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Consumerization of Identity in an Enterprise World - webinar wrapup

Consumerization of Identity in an Enterprise World - webinar wrapup

Get ready. Consumers and employees alike will soon demand the ability to access services using social (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) logins. While social login is convenient for the end user, it isn't always secure enough on the business end. Constellation Vice President and Principal Analyst, Steve WIlson, discussed how businesses should balance the convenience of social login with the demands of enterprise risk management in the "Consumerization of Identity in an Enterprise World" webinar. 

Highlights:  
  • what is social login?
  • federated identity
  • social login: a growing trend
  • what Social Logins tell us about users
  • the difference between Facebook and LinkedIn identities
  • how to determine if social login meets your business's needs
  • recommendations

Please find the webinar recording and slides below.

Let Constellation help you design your identity management strategy. Contact us.

Download the slides here.

Consumerization of Identity research report

 

New C-Suite Future of Work Next-Generation Customer Experience Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Tech Optimization Security Zero Trust Chief Customer Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief People Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Privacy Officer

Informatica pushes the cloud integration stakes

Informatica pushes the cloud integration stakes

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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When it comes to cloud integration – there are basically three larger vendors to watch – Tibco, Software AG and Informatics. The latter timely released it’s Winter 2014 of the Informatica Cloud family of cloud based integration and data management solutions. So time for a news analysis on the press release of November 12th 2013.

 

 

 

Informatica timed this pretty well, kudos to the marketing people for seizing the timing and the developers for providing the release on time, at the eve of the largest IaaS vendor user conference, AWS reinvent and a week before the user conference of Informatica's largest cloud integration partner – Salesforce.com. And with over 60 billion monthly cloud transactions – there is certainly relevant data moving across the cloud on the Informatica platform.

 

So what is being announced to come in Winter 2014?

 

Cloud Integration Innovations: Driving Productivity in Real Time

Informatica Cloud Winter 2014 introduces new advances in real-time data and applications integration, while also placing more productivity-driving power in the hands of line-of-business users. These advances include:

  • Unifying Cloud data, service, and process integration – New service and process integration functionality enables users to build standards-based, advanced real-time integrations in the cloud across application services, processes and systems. The model- driven design approach enables LOB process analysts and integration developers to be highly productive developing service orchestration and process automation applications with improved collaboration and without requiring specialized development skills. Integrations developed on Informatica Cloud can be exposed as REST APIs to enable seamless access to processes and data to any consumer application, including mobile applications, web mashups and business partners. 

 

MyPOV – With a lot of cloud purchasing power residing in the LOB it is a good move by Informatica to support a closer to the LOB enabled integration.

  • Crowdsourcing integration processes – New Global Repository expedites sharing of reusable cloud integration processes within the enterprise or across enterprises to increase development productivity, foster collaboration on complex business processes and accelerate time-to-develop and deploy integration projects.

 

MyPOV – There is a lot of dynamic and even more hype around crowdsourcing. But at some point this trend will take off and be relevant. Most likely more with business users than with technical users – so it’s a good step for Informatica to enable repository based re-use. And it’s easy – it’s all in the cloud already…. And it’s a good monetization option for customers and partners alike. We are waiting to see LOB execs haggling and trading their Informatica integration assets at a user conference. Seems far out – but we think we may see this come sooner than most vendors think.

  • Seamlessly integrating interdepartmental processes – New Mid-Stream Writer empowers users to create advanced data flows enabling business processes that span departments and their individual cloud applications (e.g., Salesforce CRM, Marketo, Workday, etc.) for increased business productivity.

MyPOV – The capability to influence and transform data in the middle of a integration flow is very powerful. We need to learn more on the specific capabilities but it’s certainly a powerful and elegant feature for the Informatica Cloud.

  • Extending Salesforce Outbound Message Support with Custom Integration Templates to easily implement re-usable integrations triggered by events in Salesforce.

 

MyPOV – A key feature to understand better what is happening inside of Salesforce. We will have to see what Informatica will be able to offer beyond messaging in upcoming releases.

[…]

New Cloud Automation Enhancements: Increasing Mobility and User Productivity

Natively integrated with Salesforce, Informatica Cloud Extend enables business users to create and deploy custom guides that automate Salesforce CRM processes and ensure that best practices are followed. Informatica Cloud Winter 2014 introduces new productivity features to Cloud Extend, including:

  • Increased mobility – The Cloud Extend iPhone mobile app, previously available as a preview release, is now generally available. A new Cloud Extend Android mobile app is now available as a preview version.

