deal architect

Analyst Cam: IFS Labs – Hybrid in all its glory

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Bas de Vos, VP of IFS Labs

I first met him at the IFS Unleashed event in Miami last month. He presented on the main stage on 5 themes.

He then kindly gave me a tour of the show floor where you saw many of the concepts he presented in their physical manifestation complete with a miniature wind turbine. The opposite of a digital twin - a physical twin of what he had described on stage. See the full presentation below.

Next, I invited him to the Analyst Cam series and he discussed the role of IFS Labs, his definition of innovation, and summarized what he presented in Miami for our audience.

Too many vendors talk glibly about hybrid events and functionality. Spend some time watching both his Unleashed presentation and our conversation since – one 20, the other 30 minutes. In person on the show floor, on stage and on Zoom, Bas showed how effortlessly you can present complex use cases in industrial settings both in digital and physical, paper, analog world.

Fascinating!  

Burning Platform: Manufacturing in 2050

In the 82nd episode of Burning Platform, we host Maggie Slowik, and Andrew Burton. Global Industry Directors for Manufacturing at IFS presenting a shortened version of a session they hosted at their Unleashed Event in Miami a few weeks ago.

They talk about the many challenges manufacturers face from supply chain disruptions, talent issues, navigating inflation, cybersecurity threats, growing ESG and other regulations among them.  Manufacturing today is not for the faint hearted, but they talk about so many new opportunities that have opened up from those who persist with smart, connected products; circular economy thinking, the move of value to data and the changing mix of data – from 40% generated by machines in 2021 to 60% in 2025.

They talk about the metaverse. IFS is already well ahead with use of mixed reality in its field service scenarios. Andy and Maggie talk about it in the context of the shop floor.

They cover changing ecosystems and shortening supply chains from a geographic perspective as companies rethink “lean” and lowest-cost sourcing,

2050 seems a long way off. But they quote a young blogger who says that much earlier, by 2030, things are going to be essentially ownerless. “We already see the beginning of that with certain things like bikes, clothing as a rental, certainly cars. So we're sort of heading towards ‘Servitization”, a service-oriented future.” They provide several examples of products evolving to services during the session.

Very nicely done in about 30 minutes.

In a session I will run next week, you will see Bas de Vos, who runs IFS Labs, present many examples of the technologies which are rapidly changing the shop floor and the man/machine symbiosis in manufacturing.

Book speedwriting?

I asked followers on LinkedIn how they would use 4 months of sabbatical credits like I have accumulated over two decades at Deal Architect. I got plenty of suggestions including this from Andre Blumberg, CIO at Hong Kong based CLP who I have profiled in earlier books

“Four months? You’d write two books, easily.”

Andre is an ultra-marathoner so I am flattered by his standard of speed, but my style of book writing depends on a large number of conversations with executives. I have said often if my voice is more than 10% of a book, I have failed. My blogs, Instagram and other social media is where I share plenty of my voice. In our advisory work, clients get plenty of my voice. But books that I help write are for story telling by innovative executives. And arranging such conversations takes plenty of time.

But surely, having 7 earlier books helps shorten writing time? It does, up to a point.

I recently shared details of two books my team has helped with in the last 18 months – Moment of Service by Darren Roos, CEO of IFS and Business as Unusual by Thomas Saueressig and Peter Maier of SAP.

Moment of Service involved about 50 conversations with IFS, customer and partner executives resulting in 1,000 pages of transcripts, slides and research material and took my team about 4 months. We delivered a draft of 300 pages. The IFS team added their voice and trimmed that total content down to  a very readable 200 pages.

Business as Unusual involved about 150 conversations resulting in 2,500 pages of transcripts and other materials and we delivered a first draft of 400 pages. Took us roughly 6 months. SAP and Rheinwerk Publishing added material, trimmed other and ended up with a 300-page book dripping with innovation stories.

So could we have done either much quicker?

Firstly, it absolutely helps to start with a premise and a pool of potential interviewees. Darren Roos had a pretty crisp definition of the Moment of Service theme. IFS had gone through a branding exercise a few months earlier. Most of his customers and partners were comfortable with the concept. Still the logistics of identifying who to interview, arranging the recordings , transcribing them, getting approvals is a labor-intensive process.

The SAP book subject matter was much more complex. It covers 8 “megatrends”  - Resilient supply networks, Future of capital and risk, Integrated mobility, Everything-as-a-service, Sustainable energy, Lifelong health, New customer pathways and Circular economy. We were looking for very innovative customers who were pushing the boundaries of low-carbon energy, breakthrough medicine, new financial instruments, differentiated store experiences, new business models etc. We were looking to interview a broad range of specialty research firms and partners beyond SIs. We ended up with  strategy firms, Bain and Co and Accenture Strategy,  the mobility services firm, MHP which is part of Volkswagen, the industrial robotics firm, Beckhoff, the Advanced Services Group at Aston U and the energy research firm, Det Norske Veritas among others. Frankly, without SAP’s amazing industry and global reach we would have not got that variety with other vendors even if had taken 3x the time.  

But hasn’t technology and automation helped make the process speedier? Absolutely, in the data collection process. No way could I have traveled to 35 countries to meet with interviewees especially with pandemic travel restrictions. Zoom and Teams were a massive help. So was being able to listen to the digital files of interviews as if they were podcasts on my walks and via Bluetooth in the car. Helped me decide what to excerpt from each.

Tech has also helped make easier the graphics that IFS and SAP developed for their books. Printing and Distribution has similarly become more efficient. SAP Press is offering the Business as Unusual book through many more booksellers around the world and in more eBook formats

Given all the advances in AI, voice recognition and transcription technology has surprisingly not improved much. We have so many accents, acronyms and jargon in tech world that machines just cannot keep up with Tina, who has transcribed most of my book interviews for the last 5 years. And the SAP book in particular has whole bunch of chemistry, geology. medicine, automotive, banking and other lingo in addition.

Same thing with editing. I like to cite the experience from the Godfather movie. Coppola shot 90 hours of film and delivered a 2-hour version to the studio. The studio asked him for more and the released version was about 3 hours long – still less than 5% of what was filmed! Two of the 6 editors won Oscars for their work. 50 years later, I find editing is still an art form. Good editors are worth their weight in gold.

So 2 books in 4 months? Sorry Andre, like I told you if I was to use 4 months of sabbatical time to write another book, it would be fiction. About an analyst who is in the middle of international intrigue and chaos and saves the world. Jack Ryan if he had stayed an analyst.

If the Mrs. would allow me to spend 4 months looking like this nerd 😊

The underappreciated telecom sector

I have had several reasons recently to think about the state of our connectivity.  In the last month, my wife, my daughter and son have been on separate trips to three continents. They have kept connected, informed and entertained at a fraction of what I used to pay on international trips just a few years ago. In the last couple of years, I have interviewed nearly 750 executives across 50 countries for books and video episodes via Zoom and Teams. Pre-COVID, I would have hopped on planes to get this level of executive access. On a recent weekend, I watched my alma mater, TCU play on a Saturday evening in Austin, TX.  I got up early the next morning to watch the Cricket World Cup in Melbourne, Australia, then a couple of hours later watched my NFL football team, the Bucs play the Seahawks in Munich, Germany.

It’s incredible how today’s telecoms and media companies have shrunk the world and democratized access to billions. As Hemingway famously said “it was gradually, then suddenly”. The industry has been turbocharged in the last few years.

Can you imagine if we got some similar payback and productivity from airlines or public utilities or healthcare?  Yet, telcos do not get much customer love. They don’t rate very high in terms of brand reputation or customer satisfaction.

It was nice to hear David Fan, GM of the Salesforce Communications Cloud present on the dynamic industry in the Analyst Cam series here. Even more, I was pleased to see this short report (just 3 chapters) that David sponsored titled "Trends in the Communications Industry". It is the result of  a survey of 500 industry experts and 6,000 consumers of wireless, cable and B2B telco services from around the globe.

