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

15 Years of HR Technology At The Industry’s Premier Event

The fifteenth annual HR Technology Conference and Exposition returns to McCormick Place in Chicago October 8th to 10th, 2012.  HR Tech is the industry’s longest running event looking at technologies that influence the Future of Work.

The Inside View With Bill Kutik – Future of Work Pioneer And Co-Chairman of HR Tech

Since 1990, Bill Kutik has been a Technology Columnist for Human Resource Executive® (and for HREOnline™ since 2006,), also serving as co-chairman of the magazine’s famous annual conference, HR Technology® Conference & Exhibition, since it began in 1998. In 2008, he started The Bill Kutik Radio Show®, a bi-weekly online talk show with industry leaders.

HR World named him one of “The Top 25 HR Influencers of 2007.” More recently, he was named a “Top 25 HR Digital Influencer 2009″ and a “Top 100 Influencer.”

For 20 years, he was consulting editor for Esther Dyson’s leading computer industry newsletter, Release 1.0. Previously he was the founding editor of the monthly magazine, Computers in HR Management; managing editor of Ziff-Davis’ Computer Industry Daily; and a reporter for The New York Times and The New York Daily News. He has also published articles in Newsweek, Washington Post, Institutional Investor, New York Magazine, Business Month, IHRIM Journal, Cruising World and Backpacker (where he was the founding editor).

We sat down with industry pioneer Bill Kutik for a preview of this year’s event:

1. Where do you see the new trends in HR tech going? What’s changed since last year? (Have we moved beyond Cloud, is everything social?)

Bill Kutik (BK): This year marks an inflection point in HR technology – perhaps in all of IT – the end of one era and the beginning of another, a generational shift in computing.

It happens every 10 – 15 years and remarkably HR has often been at the leading edge of change, either because corporations thought it didn’t matter if IT experiments failed there or because it’s the only department that touches every employee in the company.

Remember, PeopleSoft released the first packaged client/server application (for HR but the first for any function) in 1989, which started the death of the mainframe. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff’s claims aside, HR has been using hosted applications (perhaps not anyone’s version of true SaaS) for recruiting since 1998 and major web-based applications since 2000.

Now the combination of SaaS (Cloud Computing) plus Social in the Enterprise – companies using private collaborative software to get real work done – are marking a new era in computing.

These will be among the major topics this year at the HR Technology® Conference in Chicago, October 8-10.

2. Why the continued interest and investment by organizations in HR and related technologies?

BK: The main reason is the 50-year-long lie in large type in corporate annual reports is finally seen as true: “People are our most important asset.” People costs, even in manufacturing firms with huge capital investments, are more than 50 percent of the annual run-rate. Obviously closer to 90 percent in knowledge-based firms like consulting, law, accounting and software.

To succeed in 2012, organizations must have an effective people strategy aligned with their goals. They must identify the best players, assign them to the right work and keep them engaged. Technology doesn’t create this strategy – executives do – but they can’t properly execute their strategy without the right technology to enable it.

HR technology isn’t for HR anymore. The latest applications reaching mass adoption – such as the Talent Management suite – are now used almost exclusively by line managers and employees after HR has purchased the software and configured it properly.

3. Are 2012 HR technology budgets increasing compared to prior years?

BK: Generally speaking, corporations continue to expand their investment in HR technology globally. According to the latest Towers Watson survey of organizations headquartered in the U.S., corporate HR technology spend continues to increase in the U.S., albeit at a slightly lower rate than in years part:

• 27 percent of respondents reported spending more in 2012

• 57 percent about the same as 2011 and

• 16 percent spending less.

But Towers Watson, one of three long-time international HR consultancies, found a substantial increase in Asia for HR IT spend (34 percent spending more), which was reflected in our conference attendance last year: eight executives from four organizations in South Korea and attendees from Indonesia, Hong Kong, India and China. Brazil had seven executives from five organizations.

Further cementing the global embrace of HR technology, 40 percent of respondents to Towers Watson based in EMEA are spending more on HR technology in 2012.

