Challenges in Customer Service - Today - The Mirage Las Vegas

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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After a delayed flight back from the East Coast to Las Vegas, I made it to the Mirage shortly after midnight, and was still in a good mood - tweeting that only in Las Vegas you have a line checking into a hotel after midnight...

But then the challenges started to pop up fast and furiously:

• Despite having a non smoking room reserved the receptionist told me that they had only smoking rooms left. Not a good start.    
   
• In my hope that my MLife loyalty would change something - I wanted to provide my loyalty card number, only to note that I didn't have it. But I knew from other MGM properties that the receptionist can look that number up with the address. Not so my receptionist - she said it's not possible.... But I pressed and she then 'found a way' to do it, excusing herself for a 'brain fart' (her words!).
  
  [Epilogue - she gave me a number - but it wasn't mine as I discovered back home...]
   
• So I make myself to the room - enter, can't find the light switch, but can see the bathroom, find the 'standard' setup of the light switch and ... there are toiletries on the sink. As I make my discover a female voice says faintly 'Hello?' - to which I retreat with profuse apologies that this was my room according to the front desk and my key opened the door... I doubled check once outside again - and yes it was my room.

• So off to the service phone on the floor (22nd) only to find out - that it doesn't .... work.
   
• Next down and to the service telephone at the bottom of the elevator...
   
• Receptionist asks me to come back to reception, which I politely decline with my luggage and given it's almost half a mile and its quarter to 1 AM. So he says he will re-program my key and give me a new room over the phone. Incredously I ask if that worked, as I never have seen that working - but he reassures me this will work.
   
• Back to 22nd floor and of course... it does not work.
   
• Back down (service phone broken) and guess I sounded irritated - as the switchboard offers to connect me with the hotel manager... I though the cavalry is here.
   
• The hotel manager can't offer an apology but says he will send someone with the key. 15 miniutes later as I am picking up the phone again - a young gentleman shows up and gives me the new keys... promises to call me if I make it in the room (...).
   
• I make it to the room and find new - never seen equipment - an air purifier.

• Needless to say I never get a call in the room - and being 1:10 and having a 5 AM start I resort in my fate... needless to say the most smoke stinking room I ever was in. Luckily I was able to open the window, but let me tell you that the slightest move in the bed of a smoking room unleashes plenty of smoke.
   
• The next day - on a conference call I took from my (smoking) room - the house cleaning maid walks in on me - no knocking whatsoever. Before your phantasies go wild - I was decently dressed.
   
• Around 2 PM - I was supposed to get my new room assigned by noon - I call myself the hotel manager. The reply is 'oh yeah - let me send someone'.
   
• And yes - 10 minutes later another young gentleman shows up and gives me the new room keys.
   
• I was glad to be in my new non smoking room. 2 more house cleaning walk ins - I know use the deadbolt. And they left me a present:

• Also it looks like taking away trash guests need to leave lying around - as there was no dust bin - does not get picked up either. Or hotel dishes: 

]

• Generally it looks like the Mirage Las Vegas is falling apart - just two pictures from my bath room door. Door handle not secured by screws and broken off wood at the door.

 

Throughout my 3 day and 3 night stay - where I documented all of the above on Twitter, no one of the Mirage bothered to reach out to me. It was like all of this did not happen... 

Why CIOs Attend Connected Enterprise

IT budgets are shrinking, and you know that investing in emerging technology will give your organization a competitive advantage in the era of digital disruption. You know that innovation is no longer a luxury, but a necessity to remain competitive.  You're ready to make the case for new and emerging technologies. 

Connected Enterprise is not for every CIO.

Connected Enterprise is for the forward-thinking CIO. CIOs who attend Connected Enterprise are not interested in simply maintaining IT systems. CIOs who attend Connected Enterprise are interested in challenging the status quo, breaking down silos, and experimenting with new business models in order to introduce emerging technologies to their organizations. 

Forward-thinking CIOs Benefit from Connected Enterprise's Technology Optimization & Innovation Programming

Connected Enterprise's Technology Optimization & Innovation sessions analyze the strategic balance between investing in innovation while optimizing the cost of providing support to existing IT systems. New economic realities and shrinking IT budgets necessitate that IT organizations become better at justifying new projects, more efficient in delivering IT services, and smarter at adopting new technologies that can deliver business value while reducing costs.  Organizations must work together to optimize the cost reduction that funds innovation, and learn how to balance the needs of business with the responsibilities of IT.  Is your organization ready for the shift to innovation?  Have you developed a strategy to fund innovation with optimization? 

Connected Enterprise's Technology Optimization & Innovation sessions will teach you how to create a strategy to balance innovation and IT optimization. You will discover new technologies and learn how to justify innovation projects to your organization. You'll learn how to instill a culture of innovation in your organization from other CIOs who successfully implemented disruptive technologies in their own organizations. 