The survey highlighted several trends and I have excerpted some key ones, many of which telcos need to monitor

The sector has become hypercompetitive, beyond just price

The survey reports

“When asked about what might make them consider switching internet service providers, respondents cite price and speed at the top. Unsurprisingly, with hybrid work models growing in popularity, reliability is also a big factor. In fact, more than 1 in 10 consumers say they'd consider changing internet providers for either better reliability (13%) or improved customer service (12%).”

and

“Fifty percent of wireless customers and 47% of cable customers believe they get the best service when they threaten to switch to a different provider. This indicates that more work needs to be done at addressing customer satisfaction throughout the lifecycle — not just when people threaten to leave.”

Hybrid customer experiences are still not optimized

“35% of those surveyed say they prefer to do business online and in stores. This means that optimization of physical experiences cannot be ignored. Customers want the best of both worlds. Providers need to plan for, and support, the joining of online and offline experiences. The ability to move from one channel to another is a key customer success factor.”

Customer satisfaction is driven by a handful of outcomes

While these expectations keep evolving, what keeps customers happy are actually pretty tactical. Here are some of their expectations of their cable providers.

Consumers are willing to pay more for wireless 5G, but have a fuzzy knowledge of what it does for them

The survey reports “only 44% of respondents were “very familiar” or “extremely familiar” with 5G technology. However, 67% of respondents said they would be willing to pay more for 5G.

5G could dramatically broaden telco ecosystems

Percentage of providers who think 5G would attract more partnerships and bundling options in the following areas

Developers could expand ecosystems even further

The report says

“Now that networks are being modernized and made accessible via APIs, the challenge becomes attracting developers who know how to build and connect applications with devices. Hyperscalers (companies, like AWS or Google Cloud, with the ability to scale computing resources on demand) have dedicated developer communities that could be great assets to traditional providers.”

B2B customers want collaborative and more digital experience

The survey showed

“B2B users report experiencing frustration when trying to manage accounts online (39%), make large purchases (36%), and request changes in service (36%). B2B users also reported frustration when using assisted digital services (31%) and self-service (34%) tools. Also concerning is that only half (53%) of procurement employees said they felt comfortable managing their enterprise accounts online without sales agent assistance.”

The report has plenty more interesting nuggets. Check it out and my Analyst Cam episode with David. It is a critical sector which is delivering very high value to us consumers and workers. Let’s engage more proactively with the sector while continuing to demand more from it.

Analyst Cam: Salesforce Verticals – Manufacturing Cloud

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Achyut Jajoo · SVP and GM, Manufacturing and Automotive presenting an update on their Manufacturing Cloud.

Unlike other industries Salesforce has presented in recent Analyst Cam episodes, the Manufacturing Cloud is not new. It was launched in 2020. Salesforce is focused on the customer facing side of manufacturing – what it calls “digitizing the front and middle office”, not operational functionality for the shop floor or product lab that many ERP vendors target.

Achyut identifies that for most manufacturing businesses, less than 10% of revenue is net-new business. Most of the business is in “run rate, long term customer agreements, or you're bidding on long term projects and programs”. Most companies were using Salesforce as a CRM for net new business. 90+%  of the business was being done in Excel spreadsheets or by tapping into the ERP or other sources where long-term customer agreements are recorded. 

Some of the use cases the Manufacturing Cloud focuses on  – modernizing commercial operations, simplifying partner engagement and transforming service experiences. That translates to focus on functionality identified below

Achyut also identifies 4 “sub-sectors” they are focused on: a) complex equipment manufacturers, b) production parts suppliers (like automotive suppliers) whose products are inputs for other manufactured products and equipment. c) chemical manufacturers. d) distribution-oriented manufacturers that distributing their products through a  channel ecosystem.

He presents on 2 customers – Swissbit (sensors and chips) and Tenneco (automotive components).

He also asked me to pass along that Salesforce is hosting a Manufacturing Summit on December 1 in Chicago. If you're interested in connecting with the team at the event, you can find the agenda and registration information here.

 

 

Burning Platform: The year in industry events and travel

In the 81st episode of Burning Platform, we host Jon Reed of Diginomica and Brian Sommer of Techventive to discuss the good and bad in industry events we experienced this year and on the state of business travel.

I carved the recording into two videos.

Part 1 covers the slides all three of us presented. Jon kicks it off at 0.59 “I felt before the pandemic events were largely what I would call legacy and not creative enough. And I felt the same as we went into virtual events that most of those events were really passive viewer experiences that really weren't very engaging and very good. Have however, seen a little bit of progress.” He provides a score card in his slides on how hybrid events have evolved.

Brian, starting at 12.00 is entertaining as he describes the trials and tribulations of post-COVID travel. He has several hilarious slides and also useful advice on what events should aim to deliver for customers, prospects and partners (and also how partners could be effectively using the events) – and yes, us analysts.

I start at 24.08. I had much less travel than either Jon or Brian last couple of years, But I made up with over 700 virtual conversations – about 200 for books by execs at IFS and SAP my team has contributed to and another 500 in various video episodes of Analyst Cam, Burning Platform and New Normal. I also describe the events I was at in-person and some of my travel experiences.

Part 2 is more of discussion between the 3 of us. We cover what we like and don’t like about keynotes and guest speakers, whether we prefer dedicated analyst summits or use conferences, need for expanding ecosystems and their presence at events, showcasing differentiation products and business models and lots of other areas event planners will find helpful

 

 

Analyst Cam: Blink – Empowering Frontline Workers

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Sean Nolan, CEO of Blink, which offers mobile access for frontline workers in a variety of verticals – “nurses, refuge collectors, retail staff, hospitality staff, aged care workers, anyone who doesn't sit behind a desk all day, they probably don't have a workplace device, like a laptop or a phone given to them so probably has got personal devices. Most don't have a workplace email address or sort of digital identity necessarily.”

He provides a use case at the UK transit carrier, Stagecoach – where drivers use his app to access Trapeze rostering, GreenRoad telematics and Oracle HCM applications. The more useful the applications. the more engagement of the frontline workers and more chances they will adopt even more digital functionality

I know I am a broken record asking vendors to verticalize but it is heart breaking  to hear so many essential workers are in his words “to a large part digitally disconnected from the organization.” His goal is to fix that but giving them access to a variety of relevant applications like training, benefits and even accident and near miss reporting, which he says is one of the more attractive use cases for their software.

Listen to his pitch and applicability in the verticals they are targeting. Nicely done in under 20 minutes. He was introduced to me by Workday Ventures, one of their investors.

Analyst Cam: Papaya Global – workforces without boundaries

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Eynat Guez, co-founder and CEO of Papaya Global. Papaya offers a global workforce management platform in 160+ countries. Her elevator pitch: “Global payroll technology was broken. So we fixed it.” I was introduced to her by Workday Ventures, one of her investors.

As you listen to her, it becomes clear that payroll processing across so many jurisdictions is hairy enough. Their efficiently handling payments to employees, to taxing authorities, benefit plans etc. with the fragmented global financial services landscape, one pay cycle after another, is even more valuable to clients.

Eynat covers the fragmented competitor landscape – payroll outsourcers, HCM software vendors, Employer of Record service providers and firms that provide 1099 type contractors. One of her big advantages is a highly streamlined onboarding process for clients.

They have 1,500 clients. 30% of which are F5000 companies. Customers let them handle their processing, or avail of a technology licensing model. Eynat says the latter is growing significantly in popularity.

She talks about one of her clients CyberArk with over 2.000 global employees. She describes how Papaya consolidated what was being done by multiple providers.

Very crisply done in under 25 minutes.

 

 

Burning Platform: The state of US Healthcare

In the 80th episode of Burning Platform, we host Dr. Geeta Nayyar (“Dr.G”), SVP and Chief Medical Officer at Salesforce

Jujhar Singh, EVP & GM, Salesforce Industries recently gave us an update on Salesforce’s health and life sciences cloud from their Dreamforce event.

With Dr. G,  the conversation is more about how to fix US healthcare – we spend a fifth of our GDP on that sector and our health outcomes don’t reflect that. She identifies a slew of areas she would prioritize for tackling

We talk about how most enterprises turned on a dime at the start of COVID and how McKinsey says if we can sustain that intensity, we may have the most innovative decade ever. And whether that is likely to happen in healthcare, given its ossified nature.