 

MyPOV – The appetite to consume all things on mobile devices does not stop for integration data, process and status. A good move by Informatica.

  • Simplified guide creation – Users can now easily create embedded sub-guides from within a parent guide that will use them, as well as quickly view and navigate to all guides that embed a particular sub-guide.

  • Skip-able Automated Steps – Users are now able to use a “skip button” to sidestep any automated process steps (e.g., “Do you want to create a contact?”) not specifically required for the task at hand.

 

MyPOV – Giving users more pre-configured options to control integration flows makes Informatica Cloud more attractive as the LOB tool of choice when it comes to integration.

 

Cloud TDM Enhancements: Safeguarding Sensitive Data in Cloud Application Sandboxes
Earlier this year, Informatica introduced a unique Informatica Cloud Data Masking service that reduces the risk of data breaches during application development and testing. Informatica Cloud Winter 2014 delivers enhancements in this increasingly important arena to help make development on the Force.com platform even more productive, including:

  • Enabling developers to quickly select and mask related Salesforce objects and move them into the Salesforce sandbox for testing.

MyPOV – Kudos to Informatica for making a key cloud problem easier. Masking of data for test and feasibility reasons is a painful and burdensome process that will certainly be welcomed by organizations seeking cloud projects.  

Cloud Data Quality Services: Control the Accuracy, Consistency and Completeness of Data 

Informatica Cloud Data Quality Services enable organizations to take control of the accuracy, consistency and completeness of their data-driven operations with a low-cost, per-transaction subscription. These SOAP-based web services are easily consumed by any analytical or operational applications, or used as discreet data quality rules within any business process. Also pre-defined data quality rules standardize, cleanse, validate and enrich data for all industries.  In addition, specific data quality rules for the healthcare and financial services verticals are also included in this release.

MyPOV – For Informatica to expand on their existing MDM and data quality tools is a good move. The absence of ‘user’ in the above press release paragraph maybe an omission – or otherwise hinting for a more complex skill set to be required to leverage these services. More details will be needed.

MyPOV

A substantial release for Informatica, that propels their offering further as one of the leading cloud integration vendors. Focussing on the LOB and making it easier to integrate between public cloud and on premise is a fast growing market demand that Informatica is positioning itself well for. 

Whichever vendor will be able to simplify this complex process enough to empower a non technical LOB user – will be on the path for victory for cloud integration. 

2013 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

Data to Decisions Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization informatica salesforce SaaS PaaS IaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Executive Officer

Should Your Company Be Looking Into Cloud Computing?

Should Your Company Be Looking Into Cloud Computing?

Alan Lepofsky
Alan Lepofsky
Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

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

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Below is a short video interview I did with BBC Click tech reporter Kate Russell on the BizCouch, where we discussed some of the things organizations should know about cloud computing.

0:00 - 2:05 - Overcoming resistance to cloud-based infrastructures
2:05 - 3:40 - What type of companies should be investigating using cloud-based infrastructures?
3:40 - 5:09 - Never run old versions of software/apps again!

Future of Work Tech Optimization SaaS PaaS IaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service Chief Executive Officer Chief People Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

KC Lam joins the Singapore Exchange

KC Lam joins the Singapore Exchange

J. Bruce Daley

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.  , Title: Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

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KC Lam

Siebel Systems veteran KC Lam has joined the Singapore Exchange (SGX) as a director in the international sales department. In this role he is responsible for foreign exchange products. Based in Singapore, Lam started in his new job in October. At Siebel Lam was a Vice President of Global Services.

Lam was previously head of foreign exchange products for Asia at CME Group in Singapore, but left the exchange in May as part of a restructuring of its Asia products coverage. Prior to joining CME, Lam was head of sales for electronic broking at Icap in Singapore.  Before that, he held a positions at Commerce One, Oracle, and Booz Allen Hamilton.

Tech Optimization Chief Information Officer

Kronos executes – 2014 will be key

Kronos executes – 2014 will be key

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 interesting to attend the Kronos user conference, Kronos World, earlier this week in Orlando. Kronos is a key player in the HCM market, being the overall leader for workforce management. Quantitative specialist analyst firm IHS estimatesthat Kronos has a worldwide market share of 25% and a North American market share of 37%. And Kronos grows twice as fast as the market with 10% in FY 2013.

