Four Needs Pushing Microsoft Dynamics into Large Enterprises

President, Computer Economics and Strativa, Inc.
Computer Economics and Strativa, Inc.

Frank Scavo is skilled at formulating and communicating IT strategy, developing the business case for new systems, and facilitating the selection of enterprise systems, such as ERP, CRM, and supply chain management. He is also an expert in benchmarking IT spending and staffing levels for end-user IT organizations. Frank was one of the first tech bloggers, beginning in 2002 with his launch of the Enterprise System Spectator providing independent analysis of issues and trends in enterprise applications software and the strengths, weaknesses, advantages, and disadvantages of the vendors that provide them. Frank has been quoted as an IT expert in numerous business and industry publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Computerworld, CIO Magazine, ZDnet, eWeek, Datamation,…...

Read more

Early in November, I attended a series of analyst briefings offered by Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS), outside of Seattle. The briefings and interviews with MBS executives  provided an opportunity to catch up on where Microsoft is going with its Dynamics line of business applications. Coming away from the event, I was impressed with several overall trends that are encouraging Microsoft to move up-market, into territory that for many years has been dominated largely by SAP and Oracle.

I recently developed these thoughts more fully in a new research report, Microsoft Dynamics Stepping onto Enterprise Turf. This post provides a brief introduction.

Evolving Market Solutions

In the early 2000’s, Microsoft jumped into the business applications market by making acquisitions that brought Great Plains, Solomon, Navision and Axapta into its product portfolio. These products, aimed at small and midsized businesses, established the perception that Microsoft was aiming its business applications primarily at smaller companies. When it came to enterprise applications for global organizations, Microsoft was viewed as out of its league. Those were markets for players such as SAP, Oracle and other vendors with multinational capabilities.

But the market landscape is changing. Over the past year, the Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) division has been demonstrating that it is capable of delivering two of its business applications—Microsoft Dynamics AX (the descendent of Axapta) and Microsoft Dynamics CRM—to large and multinational organizations. Moreover, Dynamics product enhancements now rolling out will accelerate this trend.

Four Needs Encouraging the Up-Market Move

There are at least four customer needs that create an opportunity for Microsoft to move up into larger enterprises, as shown in the figure nearby.

• Multinational localizations, formerly a requirement only for large companies, are being are increasingly demanded even by small businesses.
• The desire of organizations large and small to manage their people, facilities, and equipment as one global resource pool.
• The continuing pursuit of improved productivity and tighter control, through worldwide business process consistency. 
• The need of global organizations to have operating systems that are appropriate to serve the needs of both their large and small operating units.

The MBS division continues, of course, to offer software that is aimed at small and midsized businesses (SMBs), those with single-site operations or with limited international presence. Microsoft reseller and systems integrator partners often introduce Dynamics NAV (formerly Navision), Dynamics GP (formerly Great Plains), and Dynamics SL (formerly Solomon) in these situations, sometimes in combination with Microsoft Dynamics CRM for customer relationship management.

Nevertheless, larger enterprises can now take Microsoft Dynamics under consideration when selecting a vendor for its enterprise business applications. In the large company market, it is Dynamics AX along with Dynamics CRM that form the solution offering. Although MBS is seeing success with large organizations in several industries, the retail sector appears to be particularly receptive to Microsoft's move up-market.

Although the Tier I ERP providers--SAP and Oracle--are well entrenched in the world's largest corporations, if Microsoft is able to compete effectively at this level, it will give enterprise buyers additional choice and options that they have not had in the past.

My full report discusses in detail the four customer needs that are driving Microsoft Dynamics up-market and three ways in which Dynamics now has become capable of serving these large organizations. Challenges facing Microsoft in gaining market share among larger companies are also discussed. The report concludes with examples of customers that illustrate the move of Dynamics into the enterprise market and recommendations for large enterprise buyers who are considering Microsoft Dynamics.

Related Posts

Microsoft Dynamics ERP on Azure: What Are the Benefits
What’s new with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

Moving Payroll to the Cloud? Join the Crowd.

Alumni: Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Yvette Cameron was VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc. focusing on next generation HCM processes and technologies, and is founder of NextGen Insights. Yvette is now a Constellation Research alumna. , Title: Big Ideas CRM concepts will transform HCM processes for new levels of Employee Engagement and Business Results Companies are investing heavily to understand and optimize their customer relationships, but less so with their employee relationships. We must apply the tenets of CRM to HCM processes to understand, engage and align the workforce, because customer success begins with employee success. From “Command and Control” to “Engage and Inspire” Traditional work practices and business structures are evolving at an unparalleled rate. New thinking and disruptive…...