We talk about the promise and frustrations of electronic medical records. We discuss why public health performed inconsistently during the pandemic and how we can build public trust in those institutions

Healthcare is stubbornly regional, even country specific in medical practices, regulations, even payer/provider structures and how we can move to benchmark more across countries. We talk about a consumer-led movement transforming healthcare and a proactive focus on wellness versus the traditional focus on treating symptoms.

Dr. G covers an incredible amount of ground in around 20 minutes. Must see TV!

Burning Platform: The demise of the mainframe has been greatly exaggerated

In the 79th episode of Burning Platform, we host Hari Candadai, SVP of Service Innovation and Thought Leadership at Origina. They are a third-party software maintenance company focused exclusively on providing IBM Support. As he says “Over the last decade Origina has perfected the third-party software maintenance model for IBM Passport Advantage customers around MQ,  Cognos, DB2, Informix, FileNet and  other products down the list.”

We discuss why we have for decades discussed the death of the mainframe and how it continues to survive and thrive especially in airlines, banks and other high transaction volume environments. IBM continues to breathe life with the latest z Series architecture and is reporting numbers which are delighting Wall Street.

However, that is no reason to put up with the high cost and shrinking talent in that world. We cover why third-party maintenance is attractive around IBM products – the lack of skills at customers and even at IBM (and how Origina has built its talent pool), the high cost for relatively stable environments (and how Origina can shave half off), and the need for interoperability with all the systems that keep on mushrooming around the backbone applications on the mainframe.

He goes into plenty of detail and spends some time describing their long journey with the utility. Southern California Edison.

McKinsey recently wrote “For many companies—and many industries—the COVID-19 pandemic set off a period of head-spinning change. They realized they were capable of moving faster than they ever thought possible. They went digital in a matter of days, not years. They offered new services almost overnight.

If companies sustain this newfound speed and agility, it’s conceivable that more innovation will happen in the next ten years than in any previous decade in modern history.”

That innovation will need money and staffing commitments. Another reason to consider a firm like Origina. Nicely covered by Hari in about 20 minutes  

 

Burning Platform: The enterprise suite does not always win - Zoho One is a standout

In the 78th episode of Burning Platform, we host Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist at Zoho, a repeat guest in this series

Zoho One – also branded as “the Operating System for Business” - is a suite of 50 and growing applications across sales, marketing, finance, hr, legal, collaboration and other functional areas – see the full list here (btw it does not list the 50+ mobile apps which are also included)

We discuss a major milestone in the evolution of Zoho One – its fifth anniversary.

In those 5 years, it has been adopted by over 50.000 customers. Notably, it has also penetrated markets like UAE, Nigeria, Kenya, Mexico and others that few enterprise vendors ever cover.

The glib statement in the enterprise applications market is “the suite always wins”. Yes, it is compelling to have an integrated solution with a common UX, single version of truth across the enterprise. The reality is first-gen ERP, CRM and other suites were inconsistent in their functionality by module, often cobbled together via acquisitions, attracted lots of Sis who were comfortable in HQ functions but not in operational areas the suite promised to cover, resulted in massive overruns. My view is that experience has made enterprise buyers much more cautious and back to buying at a much more modular level. With that backdrop, Zoho One has done very well.

Raju discusses many things Zoho has done right – “a dollar a day” pricing; organic, self-discovery of applications so users expand their use of the suite at their own pace, rather than being oversold what ends up becoming shelfware; and a focus on customers without much of a legacy application portfolio to migrate.

He also discusses what’s next in the evolution of this success story.

Crisply (and modestly) done in 16 minutes.    

Gartner and Oracle: Why I am missing their major events this week

Analyst Cam: Salesforce Verticals – Automotive

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Achyut Jajoo · SVP and GM, Manufacturing and Automotive presenting on their new Automotive Cloud.

The world of mobility – cars, trucks, bikes and so many other forms of transport - is going through massive changes. It is moving from a hardware, engineering focused past to a software defined future. The acronym CASE – for Connected, Autonomous, Shared and Electrified – summarizes the changing industry with new business models including vehicle features on a subscription basis, direct to consumer channels and the growing need for first-party data, new service delivery mindsets, and transformed supply chains with software, sensor, satellite support and battery charging and many other ecosystems.

Achyut does a nice job covering these trends, the variety of new providers and experiences in the sector and the niches which Salesforce plans to focus on. More details in their announcement here.

Very nicely done in 25 minutes. I have invited him back to come present with a couple of customers as the launch continues.

 

Analyst Cam: Salesforce Industry Clouds at Dreamforce

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Jujhar Singh, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Salesforce Industries, a repeat guest. He had planned to give our audience a sneak preview of their growing Industry Clouds prior to Dreamforce. His schedule changed and we had to postpone. I saw him twice at Dreamforce but as expected he was swamped. I had to evacuate for Hurricane Ian last week. So when we finally connected, he was very generous with his time.

Given the length of the recording, we broke it into 6 segments that emphasize a variety of different industries. So, here we go with some of my brief comments on each.

Industries Introduction & Dreamforce Industries News (~5 mins)

Jujhar talks about the vitality of their Industry Clouds business. It is now one of the top 3 pillars of growth for Salesforce. It is a sticky business. Industry attrition rates are 2% lower than those in their lowest horizontal clouds.

Holistic Health Powered by Genie (~10 mins)

One of the biggest announcements at Dreamforce was Genie which is aimed to harmonize, in real-time, all your data into a single view of the customer across any cloud. Jujhar applies the lens from a patient perspective and provides other updates around their healthcare and life sciences offering, including support for Advanced Therapy Management. It is a nice update to the overview Amit Khanna, SVP and GM had presented in July here.

Automotive Cloud – new offering (~4 mins)

Jujhar provides a preview of a new Industry Cloud which will become generally available on October 17.  It takes Salesforce into the emerging world of electric vehicles, direct to consumer (D2C) selling and new business models that are dramatically transforming the auto industry. I will run a longer interview with Achyut Jajoo, SVP and GM, Manufacturing and Automotive on this offering later this week.

Net Zero Marketplace – new offering (~7 mins)

Jujhar provides an overview of another offering announced at Dreamforce – this one aimed to accelerate customer sustainability initiatives. Built on Salesforce Commerce Cloud, the Net Zero Marketplace enables “ecopreneurs” to browse and purchase carbon credit projects from various sellers. Salesforce has enlisted third party reviewers to provide transparent reviews and risk
assessments on the available projects. Ari Alexander, GM of that cloud business had provided a longer perspective here.

Service Excellence Across Industries – examples from Insurance and Healthcare (~2 mins)

Salesforce is building industry-specific service consoles and Jujhar provides examples from healthcare and auto insurance.

Composable Case Management - for Public Sector, Nonprofit and Education (~4 mins)

Jujhar presents a new approach to customer service for public sector domains like child welfare, nonprofits focused on mental health and staff health and wellbeing in education. He describes the composable case management solution: “You are not dealing with tickets; you are dealing with people in complex scenarios. Families may be involved, even communities. Instead of one provider, you may need a network of providers. It is about a different orientation – not about closing out a ticket, but about outcomes. The caseworker can follow the process all the way from intake to outcomes.”

I would recommend you watch all 6 segments. In total, they only add up to half an hour. The range of industries and the wide landscape Jujhar covers in each is truly impressive.

Burning Platform: IFS Unleashed in Miami

In the 77th episode of Burning Platform, we host Oliver Pilgerstorfer, CMO of IFS, a repeat guest of ours

He provides a sneak preview of their upcoming Customer Event, Unleashed scheduled from October 10 to 14 in Miami.

We discuss their decision to go with Miami when most tech vendors prefer Vegas or Orlando or the Bay Area for their events. We cover some of the agenda – it will center around the theme of “Moment of Service” which CEO Darren Roos does a great job articulating. Every business has multiple, fleeting moments where it either delights or disappoints its customers. Darren is passionate about orchestrating your assets and your people to deliver those Moments of Service. And his customers do so in complex, multinational settings.

We discuss the show floor which will showcase IFS’s growing ecosystem. Finally, we discuss some of the fun items they have planned.