 

 

The conference was well attended with approximately 1700 attendees, it’s largely seen as an educational event – with an impressive number of training sessions being scheduled. 

 

And the user base is – compared to other enterprise software conferences – amazingly open on sharing experiences and challenges. It looks like the challenges around implementing workforce management software are such, that companies are open and ready to share them with their peers. This is even more interesting since Kronos has a very strong vertical focus – with separating sessions, tracks, meals and events by industry vertical – all the way to the lanyard color of attendee’s name tags. So customers are practically sharing best practices and lessons learnt with their peers.

 

Good Keynote

As usual with user conferences, the first day was dominated by the keynote – delivered by Kronos CEO Aron Ain. Ain did a good job on stage, coupled with some appreciated humor and remarkably he delivered his part of the keynote without any supporting slides, which was a welcome change. 

 

Kronos CEO Aron Ain on stage

No keynote without customer testimonials – well done and on stage – and one of them, the City of Houston, was one of the highlights of the 2013 user conference keynotes: It does not get much cooler than having a customer on stage talking live about their experiences, demoing by themselves their implementation of analytics – live – on an iPad. Tough to top. And equally Fifth Third Bank was strong reference for Kronos. 

The guest speaker was Jeremy Gutsche, the founder of trendhunter.com, who delivered an energetic presentation – only challenge was how relevant the more generic and mostly B2C trends were for the audience.

 

What’s new?

Kronos  unleashed a number of press releases – let’s look at the key ones:

  • Kronos cloud efforts are runningat full steam with now 9000 organizations using the Kronos Cloud. It’s not clear what percentage of the Kronos customer base that is – but certainly there is interest in the customer base to move to cloud. The most mentioned drivers by both customers and prospects were the lower deployment costs and the ability to move update and upgrade burdens to Kronos. Unfortunately Constellation Research did not have the time to dig in more in detail into the Kronos cloud infrastructure – so we can’t cast a vote at this time how much this maybe a hosted vs. a true cloud offering. Regardless of this -  customers seem to content when using the cloud products and interested to even eager to move to them

  • Kronos keeps investing into key mobilefunctionality – as more and more workforce management activity is not recorded on a desktop but on a mobile device. The added offline capability is a welcome feature, as wireless network coverage is still not ubiquitous and we wish more HCM vendors would take notice and provide likewise offline capabilities for their mobile offering. Later this year geo-fencing capability is coming - a key convenience and automation feature for workforce management software. And finally the demos all showed neat annotation capabilities where a user can mark critical data and then share the annotations and / or screenshots with other users. With availability for iOS, Android and Blackberry Kronos covers the key platfor

  • Socialis a trend not excluding workforce management, so Kronos (wisely we think) decided not to build but to partner – in this case with Tibco’s tibbr product, to bring better social practices and collaboration to its user base. The company even dabbles into gamification – though only through allowing managers to post statistics into an activity steam – a good starting point.
    In our view overall a smart move as any shift planner knows that every day work is a communication and social challenge. The product will ship later in the year and we look forward to see its first incarnation.

Kronos Social

  • Equally like social – there is no enterprise software user conference in 2013 that does not touch analytics. Kronos is partnering (wisely again we think) with Microstrategy and delivers a number of powerful data visualization and exploration capabilities around workforce management data. Unfortunately - like many other vendors – Kronos is using the faux analytics term – describing a nicer version of dashboarding and not enabling true analytics that take action or at least suggest an action. But what isn’t can still come true later.  

Kronos Dashboard

  • And let’s not forget the Kronos is also a hardware company, buildingand selling the inTouch devices – that keep getting upgraded regularly. The ability to clock in without a badge, thanks to a high quality optical sensor, will certainly be an efficiency booster for this scenario. And of course it supports touch and plugs well in across connectivity options and firewalls.

 

 

Addressing Quality Issues

Kronos customers have been plagued by desktop side Java that does not run beyond Java 6, causing a lot of headaches and even compelling them to take system upgrades. The good news is, that Kronos is eliminating the client side Java and replacing the former flash UI with HTML5 – but it wasn’t clear what the company will do with client side logic – at least not when we asked the VP of Global Product Management Bill Bartow in one of our meetings. 

And beyond the Java issues customers also mentioned a number of quality problems. But the good news is that Kronos is actively addressing these issues.

