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,… Read more

I participated last week in two days of SAP briefings with a group of about 15 bloggers. Part of the time was devoted to explaining SAP's evolving cloud strategy, which I will attempt to summarize in this post. 

Keep in mind that what I'm sharing here is not SAP's own messaging around its cloud strategy. Rather, it is my interpretation of where SAP is going and what it needs to do to be successful.

SAP Has a Proliferation of Cloud Assets

Over the past few years, SAP has been at work rolling out a number of cloud services. The most well-known is Business ByDesign (ByD), a full-suite ERP system, written from the ground up for software-as-a-service (SaaS). This was an enormous development effort, and it went through two development iterations until 2011, when it was ready to scale in production. SAP now has over 1,000 customers running ByD.  

Following initial delivery of ByD, SAP also began rolling out its line-of-business applications. These were built on the ByD cloud platform to meet the needs of specific business functions, such as sales force automation (Sales OnDemand) and expense reporting (Travel OnDemand). There are others, also.

Then in 2011, SAP acquired SuccessFactors, a well-respected cloud-only HRMS vendor. This greatly increased SAP's stature as a SaaS provider, but it also added another set of cloud assets and executive leadership to the mix. Further adding to the complexity: SAP is in process of acquiring Ariba, the venerable provider of supplier networking services.

From Cloud Applications to a Cloud Platform

In my view, the current situation has led to a number of problems. First, SAP's cloud portfolio is largely a collection of unrelated systems, and several different cloud platforms. There has been no common architecture, and no integrated product roadmap.

Second, the rest of SAP's product porfolio is not standing still. Specifically, SAP has been making large investments in its in-memory database technology (HANA), and it has acquired and developed an impressive array of mobility applications and mobility platforms. All of these products have cloud-delivery aspects. 

Third, SAP lacks a single extensible cloud development environment. (ByD does have a PaaS capability, for partners only, but it is limited to ByD.) Customers and partners don't just want cloud apps, they want the ability to extend those apps and build new applications that can interoperate with them. In other words, they want PaaS (platform-as-a-service) in addition to SaaS.

SAP's emerging cloud strategy addresses all of these issues: it embraces all of SAP's existing applications as well as its database and mobility platforms, and it gives customers and partners a development environment to build upon and extend these services.

Here are key aspects of SAP's cloud strategy, as I see them:

1. Everything as a Service. Behind the scenes, SAP has been rearchitecting its SaaS offerings to be delivered as web services. For example, it has broken up ByD functionality into 32 "honeycombs," so that no two of them share a common database. Rather they communicate via messaging. SAP has taken the same approach with its line-of-business applications.  In fact, all of SAP cloud applications will be deployed as web services, including its mobility and database offerings. I have to believe this also includes SuccessFactors. SAP will now be able to sell individual modules (e.g. Finance), or a complete suite, or combinations in between.
    
2. Platform-as-a-Service. SAP has built a PaaS capability, now referred to as the SAP Netweaver Cloud (earlier code-names included JPass, Neo, and Project River.) It is intended as a multi-language/multi-framework platform. It is primarily a Java-platform, but its open nature also allows development in a variety of other languages, such as Spring and Ruby. Furthermore, it allows developers to access all of the SAP cloud applications, database services, and mobility services that are now accessible via web services (see point #1).  It even allows applications to access SAP on-premises systems such as SAP ECC, CRM, and HCM. Conceivably, therefore, the Netweaver Cloud could be used for customizations/extensions of SAP on-premises systems that have been traditionally done with ABAP coding.
    
3. Ecosystem. The SAP Netweaver Cloud can be used internally by customers or their system integrators, and it also can be also used by third-party developers to build new applications for sale on the SAP Store. This facilitates the growth of SAP's developer ecosystem.

The Netweaver Cloud runs in SAP's own data centers (including those gained through the acquisition of SuccessFactors). There are a number of other features, such as identity services and document services, which I won't go into in this post.

The Pluses and the Minuses

There are several things I like about SAP's emerging cloud strategy.

1. Integration. SAP's is finally integrating all of its cloud assets into a single platform. If successful, nearly anything SAP delivers should be available and accessible through Netweaver Cloud.
    
