BlueKai will be /is integrated with both Responsys for B2C marketing automation and Eloqua for B2B marketing automation in order to deliver orchestrated and personalized customer interactions across all marketing activities and channels. BlueKai combined with Oracle’s Marketing and Social solutions provide customers with the ability to build the richest user profiles combining information from first party and third party sources including media, advertising, social, and mobile sources. The combination will also allow both B2B and B2C organizations to build unmatched personalized cross-channel campaigns and customer interactions across e-mail, web, social, mobile, advertising and syndicated content channels.

• Responsys: The addition of Responsys extends Oracle’s Customer Experience Cloud, which includes Commerce, Sales, Service, Social and the Oracle Marketing Cloud. By bringing together Responsys and Oracle Eloqua in the Marketing Cloud, for the first time CMOs that support industries with B2C or B2B business models will be equipped to drive exceptional customer experiences across marketing interactions and throughout the customer lifecycle from a single platform.

• Compendium: The addition of Compendium extends Oracle’s Customer Experience Cloud, with a cloud-based content marketing provider that helps companies plan, produce and deliver engaging content across multiple channels throughout their customers’ lifecycle. Compendium’s data-driven approach aligns relevant content with customer data and profiles to help companies more effectively attract prospects, engage buyers, accelerate conversion of prospects to opportunities, increase adoption, and drive revenue growth.

The combination of Oracle Eloqua Marketing Cloud with Compendium is expected to enable modern marketers to align persona-based content to customers’ digital body language to increase “top-of-funnel” customer engagement, improve the quality of sales leads, realize the highest return on their marketing investment, and increase customer loyalty.

• ReadyTalk: As organizations of all sizes look at new ways to collaborate and engage audiences, the audio and web conferencing market has become increasingly competitive. To stand out in a market dominated by larger providers and successfully execute sophisticated marketing programs that fit with its customer-centric culture, ReadyTalk, a provider of audio and web conferencing services, selected Oracle Eloqua, a component of the Oracle Marketing Cloud. With Oracle Eloqua, ReadyTalk has been able to deliver highly personalized, targeted messages to nurture leads and convert customers into brand advocates, improving marketing effectiveness and ROI.

• Vitrue:  The proliferation of social media has changed the way that organizations and consumers interact. Vitrue’s social marketing platform helps organizations enhance their social marketing efforts to the next level of social engagement by giving brands the ability to scale across multiple social networks, target messages from global to local, create unique and consistent brand experiences, and publish content that engages fans and drives leads.

Together, Oracle and Vitrue plan to enable a unified social experience across customer interactions, resulting in meaningful customer engagements with consistent brand experiences across all channels and media; improved return on investment for social sales and marketing campaigns across paid, owned and social media; and enhanced customer service through real-time responsiveness and high touch engagement.

• RightNow: Oracle RightNow Web Experience provides a rich online customer experience solution so consumers can research, purchase, or resolve issues from any device. Set a standard for best-in-class service by allowing your customers to interact on their own terms while you increase conversions and lower service costs. //  Oracle RightNow Social Experience enables brands to manage social interactions as a fully integrated part of the customer experience.

Oracle RightNow Social Experience is designed to extend the customer experience to the places where consumers are learning, sharing, and buying across the social web. // Oracle RightNow Contact Center Experience delivers end-to-end management of the customer journey through unified records, interfaces, and knowledge. Even your junior agents are able to deliver exceptional experiences consistently across every channel for operational efficiency and service excellence.

Unintended consequences of the Right to be Forgotten

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…...

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The "Right to be Forgotten" debate reminds me once again of the cultural differences between technology and privacy.

On September 30, I was honoured to be part of a panel discussion hosted by the IEEE on RTBF; a recording can be viewed here. In a nutshell, the European Court of Justice has decided that European citizens have the right to ask search engine businesses to suppress links to personal information, under certain circumstances. I've analysed and defended the aims of the ECJ in another blog.

One of the IEEE talking points was why RTBF has attracted so much scorn. My answer was that some critics appear to expect perfection in the law; when they look at the RTBF decision, all they see is problems. Yet nobody thinks this or any law is perfect; the question is whether it helps improve the balance of rights in a complex and fast changing world.