And as Constellation Research has stated before – platform and quality issues – though undesirable – are a realistic ingredient when dealing with enterprise software. What matter is how well does the vendor respond, resolve the issues in partnership with the affected customers and then implements the right safe guards to avoid future challenges. And to give Kronos credit the company is certainly aware of this and knows that the it has to deliver high quality products with its December releases.

 

Charitable Tweeting

It was a nice touch by Kronos to donate $5 per tweet (the amount was increased) containing the conference hashtag #KW2013 up to a $15k limit for a charitable cause - certainly a classy move and probably a very good return on marketing. Read more about it on my original post here. 

 

Going forward

Kronos is doing all the right things addressing three of the key disruptors for enterprise software with mobile, social and analytics. The company is certainly most progressed on the mobile side, then analytics and then social – but all three topics should be addressed with significant enough breadth and depth by end of 2014 – so the question is – what is next for Kronos on the product side. 

Earlier in 2013 Kronos unveiled its partnership with SAP Sucessfactors - Successfactors president Shawn Price was on stage with Ain - and from all we heard from executives and customers the parnership of combined sales team selling their respective products is going well. But there needs to be more than a cloud partnerhip for Kronos. 

 

So the analyst and blogger community probed the executive team many times on this – but the answer has been always that the company will stick to the workforce automation theme. So no possible forays into core HR, payroll, e-Learning, performance management etc. areas. The most that could be extracted from Kronos CEO Ain was, that the company wants to go after the remainder of their customers employees, that they do not reach – yet. If this means a Kronos ambition into project management – remains to be seen.

 

But let’s not forget that the company is in the enviable position to face only few and relatively weaker competitors in North America and has practically no competition for global workforce management needs.

 

MyPOV

It’s good to see an enterprise software vendor executing and Kronos certainly is executing well. And while the company needs to make sure to deliver quality software and deliver on its growth plans both up and down scale in the market and globally – it must be a good time for Kronos right now. And good times for the vendor translate – with some delay – to good times for the customer base. And the customer base certainly had a good time in Orlando.

 

Longer term – later in 2014 – Kronos will have to address strategic growth plans, that in our view need to be fueled by expanding the automation portfolio that Kronos offers. But let’s get customers and our hands on the December releases first.

 

 

----------------

We did a Storify of key tweets from the keynote that you can find here.

2013 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

New C-Suite Future of Work Next-Generation Customer Experience Data to Decisions Tech Optimization User Conference SuccessFactors AI Analytics Automation CX EX Employee Experience HCM Machine Learning ML SaaS PaaS Cloud Digital Transformation Enterprise Software Enterprise IT Leadership HR Chief Customer Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief People Officer Chief Human Resources Officer Chief Technology Officer

Rimini Street Plans IPO

Rimini Street Plans IPO

J. Bruce Daley

Constellation Research

J. Bruce Daley is a former vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.  , Title: Big Ideas Age Before Beauty Before there can be a wholesale conversion to the Cloud legacy applications must be converted. This will take decades and not every vendor has taken this obstacle into account when projecting growth. Professional Services Firms Need a Recurring Revenue Model The services business has a lot of advantages but one big disadvantage in that you are always going out of business. Some organizations are using the Cloud to offer clients new ways to spend money than just time-and-materials or fixed price projects. ...

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Rimini_Street_Logo

Rimini Street, a third-party maintenance and support provider for enterprise software including Oracle Siebel plans to conduct a registered initial public offering (IPO). The company completed a confidential submission of its draft registration statement and the offering is expected to commence after the SEC completes its review process.

Rimini Street is going public at a good time. New offerings are at their highest level since 2007. So far there have been 195 IPOs this year that have raised nearly $50 billion. This compares favoribly  when $65.4 billion was raised in 288 deals, but still well behind the dot-com bubble when almost 1,000 companies went public.

Tech Optimization rimini street Oracle Chief Information Officer

Tuesday's Tip: Understand The Five Generation Of Digital Workers And Customers

Tuesday's Tip: Understand The Five Generation Of Digital Workers And Customers

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…...

