deal architect

WFH productivity and problems

I was one of Gartner's first WFH analysts in 1995. They were not sure the WFH model would work in analyst world so they had me spend most of the first 6 months at HQ in Stamford, CT. My employment contract also required me to relocate to a new office they were opening in Atlanta. Fortunately, my cohort of remote analysts turned out to be extremely productive (Gartner tracked all kinds of metrics on client queries handled, new presentation slides created, research pages written etc) and much to my wife's relief they allowed us to stay put in Tampa. Or at least that's what I like to believe. It could be they needed the relocation budget for something else :)

The technology was primitive. I got a hand-me-down Apple Powerbook (Gartner was an Apple shop back then). I did get a brand new HP All-in One. We got to provision two phone lines - one for a 14.4 baud line connection to servers at corporate. High-speed! The other for client queries. Connectivity on the road required finding public phones with elusive RJ-11 jacks and it cost a princely sum when you were overseas. We somehow stayed productive - I think I was in the top 10 in metrics for all analysts for most of the tenure there.

I have stayed reasonably productive since with my books, blogs and advisory work. However, the last 3 months have been humbling as I have cataloged acrobatics during this crisis. We are seeing the emergence of WFH superworkers:

Rob Enslin, President of Google Cloud Sales describes a day in his work life especially at quarter-end. He had customer calls to Japan, Indonesia, Germany, Brazil, Florida, New York and California. Organizing all that a few months ago would have required 2-3 week trip. 

In his interview, Rob talks about remote consulting Google is doing even on complex ML projects. He talks about how the service sector will be a lot more productive going forward. I have been imploring SIs to cut travel since I was at Gartner (I had arrived there from PwC). The pandemic has forced them to finally act. In my vision, the next step will be to move to shared services across projects and to a lot more automation. Even more productivity.

Tamas Hefezi of Automation Anywhere has been on a 15 year journey to turn all his analog interactions digital. It is mind-blowing how organized he is and the set of technologies he leverages. Read about his routines here. 

Vittorio Viarengo describes a morale-boosting project he was asked to coordinate at VMware. He mixed and synthesized audio and video files from 30 virtual employees around the world to produce a rendition of "This Little Light of Mine". Watch the 5 minute final product, then read here the effort and skill it took to mix music and synch videos from amateurs recorded on consumer grade tech. Bear in mind he has a full time job there - he VP of Cloud Marketing. This was a side project he tackled.  

My interviewees share many more examples of remote productivity in this series - click here for more 

Before we use these superworkers as benchmarks, let's acknowledge that WFH does not work for everyone. People who also have to school kids, compete with neighbors for badwidth, those who thrive on social interaction struggle with WFH.  Telcos do need to upgrade their last mile fiber (my FiOS cable was mangled or cut in March and the tech told me our neighborhood fiber was 15 years old), companies need to fortify the security at their remote machines, buy employees better webcams, mics, lighting etc. All this will need a lot more CIO/CFO/CHRO coordination.

We are learning so much from this phase, and whether full time or part time, WFH will be part of every white-collar work regimen. For now,  this WFH pioneer is proud of - and extremely humbled by - acrobats like Rob, Tamas and Vittorio.    

New Normal: A conversation with Rob Enslin of Google Cloud

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. Here is the index to the growing list of interviews. 

This time it is Rob Enslin, President, Cloud Sales at Google.

I have known Rob over the years from his long stint at SAP. He is not one to brag but if you parse some of the statements he makes in the video below, you get a sense for the tectonic changes coming to most economies and how technology will play what he calls a "massive role". The formidable range of offerings Google and Alphabet already offers to consumer world will increasingly be leveraged by the enterprise. With Thomas Kurian and Rob that should accelerate.

He touches a wide range of industries across the conversation - auto makers, banks, food and beverage, hospital, universities, call centers, public sector agencies, travel companies. He covers scenarios such as running a virtual annual general meeting, banks moving from branch to digital banking,  machine inspection of shop floors and automation of thermal checks at airports.

He describes how many customers start with "lift and shift" of legacy apps to Google infrastructure for the cloud economics, scalability and security. Then they start to leverage Google's machine learning, collaboration, vast data sets (like health related ones from Google Health and Calico), mapping and other digital assets.

I was struck by his personal productivity during the shelter at home. He describes a day of customer calls to Japan, Indonesia, Germany, Brazil, Florida, New York and California. Organizing all that a few months ago would have required 2-3 week trip. He says Google has always been a video-savvy workplace (which has also made their WFH a lot easier), but he says it is striking how the rest of the world has moved that way.

He is rightly proud that the cloud has managed to support so much traffic without too many hiccups - all the massive uptick in ecommerce, video, banking and trading volumes, telemedicine and other digital activity from home. As he asks - could we have done that a decade ago? 

He also touches on delivery models and how even complex machine learning projects are being supported remotely. He expects much more productivity going forward in delivery of services.

When I asked him about leadership, he complimented Google leadership like the CEO Sundar Pichai for decisiveness - about quickly moving to work from home, ending large group meetings, being conservative about moving back into physical workplaces. He also cites his personal experiences during the dot.com recession in the early 2000s, and that in the 2008 financial meltdown as helping him lead during this crisis. He says he shares with his employees how he personally relaxes. He also participates in many virtual happy hours, virtual Peloton group rides with staff.  

He was immensely popular at SAP  - read this post I did on his earlier career and his leadership style. No surprise he has continued that at Google.

I found it an extremely uplifting conversation. I think you will too.

New Normal: A conversation with Ton Dobbe of Value Inspiration

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. Here is the index to the growing list of interviews. 

This time it is Ton Dobbe, Chief Inspiration Officer at Value Inspiration which analyzes and advises startups. I asked him to discuss heroics he has seen in what he calls his 'Tribe".

He discusses pivots and new products and services at many of the companies he follows around the world. He specifically mentions

Dr. Cindy Gordon, CEO SalesChoice

Paul Zak - CEO Immersion

Patrik Berglund - CEO Xeneta

Timothy Willis - COO Aerobotics

Dagmar Schuller - CEO auDEERING

Recessions can be brutal for startups, but the pandemic has opened up so many new opportunities, that it is not surprising that he reports the entrepreneurs he deals with are fairly upbeat.

Ton is a glass half-full optimist like me, so it is a really invigorating conversation.

Oracle Nation update

Last August, I had floated the idea of writing Oracle Nation. This blog post laid out the reasons why I was thinking about it. I added in a comment the changing industry landscape I hoped to explore

"The next wave of apps are going to be in vertical operational areas and many geographies beyond the bigger Western countries. The competition will change as more customers are moving back to custom developed and even building industry solutions for sale. Also there will be more regional players and others on Google, AWS and Azure platforms. Got to factor all that in my decision."