2. Openness. Netweaver Cloud does not use a proprietary language, like Salesforce.com's APEX. Use of public development languages, such as Java and Ruby, facilitates adoption by developers and also works against lock-in to a single platform. Likewise, the PaaS makes use of open source projects from Apache and Eclipse, which should further facilitate adoption by developers. 
    
3. Availability. Netweaver Cloud has already been released to customers, and it is scheduled for general availability at the end of this month. A free 90 day trial is already being offered. This puts SAP out ahead of Oracle, whose Oracle Public Cloud is still in controlled availability (though hopefully there will be announcements at Oracle's Open World conference next month).  

On the other hand, there are some aspects that give me concern.

1. Will Customers Understand It? The cloud-only providers have one great advantage: simplicity. Everything Salesforce.com builds is on its Force.com platform. Likewise, enterprise cloud leaders such as NetSuite and Workday grew up with single platforms. Their platforms are relatively easy to explain and easy to understand. SAP, on the other hand, has a variety of on-premises and cloud systems. Furthermore, it has built or acquired a variety of database products and mobility applications and platforms. The SAP cloud platform must now deal with all of these products. It's not easy to explain, as witnessed by the difficulty SAP's own team had in communicating it with our group of tech bloggers. If the bloggers struggle with understanding it, what hope does SAP have to make the message clear to customers or prospects?
    
2. Will Developers Adopt It? Developers are a key to success in cloud systems, just as they are in mobility applications. Salesforce.com already has a large and enthusiastic ecosystem of developers for its Force.com platform. Microsoft has an enormous ecosystem of development partners, for whom Microsoft's cloud platform (Azure) is more-or-less an incremental step in using existing Microsoft development tools. Will SAP's current population of partners readily embrace Netweaver Cloud, or will they be content to continue development in the SAP tools they have been using for years? 
    
3. Is SAP Too Late? Salesforce.com's PaaS was first introduced in 2006 (I wrote about it at the time, here). NetSuite has had CloudSuite for years. Microsoft has already rolled out and continues to refine its Azure PaaS. SAP is only now rolling out Netweaver Cloud. Though SAP denies this, I do believe that its cloud development efforts in recent years have taken a back seat to its database and mobility development efforts. So now, SAP is playing catch-up. SAP has a lot of work to do to be perceived as a cloud leader.

Regarding that last point, on the other hand, my research at Computer Economics shows that PaaS is a technology that is still in the early adopter phase. Most organizations are still buying individual SaaS applications and have not yet made a strategic commitment to cloud computing as a platform. They have hybrid systems: some on-premises, and some in the cloud. Of course, there are exceptions: these are the early adopters that embrace cloud computing not only for SaaS applications but for PaaS as a development strategy. Nevertheless, the majority have not yet seen the vision. Therefore, if SAP can quickly make its cloud strategy clear and deliver working product, it may still have a shot at being a major player.

Here are some reports from other bloggers who were at this event:

• Vijay Vijayasankar: SAP Needs A Better Cloud And Platform Story, And A Good Story Teller 
• Jarret Pazahanick: SAP Briefing - Cloud, Mobility and HCM 
• Fellow bloggers Vijay Vijayasankar, Jon Reed, John Appleby, and Harald Reiter: Video discussion on SAP Cloud, Mobility, and Database Strategy

Disclosure: SAP paid for part of my travel expenses to this event. 

Related Posts

SAP in Transition on Mobile, Cloud, and In-Memory Computing
SAP innovating with cloud, mobile and in-memory computing
Salesforce.com to allow customization of its hosted service 

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… Read more

Salesforce.com is rolling out its new Work.com platform this week at Dreamforce 2012  (#DF12) in San Francisco.  As discussed earlier this month, Workday features prominently as a critical partnership in the Work.com offering, although it was nowhere to be seen in the “Work.com” product area of the Salesforce Campground on Tuesday evening (“Day 1 at the Dreamforce Expo).

However, what was visible on Tuesday was the new rewards platform in Work.com, where employees and managers are able to earn and award not just badges and points but  now also gift cards as part of the fulfillment component of an employee rewards program.  Here at Dreamforce, Salesforce will be announcing their partnership with Amazon to enable gift cards as a new component of their rewards platform.