Technology Optimization & Innovation Sessions:

• EXECUTIVE EXCHANGE: Infusing a culture of Innovation In an Age of Digital Transformation
• VISIONARIES: How to fund innovation through technology optimization and innovation
• EXECUTIVE EXCHANGE: Industry Spotlight - How Sports Has Changed With Digital Business

What It's Like to be a CIO in Silicon Valley panel from Connected Enterprise 2013

Register soon! Early bird pricing ends September 30!

Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors picks up speed - but there remains work to be done

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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SAP SuccessFactor’s yearly North America user conference, SuccessConnect concluded this week in Las Vegas. It was the largest SuccessConnect ever, with over 2200 attendees, a good indicator that the acquisition and integration of SuccessFactors by SAP is on a good track. That was not a guaranteed outcome a year ago – my takeaways of SuccessConnect 2013 as reference are here – and of the Day 1 keynote are here.

A lot of important product and services news were announced, tough to pick the Top 3 – but here you go:

1 - Roadmap Sharing 

As Ettling keynoted on Day 1 of SuccessConnect, SuccessFactors is now sharing its roadmap for the next 12 months to come. To deliver on that was the task for Dmitri Krakovsky on Day 2. He didn’t share the dates – but the roadmap items – see below. 

 

SuccessFactors Roadmap items as shared by Krakovsky

 

And that were indeed a lot of roadmap items for the next 12 months to come. Let’s look at the ones with the most impact:

• SuccessFactors is doing its integration homework - After a conservative first year (besides EmployeeCentral) the SuccessFactors product team is picking up on a number of innovations coming from SAP.
  
  • More Localizations, more Payroll countries and more documentation are leveraging SAP scale, investment and processes. 
  • On the technology side, new customers will be running fully on HANA at some point in 2015, the Fiori UX will be uptaken and SuccessFactors will use HANA Cloud Integration (if that will be the bye bye for Dell Boomi remains to be seen). 
  • And SuccessFactors will also leverage and work with other SAP acquisitions, improving the Fieldglass integration and using KXEN’s InifiteInsight for Analytics.
     

• On the functional side SuccessFactors focusses on Learning (more below), improved Workforce Planning (positive Time), Auto Sourcing (in Recruiting), Offboarding and extension of Global Benefit.
   
• Mobile gets a big push with new native support for Apple (demoed in the keynote) and Android (coming next year).
   
• Moreover SuccessFactors will support the visually impaired with additional color palettes, that help e.g. the red / green blind user population. Why this did not morph into a full ADA support announcement / roadmap was one of the questions I did not manage to ask, but this is a first step in that direction.
   
• And last but not least SuccessFactors has already an Applications marketplace, a good instrument to help partners to promote and monetize their offerings, something not seen too often in the industry yet (see e.g. Cornerstone’s announcement here).
   
• Finally there was an entry on the slide named ‘Model S’, the codename for SAP’s new simple Suite. If there by accident or dropped by purpose to start a conversation, it certainly means that a part of the SuccessFactors capacity will go towards SAP’s next generation suite. 

 

New iPhone Learning Client

2 - Learning front and center

SuccessFactors is executing a major learning push, leveraging its acquired Plateau products and expertise to advance two critical functions that so far have been more or less inexistent or badly broken in learning management: The user generated, self-creation of content and the easy identification of relevant learning content, aided by analytics. If SAP can solve both of these challenges in their next generation Learning product, then enterprises should take note.

I was impressed by the approach taken with analytics – Krakovsky called it analytical racks – that just run to predict the best course recommendations – and are added or taken off when obsolete. That comes the closest to where I see analytics going, I call it model thrashing. Just run as many models you can get hold off and use the one for the day or even for the hour that has the best prediction fidelity.

Ettling presents Service Improvements on Day 1

3 - Services strengthening

The services announcements made by Ettling made my top three event takeaways on the Day 1 keynote and now as well for the event. The separation of the upgrade time frames for the test vs. the production instances is a key quality for SaaS customers. And knowing 6 weeks before a release what will likely be part of it is essential to take the necessary preparation in learning and change management that enterprises may have to prepare for.

Tidbits

• EmployeeCentral - moving on - Good to see more traction in EmployeeCentral, starting with plans on UI improvement, the addition of more countries and more payroll support as well as the addition of positive time. It is also clear that SuccessFactors plans to use EmployeeCentral and its technology framework (MDF) as the basis for its next generation HCM SaaS product, as more talent management functions are being built on the same framework. 