It's a little odd that technologists in particular are so critical of imperfections in the law, when they know how flawed is technology. Indeed, the security profession is almost entirely concerned with patching problems, and reminding us there will never be perfect security.

Of course there will be unwanted side-effects of the new RTBF rules and we should trust that over time these will be reviewed and dealt with. I wish that privacy's critics could be more humble about this unfolding environment. I note that when social conservatives complain about online pornography, or when police decry encryption as a tool of criminals, technologists typically play those problems down as the unintended consequences of new technologies, which on average overwhelmingly do good not evil.

And it's the same with the law. It really shouldn't be necessary to remind anyone that laws have unintended consequencesf.  That's the stuff of the entire genre of courtroom drama! So everyone take heart: the good guys nearly always win in the end.

Friday Marketing Case Studies: Starbucks, Coke, and Southwest Airlines

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.     ...

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This week’s theme is corporate branding.

1. Starbucks Launches First Brand Campaign

Starbucks has always shined a light on its products – never its brand –  in advertising campaigns. Until now.

For the first time, Starbucks has launched a brand campaign titled “Meet Me at Starbucks,” which features a six-minute documentary-style video about the day in the life of Starbucks. The mini film, which was shot in 1 day in 59 different stores in 28 countries, is a global effort that plays on a growing public sentiment that we’re overusing technology to stay connected with friends.

Below is the one-minute commercial that will help promote the campaign. The coffee giant will use its YouTube channel as the microsite/hub of the digital effort: https://www.youtube.com/user/Starbucks

Sensei’s take: Arguably, Starbucks is a brand that doesn’t need to invest in brand advertising; we all know the brand position, voice, etc. It’s iconic. Yet, this new campaign is a great tactic that demonstrates how a business can weave its brand into a cultural movement.

The campaign suggests that we’re really not connected unless we’re meeting face-to-face, and it establishes Starbucks as the place to be “really be connected with friends.”  Ironically (and brilliantly), it is using social media to make its case.

2. Storks Now Deliver Coca-Cola

By now everyone is familiar with Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign, which encourages consumers to share a Coke product featuring a personalised name with family and friends,and then record their experiences digitally. What we’re highlighting this week is not the personalized cans or the interpersonal engagements that Coke is inspiring but the brand-consumer interactions that the campaign has fostered.

One of the personal stories captured digitally was a young couple who announced their pregnancy to family and friend by recording the opening of different personalized Diet Coke cans. Upon seeing this video, Coca-Cola’s marketing team sent the couple a shipment of cans featuring every name available in the campaign to help them start the process of choosing a name for their child.

Sensei’s take: Coca-Cola learned its lesson when consumers, in blind taste tests, reported that the New Coke formula tasted better than the original Coke and Pepsi, but then universally rejected New Coke because it messed with a beloved cultural icon (if, unlike me,  you’re not old enough to remember this fiasco, ask your parents).   This new campaign highlights what Coca-Cola has done brilliantly since the re-introduction of Coke Classic in 1985: Weave its brand into the daily lives of customers instead of pitching the product.

3. Southwest Airline’s Heart Grows

Customer service has always been at the heart of Southwest’s communication and advertising strategy but this week we’ve seen a major shift in that focus. Everything – from the airline’s airport kiosks to on-plane signage to its slogan – has been revamped to place more emphasis on the iconic heart in the company’s logo.

A new commercial has been released, which unveils the new airplane design and ends with the statement: “Without a heart, it’s a just a machine.”

Sensei’s take: Customer service has become the litmus test for engagement in our digital age where social media can turn customer kudos or complaints into a tsunami of good or bad press. Social-savvy customers have become cynical of digital outreach and are more demanding than ever. As a result, it’s become increasingly difficult to achieve or surpass customer service expectations.

By highlighting the heart icon and building communications around tag lines such as: “Puts your needs first” and “People are its most powerful fuel,” Southwest Airlines has shifted its brand position to caring for its customers instead of just serving its customers. It’s a sign of a maturing business that really understands the market.

What are your thoughts on these case studies?

Oracle’s Approach Makes Sense (But It Sucks)

If you follow the conference circuit you’d know that Oracle held its user group conference this past week – Oracle Openworld 2014 was held at the Moscone Center between Sunday afternoon and — well, today officially.

