deal architect

Analyst Cam: SAP Industries - Automotive Trends

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

I have invited SAP to present updates on various verticals as I discussed here 

This time it is Hagen Heubach, Global Vice President, Automotive Industry Business Unit.

He does a nice job presenting the massive changes in the mobility sector - the emergence of EVs and autonomous vehicles, the effect of the pandemic on supply chains, direct digital sales, transformation of engineering into software cultures, the increase in services and changes in how they are delivered and how all those changes are re-shaping SAP's vertical offerings.

He also presents on the Catena-X Automotive Network (Catena-X) which focuses on creation, operation and collaborative use of end-to-end data chains along the entire automotive value chain. SAP is a founding member. It was launched in May and already has 60 participants including major German OEMs, Tier suppliers (and growing to include non-German ones as well) and a few other tech vendors.

This is SAP at its strongest - global brand names combined with vertical depth. Hagen presents the capabilities crisply in about 18 minutes.

Analyst Cam: SAP Industries - Circular Economy Trends

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

I have invited SAP to present updates on various verticals as I discussed here 

This time it is Natasha Pergl, Director - Global Circular Economy Lead at SAP.

Under CEO Christian Klein, SAP is re-emphasizing sustainability and has a broad agenda focused on "zero emissions, zero waste and zero inequality". The first is going to be difficult in a world where emissions are closely tied to energy usage and are being opportunistically defined as I wrote here recently. The third is noble but SAP risks being accused of "virtue signaling". I think their best opportunity is around reducing waste in what the WEF calls our “take-make-dispose” approach.

So, it is encouraging to see Natasha focus on the second and discuss how SAP is starting to help customers reduce waste in plastics, textiles, batteries and food. As I point out during the conversation, it is a good start, and should continue to improve as SAP focuses more on operational expertise and process support - more of an OT, not just an IT, emphasis.

I commented last year "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."

The road to energy hell...is being paved with good intentions

I recently read this article on climate change from a professor in New Zealand

"To stop continuously worsening climate change, we need to stop burning fossil fuels for energy. That’s a tall order, because fossil fuels provide 84% of all the energy used by human civilisation."

He believes we can all live on "4,000kWh of energy per person per year, less than a tenth of what New Zealanders currently use, and an amount easily supplied by renewable energy."

So far so good. I have been excited about wind/solar on the New Florence blog. You can see an average of 10 entries a year for 15 years here. 

But then he provides the sobering reality.

"the only two (low carbon energy sources) with the capacity to scale up to the staggering amount of energy we use are wind and solar. Despite impressive growth (doubling in less than five years), wind provides only 2.2% of all energy, and solar 1.1%."

You think at this point he would tackle the complex issues of why they are not scaling quicker, the cost of transition, how long it would take for that 3% to replace the 84% and who would pay for it. You know, all the practical realities. Nope. Not just him, way too many people talk about the "promised land" but dont address how to get there.

Well, we have a case study over the last decade which has answered some of those questions.

I started pointing out a few years ago that "in spite of spending hundreds of billions of euros on subsidizing renewables, Germany will struggle to meet its 18% renewables target for 2020. The country continues to rely heavily on its coal and lignite, and more recently on natural gas from Russia."

However, most just lauded Angela Merkel as Klimakanzlerin  or "climate chancellor". Now that she is out of office, we are starting to see sobering assessments. Here's Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and New Statesman.

The reality is Lufthansa will fly on aviation fuel, the German export engine will rely on tankers which run on bunker fuel, German auto makers will make diesel cars for a long time. Look at this site about carbon intensity (the amount of CO2 produced to generate a unit of electricity - a kilowatt per hour) across Europe. and look how stark Germany looks.

In contrast, for all the negative publicity the US gets, our greenhouse emissions have been steadily dropping. In 2020, they were below 1990 levels for the first time - helped by the pandemic slowdown, for sure, but significantly as many of our utilities have moved from coal to cleaner gas. 

Unfortunately, China, India and others are nullifying all the progress being made in the West. China now emits 2.5 times greenhouse gases as the US does. Russia, Indonesia and Brazil together equal the US.  India emits as much as all of the EU. 

And they are fairly nonchalant about it. Many of my smart Indian friends will say, "but our per capita emissions are not that high". I respond tell a melting iceberg that - total emissions are what matter. Next, they will use the guilt trip. "The West contributed a lot more to global pollution with the Industrial Revolution and other economic progress over the last couple of centuries. It's our turn". My response - you skipped the horse buggy when it came to mobility. You leapfrogged landlines and massively adopted mobile phones. You can similarly leapfrog fossil fuels.

But leapfrog to what?

