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There was a time when customers wrote a letter to customer service- ok that was a really long time ago. But not long ago, the phone was what a majority of people used to contact customer service. And then along comes social media. As the author’s of the Cluetrain Manifesto said, “Markets are conversations” and […]
Analyst Blog
We had the opportunity to attend SAP’s SuccessFactors SuccessConnect user conference held in Las Vegas this week. The conference was well attended with a record of 2800 attendees. As we have seen often a lot of good things happen with an increased conference size, it’s an indicator a vendor is on the right track and the positive underlying vibes cross pollinate between attendees, prospects, partners and the vendor.
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I understand the rationale for paying to reach people who have not Liked a business page; that’s basic advertising. However, for Facebook to provide a platform where businesses are encouraged to create interesting content that drives people to its network – from which it captures reams of personal data and generates a healthy profit through targeted advertising – to then request a payment to reach those people, well, it just feels like ransom to me.Playing devil’s advocate, I’ll argue once again that the social network is offered at no charge to businesses so we should not be complaining. But that’s the thing…it’s no longer free.
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Today Salesforce launched the ability to embed a Buy Button into sites built upon their Community Cloud platform. This new feature will bring the power of commerce to the world of social: enabling brands to leverage the activity that takes place in social channels and convert it into financial transactions.
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R "Ray" Wang provides a discussion framework before Holger Mueller reveals his key insights on what's in store with next gen app development over the next 5 yrs.
Video
Steve Wilson shares his no holds barred views on security, digital identity, safety, and privacy trends with R "Ray" Wang and CIO leaders.
Video
We still live in a hybrid world, but data analysis is moving steadily into the cloud. Here are six tips on how to succeed with online BI and analytics… Continue reading →
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This should be good news for customers - as vendor integration of SaaS solutions ultimately serves customers better. As with all vendors with substantial price lists - customers should make sure they understand what they are buying and from who the solution is coming. In an irony of the Time & Attendance industry, customers only care for the automation when it doesn't work, so they will welcome a reduction in operational complexity.
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A good start for the SuccessConnect. It is clear that HCM is key for SAP, CEO McDermott called in recovering from its recent accident. With the intelligent services SAP is trying to do achieve something truly innovative – we will have to dig deeper into that the next days. Ettling also lifted the bonnet (sorry was in Scotland the last days) on plans to change Performance Management and Learning, as a preview to Krakovsky’s keynote tomorrow.
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This article explains quite well the evolution since those early neural networks to today. And the reason why Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Stephen Hawkins among others are sounding the bell about AI. It’s getting spooky.
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Final deadline August 21, 2015!You still have time! If you led the implementation of a disruptive technology for your organization we want to hear your story!
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Yesterday Google surprised the industry watchers with the announcement of a new structure - Alphabet. Not surprisingly G is for... Google. This is an interesting move by the two Google founders that deserves a blog post - especially since Google competitor Microsoft has not chosen the route of splitting the company (against my suggestion - more here). It will give Google a very different operating structure - but will also deliver some interesting benefits:...
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This morning SAP SuccessFactors kicked off their yearly user conference in Las Vegas. As often at these events, SAP had a major product announcement to make, evolving around a next generation of HCM software. Certainly good timing and a good location to announce this. So let’s dissect the announcement in our customary news analysis style (it can be found here):
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On August 11th, 2015, Infor announced the $675M acquisition of GT Nexus, a private supply chain and procurement network solution vendor. GTNexus brings $150M in cloud revenue, 28,000 companies on their network, 100,000 users across 66 countries, and $100B of goods each year on the procurement network. Constellation believes this will have long term consequences for both client bases. The largest impact might be in the continued transformation of Infor into a true cloud solution powerhouse. Constellation sees three main takeaways:..
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When a company the size of Google makes a massive change in their structure and the way that they do business, it’s big news. Today, Google announced the formation of Alphabet, a holding company that will stable the portfolio of companies formerly known as “Google” – giving the organisation potentially a new lease on life and a new direction – or series of directions.Constellation Research’s R ‘Ray’ Wang provides a laser sharp analysis of what the announcement means in the following video...
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For those in the know, Google has struggled to remain focused on the existing operations which fund innovation and the new areas which have massive market potential. Sundar Pichai will lead as the CEO of Google which includes Ads, Android, Apps, Maps, Search, and YouTube. Eric Schmidt will serve as the Executive Chairman of Alphabet while Sergey Brin will head up Google X. The remaining Alphabet companies will retain their current leadership. Arthur Levinson will run Calico. Tony Fadell will still lead Nest.
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A few years ago, while working with SAP, I setup a social selling program for our leading global sales team. Given their initial reluctance – and the bad wrap that social media held within corporate circles – I developed a deck with the title “It’s Not Stalking, It’s Social Selling”. The title alone got us over the first hurdle – the natural distrust of technology and social networks that almost all of us feel when first venturing into the vast social network space. But what followed was an eye-opener for both me and the teams. And those lessons continue today.
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Welcome back to Part 2 of my vendor profile of ServiceSource®. If you’d like to view the table of contents plus a few pages of the report, just scroll to the bottom of this post!Customer Success Management Field Sees Tremendous Growth Through conversations with clients, prospective buyers, system integrators, partners, and vendors, Constellation sees five big themes in customer success management […]
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Here are the five major trends affecting human capital management as presented by Holger Mueller. Watch the short video below for a more in-depth explanation.
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Vendor Profile
Vendor Profile: ServiceSource® Understanding Which Customer Success Management Approach Fits Best This vendor profile provides an overview of ServiceSource® and identifies key differentiators, product offerings, and a short list guide for buyers.
Vendor Profile
Vendor Profile: Gainsight Understanding Which Customer Success Management Approach Fits Best This vendor profile provides an overview of Gainsight and identifies key differentiators, product offerings, and a short list guide for buyers.
I'm in the process of writing profiles of vendors in the customer success management industry. These vendor profiles are a tool for buyers to evaluate their customer success management options before selecting a vendor. In addition to an overview of the vendor, these documents identify key differentiators, product offerings, and provide a short list guide for buyers. The first vendor I profiled is ServiceSource®. Stay tuned, as more profiles will be published in the weeks to come.
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When I was doing my undergraduate degree and started working as a (Geographic Information Systems) GIS professional over 20 years ago GIS was considered cutting edge across a range of industries from retail, to environmental management and defence. It drove so many issues from store location, weed management and mining analysis. We are now in 2015 and the best use cases of GIS are still store location, environmental location and demographic analysis. Every vendor case study I see has store location and resource management just as it was in the late 1990’s. Every user and even (sometimes with a gentle arm twist) laments the lack of progress in GIS.The contrast to the explosive growth of other technology is overwhelming. In that time we have seen the rise of the laptop, Microsoft Office, email, the Internet, iPhones, Tablets, SaaS, Cognitive Computing yet GIS still appears to be stuck in a time warp of the 1990’s.
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