First off, I did not attend in person.  I watched the keynotes from the comfort of my home office and followed the tweets (as well as chatted with some other influencers and analysts who were there, and had plenty of talks with Oracle people before and during the show).  I also have been following Oracle for close to 15 years.

What follows is not an analysis of the show (Dennis Howlett and Doug Henschen did a good job of analyzing that, go read their stuff), but a summary of many of the conversations I had with executives and vendors these past few days about Oracle.  As we used to say in Gartner, you write the note when you get the same question three times from clients – and it has been more than three times.

Two parts to this post to answer two questions.

Does Oracle's Approach Make Sense?

It is very easy in this world of $1.2 billion acquisitions and $5 billion ARR to get confused as to what a vendor should do.  We all want to see massive returns and extraordinary (read, all new and incredibly cool) innovation from all vendors.  We all want to have all vendors re-architect their product to address both market needs and innovation requirements.

Unfortunately, no market can support two (or more) large vendors out-innovating each other forever.  The traditional technology adoption curve for any market says that we have between 15 and 20 percent of buyers that are early adopters, lead adopters, or early mainstream.  These are the ones that look at innovative technologies and product and implement them right away – usually looking for competitive advantage.  The other 80 percent or so of the market is mainstream and late adopters – meaning they wait until the wrinkles are ironed out and implement tools and technologies because they work and do something that needs to be done.

Oracle realized long time ago what target market they wanted to serve, and it was not the early 20 percent.  Oracle knows their customers favor easy integration, fully functional, and tested-and-proven technology.  They gladly trade late and safe adoption, comparatively speaking, for bells and whistles and competitive advantage.  They want something that works the same as everybody else – not something that works before anyone else.

And this is what has guided Oracle all these years in their approach to new technologies – they acquire established vendors that are no longer market leaders and innovators, but that have a solid, functioning product that works (for the most part).  In the CRM world itself, Oracle did not acquire Siebel, Peoplesoft, Inquira, Vitru, and their “friends” until they saw their evolution and innovation stall and the market become more commoditized.  That is the perfect entry point for Oracle, since they are looking to provide the functionality (and add revenue in the process) not to deliver innovation.

Oracle’s approach is very smart in that sense: take an established customer base of nearly half-a-million companies, bring tested-and-proven technology solutions to them, increase revenue from the established base five-to-ten percent by selling these solutions, and reduce the costs of delivering those solutions to maximize profits.  Continue to collect maintenance (on-premise solutions) or recurring revenues from hosted solutions (there is no cloud, but that is another discussion for another time – think three-tiers and open, you’ll quickly see why Oracle does not support cloud solutions).

There is a far longer discussion to be had on the size of the customers, risk management, and tailored offers that encompasses Exa-x machines and solution, databases and “platforms”, and applications but this is not the place.  For the most part, this is Oracle’s approach to the market – and one of the reasons they are doing what makes sense: they can generate sufficient revenue from this basic strategy to continue operations and growth ad-infinitum.

So, yes – Oracle’s approach makes sense.  Which brings us to the next question…

Why Does The Oracle Approach Suck?

There are three main reasons this approach sucks.