Read more

If you’re considering a move to the Cloud for your payroll technologies, you’re not alone.  In a recent survey by Constellation Research, Inc. partner Computer Economics, 40% of companies considering payroll technology investments reported such investments involved a move to the Cloud.

Why the mass migration?  In a recent webinar on the topic, I outlined six key benefits of Cloud-based Payroll.  In short, organizations moving their payroll to the cloud are doing so to reap the many benefits of SaaS while ensuring the core objectives of Payroll are met:

1. Quality.  Innovations arrive faster and are adopted more rapidly in the Cloud than with traditional on-premises and hosted software.  With true, multi-tenant SaaS, clients are always on the latest release of the software, enabling organizations to move from periodic jumps to continuous innovation in user experience, workflows and capabilities. If you think this doesn’t matter to user experience, think again.  Organizations routinely report higher levels of  satisfaction with the usability of SaaS solutions over traditional offerings across all user roles (end users, managers and administrators).
2. Cost optimization.  An immediate value to organizations – and a large factor behind the movement of technology buying from IT into the line of business – is how easily and quickly SaaS solutions can be deployed to solve immediate business needs.  SaaS solutions are implemented on average 82% faster than on-premises solutions and require only 22% of the resources in ongoing staff compared to on-premises shops, freeing up members of the payroll team to focus on more strategic initiatives. (Source: CedarCrestone 2012-13 HR Systems Survey, 15th ed.)
3. Risk Mitigation. While many still cite security concerns as a top reason for keeping payroll technology in-house, the reality is that SaaS providers typically excel in security measures (including access controls, backup and recovery, and myriad other potential vulnerability points) due to the large volume of disparate clients continuously pushing their own systems audits and inquiries. SaaS Payroll providers also take on responsibility for ensuring all legal/regulatory changes are applied, tested and available.  With tens, hundreds or thousands of customers utilizing these services, it ensures many more eyeballs watching for and reporting any occasional “misses” from the provider and an accompanying rapid response to such issues.
4. Control.  Managing payroll on premises does not guarantee that the payroll organization has the controls it desires over its technologies and processes. (If you’ve ever waited for your IT organization to apply an update or manage an enterprise upgrade, you know this all too well.)  Outsourcing payroll further reduces an organization’s span of control, especially with regard to timing of process flows and reporting/analytics. With SaaS, the payroll organization gets full control over process timing (data entry, audits, check runs, quality checks, adjustments, etc.); anytime access to data, analytics and reporting; and the assurance that the software is always at the latest release with the most recent changes in legs/regs applied and tested.
5. Flexibility.  SaaS solutions, by design, support the dynamic nature of a business – the ability to rapidly scale hardware needs to support dramatic increases or decreases in resources are inherent to these solutions.  But flexibility in the payroll world also means the ability to quickly integrate to local payroll solutions across the globe, to respond to ever-changing time and pay regulations, and to meet the dynamic needs and priorities of the company.  SaaS-based payroll solutions leverage the emerging best-practices in cloud-based integrations, ensure the fastest time to readiness in response to changing regulations, and provide the foundation for business agility in global operations.
6. Insight.  Multi-country payroll almost demands a SaaS solution, as it invariably requires integrations to local payroll providers in countries where a smaller number of employees reside or where major payroll providers have not yet standardized an offering.  Those myriad integrations frequently lead to delayed  visibility into the actual payroll costs across the globe, causing surprise ‘hits’ to financials. Just over 50% of global organizations today report having a global system of record, and hence are hampered by not having all the global data transparency necessary for timely, strategic decision making.  SaaS Payroll providers can rapidly integrate and manage a global view of the payroll activities of an organization, both minimizing financial risks while making available a broader base of data from which to glean additional insights.

Furthermore, when part of a broader global SaaS HRMS platform, SaaS Payroll moves from an administrative to a strategic play as it provides the ability for organizations of any size to dynamically scale operations and to securely plug into global capabilities, and thus engage and compete on a global scale.

Many other facets of SaaS Payroll are explored in this webinar, including a view into social enablement of payroll processes as well as how SaaS can future proof the career of today’s payroll leadership.

The question of SaaS for Payroll, or for any other HCM related initiative, has clearly moved from “Why” to “Why Not?”