4. What are some expected highlights of the show?

BK: The star of the show is clearly “Taking HR to the Cloud – Naomi Lee Bloom’s Master Panel” featuring the six most senior enterprise software executives to appear together on any stage. Ultimately, they have responsibility for the five most important HR systems in the world, as well as hundreds of other enterprise applications. They are:

• Steve Miranda, SVP Applications Development, Oracle

• Sanjay Poonen, President Global Solutions, SAP

• Stan Swete, CTO, Workday

• Mike Capone, CIO, ADP

• John Wookey, EVP, Social Applications, Salesforce.com

• Adam Rogers, CTO, Ultimate Software

The secret star on that list, of course, is John Wookey, who was Steve Miranda’s boss at Oracle in charge of all strategy and product development including Fusion, spent three years at SAP creating its first OnDemand SaaS applications, and now spearheads Salesforce’s entry into HR. At the moment, I understand he is temporarily running all products there.

Another general session, “Awesome New Technologies for HR,” is always a favorite. During July and August, I watch about 120 online demos from start-ups and established companies looking for six product demos of disruptive technologies that will knock the attendees’ socks off. They winners tend to come in two categories: A standard HR function done in a whole new way no one ever considered or a brand new function that HR never considered doing!

One of my other highlights is Yvette Cameron’s solo presentation on “The Social Enterprise: New Tools Transform How Work Gets Done,” which is the whole point of our Social in the Enterprise track. The founder of NextGen Insights – and a former PeopleSoft, Oracle, SAP, JD Edwards and Saba executive – she is also VP & Principal Analyst of your Constellation Research Group.

5. Any tips for first-time attendees?

BK: The conference and exposition are going to be huge: The largest in the world for HR technology and the biggest in our 15 years with more educational sessions (42) and more exhibitors (230+). For a first time attendee (or a returning one), my best advice is do your homework in advance before arriving. Download the pdf of our 24-page brochure http://bit.ly/Lbay7s and read about all the sessions or work through our website http://bit.ly/gOOKKr, which also has hot links to all our exhibitors.

Every moment for two and a half days, most attendees tell me they feel pulled by at least three things they want to do, including talking to that expert or this other attendee they just met. Well, it might be maddening but wouldn’t it be a shame if they didn’t know about the other three sessions, which might be even more useful? Problem is there are no weak sessions at HR Technology, and big companies that return every year – such as Accenture, Charles Schwab, Procter & Gamble and Target – tend to send teams of four or more to cover it all. Some send as many as ten or 14!

We have a mobile app with all the session descriptions, presenter bios and exhibitor marketing necessary to create your own personal schedule and send you reminders complete with maps. But I don’t think anyone wants to read all that on their iPhone for the first time 10 minutes before sessions start!

I like to think of the event as Brigadoon: a once-a-year international gathering of everyone who cares about HR technology: HR executives, every guru, analyst and consultant, plus nearly every vendor. We had about 4,600 people counting everybody, except the janitors, last year. Talking with them is every bit as important as attending sessions or visiting the show floor.

So my strongest recommendation to attendees is to check their e-mail and social networks before breakfast and before going to sleep and shut them off all in between! Their greatest opportunity is six feet away from where they’re standing, and not in their hand.

Special Registration Discount Offer

Bill’s been kind enough to provide a registration discount code for the event.  Just use the Promotion Code RWANG12 (all caps) when you register online at www.HRTechConference.com to get $500 off the rack rate of $1,795. The discount does not expire until the conference ends on Oct. 10. Note that’s almost 2 months away!

Your POV

Are you ready for what’s next in HR Technologies?  Will you be shifting your strategy based on the future of work?  Add your comments to the discussion or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com or r at softwaresinsider dot org and we’ll keep your anonymity.

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!

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

It’s coming.  That annual event that calls together the technology leaders and rising stars; innovators and educators; providers and users of all things HCM technology. The “gathering of the clans” (as the Scots would say) as old friends and colleagues touch base to see who’s working where this year.  A 3-day long festival of information, technology, networking and, I’ll admit it, FUN, that never fails to yield new ideas and important new connections. 

I’m going to be at the HR Technology Conference this year.  Will you?

Every year I look forward to attending the annual HR Technology Conference & Expo with great anticipation. For many of us, the event is truly like a family reunion, bringing together old friends from across the HR Tech industry to reconnect and share experiences gained since the previous year’s conference.  For some, it’s about the swag.  For everyone, it’s an awesome venue to see the latest innovations, engage with and learn from peers across the industry and to walk away with the information and connections needed to make those often career-making decisions back in the office.