• Analytics - InfiniteInsight coming -  SuccessFactors already has a very good intelligence platform with the acquisition of Australian infoHRM that is widely used acroos the suite. The product team is now actively working with the InfiniteInsight product of KXEN (acquired by SAP, my takeaways here), which will beef up SuccessFactors analytical capabilities significantly. 

• Recruiting - improved - A number of enhancements for the Recruiting product, the most important being the improved and automated interview scheduling, which brings SuccessFactors to par in this critical productivity / efficiency function with Workday. 

• Jam - plowing on -  The SAP social product is always close to the HCM products, so SuccessConnect was no exception. The product is making good progress in the usability side, the Work Pattern approach has proven itself with partner uptake and it now comes back to foster an ecosystem to garner the uptake. The SuccessFactors Marketplace certainly helps here. 

MyPOV

SuccessFactors is making good progress on all fronts. Tackling the user interface with improvements, up taking more synergies with what SAP can offer and closing competitive gaps are all good practices that every software vendor should practice, but not all manage to pull that off.

The Services improvements received a very warm welcome by customers already at the event, now SAP has to deliver on them.

But then SuccessFactors still has to do a lot of work on harmonizing architectures of acquired products – or rebuilding of these on the new EmployeeCentral / MDF architecture. Or maybe in Model S – or Simple HCM? The sharing of the roadmap for the next 12 months is very good news for customers in order to have the opportunity to align their rollout plans with the product roadmap. Now SAP needs to wrestle some of the thought leadership and commercial success away from Workday, a major task to be undertaken, the starting position has certainly improved compared to year ago.

And more on overall SAP strategy and products:

• First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Top 3 Takeaways Day 1 Keynote - read here.
• Event Report - Sapphire - SAP finds its (unique) path to cloud - read here
• What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire - read here
• News Analysis - SAP becomes more about applications - again - read here
• Market Move - SAP acquires Fieldglass - off to the contingent workforce - early move or reaction? Read here.
• SAP's startup program keep rolling – read here.
• Why SAP acquired KXEN? Getting serious about Analytics – read here.
• SAP steamlines organization further – the Danes are leaving – read here.
• Reading between the lines… SAP Q2 Earnings – cloudy with potential structural changes – read here.
• SAP wants to be a technology company, really – read here
• Why SAP acquired hybris software – read here.
• SAP gets serious about the cloud – organizationally – read here.
• Taking stock – what SAP answered and it didn’t answer this Sapphire [2013] – read here.
• Act III & Final Day – A tale of two conference – Sapphire & SuiteWorld13 – read here.
• The middle day – 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
• A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
• What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire – read here.
• Why 3rd party maintenance is key to SAP’s and Oracle’s success – read here.
• Why SAP acquired Camillion – read here.
• Why SAP acquired SmartOps – read here.
• Next in your mall – SAP and Oracle? Read here.

And more about SAP technology:

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

SAP SuccessFactors picks up speed - but there remains work to be done

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…...

Read more

SAP SuccessFactor’s yearly North America user conference, SuccessConnect concluded this week in Las Vegas. It was the largest SuccessConnect ever, with over 2200 attendees, a good indicator that the acquisition and integration of SuccessFactors by SAP is on a good track. That was not a guaranteed outcome a year ago – my takeaways of SuccessConnect 2013 as reference are here – and of the Day 1 keynote are here.

 
 

A lot of important product and services news were announced, tough to pick the Top 3 – but here you go:

 

1 - Roadmap Sharing 

As Ettling keynoted on Day 1 of SuccessConnect, SuccessFactors is now sharing its roadmap for the next 12 months to come. To deliver on that was the task for Dmitri Krakovsky on Day 2. He didn’t share the dates – but the roadmap items – see below. 

 

SuccessFactors Roadmap items as shared by Krakovsky

 

And that were indeed a lot of roadmap items for the next 12 months to come. Let’s look at the ones with the most impact:

• SuccessFactors is doing its integration homework - After a conservative first year (besides EmployeeCentral) the SuccessFactors product team is picking up on a number of innovations coming from SAP.
   
  • More Localizations, more Payroll countries and more documentation are leveraging SAP scale, investment and processes. 
  • On the technology side, new customers will be running fully on HANA at some point in 2015, the Fiori UX will be uptaken and SuccessFactors will use HANA Cloud Integration (if that will be the bye bye for Dell Boomi remains to be seen). 
  • And SuccessFactors will also leverage and work with other SAP acquisitions, improving the Fieldglass integration and using KXEN’s InifiteInsight for Analytics.
     

• On the functional side SuccessFactors focusses on Learning (more below), improved Workforce Planning (positive Time), Auto Sourcing (in Recruiting), Offboarding and extension of Global Benefit.
   
• Mobile gets a big push with new native support for Apple (demoed in the keynote) and Android (coming next year).
   