Catch the webinar replay here:  The Changing Landscape of Payroll: Moving to the Cloud

Related articles

• Workday Rising: the analysts’ take (zdnet.com)
• CloudPay Raises $16M From Pinnacle, Rho, Others (pehub.com)
• ZenPayroll Launches Cloud-Based Payroll Service With $6.1M In Seed Funding From CEOs At Yammer, Box, Yelp And Dropbox (techcrunch.com)

Filed under: Cloud, Future of Work, Global HCM, Workday Tagged: Apps Strategy, best practices, Business, Business and Economy, Cloud, Cloud computing, constellation research, future of work, HCM, HR, HR Tech, Next Generation apps, Payroll, Social Enterprise, Software as a service, Trends, Workday, yvette cameron

Social Business 2013: Less Talking. More Doing.

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…...

Read more

It's that time of year where analysts gaze into our crystal balls and make predictions about the trends we expect to see in the upcoming months. My thoughts about 2013 are based on the hundreds of conversations I've had with social business product vendors and customers over the last twelve months. Below I'll list my top predictions for 2013, but if you only have a moment here are the mains idea that I want to share:

For customers, 2013 will be a year of taking action. Over the last few years organizations have invested a great deal of resources into learning about the technological and cultural shifts required for social business transformation. Now they can move past the struggles explaining "Facebook for the Enterprise" and instead focus on implementing the social features that will help their employees get their jobs done.

For product vendors, 2013 will be less about creating shiny new features and more about helping their customers (and prospects) derive real business value from their platforms. Yes, of course there will still be innovations in user experience, mobile access, analytics and many more, but for the next little while the "competitive feature wars" will be less important than proving they understand how to help organizations succeed.  

In other words, "Less talking, more doing."


Now let's get into some specific areas that I believe will contribute significantly to the way employees get their jobs done in 2013. I'm going to skip covering obvious topics like increased adoption in mobile, cloud and gamification and focus on what I refer to as "Structured Collaboration". I'm not talking about imposing rigid rules or strict processes. Structured Collaboration occurs by adding just a little extra organization to the things people create and share. You'll notice a few of the items below don't actually involve new or innovative concepts. Still, these topics all contribute to improving the way employees get their work done.


Collaborative applications for specific business purposes. Over the last few years, companies have worked to get their employees comfortable with the concepts of sharing information openly (i.e. social) via tools like blogs, wikis and activity streams. In 2012 the next stage of social was popularized by the overused phrase "add social features to core business applications." This involves augmenting tools like ERP, HR, and CRM tools. That's great, but there are still several unique business processes that are not served out of the box by these core platforms. For these, companies have previously relied on tools like Lotus Notes applications, spreadsheets or custom developed databases. In 2013 we'll see organizations building custom applications on cloud based platforms like Force.com, Amazon, Microsoft Azure, as well as tools like Podio, Filemaker and Quickbase. These structured applications make it easier for employees to create and share information in a consistent format (via fields, forms and views) versus authoring simple unstructured pages in wikis or community forums. Unlike previous generations of collaborative applications, these new apps will include all the expected social features (comments, liking tagging, streams, etc) and cloud app integrations (file sharing, CRM, calendar, etc.) people have come to expect.  

Information will be structured around projects. In 2012 I wrote a lot about Social Task Management (STM), the combination of traditional project management tools with enterprise social networking. By associating status updates, task assignments and shared content with specific projects, employees can become far more organized and get their work done more effectively. In 2013 STM features will become more mainstream in social business platforms, and employees will begin to use these tools to help organize the abundance of information currently being shared randomly in social networks. Some platforms like IBM Connections and Traction TeamPage have had STM features for years, and newer platforms are adding STM via acquisitions, like Jive purchasing Producteev. There will certainly be more STM vendors acquired in 2013, and some startups will shutdown or pivot as the market consolidates.

Personal Task Automation helps employees get their jobs done. While Business Process Automation (BPA) tools have been around for years, they are traditionally only used by system administrators and application developers to link together or integrate complex corporate processes like invoicing, resource planning or inventory control. In 2012 web sites like IFTTT and Zapier introduced a new generation of workflow tools that use simple rules and actions to automate tasks which span popular web-based applications. Example: If your name or company is mentioned on a social media site it could trigger the creation of a new page in your favourite note taking application. These tools are simple enough that non-technical people can configure them, but the issue is they are stand-alone web sites that require individuals to have accounts, they are not an integrated part of a platform supported by corporate IT. In 2013 these features will begin to surface in enterprise collaboration suites, enabling employees to configure triggers and actions based on their internal business processes. For example, say a product manager uploads a presentation about an upcoming release, personal task automation could automatically set up a web conference to train the Sales team and notify the marketing team to include the new content on the company web site. With personal task automation, employees could save time by reducing manual tasks and cut down on mistakes that occur when people forget to perform certain actions.  