With more than 25 years experience in the HCM space, I have embraced my inner HCM geek; for me, HR Tech is the ultimate geekapalooza.   I look forward to three days steeped in conversations around HCM processes and technology.

But this year will be different.  This year it gets personal.

I’m excited to be speaking for the first time this year at HR Technology, where I’ll have the opportunity to share findings from my research that point to very exciting and real opportunities for the HCM industry, and the ever evolving role of HR.

Despite its early morning start (9:00 am Wednesday morning, after the previous evening’s myriad parties)  I’ll be on hand to present the  “The Social Enterprise:  New Tools Transform How Work Gets Done”.  This session will be anything but ordinary.  (i.e., don’t miss out, even for an open bar the night before!)  There are many new tools on the market for supporting emerging ways of working across the enterprise: social goal and task management tools; ideation and innovation accelerators;  innovative approaches for creating and collaborating around user-generated content; expertise identification via location-based and mobile solutions; and many others.  Other tools outside the traditional “HCM” market are also emerging as important “talent” technologies, such as social sourcing and management of the ever growing contingent workforce, and workforce analytics that take their cue from lessons learned in the customer analytics arena.

Cool?  You bet.  Hyped?  Absolutely.  Generating real business value?  In some cases yes, but success depends greatly on things like your underlying strategy, implementation approach and organizational culture.

If you’re looking for a pragmatic approach to understanding the application of these technologies within your organization, please haul yourself out of bed early Wednesday morning and join me.  I’ll promise you free coffee and a great hour of discussion.

Bill Kutik tells me that hotel rooms are filling up fast, so if you’re planning to attend, register now.  And if you register with the Promo Code YVETTE12 (case sensitive)  you’ll also get $500 off the on-site rate – larger than the discount advertised in the brochure, and there is no expiration on this discount.

I hope you’ll be joining me at the HR Technology Conference this year. The surest way to find me will be to attend my session at 9am Wednesday, October 10, and I’ll see you afterward.

I hope to see you in Chicago!

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

Marketing and Advertising Budgets Are The New Land Grab

Constellation Research, Inc. predicts that the global advertising market (paid search, display, and classified) will hit $125B by 2015.   While IT budgets continue to stay flat, marketing budgets are up.  Warc’s recent Global Marketing Index (GMI) entered positive territory in March 2012.  Consequently, the heat up in marketing and advertising market attracts not only start-ups, but also tech vendors looking to enter this lucrative market.

Solution Providers Rediscover The CMO Budget

In just less than 28 months, enterprise software vendors have bolstered their presence with Chief Marketing Officers mostly through acquisitions and partnerships.  The goal – capture budgets allocated for digital creation, marketing automation and revenue optimization, advertising, CRM and customer experience, analytics, and information brokering (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.  The Battle For The CMO Budget Comes From Six Fronts

Why the change? Marketing sits at the cross roads between the old analog world and the new shift to digital transformation.  With each big shift, organizations will change what technologies they invest in, who they decide to partner with, and how quickly they will make the shift.  This new battle for CMO mind share started when IBM purchased Unica for $480M in August 13, 2010 (Figure 2).  The frenzied activity by Adobe, Dell, Eloqua, Google, Hubspot, Kana, Marketo, Oracle, Salesforce.com, and SAS Institute reflect the desire to be top of mind among CMO budgets.

Figure 2. The Rapidly Changing Landscape In Marketing and Advertising Technology

The Bottom Line: Digital Transformation Is A Must Have For The New CMO

Digital transformation is no longer a nice to have in the halls of the CMO.  In fact, today’s CMO will complete the shift from analog to digital in the next three to five years.  This shift corresponds to a shift from transactions to engagement.  In the design of new engagement strategies, CMO’s will rely more on digital models.  While analog will not go away, CMO’s expect to embed digital components into analog models for not only tracking, but also improved outcomes.

Consequently, three trends will arise in the market:

1. CMO’s get tech savvy. The consumerization of IT is among us.  Business leaders such as CMO’s must get up to speed on how disruptive technologies will transform their business and their business models. The shift to digital transformation requires the adoption of new competencies in addition to the existing marketing skill sets.  CMO’s will need trusted advisers who understand their requirements.  Meanwhile, CIOs must design policies and procedures to support the extension of CoIT to new leaders.
2. Tech emerges as a core competency in agencies.  Vendors need access to the marketing decision makers.  Today, agencies own the trusted relationships that solution providers need for access.  Technology vendors will partner up with agencies in a similar fashion as system integrators.
3. System integrators will partner with agencies. System integrators will tie up with agencies to provide the tech skills the agencies lack.  In many cases, marketing outsourcing and marketing process outsourcing will emerge.  System integrators will also get into big data outsourcing by brokering information into subscriptions that marketers and agencies will consume.