• Moreover SuccessFactors will support the visually impaired with additional color palettes, that help e.g. the red / green blind user population. Why this did not morph into a full ADA support announcement / roadmap was one of the questions I did not manage to ask, but this is a first step in that direction.
   
• And last but not least SuccessFactors has already an Applications marketplace, a good instrument to help partners to promote and monetize their offerings, something not seen too often in the industry yet (see e.g. Cornerstone’s announcement here).
   
• Finally there was an entry on the slide named ‘Model S’, the codename for SAP’s new simple Suite. If there by accident or dropped by purpose to start a conversation, it certainly means that a part of the SuccessFactors capacity will go towards SAP’s next generation suite. 

 

New iPhone Learning Client

2 - Learning to the front

SuccessFactors is executing a major learning push, leveraging its acquired Plateau products and expertise to advance two critical functions that so far have been more or less inexistent or badly broken in learning management: The user generated, self-creation of content and the easy identification of relevant learning content, aided by analytics. If SAP can solve both of these challenges in their next generation Learning product, then enterprises should take note.

I was impressed by the approach taken with analytics – Krakovsky called it analytical racks – that just run to predict the best course recommendations – and are added or taken off when obsolete. That comes the closest to where I see analytics going, I call it model thrashing. Just run as many models you can get hold off and use the one for the day or even for the hour that has the best prediction fidelity.

 

Ettling presents Service Improvements on Day 1

3 - Services strengthening

The services announcements made by Ettling made my top three event takeaways on the Day 1 keynote and now as well for the event. The separation of the upgrade time frames for the test vs. the production instances is a key quality for SaaS customers. And knowing 6 weeks before a release what will likely be part of it is essential to take the necessary preparation in learning and change management that enterprises may have to prepare for.

Tidbits

• EmployeeCentral - moving on - Good to see more traction in EmployeeCentral, starting with plans on UI improvement, the addition of more countries and more payroll support as well as the addition of positive time. It is also clear that SuccessFactors plans to use EmployeeCentral and its technology framework (MDF) as the basis for its next generation HCM SaaS product, as more talent management functions are being built on the same framework. 

• Analytics - InfiniteInsight coming -  SuccessFactors already has a very good intelligence platform with the acquisition of Australian infoHRM that is widely used acroos the suite. The product team is now actively working with the InfiniteInsight product of KXEN (acquired by SAP, my takeaways here), which will beef up SuccessFactors analytical capabilities significantly. 

• Recruiting - improved - A number of enhancements for the Recruiting product, the most important being the improved and automated interview scheduling, which brings SuccessFactors to par in this critical productivity / efficiency function with Workday. 

• Jam - plowing on -  The SAP social product is always close to the HCM products, so SuccessConnect was no exception. The product is making good progress in the usability side, the Work Pattern approach has proven itself with partner uptake and it now comes back to foster an ecosystem to garner the uptake. The SuccessFactors Marketplace certainly helps here. 

MyPOV

SuccessFactors is making good progress on all fronts. Tackling the user interface with improvements, up taking more synergies with what SAP can offer and closing competitive gaps are all good practices that every software vendor should practice, but not all manage to pull that off.

The Services improvements received a very warm welcome by customers already at the event, now SAP has to deliver on them.

But then SuccessFactors still has to do a lot of work on harmonizing architectures of acquired products – or rebuilding of these on the new EmployeeCentral / MDF architecture. Or maybe in Model S – or Simple HCM? The sharing of the roadmap for the next 12 months is very good news for customers in order to have the opportunity to align their rollout plans with the product roadmap. Now SAP needs to wrestle some of the thought leadership and commercial success away from Workday, a major task to be undertaken, the starting position has certainly improved compared to year ago.

And more on overall SAP strategy and products:

 

• First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Top 3 Takeaways Day 1 Keynote - read here.
• Event Report - Sapphire - SAP finds its (unique) path to cloud - read here
• What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire - read here
• News Analysis - SAP becomes more about applications - again - read here
• Market Move - SAP acquires Fieldglass - off to the contingent workforce - early move or reaction? Read here.
• SAP's startup program keep rolling – read here.
• Why SAP acquired KXEN? Getting serious about Analytics – read here.
• SAP steamlines organization further – the Danes are leaving – read here.
• Reading between the lines… SAP Q2 Earnings – cloudy with potential structural changes – read here.
• SAP wants to be a technology company, really – read here
• Why SAP acquired hybris software – read here.
• SAP gets serious about the cloud – organizationally – read here.
• Taking stock – what SAP answered and it didn’t answer this Sapphire [2013] – read here.
• Act III & Final Day – A tale of two conference – Sapphire & SuiteWorld13 – read here.
• The middle day – 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
• A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
• What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire – read here.
• Why 3rd party maintenance is key to SAP’s and Oracle’s success – read here.
• Why SAP acquired Camillion – read here.
• Why SAP acquired SmartOps – read here.
• Next in your mall – SAP and Oracle? Read here.