Tech-enabled social recognition and performance solutions are on the rise, incorporating peer-to-peer recognition delivered in a social environment integrated with a rewards platform that increasingly includes  gift cards and other merchandise.  The latest strategies take traditional recognition programs focused on event-driven milestones and pre-determined rewards and merchandise levels and transform them into a real-time, contextual social and performance-based solution that taps into the unique motivators of individuals.

In a market that is estimated in size at 2% of company payroll, it is not surprising that Salesforce is expanding its social performance platform to play where companies like Achievers, Globoforce, O.C. Tanner, Rideau and many others have already staked their claim.  Utilizing a cloud provider like Amazon is a natural step for Salesforce, and I expect many similarly situated partners will be brought together into a comprehensive rewards network where companies can plug into and tailor solutions for the unique needs of their organizations and individual employees.

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

It is not uncommon for in-house customer support organizations to mistakenly believe it is not their responsibility to support non-legacy channels, such as social media and mobile apps and will defer to the marketing or other departments to provide this support. This gap becomes even a bigger issue when companies consider outsourcing only their core customer support channels, such as telephone support, email and Web chat. The failure to extend and integrate customer support for social media and mobile apps results in fragmented customer experiences and inconsistent responses.

When considering outsourcing customer support, it becomes critical for companies to evaluate potential customer support outsourcers on their ability to provide fully integrated support across all channels. Although customer support outsourcers handle millions of transactions daily, the reality is that only a handful of outsourcers effectively support social and mobile apps today. Constellation Research’s new report, “Innovative Customer Support Outsourcers Expand Channel Support”, provides insight into how leading outsourcers manage social and mobile channels and suggests best practices for engaging their services. 

Best practices related to social and mobile app support include the following:

• Engage with customers within the same site when possible.   Customers have powerful communication tools at their disposal, such as Twitter and Facebook and can immediately spread opinions, comments and reviews to a vast audience over the social network.  Companies need to reach out to social channels to stay in touch and monitor customer comments and views.
• Support collaborative conversations.   One-way delivery of information does not foster customer engagement.  Customer support organizations need to listen to their customers and use their feedback to improve performance.  This includes monitoring social comments for customer opinions and issues, analyzing data to gather insight into customers’ behaviors and concerns and to respond to customer posts within the applications as needed.
• Link directly to mobile app.  Provide customer support directly to the mobile app without requiring the user to toggle out to make a phone call or send a text message. This engages the customers more fully and promotes increased usage of the mobile app. 
• Respond with speed and accuracy.  Delayed response does not sit well with the socially engaged customer who shuns slow responses, such as email or with long delays for callbacks on problems.  If a social response is too slow it may also trigger a separate incident over another channel resulting in a company handling the same request twice.
• Certify representatives trained for social support.  Smart outsourcers realize that a representative’s attitude and skill has a profound effect on customers.  These customer support outsourcers train and certify representatives proficient in handling non-voice interactions such as SMS, text, Twitter and chat and who can quickly respond to customers over social media.
• Gather insight from multiple sources.  A telephone survey is not enough to collect business intelligence on customers’ actions, views and sentiment.  Look for outsourcers who provide analytics across multiple channels delivers this insight and allows companies to make changes quickly when the situation requires immediate action.

Related Research

Innovative Customer Service Outsourcers Expand Channel Support

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… Read more

From Data to Decisions – The Shift To Decision Management

Organizations have faced a constant technology arms race to achieve basic levels of decision management.  From data warehousing, to data marts, to reporting tools to BI, and now Big Data, organizations and leaders have been inundated with technology fads.  While the the latest buzz in technology may come and go, Constellation Research believes organizations seek a path from data to information to insight to action.  This path from Data to Decisions drives the science and discipline behind decision management.

Consequently, decision management in the data to decisions world examines the necessary tools, steps and methods for deriving insight from data and acting on it.  These tools are useful creating informed people and processes, but the continuation and follow-through to decisions and actions demands a robust set of performance monitoring and management practices. Those are the table stakes.  In many cases, application of decision automation, semantic technology and collaborative tools are also needed.   Data 2 decisions is about moving from insight to action and moving to fact based decisions making at all levels of the organization.