Keep track of information from multiple applications. Remember when blogs first become popular? You had to manually surf from site to site each day to see if there were any updates. Then along came "News Aggregators" or "Feed Readers" (like Google Reader) that pulled all the updates into a single inbox making it easier to keep up to date. A similar scenario is now playing out, this time with dozens of different types of cloud based applications, like file sharing sites, social networks, support forums, CRM apps, financial and invoicing sites, etc. The more cloud based applications you use, the harder it is to keep track of what's going on. Enter Cloud Application Aggregators like Hojoki, Kitedesk, CloudWork, CloudSnap, CloudHQ, Pinterest and others. These sites provide a single place to work with multiple applications. If these vendors can add enterprise grade features in areas like security, directory, administration and compliance then they will begin to gain traction with large organizations, especially those that follow a "best of breed" approach to choosing collaboration solutions.

Elearning makes a comeback as social learning. In 2011 the hot area for "social" was Customer Relationship Management, or CRM. In 2012 it was Human Resources. In 2013 one of the most talked about verticals for "social" will be education, training and certification. The recent improvements in technology and culture around "social" form a perfect environment to foster collaborative learning. Employees are now more comfortable with sharing ideas and best practices, it's easier to author and share documentation and mobile devices provide access from almost anywhere.

It's time to turn that webcam on at work. The industry has been talking about video conferencing for almost a decade, but outside of vendor product demos, how often is video really used? Improvements in camera technology (especially on mobile phones and tablets), less bandwidth challenges (improved codecs and faster home network connections) and cultural acceptance (e.g. Google Hangouts) are now at a point where the use of video during web-conferences could finally become a reality.  

Stop letting those great conversations go to waste. Remember when you had that great idea on that conference call last month, but no one wrote it down and now you can't remember the details? Startups like HarQen are looking to solve this issue by indexing and tagging audio, making it easy to find information and take action on tasks. I first found out about HarQen at Oracle OpenWorld and I hope to see features like this built into all web conferencing and chat solutions. Imagine putting this together with the Social Task Management and Personal Automation topics I mentioned above. I can't count the amount of times I could have benefited from a solution like this.

Wild Card: Reality gets an upgrade.
Ok, I'll throw one fun idea out there, augmented or blended reality. For those of you not familiar with this area, it involves displaying additional content in the context of the real world by looking through something like your mobile phone, tablet or special glasses. For example, looking at a catalog though the camera on your phone and seeing 3D models of the products displayed above the page. There are several vendors in this space, including Metaio, Layar and Aurasma. Currently some of the most common use cases are selling/marketing consumer products, enhancing video games and providing additional information to manufacturing and life sciences/healthcare processes. But imagine adding a "3rd dimension" to collaboration tools such as activity streams, profile pages, of even presentations and spreadsheets. I don't think there is tremendous business value there yet, but new ideas have to start somewhere, so perhaps we'll see a few fringe uses of augmented reality at work in 2013.


Bonus: Collaboration Companies To Watch in 2013

List alphabetically below are a few of the collaboration startups that I believe will make news in 2013. I'm not going to go into detail about them here, but anyone looking for more information should contact me to set up advisory sessions.

• Atlassian
• Box
• Evernote
• GetSatisfaction
• Huddle
• Igloo
• Okta
• TechSmith
• Ã?berConference

So what do you think? Do you agree or disagree? What do you think I left off? What do you hope to see in 2013? What do you hope NOT to see in 2013?

Monday's Musings: Understand The Four Organizational Personas Of Disruptive Tech Adoption

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…...

Read more

Pace of Innovation Exceeds Ability To Consume

Rapid innovation, flexible deployment options, and easy consumption models create favorable conditions for the proliferation of disruptive technology.  In fact, convergence in the five pillars of enterprise disruption (i.e. social, mobile, cloud, big data, and unified communications), has led to new innovations and opportunities to apply disruptive technologies to new business models.  New business models abound at the intersection of cloud and big data, social and mobile, social and unified communications, and cloud and mobile.