 

And more about SAP technology:

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

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here.

Event Report: AirWatch Connect Continues Market Momentum In Enterprise Mobility

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…...

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New Enhancements, Products, and Partnerships Delight Attendees

Over 1500 customers, partners, and influencers gathered September 8th to 11th, 2014 at the Atlanta Hyatt Regency for the latest US edition of AirWatch Connect. Key announcements from the event include:

• Launch of Chat for Secure Enterprise Messaging . Chat delivers a containerized and secure instant messaging application for iOS and Android. The offering takes advantage of FIPS, a US Government computer security standard, compliant algorithms to ensure security. The product is available at the end of Q3 2014. Point of view (POV): Consumer SMS applications often do not provide enough security for highly regulated customers. In conversations with over 20 customers in industries such as financial services, healthcare, telecom, public sector, and pharma, every customer indicated a demand for secure messaging to replace aging platforms such as Blackberry Messenger (BBM).

• Enhanced Capabilities for Comprehensive Mac Management. The Mac Management offering includes application management, enhanced compliance policies, enhanced tasked automation, interoperability with Apple’s Device Enrollment Program, and streamlined staging. New profile configurations include global HTTP proxy, advanced Active Directory, and settings to prevent the exporting of private keys once the certificate is installed on the device. (POV): The growing importance of Mac and OSX in the enterprise because of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs and growing acceptance of Apple in the enterprise requires consistent and cost-effective device management. The AirWatch solution should be considered in short lists as Mac Management can be incorporated into a streamlined process to enforce and deploy consistent corporate policies and manage virtually all end user devices.

• Availability of new Inbox for iOS and Android. AirWatch's Email Management suite gets an enhancement to Inbox. The new functionality extends security to email, calendar, and contacts on iOS and Android. The solution is planned for general availability late September 2014 on iOS and is available on Android. A Windows version is slated for next year. (POV): Conversations with clients indicate general excitement to extend selective S/MINE for iOS and Android. The extra security for email delivery allows customers to manage on a per-message basis. Improving granularity of cryptographic security services on S/MINE include features such as message integrity, privacy, authentication, data security, and non-repudiation of origin using digital signatures.

• Interoperability with Mobile App Dev Platforms Via AppShield. AirWatch announced the launch of AppShield which adds an extra layer of security and management capabilities to existing deployments without requiring additional development. The offering builds on top of the AirWatch SDK and App Wrapping functionality. In addition, nine charter mobile application management platform (MADP) providers agreed to inter operate with AirWatch AppShield. Customers can also deploy Inbox as a managed application or within the dual persona Workspace containerized solution. (POV): The announcement may appear to be inside baseball to customers at first. However, the agreement by Adobe, Appcelerator, Kony, Microstrategy, Oracle, salesforce.com, Sencha, Telerik, and Xamarin to enable interoperability, allows AirWatch customers to wrap more than 100,000 existing applications. The result - improved technology optimization of both current and legacy investments as organizations mobilize their applications landscape. Customers with investments in the nine charter providers and AirWatch stand to gain efficiencies in end user computing.

• Partnership with CapGemini for Enterprise Mobility Management. AirWatch will provide a centralized console to access applications and content from any device. Capgemini will provide mobile development, managed mobility, and mobile strategy. The Capgemini offerings are offered as part of the Capgemini Mobile Solutions portfolio, which includes as-a-Service packages (POV): The partnership creates an opportunity for both Capgemini and AirWatch to provide industry optimized EMM offerings. AirWatch gains access to Capgemini's client base while Capgemini adds a key digital technology to its offerings for CXO's. Constellation expects deals to accelerate from the Capgemini side..

Figure 1. The AirWatch Connect FlickrStream #AWConnect

The Bottom Line: Mobile Is More Than A Device And End User Computing Needs To Be Streamlined

As a key entry point to digital transformation, mobile is more than a device. It’s about getting stuff done in motion and in between time. It's about a new user experience. It's about a way to capture inputs and signals. It's about a communication platform. However all these devices require investment, management, and support. End user computing is driving this movement. Keep in mind, mobile plays a key role in digital transformation when leaders:

• Realize digital business disruption is a mindset and mobile first is a significant entry point
• Understand that mobile is more than just a device
• Begin at the business process and end at experiences to drive business value
• Capture data that provides relevancy and right time context
• Use mobile as an interface, interaction point, and data collection sensor
• Include mobile ROI as part of a larger initiative around digital
• Expect mobile to enable P2P networks

Your POV.