I sat down with James Taylor, a thought leader in this space to hear his insights on the latest trends.

The Inside View With James Taylor – One of The Leaders In Decision Management Systems

R “Ray” Wang (RW): James is the CEO and a Principal Consultant of Decision Management Solutions. He is the leading expert in how to use business rules and analytic technology to build Decision Management Systems. James is passionate about using Decision Management Systems to help companies improve decision making and develop an agile, analytic and adaptive business. He provides strategic consulting to companies of all sizes, working with clients in all sectors to adopt decision making technology. James has spent the last 20 years developing approaches, tools, and platforms that others can use to build more effective information systems. He has led Decision Management efforts for leading companies in insurance, banking, health management and telecommunications.

James is the author of “Decision Management Systems: A practical guide to using business rules and predictive analytics” (IBM Press, 2011). He previously wrote Smart (Enough) Systems: How to Deliver Competitive Advantage by Automating Hidden Decisions (Prentice Hall) with Neil Raden, and has contributed chapters on Decision Management to multiple books including “Applying Real-World BPM in an SAP Environment”, “The Decision Model”, “The Business Rules Revolution: Doing Business The Right Way” and “Business Intelligence Implementation: Issues and Perspectives” as well as many articles to magazines.

In addition to strategy and implementation consulting, James delivers webinars, workshops and training. He is a regular keynote speaker at conferences around the world such as the Decision Management Summit, Business Rules Forum, Predictive Analytics World and IBM’s Business Analytics Forum.

James was previously a Vice President at Fair Isaac Corporation where he developed and refined the concept of decision management. The best known proponent of the approach, James helped create the emerging Decision Management market and is a passionate advocate of decision management. He understands how companies buy and use these technologies and he has helped companies successfully adopt these technologies and apply them in the context of Business Process Management and Business Intelligence initiatives.

1. I noticed that you are tying Decision Management to the Customer Relationships? What are some basic principles that someone knew to this space should know about?

James Taylor (JT): Historically Decision Management got applied primarily in risk and fraud but the energy recently has shifted to customer decisions. Decision Management works best on high volume, repeatable decisions. For most organizations, decisions about customers are the ones they take most often. Focusing on how to manage these decisions offers companies tremendous value in becoming more customer-centric and improving their customer engagement and relationships. At the end of the day your customer relationships are driven by their reaction to the decisions you make about them. Developing systems to manage these decisions that are agile enough to change when that is necessary, that embed analytics to improve these decisions, and that are adaptive so they can improve over time is a critical need for better customer relationships. Managing customer decisions is not the only thing you can do with Decision Management, just a great place to start to unlock customer value and drive the customer journey.

2. What’s been the big shift in the journey from Data to Decisions?

(JT): I think there have been three big shifts. The first is an increase in the use of more advanced analytics. Where reporting and perhaps dashboards used to be the primary way to use data, now more organizations are using data mining, predictive analytics and advanced visualization techniques. We see a tremendous growth in these more advanced analytics. Second we also see a focus on operations and operational decisions, with more organizations trying to improve decision-making at the front-line of their organization – where they interact with customers and their supply chain – not just in their back office. Finally we are beginning to see organizations becoming explicit about the decisions involved. Instead of just putting data out there, summarizing it and perhaps visualizing it and hoping that someone will be able to make better decisions, organizations are explicitly identifying the decisions that they need to improve. Then they are building the right kind of decision support or decision management system to ensure that decision gets done right. This last topic is a personal interest and one of the most exciting sessions for me is the hands-on session where folks will actually get to do some decision modeling.

3. Where are we with this fad and hype around #bigdata? Is this just the beginning or will we morph?

(JT): We already see more folks talking about #analytics and #bigdata being used together. Instead of just focusing on managing big data we see organizations talking about how they manage big data AND do advanced analytics against those new data sources. We are learning to handle the velocity, volume and variety of data in our analytics. That said most organization’s “next” problem is not handling big data but making more analytic use of their current “small” data! We will see a morph away from a focus on big data as a technical challenge and towards handling big data being one of our analytic challenges. This whole issue of how we can take big data and actually use it to improve decision-making.