Oracle and I discussed various options. They offered access to 6 events around the world as a way for me to meet customers and Oracle executives to interview. That was very generous and would have given me a very nice exposure to Oracle's global reach. However, none of the events was vertically focused. And, honestly, I find conferences a tough place to get decent face time with executives. Much better to catch them in their comfort zones in their offices. Not that it would have mattered. Given the COVID-19 crisis, most of those events have been cancelled.

I also managed to get a dialogue going on verticals. Mike Sicilia, EVP of Oracle's global business units, gave me a nice overview of key verticals such as hospitality, retail and utilities. We were supposed to arrange for drill downs into many of the sectors but again COVID-19 has disrupted scheduling.

I had hoped to re-engage and make Oracle part of the "acrobatics during the crisis" Zoom series I have been running. However, the Oracle executive I approached declined. I understand. While the vast majority of executives I invited have participated, some have not - they don't want to come across bragging during the crisis or for other reasons.

In background, to get a 360 degree perspective I had also talked to Oracle partners, competitors, user groups. Long and short - my books tend to be case study heavy and I don't think I can get a broad enough range of customers for the book.

I will be honest - in my polling I got several comments that I should instead write about SaaS leaders like Salesforce, Workday and ServiceNow or the hyperscalers, Amazon, Microsoft and Google (Oracle IaaS is showing more recent momentum but did not come up much in my earlier conversations). The acrobatics and digital transformations during the crisis (watch the interview I did here) are also really timely fodder for a possible book. BTW these conversations are showing a lot of interest in vertical edge applications (like telemedicine, drive-thru support, PPP loan processing etc) less ERP or other transactional system refreshes in the short-term. Less tech focused, I have also thought about writing a book on US policy matters - our middle class, immigration, global trade etc. I find there are plenty of what I call "toxic myths" about those topics.

Seriously, I am learning so much from my Zoom interviews and can share them on a much more timely basis that I plan to continue doing those. I have several more great executives lined up.

Oracle is continually fascinating. There will be a time and place when we will be able to engage meaningfully. Just not this year.

New Normal: A conversation with Brian Sommer of TechVentive

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. Here is the index to the growing list of interviews. 

This time it is Brian Sommer, President of TechVentive which analyzes and advises on the ERP, HCM and Financial software markets. Here he discuss heroics as HCM executives deal with a slew of new demands.

He describes expectations of HR related to layoffs, getting people ready for work from home, site re-opening protocols, reacting to regulatory changes as government emergency programs like the Payroll Protection Plan (PPP) loans in the US. All this is in addition to their regular day jobs which is being done remotely. In addition, HR is squarely in the middle of corporate response to diversity issues and protests. He describes the risks as corporations re-open sites and re-hire employees. We also discuss impact on employer brands coming out of the crisis.

We discuss how cloud applications performed in support of work from home formats, and how HR can find justification to move to the cloud as enterprises try to optimize IT budgets and prioritize revenue-facilitating vertical applications. We also discuss moving legacy application to cloud infrastructure, and using third party maintenance to support those applications, and outsourcing opportunities.

As usual, Brian is entertaining and uses terms like "finding true love elsewhere". But most of it is serious stuff - a lot of empathy for the crushing load that HCM groups find themselves buried under.  

Digital Acceleration

Tamas Hevizi interviewed me about what I have learned about digital transformation in the business acrobatics interview series I have been running in the last few weeks. Below is a discussion about digital acceleration during the crisis in the US and countries like Germany and Japan. We discuss a wide range of industries - healthcare, retail, banking, higher ed and many others.  We also discuss the need to reach parity between digital and physical/analog experiences for customers and employees.

He had initially set it up as a Zoom session, then asked to change it to Skype. I groaned - in the last few weeks I have used ON24, Google Meet, MS Teams and a few other platforms. I did not want to install yet another product. As you can see the quality of his production is superb. No, don't just credit Skype. He has re-invented the home TV studio. A post on that is coming up on New Florence.

New Normal: A conversation with Amit Shah of Excelitas Technologies

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Amit Shah, who is CIO of Excelitas Technologies, a spinoff from PerkinElmer. As he describes it, they are "light people" with products which "create light, sense light and bend light".

Since they make components for avionics, imaging, temperature sensing and many other applications considered essential, the majority of their global locations remained open. Amit describes the hygiene and other protocols for their plants and other physical sites that most companies which shut down are having to factor now as they re-open. Several of their product classes like thermometry have seen significant demand during the crisis. 

They are an SAP ECC shop, moving to S/4HANA for financial applications which will run in the SAP NS2 cloud (since they do government aerospace and other contracts, they cannot operate in the public cloud). He describes how they handled their work-from-home situation. He also describes their use of Microsoft Remote Assist and HoloLens for field service applications.

When asked about likely changes in global manufacturing, he describes how they were already insourcing more and that their approach of controlling more of the supply chain has been validated during the crisis

I particularly enjoyed his description of their Advanced Manufacturing journey where they have applied Industry 4.0 concepts - robotics, digitization of shop floor, analysis of yield and scrap and work cell structures.

I also like his comments on pushing the pedal on R&D spend (a philosophy his CEO endorses) as that allows you to emerge even stronger when the economy improves.

He likes to paraphrase Churchill "a crisis is terrible thing to waste". His team clearly did not waste much during this crisis.

New Normal: A conversation with Seth Ravin of Rimini Street

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. Here is the index to the growing list of interviews. 

This time it is Seth Ravin, Chairman and CEO of Rimini Street which provides third party support for enterprise software.

Seth is very widely traveled and when asked about acrobatics, he makes a striking observation on how Japanese business is going through a fairly dramatic digital transformation.

He sees customers seeking a fairly significant "cost realignment with their new revenue realities". He sees a focus on revenue-centric applications, and a de-emphasis of ERP "refreshes". He sees accelerating "lift and shift" moves of applications to cloud infrastructure as different from moving to SaaS. He also believes Rimini's virtual support model is timely in a world with travel restrictions. Broadly, he expects a gradual recovery spread over 2 to 3 years.  

I liked his comments towards the end where he says he is respectful of those who build software. "We would not have anything to support if these great companies did not innovate." As he says "We are all trying to help the same customers. It's time for all of us to pitch in."

Sure would be nice if Oracle, SAP and other large enterprise vendors adopted a similar attitude and respected the customer need for choice in this tough economy.

While they talk more about their other innovations, not third party support, also check out my interviews with SAP, Unit4, Salesforce, Infor, Workday, VMWare and other executives in this series. I have invited Oracle, Microsoft and other vendor execs and hope they join this growing gallery.

Work Boldly!

Even though I call myself a glass half-full optimist, like everyone, I have mood swings during this wild phase. I had a roller coaster of a day yesterday,  but did two calls in the evening and went to sleep very encouraged.