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Age Is Not The Deciding Factor In Five Generations Of Workers

When discussing the future of work, most folks immediately jump to the discussion of millennials, generation Y, generation X, baby boomers, post war, etc.  However, the shift to digital business finds a different type of five generations.  This segmentation describes how digitally proficient people are with digital technologies and culture. Constellation sees five generations (see Figure 1):

  1. Digital natives – people who grew up with the internet, comfortable in engaging in all digital channels.
  2. Digital immigrants - people who have crossed the chasm to the digital world, forced into engagement in digital channels.
  3. Digital voyeurs – people who recognize the shift to digital, observing from an arms length distance.
  4. Digital holdouts – people who resist the shift to digital, ignoring the impact.
  5. Digital disengaged – people who give up on digital, obsessed with erasing digital exhaust.

Figure 1. Five Generations Of Workers With Different Expectations And Values

Source: R Wang, Insider Associates, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

The Bottom Line: Build Journey Maps For The Five Generations Of Digital Workers

Where you work, when you work, how you work, what you work on, and why you work have been disrupted in this digital world.  These five generations of workers have different people centric values that must be addressed.  Organizations can start by building journey maps and deftly applying the 9C’s of engagement (see Figure 2)

Figure 2. The 9 C’s of Engagement, A Foundation For Journey Maps

Source: R Wang, Insider Associates, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Your POV.

Are you ready to incorporate digital business transformation in your organization’s strategy?  Are you embarking on a digital business transformation?  Let us know how it’s going!  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Please let us know if you need help with your Augmented Reality, Customer Centricity, and Digital Business transformation efforts.  Here’s how we can assist:

  • Assessing customer centricty readiness
  • Developing your digital business strategy
  • Vendor selection
  • Implementation partner selection
  • Connecting with other pioneers
  • Sharing best practices
  • Designing a next gen apps strategy
  • Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
  • Demystifying software licensing

Download Research:

Constellation Cosmos Cloud Buyer's Bill of Rights: SaaS Apps - NetSuite by R "Ray" Wang

Constellation Cosmos Cloud Buyer's Bill of Rights: SaaS Apps - Actian Corporation by R "Ray" Wang

CIO CFO Interactions: It's Time to Work Together (presentation deck) by R "Ray" Wang

The Cloud Changes Everything by Holger Mueller

 

Related Research:

Reprints

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

Disclosure

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

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

Copyright © 2001 – 2013 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience!

 

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

Tuesday's Tip: Understand The Five Generations Of Digital Customers And Workers

Tuesday's Tip: Understand The Five Generations Of Digital Customers And Workers

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…...

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Age Is Not The Deciding Factor In Five Generations Of Workers

When discussing the future of work, most folks immediately jump to the discussion of millennials, generation Y, generation X, baby boomers, post war, etc.  However, the shift to digital business finds a different type of five generations.  This segmentation describes how digitally proficient people are with digital technologies and culture. Constellation sees five generations (see Figure 1):

  1. Digital natives – people who grew up with the internet, comfortable in engaging in all digital channels.
  2. Digital immigrants - people who have crossed the chasm to the digital world, forced into engagement in digital channels.
  3. Digital voyeurs – people who recognize the shift to digital, observing from an arms length distance.
  4. Digital holdouts – people who resist the shift to digital, ignoring the impact.
  5. Digital disengaged – people who give up on digital, obsessed with erasing digital exhaust.

Figure 1. Five Generations Of Workers With Different Expectations And Values

Source: R Wang, Insider Associates, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

The Bottom Line: Build Journey Maps For The Five Generations Of Digital Workers

Where you work, when you work, how you work, what you work on, and why you work have been disrupted in this digital world.  These five generations of workers have different people centric values that must be addressed.  Organizations can start by building journey maps and deftly applying the 9C’s of engagement (see Figure 2)

Figure 2. The 9 C’s of Engagement, A Foundation For Journey Maps

Source: R Wang, Insider Associates, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Your POV.

Are you ready to incorporate digital business transformation in your organization’s strategy?  Are you embarking on a digital business transformation?  Let us know how it’s going!  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Please let us know if you need help with your Augmented Reality, Customer Centricity, and Digital Business transformation efforts.  Here’s how we can assist:

  • Assessing customer centricty readiness
  • Developing your digital business strategy
  • Vendor selection
  • Implementation partner selection
  • Connecting with other pioneers
  • Sharing best practices
  • Designing a next gen apps strategy
  • Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
  • Demystifying software licensing

Related Research:

Reprints

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

Disclosure

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

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

Copyright © 2001 – 2013 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience!