Ready for digital disruption by starting with mobile? Do you have your bases covered on enterprise mobile management? What are your reactions to the #AWConnect announcements? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

Resources

Event Report: Glassdoor Employer Branding Summit

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…...

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Employer Branding Comes of Age

On September 12th, Glassdoor kicked off its Employer Branding Summit in San Francisco at the Hotel Nikko.  Social recruiting, employer branding, and talent acquisition pros gathered to hear how branding impacts the recruiting landscape.  Robert Hohman, CEO of Glassdoor welcomed the audience to set the stage (see Figure 1).

Guest speakers included Lars Schmidt – Amplify Talent, Josh Bersin – Bersin by Deloitte, Bryan Chaney – IBM, Jennifer Tharp – AT&T, Arie Ball & Anthony Scarpino – Sodexo, Jen Powell – Deloitte, Stacy Zapar – Zappos, and Shannon Smedstad – CEB who shared their stories on their journey to the employer branding movement.

Inside The Glassdoor For Employers Approach

Glassdoor for Employers has taken the crowd sourcing review approach and inverted it as a feedback and insight tool for employers.  In short the Vault meets Angie’s list for a digital age metaphor applies in its key offerings:

• Employer Branding.  Think segmentation and targeting of recruits through content strategy via messaging, social media videos, and other dynamic content.  Most employers have taken advantage of the analytics on candidate demographics and site activity.
• Corporate Reputation and Employer Brand.  This employer offering is the recruiting equivalent of brand monitoring used for social media command centers.  Employers gain insights on rankings by category including work – life balance, benefits, cultures and values, and others.  Of interest to most CEOs is the ability to implement reputation management.

Bottom Line: Apply Principles Of Brand Authenticity To Recruiting For A Digital World

Companies such as Glassdoor and Smashfly have been pioneering the application of CRM principles to recruiting and employer branding.  Lessons learned from the speakers as well as the experts in the audience reinforce the following principles required to not only win the war on talent but also disrupt digital business:

1. Recruiting in a digital age requires trust and transparency.
2. Your brand drives the type of talent you attract.
3. Apply marketing principles to recruiting.
4. Use the 9C’s of engagement for out reach to prospective talent.
5. Brand marketing and HR converge in this growing category of employer branding.

Figure 1. A Short FlickrStream From #GDSummit San Francisco

Join us October 29th to 31st for Constellation’s Connected Enterprise: The Executive Innovation Conference For Digital CXO’s and Leaders. These leaders convene to discover, share, and inspire each other on how digital business can realize brand promises, transform business models, increase revenues, reduce costs, and improve compliance.

The 3-day executive retreat will include mind expanding keynotes from visionaries and futurists, interactive best practices panels, deep 1:1 20 minute interviews with market makers, rapid fire high-energy new technology demos, The Constellation SuperNova Awards event, a golf outing, and an immersive networking event.

Your POV.

Ready for employer branding? Are you working closely with your marketing team to implement these changes? What’s your strategy?  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

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Why HR Pros Attend Connected Enterprise

By now you know Constellation's Connected Enterprise is the Innovation Summit for the Enterprise. You know that as an attendee, you will learn how the brightest minds in the enterprise are using disruptive technology. You know you will learn how to instill a culture of innovation in your organization.

You already know the big picture. Now you want to know how attending Connected Enterprise will benefit you as an HR professional.

HR Professionals benefit from Connected Enterprise's Future of Work programming 

The Future of Work sessions analyze the confluence of technological, demographic, and cultural trends challenging the traditional work paradigm. Where we work, when we work, how we work, what we work on, and why we work have dramatically changed.  The Future of Work is Collaborative, Social, Mobile, and Remote. Is your organization ready for this shift? Will you be prepared to inspire five generations of workers to reach their full potential?

Connected Enterprise's Future of Work sessions will teach you how to harness the power of these paradigm shifts to create an engaged, empowered and efficient workforce. 

Future of Work sessions:

• Executive Exchange: Digital Proficiency - What are the Implications of 5 generations of digital workers not by age?
• Visionaries: Which comes first - digital business transformation or globalization?
• Executive Exchange: Industry Spotlight.  How does the public sector benefit from Digital Business Disruption?

 Future of Work Visionaries Panel from Connected Enterprise '13

Register soon--early bird pricing ends September 30!

Progress Report - The mainframe is alive and kicking - but there is more in IBM STG

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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I had the opportunity to attend the yearly STG (System & Technology Group) analyst meeting in Greenwich earlier this week. STG is the 4th division in Steve Mills responsibility area of IBM – which by itself is larger than many of the large players in the information technology industry (the other 3 are Cloud and Solutions, Database Solutions and of course Watson).
 

The event was well attended with over 80 analysts and IBM did their usual great job of the mix of general sessions, group sessions, and 1 to 1s. 