The first call was with Jason Blessing, CEO of Model N. He rattled off example after example of his life sciences and high tech customers who are running like crazy to come up with vaccines, therapeutics and other products to help fight COVID-19.  As I was listening to him - watch the video here, I was thinking about the intensity at which these executives are working. Like all of us, they have elderly parents, children running around while working from home, and they are working on unprecedented projects and products. I worry about burnout - is their pace sustainable?

I got a calming answer in the second call which ended about 9 pm my time. It was a call with Cassandra Long at the Taronga Conservation Society in Australia. It was a call SAP facilitated and I hope to post an interview with her in the near future. What was striking was COVID-19 was actually the second "shock" they had to adjust to after the one of brush fires that tormented the country late last year. Burnout? She was high-energy on the Zoom call.

The morning had started with HP Enterprises CEO Antonio Neri describing acrobatics at his customers including the Nightingale pop-up hospitals which were set up in a mere 9 days at the UK NHS. 

The afternoon continued with Bret Taylor, President/COO at Salesforce describing acrobatics during an analyst session. He talked about a banking customer as they handled the crush of emergency PPP loans and public health agencies as they tried early forms of contact tracing of infections.

These examples always inspire me.

I was a bit discouraged before my evening calls. Media and social media were highlighting the rise in infections in several US states which are opening up. Of course the numbers are discouraging, but they were not pointing out the June COVID-19 positives are very different from the March positives. They are much younger and likely much healthier and our hospitals have learned to change assortments of rooms and handle better surges in critical cases. I hate to be uncharitable, but I am reminded of Madame Defarge, the knitting lady who spends her day at the guillotine in The Tale of Two Cities.  

Give me time instead with hard working people any time. They, in turn, are working their butts off to bring the large unemployed pool back to work again.       

Which is why I was encouraged again this morning by Workfront's LEAP event with its theme of "Work Boldly". CEO Alex Shootman (see my interview with him about resilience during a crisis here ) and his team presented other examples of customer acrobatics. Particularly striking was the John Paul Mitchell "stimulus package" for beauty salons. This sector has been especially hurt by distancing requirements and they are offering a bundle of their products for free to stylists. We cannot forget those who work in brick and mortar settings.

That is why I am looking forward to a Cognizant webinar next week which will feature Harvard Public Health professor Joseph Allen talking about "Healthy Buildings" - register here. As I wrote recently, we cannot just talk Digital Transformation. The really smart companies are thinking Omni Transformation, including re-imagining their brick and mortar. 

For eons humans have found dignity through our work. Many of our family names continue to honor our occupational legacy. In all our doom and gloom, I am finding many heroes that are showing us proudly the joys of work and work ethic. 

New Normal: A conversation with Jason Blessing of Model N

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Jason Blessing, President and CEO of Model N which helps life science and high tech companies with revenue management software.

He describes heroics at many of his customers - 24 out of 25 of his largest customers like Stryker and Gilead have worked on some life-saving COVID-19 related products or services. He also talks about others like Seqirus which is ramping up flu vaccine production for the Fall.

I liked his empathy and comments about commitment to his team during the crisis. And his comments about "focusing on the horizon". He has kind words for Marc Benioff and one of his mentors, Mike Gregoire. And for his customer executives - he has taken advantage of their increased accessibility during this WFH phase.

We also talk a bit about his passion for drone photography. He credits his Zoom background of the West span of the Bay Bridge, to his Mavic 2 Pro launched from Yerba Buena Island.

Wide ranging, very enjoyable conversation.

New Normal: A conversation with Grant Halloran of Planful

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Grant Halloran, CEO of Planful (formerly Host Analytics) which describes its Continuous Planning platform as "marrying finance’s need for structured planning with the business’ need for dynamic planning,"

You can feel in his voice the intensity of planning, re-planning and even more re-planning during this wild phase. He calls it "high-frequency decision making".  He describes that at customers whether business is going up, down or moving into adjacent and new markets.

Abbott has seen huge demand for its ID Now molecular point-of-care COVID-19 testing technology, and in products like Pedialyte. The Boston Red Sox have, in contrast, had to deal with cancellation of baseball and likely a shortened season. Bose has had to adjust to its stores being closed and more ecommerce activity. Breville, a maker of appliances like coffee makers is adjusting to significantly more work-from-home.

We discuss likely opportunities as companies in every sector revisit their supply chains. We look at how pandemic modeling is likely to evolve. We also discuss how the market for data scientists and other analytical talent is likely to grow.

I particularly liked his empathy for CFOs at his customers. Not only are they furiously revisiting plans, they are having to deal with write-downs, renegotiated leases, workforce adjustments and a long list of other new projects while balancing their own personal stresses.

New Normal: A conversation with Paul Greenberg and Brent Leary on Sports

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. The full index of interviews is here. 

This time it is Paul Greenberg of The 56 Group (named in honor of the NY Yankees' amazing season of 1956) and Brent Leary of CRM Essentials. We don't discuss much CRM, which they analyze in their day jobs. We talk about their coverage of the business of sports.

They discuss shortened seasons, how various leagues have handled diversity concerns around the George Floyd protests and the future of sports, digital and with fans in stadiums. They cover US football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer - lots of passion and humor around each. We even throw in the Olympics, cycling, cricket and NASCAR.

It was fun...I had another session coming up and hated to cut them short. Who knows we may have even discussed golf, rugby and much else.

Enjoy!

New Normal: A conversation with Bob Stutz of SAP

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Bob Stutz, President of SAP's Customer Experience unit. He is Mr. CRM with a long, storied career at Siebel, Microsoft, Salesforce and now back at SAP for the second time.

Asked about heroics during the current crisis, he singles out supermarkets and grocery chains for staying up and running nearly 24x7. What used to be a routine, boring shopping experience has become a lifeline for people. He points out how much volume has moved to eCommerce - "every day has been like Black Friday" (SAP's commerce engine handles 561 GMV - Gross Merchandise Volume - that's larger than at Amazon and other online retailers).

He sees a resurgence in CRM with a focus on multiple ways - true omni-channel thinking - to get to your customers. "Simple phone calls are being appreciated". "How do we service customers when our stores are closed?" (BTW - see my related post about focusing on Omni, not just Digital, transformation based on my C level interviews during the crisis )

He also says the debate between on-premise and cloud has been settled once and for all. "Early adopters of cloud have weathered the crisis better" Of course, in a challenged economic environment, the migration to clouds will have to be done very differently at much lower cost, and with much more remote support.

I particularly enjoyed his comments about how he leads and stays calm during a crisis this deep.  He credits 22 years in the military for having taught him to deal with any crisis. "You need peripheral, not tunnel vision during a crisis".