As I tell him, Miami is an inspired choice. While we are partial to the West Coast of Florida having lived here for 3 decades, Miami is a vibrant, cosmopolitan city. With his guests a short walk from the city’s famous beaches, Oliver and his team are putting together a compelling agenda to match that competition.

Feel the excitement in this short session. As he says it will be great to get the band together again. And join me in experiencing it.

See you in S. Florida!

Analyst Cam: Salesforce – Net Zero Cloud

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Ari Alexander, GM Net Zero Cloud at Salesforce

Fresh off announcements at Dreamforce this past week, he spent time with me describing their scope.

He describes the 6 pillars of the offering in the graph below:

He drills into the Net Zero Marketplace, which facilitates carbon trading and interaction with what Salesforce calls “ecopreneurs”. It is open to any company, not just Salesforce customers  

He also describes work with 3 customers – MasterCard, MillerKnoll (the furniture company) and Crowley (the shipping company)   

Very crisply done in about 18 minutes.

Verticals at Dreamforce

I am looking forward to the Salesforce event next week, and expect to be spending time in the  “Industries” Zone in the Dreamforce Campground. My FitBit is going to be pleased - the Campground is 40,000 square feet in size!

 I hope to get updates with several execs who have presented on their sectors in the Analyst Can series over the last few weeks.

• Eran Agrios, Financial Services
• Amit Khanna, Health and Life Sciences
• David Fan, Communications
• Sunil Rao, Consumer Goods
• Nasi Jazayeri, Public Sector

Under embargo. I was briefed about a new one this week. Will run that after the event.

I also have a post-Dreamforce recording planned with Jujhar Singh, EVP Industry Clouds.

Look forward to meeting several of you there!

Analyst Cam: Salesforce Verticals – Telecommunications

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is David Fan, GM of the Salesforce Communications Cloud

He discusses trends in the sector, presents results from a recent survey and details industry specific capabilities like Promotions and Offers and Loyalty Management, and their use cases around the world with customers like Telstra in Australia, Telus in Canada and KPN in the Netherlands.

He also gives a sneak preview of what he will preview at Dreamforce next week.

Very crisply done in under 15 minutes.

 

Sneak Preview – Workday Rising

It’s an annual ritual, or used to be till COVID interfered. A Workday executive does our readers a favor and shares a curtain raiser on their Rising event.  This time it is Patricia Harris, Senior Vice President, Solution and Revenue Marketing. She has over 25 years of industry experience including several years at SAP, at the industry research firm IHS Markit, and the IT Service Management firm Hitachi Vantara.

Here are some excerpts from our conversation

Patricia, welcome back to my home state, Florida.  I presume Rising is a hybrid event as many have been with COVID. Let’s start with the demographics of the audience you are expecting in Orlando and virtually and the overall vibe you expect.

Vinnie, to start off it is going to be so nice to be back in person. We're expecting over 9,000 people on site – we are sold out for our in-person experience - and tens of thousands attending digitally. I think it will be a different kind of hybrid event than you may have seen from others. I am really excited to be one of the co-hosts of the Digital Experience and to make it compelling for those who cannot attend in person. We'll be doing a live broadcast from the Expo Floor. We will be giving viewers a nice warm lead into all the major keynotes and supporting them with deeper discussions as they come away from those keynotes.  

In terms of an overall theme, we are humbly acknowledging what the world has gone through over the last few years. It’s not just the pandemic, it's also the vast change in technology. As you know, we have released so many new solutions over the last few years.  On top of that, we've had social change on so many different issues. And so this year, we are honoring that change and acknowledging all the Changemakers. It will be about our customers, the ones that are driving this change in their organizations, and also thinking about our role as a technology company as we help them drive that change.

There will be a lot of focus on customer stories. You will see Coca Cola, Comcast and Capital One among 47 customer speakers at this event. We will also have 85 partner speakers featured. It’s our way of bringing customer stories to life.

We will also use the event to honor several local charities like the Orlando Alliance and job seeker networking sessions and Veteran Career readiness meetups.

The Executive Keynotes

I think you will hear a very optimistic tone from Aneel and Chano, our co-CEOs. There is so much change in the world that when people talk about it there can be a dystopian vibe to it. But we believe the changes we have gone through can also be uplifting.  Aneel and Chano will touch on how to elevate the human experience. Aneel will focus on how to stay connected no matter what your Return to Office plans. How to keep employees engaged and more deeply understand what is motivating them as well as what might be negatively impacting their performance.  Chano will salute the Changemakers, our incredible customers who are the driving force behind all our innovation. He will touch on the value of our Enterprise Management Cloud.  Broadly, Workday leaders will also talk about solutions, our Extend platform and plans for Industry Accelerators.

(Vinnie’s note - for those watching virtually, the graph below provides a nice overview of the keynotes)

Major product announcements

We will have plenty to please our three big buying centers – the CHRO, the CFO and the CIO.

Here are a few teasers - low code, no code capabilities in our Extend platform, frictionless finance with ML significantly improving productivity, planning at scale, and lots about ESG, supplier diversity and how we are enhancing our already rich Skills Cloud ontology with external data.

Vinnie, you will be particularly pleased to hear about our Industry Accelerators for healthcare, banking and capital markets, insurance and technology. We have developed them in close collaboration with Accenture, Deloitte, KPMG and PwC. Each partner has a really unique value proposition.

(Vinnie's note -- more detail available in the press releases below)

Monday, 9/12

1. Workday Launches New Industry Program to Accelerate Customer Cloud Transformations with Expansive Partner Ecosystem
2. Frontline Industries and Certain Geographies Show Increased Levels Of Employee Burnout Risk, Workday Report Finds

Tuesday, 9/13

1. Workday Unveils New Technology Innovations, Redesigns User Experience to Help Customers Adapt in a Changing World
2. Workday Introduces Skill Interoperability to Help Organizations Support Evolving Talent Strategies
3. Workday Innovations Help Power a New Era for the Office of the CFO
4. Workday Announces New Innovations to Support Customers in the Changing World of Work 

The Expo Floor

So, you know the Orange County Convention Center is massive. It allows our show floor to be very creative with that space with 95 booths of varying shapes and sizes. The bigger the sponsor the bigger the booth space.  Think of it as interconnected spaces. So if someone is focused on finance,  they will be able to quickly see where they need to go. We will also have industry specific areas, and featured areas for our partners. 30 Workday Ventures portfolio companies will also be represented on the floor. 

And, as I mentioned I will be co-hosting the Digital Experience from the floor, so come say hello!

(Vinnie’s note – Workday has invited me to meet with several of the Ventures portfolio companies one-on-one. I expect I will invite a few to present in my Analyst Cam video channel, like several of their peers have in the past)

Fun stuff

We are really excited to have John Batiste. He’s a Grammy Award winner for Album of the Year. And, he's had plenty of accolades like the Academy Award for Best Original Score for the Disney Pixar film, Soul. We also have a night where we will take over Universal Studios.

Lots more at the event - Peloton rides, 5k Run, sunrise yoga, reflection rooms, hula hoop, wellbeing groups, and one of the crowd favorites, the Must Love Dogs meetups.  The Expo floor is going to be busy.

Vinnie, I hope we have you excited about the buffet of activities we have planned.  Look forward to seeing you and so many others in person. It’s been too long!

Analyst Cam: Salesforce Verticals – Public Sector

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Nasi Jazayeri, EVP and GM, Public Sector at Salesforce.

He summarizes the opportunity to dramatically improve citizen and small business experiences with government agencies. We often need to go to multiple sites and fill out multiple applications. There’s little transparency. What is the status of our application? You get a notification it was rejected but you have no idea why.  

He shares results from their recently released Connected Government Report “which highlights survey results for how customers prefer to engage with public sector organizations and what factors drive customer satisfaction in a digital-first reality.” It also describes the need for trust, the poor CX and the lack of tools government employees have to help them do their jobs.

He covers some of the applications they have built for the Public Sector – some in the image below.