Your POV.

Are you a CMO barraged with technologies that make no sense?  Do you need a trusted advisor who can explain what this means?  Planning a new customer engagement strategy?  Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your business strategy efforts.  Here’s how we can assist:

• Assessing social business/digital marketing readiness
• Developing your social business/digital marketing  strategy
• Designing a data to decisions strategy
• Create a new vision of the future of work
• Deliver a new customer experience and engagement strategy
• Crafting a new matrix commerce strategy

Related Research:

• Tuesday’s Tip: Why Context Matters – Forget Real-Time, Achieve Right-Time
• Monday’s Musing: Avoiding Social Media Fatigue Through Engagement
• Friday’s Features: Using Attensity Analyze 6.0 To Compare Customer Sentiment For @united @southwestair @virginamerica
• Event Report: Lithium Network Conference 2012 #LiNC
• Best Practices: From First To Worst – Continental In A Post United World, Lessons In Next Gen Customer Experience
• Monday’s Musings: Seven Basic Privacy Rights Users Should Demand For Social Business
• News Analysis: Lithium Technologies Adds $53M in Financing
• Monday’s Musings: Balancing The Six S’s In Consumerization Of IT
• Monday’s Musings: A Working Vendor Landscape For Social Business
• Product Review: Google+, Consumerization of IT, and Crossing The Chasm For Enterprise Social Business
• Monday’s Musings: Using MDM To Build A Complete Customer View In A Social Era
• Monday’s Musings: Mastering When and How High End Brands Should Use Daily Deal Sites Such As Groupon
• News Analysis: Salesforce.com Acquires Radian6 For $316M
• Monday’s Musings: Q1 2011 State of Social CRM and CRM From An EMEA Point Of View
• Best Practices: Applying Social Business Challenges To Social Business Maturity Models
• Research Summary: Software Insider’s Top 25 Posts For 2010
• Best Practices: Five Simple Rules For Social Business
• Research Report: Constellation’s Research Outlook For 2011
• 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
• News Analysis: Jive Fills Warchest, Ready to Battle Enterprise Software Giants And IPO?
• Tuesday’s Tip: Applying The Five Stages Of Adoption Towards SCRM Projects
• News Analysis: Lithium’s Acquisition of Scout Labs Ups The Ante in Social CRM
• News Analysis: Biz360 Acquisition Signals Attensity Group’s Move Into Social CRM
• Monday’s Musings: Avoiding Failure In Social CRM Projects Requires Ecosystem Coordination
• Research Report: The 18 Use Cases of Social CRM – The New Rules of Relationship Management
• News Analysis: Siperian Acquisition Vaults Informatica Into An MDM Leadership Position
• News Analysis: Jive and Radian6 Partner – Great For Business, But Could Fragment IT Systems
• Event Report: Salesforce.com Pushes Social CRM Technology — But Don’t Expect Companies To Be Successful With Tools Alone
• Monday’s Musings: Why Every Social CRM Initiative Needs An MDM Backbone
• Personal Log: Altimeter Group – Helping Organizations Bridge The Technology Obsolescence Gap
• Monday’s Musings: 10 Essential Elements For Social Enterprise Apps

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!

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

Over at Computer Economics, we've now launched our 2012 Technology Trends survey, and we're looking for qualified IT executives to take a 15-minute survey about their technology investment plans.

What's in it for you? If you complete the survey, we'll send you a complete copy of the final report (a $995 value).
 

In this year's survey we're asking about your organization's adoption and experience with 13 technologies:

• ERP
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• Supply Chain Management
• Human Resources Management Systems (HRMS)
• Data Warehouse/BI
• Social Business/Collaboration Systems
• Legacy System Renewal
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Public Cloud Infrastructure (IaaS)
• Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• Unified Communications
• Desktop Virtualization
• Tablet Computers. 

Want to know more? See a summary of the final report from last year.