Unfortunately, most organizations are awash with discovering, evaluating, and consuming disruptive technologies.  Despite IT budgets going down from 3 to 5% year over year, technology spending is up 18 to 20%.  Why?  Amidst constrained budgets, resources, and time limits, executives are willing to invest in disruptive technology to improve business outcomes.  Consequently, successful adoption is the key challenge in consuming this torrent of innovation.  This rapid pace of change and inability to consume innovation detract organizations from the realization of business value.

Organizations Fall Into Four Personas Of  Disruptive Technology Adoption

A common truism in the industry is “Culture trumps technology”.  As organizations apply methodologies such as Constellation’s DEEPR Framework in improving adoption, leaders must first determine which of the four personas best fits their organization’s appetite for consuming and innovating with disruptive technologies.

The personas of disruptive technology adoption assess organizational culture in two key axes (see Figure 1).  The first is how incremental or transformational an organization looks at applying disruptive technology to business models.  The second assesses how proactive or reactive an organization is in carrying out new initiatives.  Based on these dimensions, the four personas include:

1. Market leaders. Market leaders prefer to drive transformational innovation.  They look at technologies as enablers in disrupting business models.  They see competitive differentiation in delivering outcomes to customers. Market leaders accept failure as part of the innovation process.  They fail fast and move on.
2. Fast followers. Fast followers prefer to react to the success of market leaders and their experiments.  When they sense success, they tend to jump in.  Fast followers do not like to fail and rapidly apply lessons learned from market leaders into their road maps.  Fast followers tend to deliver scale in the markets as a counter balance to arriving later in the market.
3. Cautious adopters. Cautious adopters proactively deliver incremental innovation.  They tend to take a more measured approach and spend more time studying how they can improve an existing success than creating a transformational change.  Cautious adopters often come from regulated industries where security and safety are paramount objectives.
4. Laggards. Laggards tend to procrastinate on applying innovations to their business models.  They prefer not be bothered by trends and will only react when the trends have moved beyond mainstream.  They see value in waiting as prices will drop over time as success rates increase over time.  Laggards enjoy waiting.

During the interviews and discussions with the 2012 Constellation SuperNova award participants, key questions emerged in the decision process on whether to adopt or pass on a disruptive technologies.  These questions aligned well with the four personas of disruptive technology adoption.

Figure 1.  Organizations Should Understand Which Persona Of Disruptive Tech Adoption Describes Them Best

The Bottom Line: Apply Adoption Strategies To Persona Types
Executives should look at the four personas and determine which set of questions would best reflect how their organization approaches disruptive technology.  Based on the four personas, executives can expect the following:

• Market leaders challenged to determine what not to adopt. Market leaders need a good process and criteria to determine what technologies to pass on.  Seasoned organizations have developed disciplined methodologies to determine what to adopt and what not to adopt.
• Fast followers must learn how to scale and when to lead. Scaling innovation is difficult.  However, fast followers prepare their culture to make rapid shifts.  Leaders establish trigger points and prepare their organization for the potential shift.  Fast followers will take the lead when they see a significant advantage.   However, for the most part, fast followers prefer to learn from the market leaders and wait for the right opportunity to react.
• Cautious adopters must move out of their six sigma mindset to grow. Proactive incremental innovation leads to steady successes.  However, breakthrough and transformational innovation requires a different culture.  Both can co-exist in an organization but a separate team must be established to push the boundaries.  Cautious adoption traits should be pushed out to the operating level and emerge as every employees skill set.  Transformational innovation techniques should be paired with quantifiable metrics.
• Laggards will fall behind. The corporate digital divide between the those who apply disruptive technologies to new business models and those who choose to wait and see will continue to grow.  The business model shifts have destroyed iconic companies from Kodak to Sears.  Without an incentive to move beyond a reactive and incremental approach, laggards will be overtaken by more agile and innovative organizations.

Your POV.

Ready to fight change management and adoption head on? Have a story on how you’ve applied disruptive technology? Submit for the 2013 SuperNova Awards at SuperNovaAwards (at) ConstellationR (dot) com

Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with developing your disruptive technology adoption strategy.

Related Research

Monday’s Musings: The New Engagement Platform Drives The Shift From Transactions

Trends: The Battle For CMO Mind Share

Tuesday’s Tip: Why Context Matters – Forget Real-Time, Achieve Right-Time

Tuesday’s Tip: The Big Question In Big Data Is…What’s The Question?