Here are my three top takeaways from the event:

• The mainframe is alive and kicking. Often pronounced dead the first computing architecture is doing well, better than I personally thought – even though the mainframe in 2014 is no longer what the Zuses or ENIACs used to be. Substantial load runs on today’s mainframes, 92 of the top 100 banks, 22 of the top 25 US retailers, 10 of the 10 largest insurances on the planet and 23 of the 25 largest airlines are substantial enterprise load. Indeed it was mentioned it is unlikely that the average USA inhabitant touches a mainframe powered product in form of an application or other artifact (e.g. letter, invoice etc.) more than 3 times per day.
  
  Interesting was also that mobile applications are a substantial driver for mainframe growth - the use cases being the above mentioned industries. There is compelling reasons to power your next generation applications via the mainframe – because data and processes are there.
  
  Even more interesting, IBM shared an internal TCO study, bench marking the cost of virtualizing server load on the mainframe – and it was significantly cheaper than on a well know public cloud. Certainly we want to learn more about that study – hopefully soon. 

 

How Mobile Demand creates Mainframe Load

• We were treated by an insight of how IBM’s research arm, that supports the enterprise's products, delivered by Head of R&D John Kelly. And while IBM has a great track record of basic research, much of today’s world's products run on the base of IBM inventions, it was interesting to see how Kelly showed examples how basic research fuels and innovates IBM business. From the Watson group, Project Lucy, BlueMix, the New York Genome Center, R&D is always involved and contributes to these key initiatives.
  
  This is great to see – but I would love to have a conversation with Kelly how IBM makes sure more of it basic research really comes through in monetized products – a challenge for all innovation and R&D centers.
  
  To pick one area of the five top R&R directions, labelled ‘Silicone to Extreme’ – it was fascinating to listen to imminent advancements of 3D chip stacking and silicon nano photonics.  

Silicon to the Extreme Slide

• Hybrid Cloud and Software defined Loads – The hybrid cloud theme could not be missing, and STG has a stake in the game with its storage products. The rise of the software defined data center has also arrive in the IBM product palette, and Jamie Thomas presented advancements in software the space. A lot of that storage is more and more on SSD, an area where IBM showed solid arguments to convince CIOs to move to this new storage medium.
  
  And of course IBM is good at honing the hybrid cloud message. With software defined loads on premise – compute, storage can float between on premise and public cloud resources, with Softlayer being part of the public cloud infrastructure.

Hybrid Cloud - where Software defined Storage plays

 

MyPOV

News Analysis - HP acquired Eucalyptus - Genius or Panic on Page Mill Road?

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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Quite a surprise this morning when news was out that HP acquired Eucalyptus. A surprise because HP had previously firmly committed to OpenStack and its related benefits, and become the largest OpenStack contributor. And Eucalyptus and OpenStack have not been best friends in the past, with Eucalyptus CEO Marten Mickos even referring to OpenStack as the Soviet Union of Cloud, making fun of the numerous contributors to the open source project. 

 

So let’s dissect in typical Constellation style the press release that can be found here:

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 11, 2014 — HP today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Eucalyptus, a provider of open source software for building private and hybrid enterprise clouds.

MyPOV – Ok – surprise. And sad to a certain point as the first private cloud platform provider is gone, originally being built at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). And the simplest to install platform, too.

After the transaction closes, Eucalyptus Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Marten Mickos, a respected leader in the cloud industry and a longtime advocate of open source, will join HP as senior vice president and general manager of the Cloud business, reporting to Meg Whitman, chairman, president and chief executive officer of HP.

MyPOV – It’s the second time Mickos sells software to hardware vendors, the first time was MySQL to Sun, now Eucalyptus to HP. Only now the non-disclosed acquisition price will be far away from the (then very generous) 1B US$ for MySQL. The amount is immaterial for HP, not affecting its earning and HP will make employment offers to all Eucalyptus employees. So more an acqui-hire than an acquisition?

In this role, Mickos will lead the HP Cloud organization in building out the HP Helion portfolio, based on OpenStack® technology. Prior to Eucalyptus, Mickos was CEO of MySQL, which he grew from a garage start-up to the company providing the second most widely used open source software in the world.

“The addition of Marten to HP’s world-class Cloud leadership team will strengthen and accelerate the strategy we’ve had in place for more than three years, which is to help businesses build, consume and manage open source hybrid clouds,” said Whitman. “Marten will enhance HP’s outstanding bench of Cloud executives and expand HP Helion capabilities, giving customers more choice and greater control of private and hybrid cloud solutions.”

MyPOV – So more choice for HP customers, and Mickos runs all of HP Cloud, including the OpenStack pieces. No word from Whitman in regards of Eucalyptus software assets.