I also appreciated his empathy for his people - points out the challenges of work from home that few executives acknowledge. He is generous to Marc Benioff - points out his Zen Buddhist influence in the meditation he does every day. He also says it helps to look at the world from a child's eyes. It's the Beginner's Mind - the Zen concept of shoshin - that I had written about in The New Polymath.

Very calming and very generous to "unsung" supermarket heroes, his employees and to Marc.  

SapphireNow Keynote: Professional, but in synch with the times?

I listened to Christian Klein's keynote from the virtual Sapphire event today - watch replay here.  It was his first as CEO and he came across very well. Energetic, professional and very comfortable in a digital setting. His keynote focused on 3 themes - resiliency, profitability and sustainability. He established credibility by saying in his previous role, he had lead SAP's digital transformation. He established empathy by invoking his new baby, Emma when he talked about sustainability and how that generation will judge us by our actions in the next few years.

Here are some comments on each of his 3 themes:

Resiliency - Given the turbulent times we live in, Christian could have hit it out of the park if he had focused mostly on resiliency, re-imagining broken supply chains and business continuity. He could have presented on heroics and acrobatics in his customer base as they massively scaled volumes up or down, as they delivered innovative new products or services in weeks, as they pivoted their business model or customer channels. In the lead up to his keynote, Alicia Tillman, the Global CMO did present some public health and emergency application examples.

Profitability - That theme and the presence of Porsche CFO, Dr. Lutz Meschke was likely meant to evoke the sentiment that better days are ahead. I thought Dr. Meschke did a very nice job talking electrification and digitization, but the reality is a Porsche EV starts at $ 100K today. Personally, I am a glass half-full optimist so enjoyed that, but I can see how folks hurting in this economy would not. BTW SAP did a nice job by weaving in Industrie 4.0 shop floor concepts and navigation/parking mobile apps in that segment.

Sustainability - this to me was the riskiest portion of the presentation. In today's turbulent energy markets, it's not just hydrocarbons which are hurting. Renewables have to compete at much lower price points and even after decades of subsidies they have struggled to do so. Let's face it EVs are only as clean as the power that comes from your local utility, and many moved to gas in the last decade. Many will be encouraged to continue with that fuel at today's price points. Also, renewables have not done much in wide swaths of the global economy from shipping to aviation. Finally, SAP tried its sustainability message a decade ago under Peter Graf. Back then, it mostly focused on SAP's internal efforts not much about how SAP was helping customers reduce their carbon footprint. Hopefully, this time it will focus on operational systems and helping customers monitor as an example, methane leaks or wind turbine performance not just on broad carbon reporting.

SAP has had technical difficulties broadcasting this event. Honestly, I am empathetic after doing a bunch of Zoom, Google Meet, ON24 and other interviews/presentations in the last few weeks. As an industry, we are all trying out one giant experiment with relatively immature video broadcasting technology and watching it on spotty last mile bandwidth while competing with our spouses and kids for that pipe. It did make me wonder how Apple will fare with WWDC next week. Over 23 million have registered from over 150 countries. I expect blinking lights and brownouts on some continents!

New Normal: A conversation with Brad Keywell, CEO of Uptake

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Brad Keywell, a serial entrepreneur who has built a variety of companies including Groupon and is now CEO of Uptake. Uptake leverages sensory data and machine learning to help asset-intensive customers like the US Military and in industries like Mining and Railroads operate complex assets like locomotives and turbines with more precision and predictability.

He talks a different language than most enterprise software executives. He talks "ready built", "time series data", calls "operators" his customers, terms his software as "doctors for machines" which generate "health scores" 

We also talk about why so many supply chains broke down during the crisis and why pandemic modeling was chaotic, and how we should be able to improve them in the future. He says we face "clarity of need" and promises "assurance of maximum productivity and reliability".

I particularly liked the respect he shows to Sam Zell, a mentor for over 3 decades. 

It's certainly not time for "business as usual" with long projects and large teams in an age of restricted travel. It may be a much better time for what he calls an "entrepreneurial driven platform" that "delivers outcomes to industry"

New Normal: Conversation with David Watson of Health2047

I have been doing video interviews with a number of C level executives, VCs and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. See the full list here.

This time it is David Watson, an Executive in Residence at Health2047, the innovation and venture arm of the American Medical Association. I met him when he was CTO at Kaiser Permanente. Before that he had been at Allergan and Baxter Healthcare. After Kaiser, he was at Oracle, then several healthcare startups.

He describes the explosion in telemedicine after being "in experimental mode" for two decades. During this crisis, the UC San Francisco health system saw 50% of outpatient visits move to telemedicine. It was 2% prior to that.

He presents a couple of sobering perspectives - in the middle of a pandemic, we are seeing healthcare layoffs, and 30 million citizens with no healthcare insurance as they lose their jobs. We discuss likely changes to healthcare economics and funding models.

We discuss potential new entrants. He says mobilizing for a crisis is very different from being a market entrant with long term aspirations. We discuss the slow move to cloud computing in the healthcare sector. We also discuss the state of Public Health infrastructure and the future of pandemic modeling.

He covers a lot of ground - not a surprise given he has seen the industry from so many angles and for so long.

New Normal: Conversation with Paul Wright of Accuride

I have been doing video interviews with a number of C level executives, VCs and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. See the full list here.

This time it is Paul Wright, CIO of Accuride Corp, a major supplier to the truck making world.

He describes the Detroit auto industry as it opens up. Because Accuride supplies to an essential industry: trucking, they were never completely shut down. They also benefited from early experience at their Chinese plant.

He describes the differences in work from home experiences from "near cloud native" IT in the US, to those in the mostly on-premise set up in the EU. We also discuss the likely shifts in manufacturing around the world. He points out Japanese companies are already pulling out of China. Changes to NAFTA were already leading to more near shoring.

We discuss the impact that growing automation in the auto industry will have on its talent needs and the US education system.

Paul has the distinction of doing the session from his striking red barn. Hey why not? Others in the series have done it from their man caves.

He is so easy to talk to. Enjoy his world view.  

New Normal: Conversation with Sarvesh Mahesh of Tavant

I have been doing video interviews with a number of C level executives, VCs and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. See the full list here.

This time it is Sarvesh Mahesh, CEO of Tavant.

He talks about acrobatics he has seen at customers in the mortgage processing industry during the COVID-19 crisis. Even as dark clouds loom over commercial real estate, the residential real estate market has remained strong with re-financings as rates drop and people look at moves to suburbs and even across states as work from anywhere trends accelerate.  That mortgage business has traditionally been paper intensive and he describes creative solutions to allow for face-to-face closings even as most of their employees moved to work from home. He also describes how the real estate sector is getting more digitized - from virtual house tours to title checks.