While their Public Sector scope is wider to include Federal agencies, he walks through 3 State level projects:

• New Mexico Regulation and Licensing
• New Mexico Human Resources
• Wyoming Department of Family Services

Very crisply done in under 20 minutes. And if you're interested in learning more about what Salesforce has planned for the Public Sector this Fall and beyond, be sure to tune into Dreamforce, Sept. 20-22, to watch live streaming sessions on Salesforce+ (many should also be available on-demand).

Burning Platform: Startup Boards

In the 76th episode of Burning Platform, we host Brad Feld of Foundry Group, a repeat guest and discuss the new book he has co-authored, Startup Boards and a whole slew of other tech industry topics

As Brad explains, the book is written in laypersons rather than in technical legal language. “What we tried to do with this book was bring out how startup boards work, and make them productive and accessible to CEOs, to existing and to prospective board members.”

The biggest change in this edition -  the first was published in 2013: “we had about 20 sidebars, from people who wrote stories of their own board experiences…of those 20, only two were women. So we refactored that and this one has 10 women.  For men, we carefully chose a bunch of new contemporary voices and have a few people of color in the mix as well. So it wasn't all just middle aged, white guys prognosticating about how boards work.”

We drift to an area Brad is always fascinating to listen to. How startups themselves keep evolving – location wise, focus/category wise, how they are capitalizing given the current state of financial markets.

Re categories he talks about “deep tech” and covers space tech, quantum computing and bio-engineering. “It is a truism that tech today is woven into every industry.”

We also talk about cleantech and EVs of course that brings up China. He also has an interesting perspective on reshoring and other global trends.

We talk about the joys and pains of writing books, how second editions allow you to see the world from a different lens. He invokes Jeff Lawson of Twilio and Steve Case of  Revolution among others

Fascinating 40 minute session. Also get a copy of the book here. It a practitioner’s guide to startups from someone who has seen them from every possible angle.

Analyst Cam: Strivr - the White Collar Metaverse

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Derek Belch, CEO of Strivr, which positions itself as a platform to elevate employee performance through virtual reality-enabled immersive experiences. I was introduced to him by the Workday Ventures team.

Derek played football at Stanford from 2003 to 2007. He went back to Stanford as a graduate assistant for the football team in 2013 and simultaneously worked on a Master’s thesis on training football players using virtual reality. “The whole premise was here's a VR device, a headset. The quarterback puts this thing on their face. Their body is off the field, but their brain thinks they're on the field. It's a much more realistic way to see what's going on during a play. And you can get an infinite number of reps in a short amount of time.”

The quarterback simulator was their first application and he says it was reasonably successful (I think he is being modest – Tom Brady used the tool for reps when he arrived in Tampa in 2020 and went on to win his 7^th Super Bowl). Importantly, it led to an introduction at Walmart and a foray into enterprise applications. He says “six years later we have over 20,000 headsets out in the field at Walmart, Bank of America, Verizon and FedEx among others.”

Classroom and keyboard-based learning are ineffective, he says. “Goes in one ear and out the other.” “We're building a flight simulator for any job from quarterback to janitor to CEO and everyone in between…we want the VR headset to be part of every employee’s starter pack along with a phone and a laptop”

He walks through various front line and knowledge worker use cases. The ROI is pretty compelling. “we've had customers take three-hour long lectures and e-learning (content) and boil them down to 20 minutes on a headset. Some of our customers are cutting their on-boarding times in half. And the outcome is the similar in terms of proficiency. So that is a major ROI opportunity when you add up 10s of 1000s of people. Some of these are very high churn roles.” He says there may be focus on augmented reality and blue collar roles down the line. Plenty of white collar opportunities to focus on for now.    

He walks through his platform and the content creation ecosystem he is growing. Very nicely done in about 20 minutes. There is plenty of sports talk, quotes from Confucius and use cases for the white-collar Metaverse.

BTW I think I have found another recruit for my Technology and my Passion series. He has 264 golf balls and growing in his “stamp collection” from courses from around the world.

Analyst Cam: Wellthy

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Lindsay Jurist-Rosner, Co-Founder and CEO of Wellthy, which provides a caregiving support solution. I was introduced to her by the Workday Ventures team.

Lindsay starts with her personal experience. She supported her mother through a chronic condition for 28 years (it started when she was a kid) and found the healthcare system in the US (and most other countries – they also service Canada, UK and Ireland)) assumes aging care is the responsibility of family members. She says families take on 90% of long-term care in the US.

They have since diversified beyond the focus on aging parents to also cover kids with special needs, spouses with chronic conditions, and during the COVID pandemic expanded into child care. About the last, she says “it remains a crisis. We've seen daycare shutdown, a reduction in the number of folks who are taking jobs as nannies or in-home aides. Families are really struggling to set up care as many companies have returned to more hybrid work environments, encouraging people to come into the office.”

The solution broadly consists of 3 components

• Care Dashboard – digital tools such as medication trackers, document storage
• Care Concierge – a dedicated coordinator and shared access to other team members who help advise on Medicare, insurance, other funding sources, care nuances etc.
• Wellthy Community

They started the business in 2015, supporting families and started working with employers in 2016. Business exploded through the pandemic. Today they support 1.1 million covered individuals. And expect to be closer to 2 million by the end of the year. Lots of big brand employers and 4 of the top 6 companies on the Fortune 100 Top Places to Work list.

They can show quantifiable outcomes like lowered absences and attrition at employers which offer their service as a comp benefit. The best endorsement she says comes from employees moving companies who say to their hiring person, “you know, I would like to retain access to this very important benefit”.

She says it is a  “very sticky benefit.”

Very nicely done in 20 minutes.

Business as Unusual

19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is credited with the quote ‘That which does not kill us makes us stronger’. Since then, it has been used by many to inspire resilience and strength during adversity.

In the last few years, that resilience has been repeatedly tested by shock waves from large digital transformations, adapting to climate change, surviving COVID, and now navigating the Ukraine crisis. No industry or country has come through unscathed. Yet, like championship boxers, a breed of executives has learned to bounce back and keep on fighting.

In their dogged persistence, they are helping the world create new energy, new medicine, new mobility, new chemical formulations, new financial instruments, new ecosystems, new customer pathways, new business models.

Thanks to the sponsorship of Thomas Saueressig, Executive  Board member, Product Engineering and Peter Maier, President of Industries and Customer Advisory at SAP, I have been part for the last several weeks of a magical tour of this ‘Business as Unusual’

We have talked to countless executives at SAP, at its customers and its partners. The conversations have covered over 25 industries and 20 countries and involve a changing business vocabulary with concepts like molecular recycling,  green v blue hydrogen, decentralized energy markets, smart insurance, parametric testing in fabs, personalized medicine  and outcome based contracts. The transcripts of the conversations already exceed 2,000 pages.

We are organizing the threads along a series of themes such as Sustainable Energy Transition, Everything as a Service and Future of Capital. You will be hearing lots more about them in the next few weeks.

You already know about S/4HANA and SAP’s cloud products like SuccessFactors. You will get to hear more about products like AIN, BRIM, e-Mobility, Fioneer, GreenToken and many others which are helping with innovation at the edge of enterprises in their labs, their EV fleets, their treasury, their warehouses.  

Importantly you will hear in first-person from many of these ‘boxers’ who keep coming back for more.

Welcome to a New World. 

Analyst Cam: Salesforce Verticals – Health and Life Sciences

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Amit Khanna, SVP and GM, Health and Life Sciences at Salesforce.

The health and pharma markets have gone through an extremely challenging last couple of years. How will they emerge from the ups and downs? Amit presents on some of the trends they are seeing:

• 42% of the members say they're frustrated by the experience they get from their health plans/providers
• 77% of the providers say that non-traditional care revenues, such as retail health, care anywhere, are becoming more important
• 93% of the pharma companies are still not using AI effectively because they believe it's too complex or are unsure where to start.
• Almost a third of the $3.5 trillion the US spends on healthcare (nearly 20% of its GDP) is in administrative costs, much of it waste.

He explains where Salesforce plays – around the areas where EMR and ERP vendors play. Salesforce is more focused on longitudinal care outside the hospital, multi-channel engagement and the entire chain to provide personalized care.