“Eucalyptus and HP share a common vision for the future of cloud in the enterprise,” said Mickos. “Enterprises are demanding open source cloud solutions, and I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to grow the HP Helion portfolio and lead a world-class business that delivers private, hybrid, managed and public clouds to enterprise customers worldwide.”

MyPOV – Congrats to Marten, hopefully more fun to build cloud at HP than with a startup that had to fight the cloud giants.

Martin Fink, who currently leads HP’s Cloud business, will remain in his roles as chief technology officer of HP and director of HP Labs, where he will focus on innovation and creating groundbreaking solutions like The Machine. Fink will also continue to lead HP’s Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) business.

MyPOV – Looks like Cloud was only an interim job for Fink – in addition of all his other responsibilities.

“We’ve said before that we believe the future of the Cloud is open source, and this transaction underscores our deep commitment to helping customers build enterprise-class, open clouds their way,” said Fink. “We’ve already seen significant momentum since launching HP Helion and have put in place an outstanding team. I’m confident that Marten, a fellow open source devotee, will continue to build out the HP Helion portfolio into the enterprise cloud offering of choice.”

MyPOV – Certainly HP thinks open source is the future for cloud, and has added on more open source offering to its cloud portfolio with Eucalyptus. Ironically it raises questions on the future of the Eucalyptus (open source) product that will need to be addressed. For now in a Q&A HP said it will keep supporting Eucalyptus. It will be interesting how much of the Eucalyptus open source project was contributed by Eucalyptus (the company) employees.

Since introducing HP Helion in May, HP has grown share in private cloud and was ranked as the leader in the Forrester Wave report for Private Cloud Solutions.(1) In addition, HP recently announced an agreement to build and operate community clouds for enterprise customers in China, one of the fastest growing cloud markets in the world, and also announced HP Helion OpenStack Professional Services to help enterprises implement OpenStack technology–based clouds. HP is the leading code contributor to the next release of OpenStack code, scheduled for October. […]

New iPhone reminds us of the rise of mobility in supply chain

pending

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…...

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Later tonight we will be reminded about the power of Apple and consumers’ apparent insatiable desire for new devices (consumers can pre-order the new iPhone). But this is not a post about the iPhone 6 and whether or not I should get the 6 or the 6 phablet…instead this is a reminder about the rise of mobility within supply chains.

Not too long ago, when Apple introduced the iPad it was viewed, rightfully, as a revolutionary consumer device. A device that would threaten the laptop market. Which it has. An unintended consequence was the iPad becoming a device that found its way onto the manufacturing floor, truck fleets, warehouses and other parts of the supply chain. Tablets gave workers on the floor a simple, mobile and connected interface with the necessary systems to allow the factory to run effectively and efficiently. Companies like GE’s Energy Storage have been leveraging tablets on their factory floor to reduce the alerting time when outages occur. Rather than having floor managers monitor everything from a central control center, they now have that computation power and communications in a portable device. Truck fleets have adopted the usage of tablets to bring more intelligence and connectivity to their vehicles. Of course none of this is a bad thing for the likes of Apple, Google, Samsung or other players in the mobile device ecosystem.

Tablets have also become a vital cog when it comes to how supply chain solution providers such as Llamasoft and JDA, offer their customers access to their offerings. Allowing for greater access to their software solutions – anywhere and anytime.

But is the world of mobility limited to tablets and smart phones? Absolutely not. On the contrary, the rise of wearables is the next wave of mobility in the supply chain.  I remember walking the floor a few years ago at CSCMP’s annual event and seeing a number of companies displaying their devices – gloves, headware and other wearables – that would bring more efficiencies to supply chains. Many of these had to do with ensuring factory workers or those who pick and pack in the warehouse were as efficient as they could be. The problem is many of these devices were bulky and quite unwieldy. But similar to the adoption of consumer based tablets by companies, look for consumer wearbles to find their way onto the factory floor, warehouse and other environments. Let’s face it, consumer focused companies tend to make more aesthetically pleasing mobile devices, both in form and function.

For supply chain practitioners, do not hesitate to look to consumer device providers for your mobile needs. While there will be industry specific providers of devices, you might be able to find what you need from the likes of Apple or Samsung. Device manufacturers could consider these potential other uses, but in truth they should just focus on their primary targets – the consumer. Technology players must take into consideration what this growth in mobility for the supply chain means for them. Not only might they be asked to created apps for the devices, but how else can they take advantage of the increase in mobile and connected computing power?

New sleek gadgets like smart watches, clothing with senors, smarter tablets and phones are not only exploding in the consumer space but also for your supply chain. Interesting times we live in. Now I have to get back in line for my new iPhone.

Tagged: Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Tablets, Warehouse