1. Misdirection and Fear Mongering – This is what Oracle does in relation to the cloud:  The three tier public cloud? Yeah, we could do that – but instead, let me show you this beautiful “new” security-in-a-chip solution that will do everything you need (although cloud-based security has been proven to be more secure than any other method time and again).  If you insist in taking a different approach, one that may make sense for an organization investing in a three-tier public cloud infrastructure, I will have to tell you how scary that world is: you cannot do things without multitenancy else your data is commingled and remote (not true).  Still not convinced? Any solution you will implement is ultimately running my products (database, platforms, analytics, hardware, etc.) underneath, just  but not as secure as they would be in a private cloud we can implement in your location.  Still thinking about going elsewhere? Did you know that without my hardware underneath it all, the solutions are not “engineered to work together”.  Of course, none of these issues matter if you are moving to the cloud – but they do spread sufficient FUD to keep you close by.
2. Lock In – Now that I convinced you that you must run my hardware, servers, databases and solutions (even mentioning how you can migrate anything you want into my data centers with “the push of a button” as mentioned throughout this past show) you are in.  There is no easy way to get out and go anywhere else.  Now you are one more of the almost half-million customers that will take what I give you (functional products, albeit not innovative or advanced) and will continue to buy from me.  If I convinced you to go the “private cloud” route, even better – moving from a system “engineered to run together” to a three-tier cloud model with open integration is as much of a nightmare as moving from client-server to the internet was in its day.  You are locked-in and living in a “Red Stack”.  Uber-blogger Jon Reed wrote a great piece on lock-in and adoption at Diginomica that you should read also.
3. Anti Innovation – As mentioned in the section above, Oracle customers are not the most audacious innovators there are out there.  And this is perfectly fine, as they don’t have to be.  However, there is a line that separates offering them the solutions and technologies they want and need and telling them to not innovate.  That  line is crossed when Oracle tells them how bad things are out there, how many horrible things will happen to them if they deviate from staying with Oracle, and how their careers and organizations will fail.  Using misdirection, fear mongering, and adoption lock-in the vendor can then convince their customers to not try new and different, but instead stay with the old and trusted.  In some fields this may be acceptable, but in technology this translates into working into the insecurities of IT departments and CIOs to convert them into anti-innovation hubs that will continue to buy from the established vendor.  Not a good place to be, even worse off as the pace of innovation and technology evolution continues to accelerate.

Now, before I get tar-and-feathered out of town for being mean to Oracle, a caveat.

I am picking on Oracle because they are the latest to do this – all vendors do something similar to some extent.  It is incredibly hard, not to mention almost impossible, to re-architect a behemoth with as many products and solutions as Oracle has.  I recognize that.

However, Oracle is the worst offender in using these tactics to ensure an end-to-end lock-in (hardware to applications) since they are the only one offering the “entire stack”.  Picking on Oracle does not absolve other vendors that are doing the same or using similar tactics.

Caveat Emptor – be aware of what the vendors tell you, and make your decisions based on thought-out, rational conclusions.

As Franklin Delano Roosevelt once famously said – there is nothing to fear, but fear itself.

Cisco announce Inter-Cloud; a potential game changer in Cloud Computing

Andy Mulholland

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Andy Mulholland is Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on cloud business models. Formerly the Global Chief Technology Officer for the Capgemini Group from 2001 to 2011, Mulholland successfully led the organization through a period of mass disruption. Mulholland brings this experience to Constellation’s clients seeking to understand how Digital Business models will be built and deployed in conjunction with existing IT systems. Coverage Areas Consumerization of IT & The New C-Suite: BYOD, Internet of Things, IoT, technology and business use Previous experience: Mulholland co authored four major books that chronicled the change and its impact on Enterprises starting in 2006 with the well-recognised book ‘Mashup Corporations’ with Chris Thomas of Intel. This was followed in…...

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I think I have just seen the next generation of cloud technology that brings CIOs and their enterprises closer to their real requirement for not just everything as a service, but as a recognizable business service rather than as technology service. But as with all innovation or radical moves it does mean taking a moment to consciously open your mind to the new and not to start by trying to fit what you hear to what you know. I suspect Cisco knows it has a challenge in this, but sheer necessity is likely to be on their side. You can get the News release facts from Cisco news but let me tell you why I think this is worth some careful reading.

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

Compute Power Management, or Application Policy Management?

The challenge in describing Cisco Intercloud is to actually move past the name with its connotations as yet another announcement in the crowded Public, Private Hybrid space and to grasp what it actually does as a sophisticated policy management tool running over the top of compute oriented cloud services.

What does an Enterprise really Value in Technology?

So Let's start with a clean sheet of paper about why an organization has technology, or more correctly wants to use technology; it's for the business outcomes, right? The problem for the CIO is to give this to the business involves investment, technology, risk, and half a dozen other less than desirable factors. All of this is before we get to big challenge the increasing complexity of compliance, made much more difficult by constant change. Oh, and don’t forget, all of this is against a background of a shift in what, who and how the enterprise works in adopting an online digital business model.

Cloud Computing has been the starting point to unload some of this, particularly the expensive investment in the data center, but it's also introduced the means by which users can bypass the CIO if they don't like their very real raising of concerns about the need for security, compliance and other enterprise policy issues.