He covers a lot of ground around vaccine management, telemedicine and other trends which accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But, over and over it comes back to making the patient the center of the universe. I like his closing “Simple concepts (we are used to in other sectors) don’t seem to apply to healthcare. Providers ask you the same questions over and over…my date of birth doesn't change. Knowing about me is a concept (which seems foreign to) healthcare. If we can solve that, through the lifecycle of the consumer, we will reduce tremendous amount of waste in the system.”

Very crisply done in about 15 minutes.

Analyst Cam: Buday Thought Leadership Partners

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Bob Buday of Buday Thought Leadership Partners. For over 3 decades, he has been helping organizations think big at CSC Index, Bloom Group and now at the firm he leads.

We have a really invigorating conversation around “blockbuster” ideas which have influenced so many of us including Michael Hammer’s reengineering, Clayton Christensen’s disruption, CEB’s Challenger Sale concepts and several others.

He shares techniques which work (and do not work) when it comes to developing what he calls “momentous” ideas. Many of the ideas he has helped up shape end up as management books and influential articles in publications like the Harvard Business Review.

Nicely done in under half an hour. It is a nice primer to his new book Competing on Thought Leadership.

Analyst Cam: IFS Verticals - Manufacturing – Part 2

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This is part 2 of the conversation with Maggie Slovic and Andy Burton, Global Directors for Process and Discrete Manufacturing, respectively for IFS

In Part 1 yesterday, they provided highlights of 6 sub-verticals that falls under their definition of Manufacturing – Automotive, High-tech, Industrials, Food & Beverage, Chemicals and Life Sciences. They talked about the circular economy, servitization trends in product companies, industrial robotics and COVID’s impact on manufacturing.

Today they cover functionality in the IFS Cloud, discuss a few of their customers and some of the supply chain and other threads they picked up at the Hannover Messe, which is always a trailblazer of industrial trends.

Analyst Cam: IFS Verticals – Manufacturing – Part 1

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Maggie Slovic and Andy Burton, Global Directors for Process and Discrete Manufacturing, respectively for IFS

In Part 1 today, they provide highlights of 6 sub-verticals that falls under their definition of Manufacturing – Automotive, High-tech, Industrials, Food & Beverage, Chemicals and Life Sciences. Aerospace and Defense, an area IFS has long been strong at, is treated as a separate vertical.  They talk about the circular economy, servitization trends in product companies, industrial robotics and COVID’s impact on manufacturing.

Tomorrow in Part 2 they will cover functionality in the IFS Cloud, discuss a few of their customers and some of the supply chain and other threads they picked up at the Hannover Messe, which is always a trailblazer of industrial trends.

Nicely done – this one is only about 15 minutes long.

The New Polymath: The SAP version

I don’t like to play favorites across my books, but many readers say they really liked my 2010 book, The New Polymath.

The book bio read

“A Polymath—the Greek word for Renaissance Man—is one who excels in many disciplines. From Leonardo da Vinci to Benjamin Franklin, we have relied on Polymaths to innovate and find creative solutions to the problems of the day. How would these Renaissance men and women manage our current technology bounty? Which disciplines would they choose to focus on? Would they work on the architecture of next-generation green cities, or focus on nanotechnology?

As our challenges have grown exponentially we need to bring together da Vinci, Franklin, and many more. The New Polymath is an enterprise that excels in multiple technologies—infotech, cleantech, healthtech, and other tech—and leverages multiple talent pools to create new medicine, new energy, and new algorithms.”

I had a call with a SAP banking customer this week which took me back to the book:

    “He: Vinnie, a lot of these terms I have discussed will be new to you. So happy to revisit and clarify if we need to.

    Me: Believe me, as part of this project, I've gone from the auto industry and all the changes there (electrification, sharing, autonomy etc.) to healthcare to supply chains…

    He: it's fascinating, is it not? SAP is at the center of it all.”

I could have told him about also learning about a dazzling array of new business models,  carbon capture, cold chains. green hydrogen, molecular recycling, robotics in food service, reverse logistics, pharma track and trace and more. And the underlying tech it takes to support them including augmented reality, blockchain, computational chemistry, digital twins, not to mention hardened, high-reliability computing.

Over the last few weeks, SAP has allowed me to “walk the halls” with its executives, its customers and its partners. It has been demanding - not jet lag, but clock lag from Teams and Zoom sessions at all hours with folks in 20 countries so far - and trying to keep up with so much coverage SAP has across verticals, geographies and business processes. I replay the conversations as podcasts when I drive, I have nearly 2,000 pages of transcripts to mine.

Here we are in 2022 and we are worried about climate change, COVID and Ukraine. If you get away from all the political noise, our businesses are thankfully still focused on new medicine, new energy, and new algorithms.

And the realization that we cannot do it alone. I heard a story about how a high-level auto executive came to visit Christian Klein, CEO of SAP as supply chains were being disrupted and told him “‘We have a couple of challenges in our business which I cannot solve alone and I don't think we can solve it with just one software company.’ That was the genesis of the auto industry network, Catena-X and since then SAP has been thinking about networks for many more industries.

“We cannot do it alone” is showing up in SAP’s rapidly changing ecosystem. Long dominated by SIs, I have talked to strategy firms, Industry 4.0 operational partners, startups in the SAP.iO Foundries accelerators. The ecosystem also has digital agencies, NGOs, outcome-based outsourcers and more.

Not every customer tells me “SAP is at the center of it all”. Many of them talk about S/4 or BRIM or hundreds of other SKUs in the product portfolio. But then you see the forest for the trees - what the broad SAP family is working on. It about so many edge applications – it’s not just about new medicine, new energy, new algorithms, it’s about new everything….

Demanding it has been, but as I felt when I wrote the book in 2010, most of these conversations make me go “wow” – and optimistic about the state of the world.

Analyst Cam: Reveal Value

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Martin Rowan, Managing Partner of Reveal USA, based in Chicagoland.

Their website says “Our mission is to use our knowledge of the supply chain as an indispensable link toward commercial success and social good.”

Their client base ranges from global companies like BP to local Chicago-based companies with two common threads - they run SAP and they run some kind of a supply chain. “So, they make, buy, sell, distribute something - whether it's minerals, petroleum, petrochemicals or consumer goods.”

With 160 projects over the last couple of decades. he says he can actually guarantee results for clients - inventory reductions, turns and service level improvements, process efficiencies and product production throughput increase.

I like the client maturity model and the operational use cases he shares. And the sherpa metaphor he uses to describe how they help clients scale mountains.

Nicely done in 20 minutes.  

Exxon Mobil in an "energy magic quadrant”

I have spent a lifetime watching new market segments emerge, mature, get disrupted, morph and consolidate. The energy sector is going through a massive disruption and renewal.  If I were building a 'magic quadrant" I would factor wind, solar, tidal, nuclear fusion, oil and gas, hydroelectric, biomass, geothermal and other alternative energy sources. My view is we need all of the above so we don’t have to become dependent on tyrant politicians or businesses. I wrote recently energy independence is as important as a focus on emissions.

And as I have in many tech sectors, I would be listening to pitches and doing a lot of research around each. And sure enough there would be bad-mouthing, with players calling the other evil and worse. My job is to ignore that noise.

I have been talking to a number of oil industry executives and listened to a couple of interviews Darren Woods, Chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil has done recently including one below. It is one of the largest publicly traded international oil and gas companies.

Here are some of his remarks (slightly edited) about his company, his competition and his thoughts on public policy. He is feisty at points, but generally, comes across as a geek and an economist, something I like when I listen to vendor pitches.