 

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

Using a Session Border Controller to Make Video "Just Work"

Using a Session Border Controller to Make Video "Just Work"

E. Brent Kelly
Alumni: Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Dr. Brent Kelly is a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research and President of KelCor, Inc. He focuses on the unique intersection of unified communications, social business, cloud services, video and mobility.  Dr. Kelly provides strategy and counsel to key clients including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, technology policy executives, sell-side firms and technology buyers. Prior to joining Constellation, Dr. Kelly served for 10 years as a partner at Wainhouse Research where he was the primary author of most of the firm’s unified communications reports and forecasts. Dr. Kelly is a regular presenter at Enterprise Connect (formerly VoiceCon), the communications industry trade show where his well…...

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I’ve spent the past few weeks thinking about video interoperability, and not just interoperability at the signaling level or the codec level, but at the security level as well. I presently have four video solutions in my office that I run regularly: a Cisco/Tandberg MXP 1700 executive unit, a Vidyo desktop client, Microsoft Lync hosted through Office 365, and Skype. In addition to these, I often use Apple’s FaceTime video product when using my iOS devices. It seems like video is all around me, and it is likely pervasive for others as well.



One of the challenges I often face is that I can’t use video between any of these systems. My MXP 1700 has a four port MCU in it, and it will work with both SIP and H.323 units, but most people have Skype or Lync or FaceTime or the free Jabber client. While Skype and Lync both support multiparty video, they presently don’t support video interoperability with each other. And FaceTime is a point-to-point solution only.

There are some third-party solutions that can help. For example, Blue Jeans Networks and VidTel both provide video interoperability as a service with most of the video endpoints I use every day (not FaceTime or Vidyo, however). But what can be done for enterprise users in a heterogeneous environment that may include Cisco, Avaya, Microsoft, and possibly other desktop UC clients, as well as group and telepresence video endpoints?

I’ve actually written a white paper on this subject titled, "Creating the 'It Just Works' Video Network". It is based around the idea that a lot of video interoperability, QoS, and security issues can be resolved by using a session border controller. The white paper was sponsored by Sonus Networks and corresponds to the company’s announcement on 6 November, 2013 that it has added full multimedia support for video to its SBC 5000 series of session border controllers. Although Sonus sponsored the white paper, the company is not mentioned in the document; rather, this document describes many of the issues that arise around video that an SBC can easily fix, and it is intended to generate thoughtful discussion of these issues.

For example, the signaling used to set up, control, and tear down a video call is slightly different for different UC manufacturers, even though all of their solutions are "SIP-compliant". The Sonus 5000 SBC can normalize the signaling so that video endpoints from different PBX, UC, and video equipment manufacturers can often interoperate. This can be a huge advantage for companies that have investments in both UC and video infrastructure as it may avoid expensive upgrades or relying on pricey multiprotocol MCUs that can bridge point-to-point calls together that would otherwise be incompatible. 

As video becomes more and more pervasive, it is also important to provide some type of call admission control and quality of service mechanism so that the network does not become saturated with video packets and so that video calls maintain high quality. Again, the SBC is a good place to have these mechanisms, particularly in heterogeneous video environments.

Given how often video calls traverse the network boundary with the pervasive availability of mobile video devices, SBCs also provide a great control point for authentication, detection of malformed hacker packets, encryption enforcement, secure NAT and firewall traversal, and so forth.

I wrote a detailed report titled “Pervasive Video in the Enterprise” last year in which I mentioned that the software-based MCU will ultimately win the day in the video infrastructure market, simply because hardware-based MCU’s are so expensive. In like manner, software-based SBCs will also win the day in the enterprise as video becomes pervasive. Sonus has released a version of its SBC as a software solution that can run on off-the-shelf servers. Coupled together as instances in a virtual environment, the software-based MCU and the software-based SBC will enable tremendous increases in video usage while protecting the enterprise network from threats and saturation, while enabling video interoperability of high quality video endpoints.

The SBC doesn't solve all video interoperability and compatibility issues, but is solves a lot of them for enterprise video users.

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CoIT? No, it’s CoUX!

CoIT? No, it’s CoUX!

Brian Katz
Brian Katz

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Brian Katz is a director at pharmaceutical company Sanofi, where he manages mobile initiatives, including mobilizing the salesforce, building best practices for developing apps, handling BYOD initiatives, enabling new devices and form factors for success, and looking at ways to innovate in the mobile space for Sanofi. He started his career working with a multi-national New York financial company as an email architect, designing and maintaining their email and communications systems, which also involved supporting their mobile computing platforms. ...