Tuesday’s Tip: Dealing With The Real Problem In Social Business Adoption – The People!

Monday’s Musing: Avoiding Social Media Fatigue Through Engagement

Monday’s Musings: Why Are Innovative CIO’s Betting Less On Cloud And Virtualization?

Monday’s Musings: Seven Basic Privacy Rights Users Should Demand For Social Business

Best Practices: Five Simple Rules For Social Business

Research Report: How The Five Pillars Of Consumer Tech Influence Enterprise Innovation

Research Report: Next Gen B2B and B2C E-Commerce Priorities Reflect Macro Level Trends

Disclosures

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 – 2012 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!

Lotus Is Dead. Long Live Lotus

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…...

Read more

Update: Apparently not everyone is aware of the saying from which the title of this post was taken. "The King is Dead. Long Live the King" is a positive statement, alluding to the continuity of leadership when the throne changes hands. With that in mind, read on...

Over the last few days I've had dozens of inquires about my thoughts of IBM removing the name Lotus from Lotus Notes and Domino, effectively putting to rest the Lotus brand name. Rather than respond to everyone individually, I figured I'd post my Lotus eulogy here.

I started with IBM in 1993 as a coop student working with Lotus Notes 2.1a and left in 2008 when I went to work at Socialtext. During those years I had the privilege of working with one the most significant collaboration portfolios of all time. Many people consider Notes the progenitor of all the "enterprise social" hype we are in the midst of today. Back then it was called Groupware, and I remember one of the original slogans, the 3C's: "Communicate. Collaborate. Coordinate." Oh how well that message still resonates. Over the years the Lotus portfolio grew, adding products like Sametime, Quickr and eventually Connections. I remember Carl Kriger and Jim Cavalier doing demos of Notes applications running on mobile devices (Nokias, Palm Pilots and Blackberry) more than a decade ago... long before the reign of iPhones and Android. I remember Gary Devendorf doing demos of Lotuscript as he created all sorts of collaborative applications. Gosh I remember when there were product managers not for entire product lines, but for specific features; like Sean Condon being responsible for Domino clustering and replication, two technologies that most products still can't duplicate today. I remember when iNotes first appeared providing web based access to mail, years before people were fighting for invites to this thing called "Gmail beta". Oh how ahead of the times Lotus was. Yes, I still feel the scars from the rants about Lotus Notes on Slashdot and the User Experience Hall of Shame. Yet so many applications today have tabs along the top to access content and/or use screens filled with icons to open applications... just like Notes. I guess "There's an app for that" has been around for a long time. No, I've not forgotten the missteps like Workplace, J2EE and the two-lane highway but today is a day to focus on the positives. I spend so much time in the "2.0 world" watching startups with these brilliant ideas... all the time thinking "Lotus did that a decade ago." Yes, Notes was (is) far more complicated than it should have been, but it really was a brilliant product. Thank you Lotus for providing me a great start to my career. I'll always remember you, and look forward to watching your descendants in the IBM Collaboration family carry on your mantra as expressed in poster below... "Helping people work together is what Lotus does best."

For anyone doubting IBM's commitment to the Notes product, I encourage you to watch this video on IBM Notes and Domino Social Edition, where they demonstrate the upcoming release.

As for my specific thoughts about the name change, I still stick with what I said at the beginning of 2011: "Years ago I talked about how I wished the brand names would go away completely. Finally the lines are blurring between the brands and technologies from each group are finally being combined. All the divisions of IBM are involved as social features are mixed with analytical tools, cloud storage, compliance and other management tools. So how do you name that? Die-hards in the "yellow bubble" can protest all they want, but I think the best thing for everyone would be to just call it all IBM software. That did not happen this year, but I think it is something everyone should expect at some point."

Reminiscing about Lotus caused me search out the response I posted back in 2008 to vowe's question "What would you do, if you were in charge of Lotus?" It's a fun read, I encourage you to take a look.

I'll leave you with a few items from the history book to enjoy.

I AM! (trivia, who drew the original poster?)

Lotus 50 Million Super Humans - 1999

Helping People Work Together Is What Lotus Does Best

Three Areas I’d Like To See Improved In Social Business Software

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…...

Read more

I spend a great deal of time advising software vendors ranging from stealth startups to the world's largest enterprise software companies. While I am optimistic about many of the innovations I see coming, I'm also troubled by some of the recurring themes.