4. Have executives in the C-Suite grasped the benefits of Decision Management?

(JT): Some have. Decision Management is already well established in the banking industry with major consumer credit issuers having VPs of Decision Management for instance. We are beginning to see C-suite interest in Insurance and Telco also with Retail coming up fast, often led by the CMO. Like anything with an analytic component we do see resistance from many c-suiters who think that decisions are their business but once they realize that Decision Management is about improving the front line decisions of their organization and giving them the ability to truly manage and improve these decisions they often become big supporters.

5. Do you see 2013 budgets increasing for Decision Management?

(JT): Yes but most of those budgets are assigned to specific business uses of Decision Management – how do I personalize my marketing or manage customer service decisions across all my channels for instance. Most organizations don’t explicitly ask for Decision Management yet but they are assigning increased budgets to the kinds of things that require Decision Management such as risk management, fraud reduction and customer-centricity. Organizations making investments in analytics are increasingly seeing that an investment in Decision Management can leverage that investment and this is driving broader adoption too.

6. If you weren’t doing what you were doing today, what other profession would you pursue?

(JT): Well my passion is military history so it would sure be nice to be writing books or articles on military history and giving the occasional lecture on some interesting historical topic!

7. What’s your favorite sci-fi gadget or technology toy?

(JT): I always liked the Star Trek replicator and I find 3D printing technology fascinating – I am particularly looking forward to seeing how digital natives will use 3D printers to create art.

(RW): James, always a pleasure. We’ll catch up with you from time and time again!

(JT): Likewise. Have fun!

(RW): You can follow more of James’ thoughts here:

Twitter: @jamet123

Blog: JT on Everything Decision Management

Follow Data to Decisions at Constellation Research, Inc.

To learn more about this business theme coverage area, you can follow our analysts here.  Current coverage areas include Big Data, Data Quality, Decision Management, Insights, Information Management, Internet of Things, Master Data, Visualization Technologies.

Your POV

What do you think? Got a question for James? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

To be considered for Market Maker 1:1 series, please reach out to Elaine (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com. Previous series will be completed for 2012. Sorry for any delays.

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Disclosure

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

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… Read more

In Epicor’s first major acquisition since Apax partners brought Activant and Epicor together, the near $900M Dublin, CA-based enterprise software announced its acquisition of Solarsoft from Marin Equity Partners.   Based in the UK, Solarsoft focuses on MES, ERP, and distribution software in specialty verticals for over 2500 customers.  Terms of the deal were not disclosed.  Expected ramifications from the deal include:

• Solarsoft bringing deeper micro-vertical expertise to Epicor. Solarsoft’s offerings reflect a mini-version of Epicor.  Covering the manufacturing and distribution capabilities, key verticals include automotive, building and construction, discrete manufacturing, food and beverage, general distribution, hi-tech product distribution, mills metals and chemicals, print packaging manufacturing, pharma and cosmetics, plastics and rubber, process manufacturing, and stamping forge and casting. Solarsoft brings MES capabilities to Epicor.
  
  Point of View (POV): In the latest Constellation Report on mid-market buyers, peace of mind and deep industry vertical were the two topics buyers sought from their solution provider.  Constellation expects growth in the micro-vertical process manufacturing areas, distribution, and  the MES solutions.  Solarsoft complements many of the legacy Activant distribution micro verticals.  Meanwhile, Epicor currently lacks a food and beverage offering which is a core Solarsoft strength.  With strong growth expected in Latin America, China and India, this market lacks many modern options for traceability and modern food and beverage requirements.  Natural resources will also receive a boost providing a competitor to JD Edwards as Solarsoft recently acquired Progressive Solutions which was a leader in the lumber and building materials supply chain.

• Epicor driving to global class economies of scale. Solarsoft’s annual revenues were estimated to be $100M.  Epicor’s estimated revenues are $850 for 2012.  Upon closure of the acquisition, Epicor will remain a stone’s throw away from the magical $1B mark.  Solarsoft adds 400 employeees to the overall coverage areas and brings technical expertise in barcode automation, wireless technologies, cloud, mobile, and real-time production systems.
  