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It’s funny. Whenever I give a talk from stage, or talk to a few colleagues or even get asked for advice on strategy, it all revolves around the same cause. For some, it’s “we’re in this mess” while for others it’s “we have this great opportunity” and they always point to the same thing. It’s the Consumerization of IT (CoIT) that has been the reason we’re moving forward with mobile. What I find so funny about all this is that none of them get it. It’s not CoIT that has led so many businesses to start adopting mobile as a way to enhance access to their ecosystem. This misunderstanding is the whole reason why so many companies are having so much trouble getting to the point where mobile is no longer just a thought but a way of doing business.

Ginsu-KnivesMy mother has an iPhone. She’s had a Blackberry for work for years but couldn’t get her personal email on it and certainly couldn’t figure out how to get apps on her device either. My brother and I went down the path of least resistance and got her an iPhone, and then, of course we let the grandchildren show her how to use it. It’s nice not being the one who has to fix every problem, although I am not sure my daughters agree. She doesn’t know how to use everything on her phone but she has figured out the app store and has downloaded the apps she needs. Invariably, this leads to, why can’t my work blackberry be this easy? How come I can’t add apps to it? Why does work make it so complicated for me.?

Here’s the thing, my mother’s work values security. It cares about the email and other documents people can access because it has to follow regulations. Yet, it is still in the midst of an iOS pilot that I know about and yet my mother has no clue where to go to ask to be part of it. Her question is quite simple though, how do I get this document on my computer so I can work on it tonight. It’s a struggle many of have had and some of us have discovered things like USB keys or if we are a little smarter, we have found Dropbox, or Box to sync our files with. Others go the low-tech route and email the documents they need to themselves. They aren’t trying to break security they’re just trying to get their work done and they want it to be easy.

At home, everything is simple. It takes a few clicks to set up an email account on a phone, another couple of clicks to set up a file sharing service on a tablet. People don’t spend time thinking about where their documents are. The companies that make the apps that they use and love have focused on the user experience. The most my mother ever thinks about is whether the photo of her grandchildren is on her phone or not. It’s a binary decision, yes or no. She pulls out her phone and presses an app and 5 seconds later she is showing photos of her grand kids to whomever wants to see them, or can’t get away fast enough.

What most companies fail to realize is that’s it’s not about the consumerization of IT but rather about the consumerization of the user experience (UX). What most companies see as people understanding IT better is really just things getting so easy that anyone can do them. The user experience no longer means that you have to place a call to IT to connect to the Internet. You don’t need to install some app with a 25-digit key just to look at word document on your tablet. They can watch the latest premier league game on the phone or tablet at the touch of a finger but it still takes 10 clicks, a password, a dial-in code plus the phone code just to join a web conference at work.

We are past the age of the monolithic app that slices, dices, and chops and can still saw through a soda can like butter when it is done. People just want to do one thing at a time. They don’t need something that looks like a submarine console designed to solve every possible scenario when all they want to do is read a document and make a change in the third paragraph without coming into the office. They don’t want to have to worry about zooming in 200% or wearing a magnifier to make sure they hit the right part of the screen to make a change. They just want it to be simple. Their goal is to get the work done they need to when and where they need to do it.

It’s not the consumerization of IT that is leading people to be more flexible and agile, but rather the consumerization of the UX that makes it possible for them to do their expenses while paying the check at the restaurant. The focus of your people on the user experience is what makes or breaks a company’s decision to go mobile. The whole reason that the bring your own device (BYOD) movement was born wasn’t because people wanted to spend money on their own devices, rather it was due to the fact that companies were more focused on the bottom line than giving people the tools they needed to get the job done.

You see, users figured out a long time ago that the UX was key, and they will pay a premium for that user experience. If a company doesn’t spend time following the FUN principle, focusing on the user needs, of which UX is one of the highest, users will find another way to do things. They no longer have to be tied to the app that the company wants them to use, there are too many other choices out there. Whether it is BYOD or BYOA (bring your own app) they will do whatever makes their lives simpler and easier. It’s time businesses stop worrying about the Consumerization of IT and start worrying about the consumerization of the user experience. When you build a crapplication, users will run. When you build a kick ass user experience that is simple, easy to use, and disappears and allows them to get their work done, the sky is the limit.

Innovation & Product-led Growth
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