Right now the technology, and its capability, have been focused almost solely around computational supply with the merits, or problems, revolving around how to use Private, Public or Private Clouds. So it sounds like more of the same when Cisco introduce their 'Intercloud' approach, and perhaps if you fail to take time to delve into it properly, you can let it go as more of the same. In my opinion that would be a big mistake as Cisco may have introduced the next stage of developing true business capabilities together with true service charging from Cloud technology.

Cisco Intercloud recognizes the inevitability that enterprises are already running their operations knowingly, and often unknowingly, across a wide range of clouds in order to support their internal, and, external operations as well as local country issues. However instead of placing the burden on the CIO to try to sort this out Cisco Intercloud adds a layer above this to manage the connectivity between users, applications, and resources, and this is the big breakthrough, according to the enterprises policies.

Why Cisco and not another Cloud Player?

Frankly it look as though cisco is the only player who can do this as it relies on ubiquitous connectivity through a sophisticated networking fabric and a lot of powerful partners who together provide a large number of data centers all round the world. The announcement features 30 well known Cloud Players offering 250 plus data centers in 50 countries, that’s more of an Industry play, than a product play!

So what's the proposition?

Simple really, forget managing Cloud technology elements, and instead define the policies that your enterprise wants to implement in its business based on its people, apps, and applications. That way the enterprise will directly function around what matters, and creates real business values, with the minimum level of technology distraction. An Enterprise gets this by paying a service charge for exactly what your Business function wants, defined by the manner it wants to use it, from your chosen business service provider. Cisco Intercloud isn’t a lock in for the Enterprise as any of the existing, and increasing, range of Cisco Intercloud partners bids, sells and contracts direct wining on the  basis of their own ability to add additional value in the eyes of a customer. Cisco gets paid as a slice of the partners revenues.

It's Cloud Computing in the manner of the picture of the swan on the lake, placid, effortless and beautiful to see, but propelled by the frantic paddling of its feet out of sight under the water! With Cisco Intercloud the CIO offers the beauty and serenity to the enterprise and it users, using Cisco Intercloud to delight the Business view, and to hides the technology part of the swans feet paddling frantically underneath!

Cisco Intercloud brings a lot to the Cloud Computing environment, so there is a lot to take in and understand, as well as the mind shift to grasp the innovation that Cisco InterCloud brings. Cisco has a full strategy as to how Cisco Intercloud under the title of the ‘Next stage of the Internet will evolve’, or if you prefer to see it by video.

Its worth taking some time over this because it is a really widely backed Industry play that has some real answers to a number of all too real challenges that CIOs and their Business Colleagues are facing.

Customer Experience Just Keeps Getting Better: Plantronics Announcement

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

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

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Create a Better Customer Experience By Treating Customer Service Agents Better

Plantronics today announced a new family of contact center headset solutions designed for the future and built on experience. Most people who have worked in call / contact centers know how difficult the job of a customer service agent can be. And that there is direct correlation between how the agents feels and the service they provide a company. Part of how they feel is determined by the culture a company creates. It is determined by what types of behaviors get rewarded. And remembering that what gets rewarded, gets repeated.

The Plantronics EncorePro 500 Series is an all-new generation of headsets for customer service centers and offices that deliver greater comfort for all-day wearing, superior noise-canceling for clearer calls, and increased reliability to help manage costs. In addition, the company announced their next-generation DA Series USB digital audio processors for Plantronics headsets that deliver a more complete audio experience by providing context for every call. With these new Plantronics customer service solutions, organizations improve metrics, attract and retain Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) and create a better customer experience.

Smart Phones and Self-service Have Shifted the Balance of Power in the Customer Service Center

when a customer reaches a CSR, they have likely attempted self-service and have much more information than the agent. In these situations, customers want to reach someone immediately and have the issue resolved quickly. They consider their call an escalation putting extraordinary pressure on the agent to perform, even while the customer is likely in a mobile environment with questionable audio quality. Furthermore, businesses are using over-the-phone routes for complex, high-value transactions. In these situations, center managers need to ensure that every call sounds high-quality and customers don’t overhear other callers’ confidential information.