  (POV): At $1B, Epicor will achieve a greater scale in back office operations and research and development.  Epicor has always supported global operations for the small to mid-market.  As Epicor moves more towards more micro-verticals, those economies of scale enable Epicor to focus deeper on last mile vertical solutions and provide the sales and support infrastructure expected in a maturing ERP market.  Epicor’s ability to go from shop floor to distribution provides a single source for many customers.  Epicor must also service almost $600M in accumulated debt from previous mergers and acquisitions.

The Bottom Line: Epicor’s Acquisitions Enable Market Viability and Vertical Industry Specialization

In less than a decade, the market has moved from 100 ERP vendors to about a dozen that matter. Epicor’s ability to continually acquire and innovate sets it apart in the market place.  As one of the few vendors who made the transition to a fully multi-tenant SaaS/Cloud ready SOA architecture, Epicor has a modern platform that can be applied to acquisitions over time.  Despite the diminished ERP choices in the market place, customers will find that consolidation will bring more vertical and industry specialization to the market.   Mid market vendors such as Epicor must go micro vertical, mobile, and cloud to win over SAP and Oracle customers.

Your POV.

Have you considered Epicor in the past 12 months?  What do you think of the acquisitions strategy?  Are you a midmarket organization looking for help in vendor selection and software strategy?  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

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 – 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!

Vice President & Principal Analyst Test

Joseph is Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc.&nbsp; Covering all things related to Data Management and Analytics, he focuses on making better decisions through using new sources of data, innovative ways of interweaving the volumetric flow of data of increasing compexity, and disruptive techniques for drawing inferences and making predictions from that data. <br> Sensor networks <br> Mobile devices <br> Machine-to-machine interchanges <br> Machine-to-human interactiions <br> Sensor Analytics <br> Internet of Things <br> Sustainability <br> Self-quantification <br> Since 1978, Joseph has been involved with renewable energy research, developing advanced statistical methods for complex system analysis, and creating analytical techniques and management… Read more

A sensor is anything that can create data about its environs. A more formal definition is

a device that detects or measures a physical property and records, indicates, or otherwise responds to it -New Oxford American Dictionary

A very simple example is a thermocouple.

This is a picture of a k-type thermocouple taken from the FAA under a CC By license

Essentially, two metals are bound together such that when the environment around this wire becomes hotter or colder, the metals produce a voltage. Through this thermoelectric effect, this strain translate into a voltage differential across the wire, producing an electrical signal. A simple voltmeter can read this signal, and one could calibrate that electrical signal to be read as degrees of temperature change.

You likely have one of these in your home thermostat. Perhaps you have a very simple thermostat that turns your home heater on and off.

This is a picture of an older model, simple home thermostat, with the cover removed, showing the inner workings, under a CC By license

Perhaps you have a more complex, programmable thermostat that can control the temperature and humidity of your home through a furnace, air conditioner, humidifier/dehumidifier and fans, with different settings for different times of the day and days of the week.

This is a picture of an advanced Honeywell Programmable Home Thermostat with a green backlit LCD display from the Honeywell website.

Perhaps you have something that looks very simple, but is now part of a complex system that includes not only your home HVAC system, but your computer and smartphone, and computers and analytic software at your utility company.

This is a picture of the very advanced Nest home thermostat, which looks very simple but connects to your computers, smartphones, tablets and more, from the Nest website press downloads.

And this progression is why the Internet of Things is about to explode with Connected Data, with sensors being the new nerve endings of an increasingly intelligent world.

This is a section of my Internet of Things mindmap showing just the sensor branches.

Imagine sensors streaming Connected Data from your home entertainment system, refrigerator & most of its contents, toaster, coffee maker, alarm clock, garden, irrigation, home security, parking on the street in front of your home, traffic flowing by your home to your destination, air quality, and so much more.

We will interact with the world around us in ways that will change our decision making processes in our personal lives, in business, and in the regulatory processes of governments.