• We've been doing this for 100 years. When we first started out, we were basically making kerosene for lighting. When the electric light came on, we were moving into gasoline. We've moved into chemicals. And so, this industry and our company have been evolving since its inception.
• We are a company that knows how to manage and manipulate hydrocarbon molecules. What we're trying to manage with the energy transition, it's essentially a hydrocarbon, CO2 carbon management challenge. And that's right up our alley.
• The more folks we engage trying to solve this (transition to low-carbon) problem, I think the better off the world is going to be. I've seen a big difference just in the last several years with the number of different companies, big thinkers, focused in this space.... I mean, two years ago, it was wind and solar, period. Today, it's wind and solar, and you got carbon capture and hydrogen and biofuels and ammonia.  (Btw, he did not touch on the potential of many other sources I made above. As a CEO, he sees the competitive landscape differently than I do as an analyst)
• Ultimately, I think, by 2040, every vehicle in the world could be electric. And so, you would not have gasoline sales. Oil demand would (still) be what it was back in 2013/2014 time frame. We were pretty successful business in 2013/2014 . So, our view (is EVs are) not going to make or break this business or this industry.
• What's driving growth in demand for oil is chemical products, which play a really important role in people's lives today. The other big driver is industrial fuels, transportation fuels, and so heavy duty.
• Europeans are making a strong case for green hydrogen which is made through electrolysis. Blue hydrogen is developed primarily through methane, and then capturing the CO2 that comes out. The US has abundant methane, we've got abundant places to store CO2. And so, the answer for hydrogen in the US I think, is going to be blue hydrogen. In Europe, they don't have the same abundance of methane, they don't have the same co2 capture capacity. So, electrolysis and green hydrogen makes more sense for them. And so rather than coming out with a dictate that says it's got to be green hydrogen versus blue hydrogen is let the market figure it out.  What we will find as you go around the world, that the natural endowments, the advantages that you see, the technology progress, you see is going to manifest itself differently.
• I think political leaders ought to be focusing on how we get to a solution and working collaboratively. Not only with NGOs, but with businesses that have the experiences and the skills and the understanding to figure out solutions that help meet all of society's needs, not just one aspect.
• Don't incentivize one technology because you think that's a better answer than the other. Put incentives out there for all technologies and let the productive capacity of the market work, let the technologies of companies go to work to solve those problems. We are an advocate for a uniform price on carbon across the economy is because it incentivizes every individual player, irrespective of the industry or in respect of the technology that you support. You put your effort into finding a solution to capture that value, and reduce CO2. It's too complicated, it's too difficult to predict exactly what the solution is going to look like. Instead, we should put the incentives out there and let the market do what the market does.
• We've been doing this for 100 years. In the technology space, people recognize that we're serious, we have capabilities, and we're at the table, trying to bring solutions to that. We have a reputation for doing big projects, at scale, convening industries, bringing together different parts of governments, other commercial enterprises to come up with big picture solutions.
• We could spend forever debating what was said 30 years ago or we can focus on what are we doing today to try to make progress in this very complex space. I'm very proud of what we're doing today. And I think we will make a big difference; we will be an important part of the solution.

The next energy transition

Mankind has been through multiple energy transitions. Our ancestors burned wood, used peat bog and other biofuels. The Romans were particularly ingenious at using water and wind power. Coal fueled the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s. The 1900s belonged to oil and gas especially as humans became much more mobile.

We are in the midst of another major energy transition as we all move to low-carbon futures. To me, the exciting thing is we will likely end up with a cocktail of energy sources – wind, solar, tidal, gas, nuclear fusion, upgraded biofuels, hydroelectric and geothermal combined with storage in the form of hydrogen fuel cells and electric batteries. And I could make that list much longer.

We should be celebrating this coming abundance. Instead, we are vilifying one source or another, using FUD to try and accelerate the transition to our favorite flavor. My projection - there will likely never be a single solution. Different countries will take their own paths. Just look at how they have been evolving in the last few decades, each with their own version of energy independence

• Germany deserves a lot of credit for maturing modern versions of wind and solar (wind mills and photovoltaic cells have been around far longer). And yet the majority of its energy still has come from its coal and from Russian gas. Going forward it will continue with its wind/solar but diversify with LNG logistics and a hydrogen future.
• The US image is dirty – yet between 1990 and 2020 its greenhouse gases stayed steady, even as its GDP went up 5X. The largest single contributor was that many of its utilities switched from coal to much cleaner gas. And that gas had its own remarkable story thanks to entrepreneurs like George Mitchell who contributed to the US version of energy independence
• France gets 2/3rd of its electricity from nuclear power. While much of the world conjures up images of Chernobyl and other disasters, the French reacted to the OPEC oil crisis in the 1970s with the brutally realistic assessment of “No oil, no gas, no coal, no choice” and embraced nuclear and continues with it.
• Norway has the highest per capita adoption of electric vehicles in the world. And these EVs are the “greenest” in the world. Over 90% of its electricity comes from hydroelectric sources. It is a country blessed with plenty of deep valleys and rivers. It is doubly blessed with plenty of North Sea oil and gas which it mostly exports – valued at over half of all of its exports.
• Iceland, Kenya and the Philippines (among others) get much of their energy from geothermal. Factoid – after solar, geothermal is the second most abundant source of energy available to humans.

Update - someone asked me what about the BRICS countries and others like Indonesia and in Africa. They have been trying out their own version of energy independence. Brazil pioneered ethanol from its cane decades ago. China has invested heavily in modern hydroelectric. Their challenge is they are still too heavily dependent on fossil fuels, particularly coal. They will have to innovate their own path to low carbon. They cannot pretend the rest of the world will make up for them. Their emissions more than offset the improvements we are seeing in some of the countries named above.

I have personally been dismayed by the demonizing of the oil and gas sector. In fairness, the industry has done a poor job marketing its contribution to our lives. Did you know over 6,000 items we use every day from lip balm to carpeting get their start in crude oil?

I worked in the oil patch in the 80s in Texas, Saudi, Holland, Bahrain among other places. It is an incredibly complex and brave industry. I say brave because they work in some of the most forsaken, hostile, risky places on earth. And have mind-bogglingly complex protocols for safety on rigs, tankers, refineries etc.

But importantly here’s why we will continue to need that sector to combat climate change. They have some of the only companies in the world that can run multi-billion $ projects, plan 20 years out, have tons of chemists, physicists, quantum computing wizards etc.

I have talked to some oil execs recently and it’s impressive what they are thinking about carbon capture/storage, LNG logistics, green hydrogen, geothermal etc. Low carbon is a definite focus.

The Ukraine crisis has reminded us once again of the essential need for energy independence. It is AND, not OR as we worry about emissions. Vice versa, for the BRICS and many other economies it cannot just be a focus on independence, it has to balance their massive emissions.

Go back to what I said earlier. In no previous transition has mankind had so many choices in energy sources. It’s a reason to celebrate, not bicker. That should be the best middle finger we can show Putin.

Analyst Cam: Salesforce Verticals – Financial Services

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Eran Agrios, SVP and GM of Financial Services at Salesforce.

Vendors tend to have different ways of defining “financial services” - so, it's nice that Eran provides a historical perspective on how Salesforce’s definition has evolved

“Over the past 23 years, our financial services customers have trusted Salesforce to drive deeper relationships with their customers, through mostly front office digital innovation. Seven years ago, we launched our first purpose-built product, Financial Services Cloud and I was part of that small team. We did that starting with wealth management firms, then expanded into banking and insurance. Last year we launched our first corporate and investment banking solution. Notably, in 2020, we acquired Vlocity which allowed us  to bring automation capabilities to front, middle and back-office operations.”

She says speed was a huge driver for these customers during the pandemic “I've been at Salesforce for 15 years, and we stand up solutions quickly. But customers were doing it in in hours and days. It was incredible.”

She says for their financial services customers, the focus now has shifted to efficiency and productivity. “Making every investment dollar count is part of every conversation we have with customers today.” She provides examples “such as straight through processing of an insurance claim or the orchestration of customer address changes across multiple systems of record.”

She also shares use cases from Prudential and their life insurance, retirement planning and investment solutions: and from KeyBank around wealth management and their commercial banking operations.

It is a brisk presentation – under 15 minutes - and a nice set up for the Salesforce World Tour New York which kicks off today at the Javits Center. Prudential and others are presenting there. Register here to catch them on-demand.

And for a slew of other breaking Salesforce financial services news announcements check out this post

Analyst Cam: Salesforce - Consumer Goods

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Sunil Rao, VP and GM of Consumer Goods presenting on trends in that sector and an update on Salesforce’s offerings.  

I like his broad definition of consumer goods - “it's the washing machine. It's the detergent you put into the machine, and the clothes you put in, and probably the snack you're eating while you're watching the clothes get washed.”