He also talks about his other vertical markets like media and warranties. He discusses his services business as they moved to work from home regimes. He expects more outcome based pricing - a move away from traditional headcount/time sheet based models. And work from anywhere to lead to interesting consultant residence trends. 

 

New Normal: Conversation with Ed Abbo of C3.ai

I have been doing video interviews with a number of C level executives, VCs and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. See the full list here.

This time it is Ed Abbo, President and CTO at C3.ai, which blends cloud computing power, machine learning and sensory data to help accelerate digital transformation at asset-intensive manufacturing, utilities, oil and gas and other customers and in service-intensive industries like healthcare and banking.

He describes acrobatics at customers rapidly scaling up during the crisis like 3M and others which saw a dramatic increase in PPE and other product demand. Others scaling down like Shell Oil. He also describes Enel Energy, a utility with 60 million customers in 30 countries. Andre Blumberg of CLP had described some of the swings in energy demand they had seen in Asia/Pac - multiply that many times with Enel's global coverage.

He also describes their COVID-19 Data Lake which should hopefully dramatically improve the next-generation of pandemic modeling.

Finally, he spends some time on how C3ai helps corporate IT move to hundreds of bite-sized, agile projects which leverage traditional monolithic investments, not replace them in multi-year projects. It's a new way to approach digital transformations - a sea change from prior experiences in his long career at Siebel and Oracle.

New Normal: Conversation with Jack Barrett of First Citrus Bank

I have been doing video interviews with a number of C level execs, VCs and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. See the full list here.

This time it is Jack Barrett, President and CEO of First Citrus Bank, a community bank based in the Tampa Bay, FL area. It is an example of "Fortune favors the Agile". During the recent crisis, their hustle allowed to grow 25% and as importantly earned immense gratitude from their local, small business customers.  

As part of the CARES stimulus package the US government approved a Payroll Protection Program (PPP) for small businesses. Jack describes the heroics as his bank processed more loan applications in a little over a month than they do over years. They did so while the PPP guidelines kept changing on an hourly basis. They did so in an atmosphere of existential fear in small business. The Small Business Administration (SBA) ETRANS system to approve the loans was also overwhelmed - in total it has approved nearly 4 million loan applications as part of the program.

His staff worked nonstop to get 1,180 loans approved for local businesses. Many other community banks did similar for their regions. In contrast, many of the larger, national banks fumbled the opportunity. He shares the outpouring of gratitude he has seen from his customers as a result.

He also shares what he is seeing in economic recovery in the area. Good reason to be optimistic as other states follow Florida in re-opening.  

A definite feel good conversation.

New Normal: Conversation with Sridhar Vembu of Zoho

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho Corp.

We talk about some of their heroics. Zoho was one of the first technology vendors to launch a set of tools, Remotely to help customer employees work from home. And several thousand customers have been grateful for Zoho's emergency assistance of subscription waiver during the crisis. In a feel-good section he describes how many customers have asked them to  save the offer for needier customers. We also talk about how cloud applications have scaled impressively to help businesses during this lockdown. 

Just as impressively, Zoho's employees have been preparing and delivering 10,000 meals a day to the needy, been designing UV sanitation devices and have built a hospital on their campus.

When I last met him in Austin, TX in February we had talked about his passion for rural revival and the world of digital nomads. That was prophetic - we did not know the world would soon have severe food supply chain disruptions. We also did not know so many of us would be quarantined. We revisit his philosophy on both topics.

One of the most motivational sections in the conversation is when I ask him how he manages to stay so positive and lead during the crisis. He responds "Pain is real, suffering is optional". What a great attitude for our turbulent times!

By the wonders of modern technology, he did his session on a 4G mobile network from a remote village in Tenkasi in Southern India, at the edge of a wildlife sanctuary. I used Google Meet for the first time. Other sessions in this series have mostly been on Zoom. Next time, we will use Zoho Meeting, or even better, meet in person.

Very inspirational session!

New Normal: Conversation with Doug Belden of Hillsborough County, FL

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. See a growing list of interviews here.

This time we focus on local governments which have gone through a gut wrenching time as they are making stay-at-home, re-opening decisions, and having to continue to provide citizen services while facing daunting fiscal realities. I turned to Doug Belden, Tax Collector of Hillsborough County. The county spread over 1,200 sq miles and with a population in excess of 1.4 million, is the fourth largest in the state of Florida.

He is a straight shooter, and I urge you to listen to the whole conversation, not just focus on individual statements. He is a public servant, not a politician, and brings a nice blend of science, economics and public policy to the conversation. He is a winner of the Florida Governor's Sterling award and I have written about the impressive efficiency of his operation. Here he is being honored by the former Governor, Rick Scott. 

His group is taking elaborate steps to protect both his customers (the taxpayers) and his employees during the COVID-19 crisis. They applied an antimicrobial shield called mPerial to every office surface and kiosk. That provides a first level barrier for a month. Then employees disinfect surfaces several times a day. Customers and employees go through thermal temperature screening. There are plenty of hand sanitizers.

For recently re-opened driving tests, the steps are even more elaborate to protect older testers from potentially asymptomatic young drivers. The testers stay outside the car and communicate with the driver via the mobile speakerphone or the bluetooth audio in the car. They grade 5 maneuvers on a tablet. Plenty of masks, thermal checks and whistles are involved during the steps he describes

He presents the pressure to reopen the county and state against the backdrop of low rate of testing and the need to safeguard our large elderly demographic. And if you think he is opposed to re-opening, he paints the daunting economics the county faces as sales taxes drop with small business bankruptcies looming, as driving and fuel taxes decline and as real estate tax delinquencies increase. He also points to the as-yet unaccounted costs of stay-at-home policies and social isolation - suicides, abuse, delayed chemotherapy, other elective medical procedures among other conditions.

I have profiled many acrobatics in the private sector during this crisis. Doug and other public officials are doing similar as they walk the tightrope balancing economics and health. They are doing their best, and as he repeatedly points out, he gets his decisions and protocols vetted by public health and medical professionals.

I appreciate Doug making himself available for the session from his home. He has underlying conditions and has to be careful. He is nearing retirement after a lifetime of public service and deserves a long salute for his work.

New Normal: Conversation with Peter Maier of SAP

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Peter Maier, President, Industries at SAP. He describes examples from public health, auto, oil and gas and other sectors but I was also pleasantly surprised by many angles he emphasized.

SAP has the image of a lumbering giant whose projects take forever. He described a project where they built a registration portal (Rückholprogramm) within a couple of days for the German Federal Foreign Office (Auswaertiges Amt) to help airlift stranded German citizens around the globe as commercial air travel came to a standstill.

He describes another 2 week project to help manage capacity across 25 hospitals in the Heidelberg University system.