The combination of the Plantronics EncorePro 500 Series, Plantronics digital audio adapters, and Plantronics Hub means that events and metrics occurring during the interaction with the customer are actionable; they are exposed in real-time through the API and made available through an SDK to call routing systems and third party applications.

This makes possible new efficiencies in a range of areas, such as automation of agent status updates, screen-locking for security when a headset is disconnected, dashboard management of headset inventory and warranty status, tracking of agent use of physical call controls and supervisor alerts to conversational conflict between agent and caller. Alliance partner integrations with vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Aspect, Avaya, Cisco, Genesys, Interactive Intelligence and additional third-party software application vendors are expected to enter market during 2015

Comprehensive Solutions for Customer Service Superheroes Make Better Experiences for Both the Agent and the Customer

With customer expectations rising, the CSR needs to effectively communicate with the customer to solve their problems. The Plantronics EncorePro 500 Series was built with the CSR in mind. It features a forward-looking, professional grade industrial design that uses new materials and technologies that yield an ergonomic fit that is extraordinarily durable, lightweight, and comfortable for all-day wearing. With fewer reasons to remove the headset throughout the day, CSRs are ready for each call, with the boom being in the right place for a better customer conversation. The noise-canceling technology ensures more focused and private calls, so conversations will be heard clearly with fewer misunderstood words and with reduced background noise from keyboards and close talkers.

The series includes the following models: EncorePro 510/520 (dedicated over-the-head), EncorePro 530 (over-the-ear) and EncorePro 540 (convertible), the latter is unique in its simple design and high-performance audio no matter what the preferred wearing style. All models support wideband audio.

The new Plantronics digital audio processors are designed to connect Plantronics quick disconnect headsets to computers through a USB port. Some incorporate user controls like the ability to answer a call, mute the call and adjust volume. All support Noise @ Work, based on Plantronics SoundGuard® digital technology. Not only are CSRs protected from sounds above 118 dBA, but anti-startle protection detects and eliminates sudden increase in sound and Time Weighted Average (TWA) measurement which manages average daily sound exposure for CSRs.

Smart Headphones Make Smarter Customer Service Agents 

What’s more, these new devices are smart. All are support by Plantronics Hub, and each contains firmware that can generate notifications based on hardware state changes. Some models can also generate notifications based on acoustic events or other telemetry that is important to the service center, but has been previously unavailable. For example, the Plantronics DA-90 will offer acoustic event logging so that customers can be compliant with initiatives like Australia’s G.616 recommendation. These events are exposed through API’s within the Plantronics Spokes suite of software solutions.

“We are building on the world’s most successful professional grade headset, the SupraPlus, and this is a challenge we did not take lightly. Our deep understanding of the new business needs and role of Customer Service, and the availability of new materials, design philosophies, manufacturing techniques and core technologies resulted in a new portfolio that is not only state-of-the-art by today’s standards, but also future-proofed to adapt as the landscape changes,” said Bill Loewenthal, vice president, Enterprise Communications Solutions, Plantronics. “It’s no longer just about a first-class audio experience. With our new portfolio, organizations will immediately see the value that we bring by providing equipment and intelligence which enable operations to be more effective, and create a positive experience for both the CSR and the customer.”

The all-new Plantronic’s Customer Service Solutions include:

Cutting-Edge Design

• Brand new, stylish, and ergonomic design

 Custom Noise Canceling Microphones

• Next-generation, noise-canceling microphone
• Flexible boom with positioning guides 

Superb Audio

• Wideband audio with SoundGuard® technology

 Comfort and Convenience

• Adjustable fit with all-day comfort
• Quick Disconnect™ feature provides walkaway convenience

Robust and Reliable

• Proprietary material and construction for unparalleled robustness

Integration with Softphones

• Plantronics technology that captures and reports on key call events

Call Control

• Easy, at-your-fingertips access to call functions (Plantronics DA-80, DA-90 only)

Noise @ Work and antistartle, G616 Compliance

• Help achieve compliance with legislated regulations to protect your CSRs 

Firmware Updates

• Firmware updates that aid in inventory management through Plantronics Hub or in early 2015 through Plantronics Manager Pro

 Extraordinary Service

• Industry-leading global service and support

@drnatalie

VP and Principle Analyst, Covering Marketing, Sales and Customer Service to Create Great Customer Experience

Constellation Research