The slides embedded below are from the presentation I gave at the excellent Defrag 2012 conference. They highlight three of the areas I would like to see software vendors improve upon.  It's a bit hard to follow without me narrating, but here are the general themes:

1. Activity Streams have great potential, but they need to become much more manageable. Slides 3-8 highlight some of the issues with just throwing everything into the stream. Slides 9-13 cover some of the ways to reduce the clutter and enable people to focus on the information relevant and/or important to them. The methods range from better manual filters (which few people use) to automated filtering of streams based on the context of what you're working on.

2. People are ego-centric, tools should provide a way for them to focus on content from their point of view. With all the hype around social, community and sharing... many vendors have strayed away from making it easy for people to find their own content. Files they created. Comments they made. Tasks they have to do.  Slides 14-17 talk about making it easier for people to work in a a "me" centric manner, or what I call 'Don't forget the Me in social media."

3. Analytics should focus on helping make decisions, not just show pretty pictures. The point I make during slides 18-19 is that many vendors use analytics as eye candy. They show splashy graphs, leader boards and top ten lists. The problem is, that type of information rarely helps people get their jobs done. The next generation of analytics needs to provide more contextual relevance, helping people access the content, colleagues and communities that can help them make decisions faster and more accurately.
 

What areas would you like to see improved in the tools you use at your job?

Press Release: Enterprise Cloud Buyer's Bill of Rights Published by Constellation Research

New Bundled Solutions Improve Options for Mid-Market Contact Centers

Constellation Orbits
Constellation Research, Inc.

Elizabeth is a well-recognized industry-leading analyst. She was previously Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research.  Prior to Constellation, Elizabeth spent eleven years at Forrester Research as vice president and principal analyst.  She has managed large consulting projects for business and government organizations and provides technical insight and guidance to business and government organizations on their communication issues. Prior to her role as an industry analyst with Communication Initiatives and Forrester Research, Elizabeth held senior management positions with IBM, ROLM and Siemens ICN where she was a senior manager for strategic planning and alliances. Expertise Elizabeth’s expertise includes in-depth knowledge of unified communications,…...

Read more

Contact centers are in a state of flux as new customer demands expose the inadequacies of aging infrastructure for current operations.  These emerging communication channels driven by customers’ use of social networks and mobile applications create challenges for contact center managers who realize that they must upgrade their infrastructure to support emerging channels and richer functionality to meet current and future needs.   As a central hub for customer interactions of all media types, companies cannot afford to wait for long term planned system replacements and need to rapidly move forward to meet the requirements of its customers in the short term.  The good news is that major contact center vendors are coming to market with solutions that are easier to implement and reduce the requirement for extended implementation times and high professional service fees for upgrading their contact center platform.  The middle market contact center from 100 to 1,000 agents will especially benefit from these new offerings with shorter install times and improved flexibility.

With increased interest in cloud solutions for contact centers there are many service providers now offering these capabilities.  They are often bundled with network services and provide long term value in terms of rapid deployment and fixed costs over a period of time.  However, premise based solutions are also not going away and many companies favor this option.  Regardless if you r preference is cloud or premise solutions, you should consider solutions from the following vendors who recently announced significant product enhancements for the midmarket contact center.

• Genesys’ One simplifies premise solution with its rapid deployment offering.   This offering provides a quick installer approach (30 days or less) and uses instant routing and reporting templates to enable customers to get up and running with significantly lower costs including fixed pricing for professional services.  It incorporates its SIP Server in the same server as its contact center application to reduce complexity and includes its Best Practices in its solution.  For customers preferring cloud services Genesys also recently launched its Genesys’ Cloud Connect SaaS and partners with SalesForce.com for CRM integration.
• Interactive Intelligence’s recently announced MarketPlace offers an e-commerce website for shopping ease.   This solution simplifies access to a wealth of supporting partner products and reduces the deployment cost for these services. It enables contact center managers to add key applications that support specific vertical solutions, such as financial services, collections and utilities and be assured these products support Interactive Intelligence’s Customer Interaction Center(CIC. ) Initial offering supports 36 products with custom reports and process templates.
• Cisco Packaged Contact Center Enterprise (CCE) Supports Up to 1,000 Agents.  This offering includes call routing, reporting call control and service on Cisco’s UCS-C260 platform.  It also supports many options considered essential for contact centers including multichannel, social media, speech and call recording.  Should a customer need additional capacity the CCE is upgradeable to Cisco’s full Unified Contact Center Enterprise (UCCE) solution. Benefits of CCE include simplified management and reduced implementation time. Solutions also contain Cisco’s Unified Intelligent Center for reporting and Cisco Finesse desktop software.