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

Customer community forums provide a meeting place for customers to engage with fellow customers in order to share ideas and information, get tips on product usage and access knowledgeable subject matter experts.  Importantly, early adopters find that community forums differentiate them from competitors by providing interactive ways for customers to engage and find support.  Forums aggregate relevant product information and usage ideas and share pertinent information to online communities.   As more customers become members of a company’s community forum, it is essential to monitor sites and add fresh content to provide a wide range of valuable and actionable information to consumers. 

For many organizations the creation of community forums originates in the marketing department. However, it is also important to involve customer support in the planning stage and design a site that encourages interactive participation of customers.  A well-designed forum becomes a valuable source of information and encourages customers to resolve issues independently.   It provides advisory services and helps customers find answers through FAQs and access to product experts who may be knowledgeable customers or in-house product managers.   Additionally, community forums have a huge potential for reducing the need to speak to agents, which lowers support costs.

Companies encourage active user participation by recognizing customers who regularly support the community forum and often give them special titles such as valued advisor or company ambassador.  Customers enjoy this acknowledgement and may also receive rewards, such as special discounts or coupons.  This is enough to incent some customers to reach a top rank advisor status and continue active participation.  Engaged customers are the most loyal and forums help them identify more strongly with the company’s brand.

Although there are costs associated with developing a community forum and supporting it, the ROI for this investment can be short.  Customer loyalty and engagement are factors to consider. as well as the savings from call reduction or shorter call duration.  It is important to identify the more routine reasons customers call for support and post information on these topics.  The cross conversations between marketing and customer support can ensure that content is kept up to date and relevant.

The sponsor for developing a community forum needs to gain consensus between marketing and support departments, as well as the executive team, on the need for a forum and clearly define how it will differentiate customer engagement.   Selling the project internally is essential to getting the cross functional support needed to deliver a quality experience.   It is essential that the content plan is applicable to the customer needs and not be merely a clone of the web site.  Once the site is launched, on-going monitoring and testing will safeguard the content and make certain the users gain value.

Want more? See Social Communications and Customer Support - A Winning Combination

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

The Real-Time Hype Is Filled With Flaws

The hype around big data, social media, and mobility has many folks imagining the real-time enterprise in the future of work, next generation customer experiences, matrix commerce, or the data to decisions journey.  While real-time theoretically leads to quicker information and faster response times, the reality requires closer examination for three reasons:

1. Customers and employees only want engagement aligned with self interest.  Relevancy of information is required for customers and employees to respond.  Real-time interactions quickly evolve into noise.  Signal to noise ratios must be improved as garbage in will lead to massive garbage out.  In some cases, customers don’t want engagement. They just want the experience.
2. No human can truly handle the volume and flow of real-time interactions. The proliferation of channels and data sources creates a data deluge.  Filtering is required in order to handle real-time.  Workers already inundated with email, sms, and chats, really just want to get work done, they don’t want to be bogged down with more interactions.
3. Real time is not fast enough. Real-time is reactive not proactive.  Anticipation and prediction emerge as key requirements.  Reaction does not lead to a better customer experience or employee interaction.  Some customers want options to make the right decision.  The same customers may expect a system to remember a preference based on many factors including repetitive behavior.

Delivering Context Is The Secret To Right Time Success

Context provides the key ingredient in improving outcomes. Why? Context provides the relevancy required for not only anticipation, but also prediction.  For example, offering a premium channel upsell to an upset cable customer when their cable is down, may not be the wisest idea.  Unfortunately, this happens too often.  The customer is already upset that the issues have not been resolved and yet the company is still trying to sell instead of resolve an issue.  However, offering a free appetizer triggered by a location based service during the morning commute, may lead to higher sales as this is a right time anticipation of a dinner time offer .

The Bottom Line: Start With Seven Dimensions of Context Drivers.