If you want to learn more, join IBM and my fellow panelists on Thursday, Sept. 13, from 4 to 5 p.m. ET to chat about cloud and the connected home using hashtag #cloudchat.

Except where otherwise noted, this content is
licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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:&nbsp;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… Read more

Today Oracle announced its new Social Relationship Management (SRM) Platform, an integrated software platform that helps organizations listen, engage, market and monitor their social interactions with all of its constituents across the enterprise (prospects, customers, influencers, partners, candidates and employees.)  

Oracle has been engaged in social-enabled business for a while, delivering Oracle Social Network and bringing social collaboration into processes like Fusion HCM via Fusion Network at Work.  Today’s announcement takes Oracle well beyond social conversations into a comprehensive platform play.  It is leveraging several of its acquisitions from earlier this year (Vitrue, Collective Intellect and Involver) to round out its initial offering in the SRM suite, but the vision for the SRM platform spans the many diverse business processes of the enterprise.

Today, the Oracle SRM suite is comprised of the following:

The two newest additions to the suite are:

Social Engagement and Monitoring, comprised of Oracle’s recent acquisitions of Collective Intellect and Involver, provide a best of breed solution aimed at listening to and engaging in customer in conversations.

Social Marketing, coming from the Vitrue acquisition, marries social channels, content and data with traditional CRM systems to make better decisions around social customer engagement and marketing initiatives. 

Beyond Social CRM – Oracle SRM aims for a holistic view of the individual (employees included)

During the launch, Oracle explained its philosophy of  “building the lifetime customer experience”.  That experience includes concepts such as combining the social understanding of an individual (as a social networker) with the enterprise understanding of that individual (as a customer) to deliver better insights and predictions – for example, not just measuring a customer’s value based on the revenue they bring into the organization, but also on the influence that customer has on revenue through social media.

Oracle envisions extending this holistic insight to the workforce as well. 

Within talent acquisition,  the new SRM platform will enrich the Taleo recruiting offering to bring monitoring, engagement and even social marketing together with Taleo to bolster talent acquisition and retention endeavors. By helping organizations leverage their internal and external social tools to create seamless environments, Oracle looks to help companies turn their employees into  “brand ambassadors” (where they are positively engaged and communicative through social channels to promote the company as a good place to work and/or to do business with). 

Beyond recruiting, the profile of the individual – their combined employee profile as well as social profiles – will be leveraged for greater insight and decision support across the enterprise.  I believe this holistic employee view is at least 12-18 months away from reality (with Oracle focusing most of its initial efforts on the ‘lifetime customer’ side), but I am nonetheless encouraged to hear Oracle presenting this future vision.

My POV:

The social landscape is highly fragmented, with hundreds of technology vendors servicing the many different aspects of social relationship management. While this fragmentation is providing innovation on all fronts, it is also resulting in a fragmented relationship and incomplete insights with customers, partners, and employees. Oracle’s SRM platform, through acquisition and native development, looks to unify that experience and provide a complete platform for end to end support for any enterprise relationship. With more than 380K clients across the world, and with the market for social technologies growing at close to 60%, the opportunity for Oracle is substantial.

Oracle speaks of close to 1000 clients on its new SRM platform, but almost all of these clients come from the recent Vitrue, Collective Intellect and Involver solutions.  Yet the platform presents  a good vision for supporting social-enabled business: one fueled by the opportunities externally and internally to drive new insights and results through effective application of emerging disruptive technologies. 

The technologies used to address people processes – or HCM considerations – are increasingly coming from non-traditional HCM vendors.  A CRM leader, Salesforce.com, is suddenly messaging and delivering in the area of employee engagement and performance.  Social task and project management tools are encroaching upon performance and goal management solution providers.  Even pure enterprise social networking technologies deliver on the fundamentals of social learning and knowledge management.  HR and HR technology leaders will find their areas influenced by these and other emerging tools; staying abreast of the advances in areas like CRM will help these HR leaders envision and plan for their new futures of work.

Filed under: Cloud, ERP, Future of Work, Mobile/Social, Oracle, Social, Talent Management Tagged: Cloud, CRM, future of work, HCM, Oracle, SRM, yvette cameron