Press Release: Constellation Research Publishes New Report About APAC Mobile and Digital Innovation

Event Report: Washington Ideas Forum (#IdeasForum) Highlights America's Current Challenges

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…...

Read more

Washington Ideas Forum Creates A Convergence Of Thought Leaders
Influencers in politics, academia, and business converge once a year at the Washington Ideas Forum to discuss the challenges and potential solutions America faces.  This event held November 14th to November 15th pulled together over 1200 attendees and was sponsored by The Atlantic in partnership with The Aspen Institute and the Newseum.

The Day 1 morning sessions included a Post-Election outlook with:

• Lawerence Summers and Al Hunt
• Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Jonathan Karl
• Joel Klein, Jack Markell, and Michelle Norris
• Michael Bennet, Tom Coburn, and Martha Raddatz
• Jose Andres, Sam Kass, and Corby Kummer

Day 1 afternoon fireside chats included conversations with:

• Kevin Madden, Jennifer Psaki, and John Dickerson
• Bill Burton, Trevor Potter, and James Bennet
• Barney Frank and Andrew Ross Sorkin
• Amy Klobuchar and Katty Kay
• Jonathan Alter, David Maraniss, Ron Suskind, and Walter Isaacson
• Julius Genachosksi and Walt Mossberg
• Henry Crumpton
• Bill Gates and David Leonhardt
• Steve Case, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Robert Kimmitt, Michael Porter, and Steve Clemmons
• David Drummond and Katty Kay

Day 2 morning fireside chats include:

• Chris Matthews
• Marco Rubio and Major Garrett
• Madeleine Albright and Jonathan Karl
• Sheila Bair and Steve Clemmons
• David Rubenstein and James Fallows
• Gene Sperling and Chuck Todd
• Nancy Pelosi and Margaret Carlson
• Ed Rendell, Michael Steele, and Jonathan Alter
• Ezekiel Emmanuel and Corby Kummer
• Grover Norquist and Steve Clemmons
• David Corn, Anne Gearan, Michael Hastins, Chuck Todd, and Richard Wolffe

(Photo: R Wang, All Rights Reserved)

Working Group Highlights Seven Themes Impacting Policy Decisions In Disruptive Technology

As part of the event, a disruptive technologies summit convened the morning of the 14th.  Moderated by The Atlantic’s President, Scott Havens, participants included influencers from Arnold, Brewster, Children’s National, CH2M Hill, FCC, Google, IMdB, KBS, MIT,  National Science Foundation, Paper, Rose Park Advisors, Sony Music Entertainment, US Department of Energy, United Technologies, Washington Post.  Amidst a lively discussion, seven clear themes emerged:

1. Massive tension exists between disruptive technologies that displace jobs versus disruptive technologies that create new jobs.
2. New ecosystem models must encourage collaboration and incentives with incumbents and disruptors to create a climate of success.
3. Long term investment strategy at organizations and government often threatened by short term pressures for maximum monetization and political success.
4. The average American lacks access to basic educational skills for new economies and jobs influenced by disruptive technologies
5. Many industries will be disrupted, hence, government policies should focus on developing broader policy implications, not creating detailed purpose built programs.
6. Policy making must consider the ramifications of the new winners and losers in a societal re-balance.
7. Policy should focus on supporting a culture of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship.

Figure 2. The #IdeasForum Flickr Photo Stream

(Photo: R Wang, All Rights Reserved)

The Bottom Line: Policy Failing To Keep Up With The Rapid Pace of Change

The mindset gap between Washington policy makers and disruptive tech influencers continues to widen.  As more and more disruptive technologies emerge, key policy makers fail to understand the ramifications of these shifts.  The result – a disconnect between the investment required to create continued economic success and the policies required to move society forward. Instead of treating Silicon Valley and other entrepreneurial centers as rich ATM stops during campaign seasons, a more concerted conversation and development of deepr relationships would bridge the gap.  One solution – create more frequent opportunities for interaction and updates in a “cross-cultural” exchange.  Further, the creation of more think tanks such as Nigel Cameron’s Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies (C-PET) should provide rich resources to shape policy makers going forward and help disruptive tech leaders understand how to work better with government.

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 – 2012 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!