The answer may come from the carbon intensity chart I pointed to above. Look at how green France, Iceland and Norway look compared to Germany. They have done so with a focus on nuclear, geothermal and hydroelectric power respectively. 

It is a reminder to all of us to not just look at renewables. We should all be looking at a balanced energy strategy.

We also will need to quit demonizing fossils. Life without fossil fuels will not be a piece of cake. As these authors point out "Before fossil fuels, life was hard and dirty with shorter life expectancies. Thousands of products made from petroleum derivatives used for medications, electronics, plastics, and transportation simply did not exist. Many developing countries still don't have easy access to fossil fuels. With limited transportation systems and few petroleum-based products, they do not enjoy the same opportunities as others."

We are starting to see gas prices skyrocket and this winter we will see high heating costs. Get ready for more such spikes for the next few years. The transition away from fossils - remember the dominant 84% above - will be bumpy.

The less idealistic we are about fossils and renewables, and even less we pin hopes on the West as the mythical Atlas which can carry the whole world on its shoulders, and more realistically we plan for transition with a balanced energy strategy the better.

Analyst Cam - Zoho One update, 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 time is Taylor Backman, Senior Evangelist at Zoho. He pre-briefed me on the new Zoho One bundle which was publicly announced today. This new bundle features 5 new apps, 3 new services, and 7 major platform enhancements. I am running his presentation in two parts - an overview for about 15 minutes in Part 1 yesterday, and screenshots and other product description below for about 25 minutes.

I have compared the suite to Amazon Prime "The more I heard of Zoho One and the growing apps coverage for the same price, I thought of how Amazon Prime has grown in coverage. It started off a free 2 day shipping, then added free movies and since then countless new features."

Over 40,000 organizations have chosen Zoho One since it was launched in 2017 and marketed as their "operating system". During the months of global and economic crises, Zoho says the bundle saw a 60% y-y customer growth with average number of apps used by businesses rising to 21.

Burning Platform: Servitization Trends - Part 2

In the 54th and 55th episode of Burning Platform, we host Marne Martin, President of the Service Management GBU and Mark Brewer, Global Industry Director for Service Management at IFS.

We discuss the accelerating trend of servitization which is leading a number of industrial/product companies to emphasize service units and adopt different business models.

In yesterday's episode, the focus was on case studies from various sectors - aerospace, renewable energy and reverse vending among others and the spectrum of business models, especially outcome based that are becoming the highlight of the servitization trend.

In the second episode today, we talk about how companies are dealing with labor shortages, the next-gen service worker, automation and other defining trends as digital and physical world services evolve.

IFS is better known as an ERP vendor, and a European centric one at that. This conversation will open your eyes to their field/customer services savvy and their global reach.   

Analyst Cam - Zoho One update, 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 is Taylor Backman, Senior Evangelist at Zoho. He pre-briefed me on the new Zoho One bundle which was publicly announced today. This new bundle features 5 new apps, 3 new services, and 7 major platform enhancements. I am running his presentation in two parts - an overview for about 15 minutes in Part 1 below, and screenshots and other product description tomorrow for about 25 minutes.

I have compared the suite to Amazon Prime "The more I heard of Zoho One and the growing apps coverage for the same price, I thought of how Amazon Prime has grown in coverage. It started off a free 2 day shipping, then added free movies and since then countless new features."

Over 40,000 organizations have chosen Zoho One since it was launched in 2017 and marketed as their "operating system". During the months of global and economic crises, Zoho says the bundle saw a 60% y-y customer growth with average number of apps used by businesses rising to 21.

 

Analyst Cam: SAP Industries - Direct to Consumer

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

I have invited SAP to present updates on various verticals as I discussed here 

Kicking it off is Paul Smith, Global Industry Principal in their Consumer Products IBU

He presents on the trend of Direct to Consumer, which accelerated significantly during the pandemic. To be able to do so successfully, Consumer Products companies are learning to market directly and differently to a newer, younger consumer and facing up to the challenge of ecommerce and fulfillment of much smaller orders from consumers.

Paul covers a lot of industry trends and SAP's customer DTC journeys.

Burning Platform: Servitization Trends - Part 1

In the 54th and 55th episode of Burning Platform, we have Marne Martin, President of the Service Management GBU and Mark Brewer, Global Industry Director for Service Management at IFS.

We discuss the accelerating trend of servitization which is leading a number of industrial/product companies to emphasize service units and adopt different business models.

In this episode, the focus in on case studies from various sectors - aerospace, renewable energy and reverse vending among others and the spectrum of business models, especially outcome based that are becoming the highlight of the servitization trend.

In the second episode tomorrow, we will talk about how companies are dealing with labor shortages, the next-gen service worker and related automation and other defining trends as digital/physical world services converge.