He describes how they quickly collected 750 feature ideas in response to the crisis which should make their way into their products. He repeatedly talks about supply chain opportunities in many sectors. SAP set up a Global Pandemic Taskforce in late January - way before most other companies. That's one advantage of their global reach - they could see first hand what was already happening in China.

SAP is also encumbered with a SI ecosystem which traditionally has depended on large, on-site implementation projects, snarkily referred to as the "school bus" model. In a new world with travel at a standstill, it is good to hear him talk about remote project delivery at Galp Energia, a Portuguese oil and gas company.  He also describes INDEX-Werke's part, service and IoT platform, iXWorld to remotely support the auto industry.

He describes fairly significant public health efforts. He describes contact tracing projects in collaboration with Deutsche Telekom in Germany and Apple and Google in the US. He also describes the Qualtrics COVID-19 Assessment, Testing, and Case Management Solution being used in Utah, Iowa, New Jersey and Nebraska. 

Given their presence in just about every industry, I look forward to hearing about more such agility in other sectors

Finally, it was good to hear empathy about customers - he talks about "survival" time for many of them. SAP did not help its image too much by attempting to raise maintenance rates during the last deep recession. The agility and empathy Peter brings out is a lot more encouraging this time.

New Normal: Conversation with Tom Brennan and Dave Stephans of Rootstock Software

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Tom Brennan, CMO and Dave Stephans, CRO of Rootstock Software.

They describe acrobatics in their customer base. Unionwear pivoted from their headgear and eventwear products to making clear vinyl face shields and reusable gowns. Matouk, a maker of luxury linens, shifted production to making masks. Working with Propel, a PLM/PDM solution also on the Salesforce platform, they describe efforts with public health agencies to help with PPE supply chains. They also describe their efforts with MVM.care which is helping design a "open source" community to build medical ventilators, starting with the hotspot in Italy. They also spend time on how their cloud applications facilitated work from home support and remote implementations. 

We also discuss their involvement in the Saleforce Work.com initiative. and growing opportunities in the medical marijuana/CBD market, a vertical where Rootstock has had success - see my note here - and new opportunities which will open up as manufacturing supply chains shift around the world. 

At the start, Tom explains his Hemingway lookalike beard. He is referring to his bluefin tuna fishing guest column in my Passion guest series where he had referenced the Old Man and the Sea.

They cover a lot of ground in this 23 minute recording.

New Normal: Conversation with Ben Pring of Cognizant's Center for Future of Work

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Ben Pring. a futurist who leads several thought leadership initiatives for Cognizant and their Center for the Future of Work.

We discuss how the "Future of Work" has become the "Present of Work" in the last quarter during the COVID-19 crisis.

He discusses moving Cognizant's global workforce to a work-from-home model,  their work alongside Microsoft to help Sensodyne with a contact tracing app in the UK and a large robotic process automation (RPA) project for an Australian retailer. 

We discuss how the great work from home "experiment" of the last few weeks will likely play out and how companies are developing protocols for re-opening physical sites.  He describes the swinging of the globalization pendulum, and he references an upcoming Cognizant study on 21 places for the future which are likely to benefit from the reshaping of global supply chains.

We also discuss automation trends that have accelerated during the crisis (both of us have written books on automation and jobs in the last few years) and, in contrast, the calls for "Reverse Fordism" and of rethinking platforms to also benefit participants not just the provider.

He describes what he calls the "Clean Regime" - a focus on hygiene in all aspects of work and workplaces. He thinks we may see a Health Security Agency (HSA) similar to the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) that emerged after the 9/11 attacks.

He jokes he is looking forward to air travel with"(Westin) Heavenly Beds, soggy club sandwiches and the TSA crew at 6 in the morning."

Ben and I were colleagues at Gartner and always have plenty to cover when we meet. For now, meeting via Zoom is not that bad an option.

Business acrobatics and heroics that also deserve flyovers

It's been wonderful to see Blue Angels, Thunderbirds and other planes do flyovers over different cities to honor front line workers during the COVID-19 crisis. Here is one over Washington, DC.

While those flyovers have received media attention, very little of business/technology heroics have seen much praise. Most press/social media has focused on the doom and gloom and the angry politics around the crisis.

I am extremely grateful to a long (and growing) list of C level execs, VCs and practitioners across industries and countries who have shared examples of their herculean efforts and those at customers or portfolio companies. They have massively scaled volumes up and down, or delivered innovative new products and services in days. You hear of million employee payrolls, companies moving 200,000 employees to work from home,  hundreds of billions in emergency PPP bank loans, moving from on-campus to distance learning in a couple of weeks, pop-up hospitals, last mile logistics acrobatics and so much more.

There is authenticity and humility in their voices - this is not just for marketing advantage.

Each conversation below is in the form of a 20-30 minute Zoom interview. I also summarize their key points in each post if you don't want to spend as much time on the videos.  

Aerospace - Jeff Robertson, Maxar Technologies

Agriculture - Sridhar Vembu, Zoho

Airlines - Rahul Samant, Delta Airlines

Auto - Dennis Hodges, Inteva

Auto - Paul Wright, Accuride

Banking - Jack Barrett, First Citrus Bank

Banking - Sarvesh Mahesh, Tavant

Banking - Rob Enslin, Google

Banking - Mike Laven, Currency Cloud

Banking - Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh, Salesforce

eCommerce - Bob Stutz, SAP

Food, wellness - Ray Lane, GreatPoint Ventures

Grocery - Bob Stutz, SAP

Healthcare - David Watson, AMA's Health2047

Healthcare - Bill Shea, Cognizant

Healthcare - Aneel Bhusri, Workday

Healthcare - Sanjay Poonen, VMware

Healthcare - Rod Johnson, Infor

Healthcare - Sridhar Vembu, Zoho

High Tech - Amit Shah, Excelitas Technologies

Higher Education - Daniel Pullin, Neeley School of Business, TCU

Higher Education - Mike Ettling, Unit4

Industrie 4.0 - Marty Groover, C5MI

Life Sciences - Jason Blessing, Model N

Sports - Paul Greenberg, The 56 Group and Brent Leary, CRM Essentials

State and Local Govt - Doug Belden, Hillsborough County, FL

Manufacturing - Bill Berutti/Jerry Foster, Plex Systems

Manufacturing - Tom Brennan/Dave Stephans, Rootstock Software

Mining - Brad Keywell, Uptake 

Oil and Gas, Phiroz Darukhanavala, formerly of BP

Private Equity - Tamas Hevizi, Automation Anywhere

Professional Services - Mike Ettling, Unit4

Professional Services - Sarvesh Mahesh, Tavant

Public Health - Doug Belden, Hillsborough County, FL

Public Health - David Watson, AMA's Health2047

Public Health - Ed Abbo, C3.ai

Public Health - Peter Maier, SAP

Public Health - Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh, Salesforce