Consequently, the key to right-time is context.  By delivering information in context, organizations can address business problems in the future of work, next generation customer experience, matrix commerce, and data to decisions.  Constellation identifies seven key triggers for context in a right-time world (see Figure 1):

1. Relationships. An individual may serve as an employee, a parent, part of a community group, or other designation.  Understanding the relationships help brands and organizations understand a broader set of experiences that answer the question “Who and What”.
2. Time. Time provides temporal information.  Time provides related services that answer the question”When”.
3. Location. Placement by geo-spatial coordinates helps with narrowing geographic relevancy.  Location answers the question of “Where”
4. Business process. Process helps determine flow and work order.  Process answers the question of “How”
5. Role. While related to relationships, the role is different because it addresses eligibility.  Individuals can play different roles among a wide variety of relationships.
6. Sentiment. Sentiment seeks to understand how an individual feels about an issue.  Sentiment answers one dimension of the question of “Why”.
7. Intent.  Intent anticipates future behavior.  Intent answers the second dimension of the question Why”

In the design of an engagement strategy, success will require organizations to factor the seven dimensions of context drivers.

Figure 1.  Seven Drivers for Context In a Right Time World

Your POV.

Are you ready for right time?  Do you have an example of how context improves your efforts at matrix commerce, future of work next generation customer experience, and data to decisions?  What’s next for your engagement strategy?  Have a story on how you’ve achieved engagement? Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your business strategy efforts.  Here’s how we can assist:

• Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
• Developing your social business/ social CRM  strategy
• Designing a data to decisions strategy
• Create a new vision of the future of work
• Deliver a new customer experience strategy
• Crafting a new matrix commerce strategy

Related Research:

• Monday’s Musing: Avoiding Social Media Fatigue Through Engagement
• Friday’s Features: Using Attensity Analyze 6.0 To Compare Customer Sentiment For @united @southwestair @virginamerica
• Event Report: Lithium Network Conference 2012 #LiNC
• Best Practices: From First To Worst – Continental In A Post United World, Lessons In Next Gen Customer Experience
• Monday’s Musings: Seven Basic Privacy Rights Users Should Demand For Social Business
• News Analysis: Lithium Technologies Adds $53M in Financing
• Monday’s Musings: Balancing The Six S’s In Consumerization Of IT
• Monday’s Musings: A Working Vendor Landscape For Social Business
• Product Review: Google+, Consumerization of IT, and Crossing The Chasm For Enterprise Social Business
• Monday’s Musings: Using MDM To Build A Complete Customer View In A Social Era
• Monday’s Musings: Mastering When and How High End Brands Should Use Daily Deal Sites Such As Groupon
• News Analysis: Salesforce.com Acquires Radian6 For $316M
• Monday’s Musings: Q1 2011 State of Social CRM and CRM From An EMEA Point Of View
• Best Practices: Applying Social Business Challenges To Social Business Maturity Models
• Research Summary: Software Insider’s Top 25 Posts For 2010
• Best Practices: Five Simple Rules For Social Business
• Research Report: Constellation’s Research Outlook For 2011
• 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
• News Analysis: Jive Fills Warchest, Ready to Battle Enterprise Software Giants And IPO?
• Tuesday’s Tip: Applying The Five Stages Of Adoption Towards SCRM Projects
• News Analysis: Lithium’s Acquisition of Scout Labs Ups The Ante in Social CRM
• News Analysis: Biz360 Acquisition Signals Attensity Group’s Move Into Social CRM
• Monday’s Musings: Avoiding Failure In Social CRM Projects Requires Ecosystem Coordination
• Research Report: The 18 Use Cases of Social CRM – The New Rules of Relationship Management
• News Analysis: Siperian Acquisition Vaults Informatica Into An MDM Leadership Position
• News Analysis: Jive and Radian6 Partner – Great For Business, But Could Fragment IT Systems
• Event Report: Salesforce.com Pushes Social CRM Technology — But Don’t Expect Companies To Be Successful With Tools Alone
• Monday’s Musings: Why Every Social CRM Initiative Needs An MDM Backbone
• Personal Log: Altimeter Group – Helping Organizations Bridge The Technology Obsolescence Gap
• Monday’s Musings: 10 Essential Elements For Social Enterprise Apps

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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

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Will You Be Ready For the M2M World?

The Internet of Things, the Connected World, the Smart Planet… All these terms indicate that the number of devices connected to, communicating through, and building relationships on the Internet has exceeded the number of humans using the Internet. But what does this really mean? Is it about the number of devices, and what devices? Is it about the data, so much data, so fast, so disparate, that will make current big data look like teeny-weeny data?