He starts on with trends including one of margin pressure: “whether it's retailers continuing to double down on products that they're introducing that are white labeled and brands that are going direct to consumer”,  supply chain issues, consumer privacy concerns and several others.

He then covers several new product features – more in the announcement which went out today.

• Trade Promotion Management (based on some IP developed by Accenture)
• Offline “Penny Perfect”  Pricing – with all the inflation, they should have branded it “nickel perfect” 😊  
• MuleSoft Accelerator for this industry – to tie to consumer and product master data in other systems

Finally he covers projects at two big global brands – retail execution “re-imagination” at PepsiCo and operational excellence (including that for field reps and drivers) at ABInBev

Sunil does a really nice job covering all that in half an hour.

 

Analyst Cam: IFS Verticals - Construction and Engineering

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Chris Knight, Global Industry Director for Construction and Engineering presenting on trends in that sector and IFS capabilities.

He talks about global trends and how spend on infrastructure projects will overtake residential construction. How 50% of projects will be partly supported by modular or prefabricated construction within the next few years. How the industry is also blending with manufacturing models with technologies like 3D printing. Like many industrial markets and servitization trends, this sector is improving margins by learning to operate, not just building and handing over. He covers silos in the construction IT landscape and how IFS solutions are helping an industry through its significant productivity challenges.

Lots of coverage of a sector where most competitors largely focus on labor part and project management/PSA technology.

Chris does a really nice job in half an hour.

Analyst Cam: Infor Vertical Strategy

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission ) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Soma Somasundaram, Chief Technology Officer and President of Products at Infor.

He does a nice job providing a 20 minute overview on their architectural evolution and how their 3 major ERP families – LN (Baan heritage) allows them to focus on industries with discrete manufacturing and complex projects like automotive and aerospace & defense, M3 (Intentia heritage) on process manufacturing and attribute-based industries like food and beverage and fashion, and the financial and HR products (Lawson heritage) on service industries like healthcare and public sector.

I have invited him to return and present a drill down in an industry across each of the families and focus on applications which have become much more relevant in the last few years like telemedicine and EMR in healthcare and direct to consumer in fashion.

This is a crisply done overview by Soma, who I did not realize was employee #1 at Infor. He is also one of the nicest execs in the enterprise software industry.

Burning Platform: The Right to Repair and Service

In the 75th episode of Burning Platform, we host Tomas O’Leary, Founder of Origina which provides independent support for IBM software products. He is also President of Free ICT, a not-for-profit foundation actively promoting the ICT Secondary Market. Their objective is to secure the right of ownership and the freedom for consumers and businesses to freely choose their providers to trade, maintain and repair products.

We have moved to a world of “everything as a service”. Whether labor-based or digital services, everyone wants a piece of the post-sales service business. In the industrial world, product companies see “Servitization” as a way to differentiate against global competition which can rapidly commoditize core product margins. Being asked to deliver on outcome-based contracts, they increasingly want to also own the service chain. Many are not offering products for purchase but on a long term contract. Keeping ownership of the product allows them to better manage repair, refurbish and other “circular economy” activities.

These new models are leading to friction with other customers who would prefer to pay and own, service the products on their own or with a service provider of their choice. It is also leading to legislation supporting customer “right to repair” on their own.

Tomas brings his perspective from the enterprise software sector where as products age, we have seen that prices do not decline and for that the quality of service is often pretty poor or non-existent. Tomas is passionate about customer choice and we spend the entire episode discussing why such choices are being compromised, how customers can protect themselves and also how regulators are starting to help.

Fascinating and much needed conversation.

Burning Platform: Experience, Inc.

In the 74th episode of Burning Platform, we host yet another author, Jill Popelka, President of SAP SuccessFactors. She kindly took time out of her book launch schedule to summarize themes from Experience. Inc.

She describes the inspiration for the book - her observation of the “loss of human connection” during the pandemic and the need to double down on improving experiences for employees, The book is a guidebook to business executives on how to deliver those.

She covers major takeaways from the book – employees need purpose, agency, a sense of belonging, recognition and what she explains as a “storm home”

She also talks about how technology can help improve employee experiences and talks about the SuccessFactors opportunity marketplace which employees can use to discover new learning and development opportunities within their companies. She also discusses their Workzone which fosters employee belonging and with tools like Appreciate drive recognition.

The book is already a best seller. Get your copy at Amazon here

Analyst Cam: Zoho Marketing Plus

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.

Zoho announced today its Marketing Plus platform and in prep I had Prashanth “PVK” Krishnaswami, CX Futurist present the “problem definition” and Dilip Nagarajan who heads CX product management do a “light demo”.

The product’s focus is both B2B and B2C mid-market enterprises ideally with less than 200 marketing employees

PVK presents what he calls 4 “existential challenges” CMOs face and Dilip presents features to tackle each of them.

• Visibility in team projects and initiatives
• Shared view of customers
• Collaboration across projects internally and outside agencies and resources
• Accelerating revenues – pipeline visibility, support for campaigns etc.

Sundeep MV, CMO for Techademy, an early adopter, has said this about the platform

"We embraced Zoho Marketing Plus, integrated Zoho CRM, and now we have a full-stack, unified sales and marketing solution wherein every relevant stakeholder in the organization is armed with the data and tools to increase engagement and drive customer experience. Our evangelism, marketing, pre-sales, and sales teams collaborate within a single dashboard on the platform, which houses all of the content and data we use to derive actionable insights and grow the business."

There's more in the press release announcing the solution, but PVK and Dilip cover a lot more group in roughly 40 minutes

Sapphire Preview: Next-Gen SAP

It’s been a wild decade so far - COVID, accelerated climate change focus, now a Russian-triggered energy crisis. Throw in supply chain issues, mass resignations, diversity and other crises, and Churchill’s famous quote “never let a good crisis go to waste’ comes to mind.

So, I have been asking every vendor what have you done to take advantage of the last two years? More importantly, what have you done to help your customer through these shocks and chaos?

At its Sapphire event next week, I expect I will hear plenty from SAP. Sure, lot of it will focus on S/4HANA, RISE and cloud properties. But one on one, I have heard plenty more.

It started last September when I approached Peter Maier to present on various verticals in the Analyst Cam series. Here is the index to the presentations SAP executives made.

There was a big difference in what I heard from SAP compared to most other vendors. They were talking thematic trends which cut across multiple industries, geographies and business processes – Direct to Consumer. Circular Economy. Everything as a Service.

Similar is happening in their ecosystem. The SAP.iO Foundries have been organizing bi-annual cohorts of startups in their 10 global accelerators based on themes. Here are some I profiled in the Sustainability and Circular Economy cohort.

I have seen presentations on an Industry 4.0 automation center and a Retail customer experience center. I will see a few more at the show floor at Sapphire.

So why is all this different? It’s not horizontal,or vertical or geographic positioning. It is what I call orthogonal. In comparison, most vendors and my fellow analysts are still talking market categories which were born in the 90s. (So is SAP – they still need to make their numbers). All those recessions and crises later and we are still talking an ancient language. I personally take blame for acronyms like ERP!

I went back to Peter and to Thomas Saueressig and I said you are doing something very different. Their response was we could show you much more. So, over the last couple of months I have had a chance to interview many of their thought leaders around Energy Transition, Digital Health, Smart Government, Autonomous Enterprise and many other themes.

I have heard more about the hydrogen fuel cells, nuclear fusion, LNG logistics from them than I have from any other vendor. Not just high-level ESG metrics, operational details. Patient-driven Data Networks. Industry Networks which tackle direct Tier 1 and 2 type suppliers not just paper/pencil and MRO suppliers.

Next, they are introducing me to customers and partners who are working with them to create next-gen applications. I am learning a ton and the content will be released in book and other formats. The important thing is SAP is speaking a brand-new language and helping customers survive and thrive in this crazy decade we find ourselves in.

The 1920s started off well but ended badly for most countries. I have a feeling we are reversing course in the 2020s. We are paying it forward. Things can only get better. But we all – especially my side of the aisle - need to get used to a very different script. It’s about new energy, new medicine, new algorithms.

Let’s not let this mother of all crises go to waste.