Public Health - Tom Brennan/Dave Stephans, Rootstock Software

Public Health - Rob Enslin, Google

Railroads - Brad Keywell, Uptake

Real Estate - Sarvesh Mahesh, Tavant

Retail - Rod Johnson, Infor

Retail - Ben Pring, Cognizant

Restaurants - Tara Gambill, MOD Pizza

Telecoms - Jay Smith, TracFone Wireless

Travel - Joseph Rajadurai, Cognizant

Utilities - Andre Blumberg, CLP Power

Utilities - Ed Abbo, C3.ai

BTW, many of the guests touch on several other industries. Many also bring a global point of view about Europe and Asia/Pac and others touch on leadership and resilience in a crisis, future of work and other topics

They include

Asia Pac - Andre Blumberg

Asia Pac - Sridhar Vembu

Asia Pac - Rob Enslin

EU - Mike Laven

EU - Mike Ettling

EU - Peter Maier, SAP

Future of Work - Ben Pring 

HCM - Brian Sommer, TechVentive

Leadership - Alex Shootman

Leadership - Ray Lane

Leadership - Daniel Pullin, Neeley School of Business, TCU

Leadership - Sanjay Poonen, VMware

Leadership - Sridhar Vembu, Zoho

Leadership - Rob Enslin, Google

Planning - Grant Halloran, Planful

Startups - Ton Dobbe, Value Inspiration 

Third Party Support - Seth Ravin, Rimini Street

Grateful to each and their colleagues for their amazing service during this crazy phase. 

New Normal: Conversation with Rahul Samant of Delta Airlines

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Rahul Samant, CIO of Delta Airlines.

As a road warrior, I was in awe of all the acrobatics he describes in the last few weeks as they downscaled for the short term as traffic fell off a cliff (like retiring their MD-88s and 777s years ahead of schedule, reducing cash burn of $100 million a day, refunds of $1.5 billion, 45% of employee base on voluntary leave). He discusses the massive compute cycles to reschedule flights, crews and operations. I did not realize they continue to fly a thousand flights a day with medical cargo, personnel and volunteers, repatriating US citizens from around the world, and other essential traffic.

Even more heartening to me and many of my readers who fly often, he describes all the activities to make passengers more comfortable about returning to the air (with electrostatic foggers, touchless check-ins, empty middle seats, high energy HEPA filters and other measures). He points out that Delta has worked very hard on its reliability image and metrics in the last few years. He expects the same emphasis on hygiene and for Delta to be known for that.

Finally, Rahul was in the financial services industry during the 2008-9 meltdown. He is obviously not pleased to be stuck in another major crisis but says he is glad he is with a company as caring as Delta.  

BTW, towards the end I compliment his CEO, Ed Bastian - I should have said at 31:14 "why would we penalize that employee?" not "passenger"

Few of us will fly this Memorial Day, but enjoy this vision of travel in the not so distant future.

New Normal: Conversation with Rod Johnson of Infor

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Rod Johnson, President of Infor.

He covers a wide range of industries in his comments. Infor has a large presence in the healthcare industry and he talks about heroics he has seen in that sector. He describes how Infor software has helped with inventory management of supplies in hospitals and helping them get reimbursed for a significantly changed mix of services. He talks about working with hospitality customers around touchless check-in processes and retail companies to turn stores into virtual warehouses.

Talking about acrobatics in his customers he mentions Quidel, a diagnostic healthcare company (an Infor LN ERP customer) and how they have significantly scaled their COVID-19 antigen test kits. He talks about Ecolab and how Infor transportation management helped in last mile logistics including using helicopters to get cleaning supplies to cruise ships. 

He also discusses why we should learn from TV networks to create richer digital experiences as we increasingly work remotely. Infor is based in New York city and has a captive digital agency, Hook & Loop so can certainly lead in that area.  

New Normal: Conversation with Dean Daniel Pullin of TCU

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Dean Daniel Pullin at the Neeley School of Business at TCU in Fort Worth, TX.

He describes acrobatics he has seen in telemedicine and retail in the DFW area. More impressively, his staff developed a new offering in 3 weeks - a Master of Science in Business Analytics. They also migrated their classes from in-person to on-line in 2 weeks. They are spending the summer rethinking course content for a digital delivery world. The dramatically changed world also is giving them opportunities to rethink curriculum - he describes a hackathon to design new services to address mental health issues during the crisis.

He talks about how their student demographics are likely to change with international travel in particular being challenged. He also describes how students are innovating in a very challenging job market.

I particularly liked his thoughtful response to my question whether we will see a V, U, W or L recovery - starting around 18:00

He was plagued by bandwidth issues at his home office. He graciously drove to campus to continue the session. As you can see, the connectivity was not much better. The audio is fine all the way, the video improves in the last third. He is very good - worth putting up with the video lag

New Normal: Conversation with Sanjay Poonen of VMware

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Sanjay Poonen, COO of VMware.

He describes about how the "trifecta" of VMware products has helped companies perform their version of acrobatics - virtual desktops through their Workspace One offering, security via Carbon Black and "edge" network acceleration via Velocloud and how they have helped companies as they massively scaled work from home, pop-up clinics and other "edge" usage.

He describes how they made virtual their global sales kick off meetings at a weekend's notice in response to travel restrictions due to the crisis. To my question about other acrobatics, he invokes Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom and the massive scaling they have accomplished. "I am learning speed from Eric, he is learning scale from me" starting around 17:15

Even more inspirational are Sanjay's thoughts about leadership starting around 26:30.

Overall, a very enjoyable, educational conversation.   

New Normal: Conversation with Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh of Salesforce

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh, EVP, Industries at Salesforce.

I especially enjoyed this conversation because she brought out so many examples of response to the crisis across 6 major industry sectors she leads. Too many vendors are still trying to sell what was in their bag pre-crisis.

She talks about Salesforce support for emergency response at public health agencies in many of the "hotspots" for the virus.

She next describes their work with many US banks as they processed thousands of the emergency PPP loans to small businesses.

She also describes Work.com which is designed to help companies plan for safe re-opening of their work facilities as their communities gradually allow for that.

 

New Normal: What to expect from SAP and its partners

Tom Wailgum of ASUG interviewed me as part of the virtual edition of its Executive Exchange last week. It had originally been scheduled in Orlando as a companion to SAP's annual Sapphire event. SAP's event has been postponed till next month and ASUG turned its event virtual, and utilized the ON24 platform for the broadcast.