I think that it's about change: the way we live our lives, the way we conduct business, the way we walk down a street, drive a car, or think about relationships. All will change over the next decade:

1. Sensors are everywhere. The camera at the traffic light and overseeing the freeway; those are sensors. That new bump in the parking space and new box on the street lamp; those are sensors. From listening for gun shots to monitoring a chicken coop, sensors are cropping up in every area of your life.
2. Machine to Machine [M2M] relationships will generate connected data that will affect every aspect of your life. Connected Data will be used to fine-tune predictives that will prevent crimes, anticipate your next purchase and take over control of your car to avoid traffic jams. The nascent form of this is already happening: Los Angeles and Santa Cruz police are using PredPol to predict & prevent crimes, location aware ads popping up in your favorite smartphone apps, and Nevada and California are giving driver licenses to robotic cars.
3. Sustainability isn't about saving the planet, it's about saving money. Saving the planet, reducing dependence on polluting energy sources and reducing waste in landfills are all good things, but they aren't part of the fiduciary responsibilities of most executives. However, Smart Buildings, recycling & composting, and Green IT all increase a company's bottom line and that does fall under every executive's fiduciary goals.

Making Sense of Inter-Connectedness - Introducing My Internet of Things Mind Map

As you can tell from the mindmap associated with this post, I've been thinking about the Internet of things quite a bit lately. It's a natural progression for me. I'm fascinated by all the new sensors, the Connected Data [you heard it here first] that will swamp Big Data, the advances in data management and analytics that will be needed, the impact upon policy and regulation, and the vision of the people and companies bringing about the Internet of Things. But more, as I've been reading and thinking about the SmartPlanet, SmartCities, SmartGrid and SmartPhones, and that ConnectedData, I realized that I can never look at the world around me in the same way again.

Let's look at some of the "facts" [read guesses] that have been written about the IoT.

Looking to the future, Cisco IBSG predicts there will be 25 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2015 and 50 billion by 2020. From The Internet of Things: How the Next Evolution of the Internet Is Changing Everything by Dave Evans, April 2011 [links to PDF]

Between 2011 and 2020 the number of connected devices globally will grow from 9 billion to 24 billion as the benefit of connecting more and varied devices is realised. The Connected Life: A USD4.5 trillion global impact in 2020, [links to PDF] February 2012 by Machine Research for the GSMA.

Two different estimates, one of 24 billion devices of many different types, connected by wireless broadband, and one of 50 billion mobile devices using different types of cellular networks, all by the year 2020. And neither of these estimates include the trillions of other types of things that will deployed over the next eight years. Trillions, not billions, using a variety of personal, local, and wide-area wireless networks.

My Focus Starts at The Intersection of Sensors, Analytics and Smart Cities, with Energy Management and Sustainability

One of the things that will change over time is the way that I look at the Internet of Things. All of it is interesting. But for now, I'll be focusing on the intersection of Sensors, Analytics and Smart Cities, with Energy Management and Sustainability.

Count RFID, Zigbee, MEMS, Smartdust and more traditional sensors, Robots, autonomous vehicles, Healthcare monitors, Smart Meters and more, being distributed in cities, cars, factories, trains, farms, planes, animals and people, and the number of connected devices in 2020 will be in the trillions. Data generated by less than one billion humans using the Internet a few times a day swamped traditional data management & analytics systems, spawning "Big Data". Trillions of devices updating ConnectedData every few nanoseconds will indeed change everything.

Of paramount importance moving forward is determining how to extract business, personal and social value from the intersections, interfaces and interstices of the infrastructure, connected data, objects and people building relationships through the Internet of Things.

Come join me as I look at this convergence and the business impact ahead of us.

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

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

Data Science is a new term and a new job title that has been receiving quite a bit of hype. There have been arguments over the definition of this term, and whether or not it truly describes a new field of endeavor or is just an offshoot of statistics, software programming or business intelligence. Another take is that many of the definitions of a Data Scientist can be met by few if any individuals, but really define a team. The television show Numb3rs ran with new episodes in the USA from 2005 through 2010. In many ways, the show was a prototype for such a Data Science team. Let's look at the roles on the show, and see how they might translate into your organization.

The Mathematician or Statistician

Charlie Eppes, boy genius, who grew into a young professor of Mathematics at the fictional CalSci. Like so many professors, he supplemented his income by consulting. In his case, to the FBI and his brother, applying mathematics and statistics to solving crimes of all sorts. His breadth and depth of knowledge was remarkable; unlikely to be matched in the real world. However, an applied mathematician or statistician, with knowledge of a branch of mathematics or statistics relevant to your problems is essential in either a Data Scientist or a data science team.