Tom and I covered wide ground about a post-COVID world in our 30 minute session including

• My recent Zoom interviews with a number of C level executives and VCs and what I have heard across industries/regions - acrobatics, views on return to work, overall recovery
• How customers will likely deal with SAP - cloud applications v on prem, vertical v horizontal functionality, expectations of more integration in the SAP portfolio,  re-shuffling spend, acceleration of digitization
• What customers can expect from SI partners - travel restrictions, more shared services, automation
• CIO performance during the crisis, likely new C- level health-centric exec, expansion of HR role with increased focus on health, work from home etc

New Normal: A conversation with Joseph Rajadurai of Cognizant Travel and Hospitality

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Joseph Rajadurai who leads Cognizant's Travel and Hospitality practice - that includes airlines, cruise lines, hotels and restaurant clients.

He discusses the varying impact of COVID-19 on each of the segments - you will be surprised how well some of them are bouncing back.

He also discusses the impact of travel restrictions on his consulting practice.

New Normal: A conversation with Andre Blumberg of CLP Power

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Andre Blumberg, Senior IT Director at CLP Power. Based in Hong Kong, he is the first executive in this series who did the interview from his corporate, not home, office. He is able to speak from the vantage point of being in the recovery/reopen stage, while most of US is still planning for that. Hong Kong and Asia also benefited from their experience with SARS in 2003 and Andre describes that advantage.

He describes how energy consumption patterns have evolved over the last few months - consumer v. commercial, across Asia-Pacific. He also describes the 3 Ds driving their business - decarbonization, decentralization and digitizing - and how the crisis has influenced their thinking  

He also describes their recent annual shareholder meeting - a hybrid physical and streamed one. Only 50 shareholders were picked via raffle to be physically present. Directors on the board were split to provide physical distancing.  

Just because they are a utility, they don't waste energy. Half way through our conversation the lights in the board room went off. The motion sensor had not detected enough activity in the room. That's ironic since Andre is an ultra-marathoner - full of energy!

Very educational talk. And hopeful to all of us stuck in home offices and eager to get back to physical worksites and on the road to watch him talk from his corporate office.

 

New Normal: A conversation with Aneel Bhusri, CEO of Workday

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Aneel Bhusri, CEO of Workday.

He talks about leadership during this crisis and likely changes in executive suites as healthcare becomes a major market opportunity and bigger HR challenge for every entity. He talks about conversations with fellow leaders on how best to re-open work places as the economy wakes up. He describes acrobatics in his customer base like running a million-person payroll and financial closes with nobody in the office. He also describes how cloud applications have scaled very well during the crisis and easily supported work-from-home efforts of customers.

Aneel is one of the nicest guys in the industry and while he credits his mentor and co-founder, Dave Duffield for that trait, his calmness comes across throughout the recording. Workday has done backflips for its employees and customers during the crisis - he describes some of each.

There is a definite feel-good, "be kind to each other", "have fun" vibe during the conversation. It is a small detail in the conversation, but I particularly appreciated his generosity with the Zoom background of Giorgio's Pizzeria, one of his favorite comfort-food places and his hope they survive the crisis.

I could almost hear 'Peaceful, easy feeling" by the Eagles playing as I was talking to him. Enjoy

New Normal: A conversation with Phiroz Darukhanavala, ex-CTO of BP

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Phiroz Darukhanavala, who goes as "Daru", the ex-CTO of BP.  He talks about the impact of COVID-19 on the oil and gas sector. While the industry has been riled by negative prices (Yes!), disappearance of demand from airlines, cruise lines and driving, Daru says the industry has faced other "shocks" before, usually on the supply side. This time is demand driven.  The sector in the past has bounced back and has been more efficient each time.

He also talks about why the US shale sector will persist, albeit with potential consolidation of many of the smaller players. He also touches on the impact this may have on the renewable energy sector.

From the outside, the energy sector looks in deep trouble. When you talk to execs like Daru, you hear of acrobatics and resilience. They have absorbed other shocks before and they will adjust to this "new normal".

It's drama in a corporate setting! A decade of change in a few weeks!

Very enjoyable conversation.

New Normal: A conversation with Jeff Robertson of Maxar Technologies

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Jeff Robertson, COO of the space technology company, Maxar which specializes in manufacturing communication, Earth observation, radar, and on-orbit servicing satellites, satellite products, and related services.

They are obviously into rocket science and it shows in the way they have approached the crisis. Jeff also heads the COVID-19 response team for Maxar.

When asked about acrobatics, he says "In some of our US government customers that traditionally have only done their missions in classified space where everyone has to come together in a special office  - we are now able to help them serve their mission but do so in a commercial space, leveraging our cloud computing capabilities and remote operations... with our imagery, mapping and analytics capabilities keeping those important missions moving."

About re-opening :"We were very conservative in entering this crisis - we moved very quickly to new protocols and work from home than most governments and companies". He calls them "red protocol, limited isolated operations". He says the "return to the work site" protocols are "incredibly more complicated". You should hear what he has to say as every executive is grappling with similar back to work issues.  

New Normal: A conversation with Tara Gambill of MOD Pizza

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Tara Gambill, Sr. Director of Enterprise Systems at MOD Pizza. MOD stands for Made-on-Demand. MOD is known for its artisanal pizzas, cooked ultra-fast in  stone ovens. As Tara says "it's Pizza as a Platform" - the founders were purpose driven, people oriented and that company culture continues that even after a decade+ since it was founded.

She talks about how MOD Pizza has coped with varying restrictions on restaurants across 28 states where they have stores and food supply chain disruptions during the COVID-19 crisis.

She also discusses how her completely SaaS IT environment which includes SAP S/4HANA in the public cloud, SAP SuccessFactors and Microsoft Teams has helped with work from home demands and scaling volumes.

New Normal: A conversation with Tamas Hevizi of Automation Anywhere

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Tamas Hevizi, Global Head of Private Equity at Automation Anywhere. He covers three very timely topics.

How bots, ML and other automation are helping with the massive volumes we are seeing during the COVID-19 crisis at banks processing emergency loans, the healthcare system handling tests, state unemployment offices handling applications and many more scenarios.

Using his long experience at SAP at Value Realization, he provides commentary on how to justify value from technology in a recessionary market.

Finally, he talks about the Private Equity market he has been part of for much of his career - how it has evolved in the last decade and how it is likely to change during this period.

New Normal: A conversation with Jay Smith, CIO at TracFone

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Jay Smith, CIO at TracFone Wireless, the leading US  prepaid wireless provider. He discusses the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on his business and that of the broader telecom market.

The market for work, learn, play for bandwidth at-home has exploded, that from many work physical facilities has declined. He also talks about the next-gen market with smart cities, smart homes, smart autos and 5G networks.

He also discusses how they transitioned their own staff to work from home. Finally, he discusses plans to re-imagine the workplace, not just bring employees back, as they prepare for the economy re-opening.