Computational Statistician, Computer Scientist or Software Developer

Amita Ramanujan, a student at CalSci who achieves her doctorate in computational mathematics, becomes a professor at CalSci, helps with the consultations to the FBI and, as a side note, dates her one-time thesis advisor, Charlie Eppes. In many ways, Amita is the closest to being a Data Scientist of anyone in the show. Equally adept at mathematics, physics, statistics and hacking, Amita often acquires the required data from disparate sources, and transforms Charlie's mathematical visions into working code. If you hire an Amita, you might just have all you need to get Data Science producing real solutions for you.

Over time, both Charlie and Amita gain a fairly impressive domain knowledge of criminalistics.

Subject Matter Expert (SME)

And speaking of subject matter experts, this is where Numb3rs really prototyped what is required to make Data Science valuable in solving the crimes, er, problems at your organization. There were many SMEs, both as regular characters, and as special roles for specific shows. The regular characters included the FBI agents, from Don Eppes, the lead agent, and Charlie's brother, to his team, with David Sinclair and Colby Granger surviving the entire series. By the end of the series, these two FBI agents were taking turns suggesting and explaining mathematical approaches. Other FBI agents who were on the team for one or more seasons include Terry Lake, Megan Reaves, Liz Warner and Nikki Betancourt. Megan was also a profiler.

Also of important note, was the Eppes brothers' father, Alan Eppes. Alan was a retired city planner for Los Angeles. His knowledge of building, regulations, and city's byways, processes, neighborhoods and interactions, were often instrumental in understanding the results of Charlie and Amita's calculations.

Another regular was Larry Feinhardt, holding the Walter T. Merrick chair at CalSci. It may surprise you to learn that a theoretical physicist and cosmologist, interested in studying the heavens, string theory and zero point energy was a crucial member of a crime solving data science team, but he was, other than a brief hiatus aboard the International Space Station.

More important than these regular cast members however were the guest SMEs. There were some recurring roles, such as the drop-out with a knack for baseball stats, or the mechanical engineer who was more interested in how things failed than in how to build them. Flame propagation, biology, disease control, cryptology, cognition, gaming, chemistry, forensic accounting and more specialists all are needed at one time or another to solve the crime.

Retrospective

For me, the lesson is that while you may find an individual who can be creative with the right math or statistics, find, extract and massage data, have sufficient domain expertise and write sophisticated code, turning their creative algorithms into real solutions, you're more likely to need a team. And even that team will need additional help, from within the organization or outside consultants. Your regular team and "guest stars" mathematicians, frequentists, Bayesians, engineers, scientists, accountants, business analysts, and others to bring the best decisions out of your data.

And if you want to check out how realistic the mathematics was in Numb3rs, check out The Math of Numb3rs from Cornell University. For more on the cast, characters and show, look for the CBS official Numb3rs site, and, of course, the Wikipedia article on Numb3rs.

Update: 20120722: I'm honored by the mentions and retweets on Twitter from those who love the Numb3rs analogy. Thank you all.
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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

Bring up the subject of social tools to business leaders, and many will still take the position that these technologies have little to no real value in supporting daily workplace initiatives. But whether these leaders are ready for it or not, today’s workers are bringing expectations for social and mobile technologies into the workplace. Ever-connected, accustomed to instant access to information and people, social and mobile technologies are simply the way we live and work today.

In a few weeks I’ll be publishing the first in a series of reports detailing both the disruptive and enabling effects of social technologies on talent management practices and technologies. The first of these reports provides a comprehensive look across nine primary categories of talent management, highlighting the evolution and transformations taking place as a result of social, mobile and cloud technologies.

Preliminary findings from this research have already been published in the latest edition of Workforce Solutions Review, a publication of the International Association for Human Resource Information Management (IHRIM).  In that issue, I discuss a few of the emerging realities within the future of talent management:

• Talent sourcing and acquisition has gone social;
• Goals, initiatives and tasks are more immediate and transparent;
• Identifying top talent benefits from richer insights;
• The “system of record” becomes a portable, holistic profile; and
• Concepts in customer analysis are informing HCM analytics.

The article also looks to the future and notes that social and mobile experiences
are impacting more than just processes; they’re also impacting how software is being developed, delivered and consumed.