IFS is better known as an ERP vendor, and a European centric one at that. This conversation will open your eyes to their field/customer services savvy and their global reach.   

Thinking outside the Magic Quadrant

First an apology, I could have it titled this post as well with the Forrester Wave or the IDC MarketScape.

Next a mea culpa, I unleashed a few MQs during my tenure at Gartner in the 90s. However, in the years since I have become much more aware of the disconnect between tech buyers and vendors about the value of such tools.

When I was at Gartner, its revenues came largely from buyers. In the run up to Y2K, my colleagues and I did thousands of calls with buyers actively making ERP decisions. Coming up with the MQs - the leaders, challengers - was pretty easy with that market driven data. We did not have a composite win/loss analysis but we could make some pretty educated guesses about market share and momentum.

In today’s much more fragmented IT marketplace, especially since analyst revenues have become more vendor centric it must be so much more difficult. Analysts have to poll vendors for what we used to gather from market signals. You hear vendors whisper in frustration at how much effort it requires on their part.

The bigger issue is how buyers use MQs or Waves. It is just the tip of a spear. It is used to come up with a short list of vendors to evaluate. Detailed RFPs, demos, site visits, reference calls, lengthy negotiations are far more influential in the final decision. Nearly 15 years ago, I wrote about the ‘1,000 points of influence’. With growth of social media, the influence points have only grown. In composite, they help buyers derive their personalized "Interactive MQ".

Also, once they have decided on a vendor, most buyers don’t pay much attention to that MQ category till their next purchase - that could be a couple of decades. Oh, if a vendor drops precipitously from the Leader to the Niche quadrant, they would be concerned, but such moves tend to be glacial.

Vendors, in contrast, get their microscopes out to measure how much they moved from one MQ to the next. It’s fodder for press releases. I especially enjoy the Triple Crown announcements. “We are a leader in Analyst A, B and C’s tools.” I want to ask them - and how many buyer steps above did that eliminate?

MQs and similar tools also tend to reinforce silos in analyst firms. That can drive what I have described as Addressable Market Myopia 

There is a whole community of very committed Analyst Relations folks at vendors. Ignoring MQs would be suicidal, but does so much talent need to be invested every year on the MQ/MarketScape process?

Some of them will ask me what would you do differently. I am happy to help them think outside the box - ok, the square - in how to directly help their sales colleagues in their pursuits. How to help their companies think about and present their products differently and much more creatively. How to look around the corner - the analyst intermediary.  

No press release needed.

Analyst Cam: Alpine Supply Chain Solutions and Warehouse automation

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 Tom Ryan, my former Gartner colleague. Along with Michael Wohlwend, Managing Principal at Alpine Supply Chain Solutions, they recently presented an hour-long webinar "Battle of the Bots" focused on warehouse automation. They kindly allowed me to excerpt about 18 minutes below.

One of the most sophisticated examples of warehouse automation has shown up in Amazon's massive fulfillment centers. I wrote about my tour to one here. I also excerpted from their virtual tour of 5 of their centers in the Analyst Cam episode here. I also interviewed the co-CEOs of 6 River Systems (now part of Spotify, both Amazon alums) last year, and also had an Analyst Cam episode on their bots here.

Tom discussed 6 fulfillment methods/use cases where robots increasingly participate. I have excerpted 3 below - Goods to Person, Order to Person and Long Distance Product Moves. He also discusses some of the vendors and models for each.  I have also included his commentary on economics of such automation.

Very nicely done in plain English and with crisp graphics.

The full webinar which contains more commentary on the evolution of warehouse automation, some polling and q&a during the webinar and 3 other fulfillment scenarios is available here. 

Analyst Cam: Aisera

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 Muddu Sudhakar, CEO of Aisera.

He presents on their Conversational AI driven workflow automation. How it helps takes conversational service requests from what he calls today's "happy hour platforms" where users are spending several hours every day like MS Teams, Slack, Zoom and from traditional IVRs, bypass human intervention and route them appropriately to facilitate as much self-service as possible.

The investment he says is easy to justify - savings in service agent (especially in large, multi-lingual settings), IT and HR time and service licenses can be significant.

He uses the term "hyperautomation" - I asked him to clarify and they support automation in the white collar world (both with on prem and SaaS applications) , not around physical world automation with warehouse bots, drones or industrial robots. 

ERP - Generation Next

I read Jon Reed's  Diginomica interview with Rondy Ng, Senior Vice President, Applications Development at Oracle. He cites some very large cloud ERP customers - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, FedEx, Kroger and Albertsons. Encouragingly, he also cites plenty of global coverage. Good to see that traction.

But what functionality have they deployed? I saw General Ledger mentioned a couple of times along with procurement and analytics. But no mention of manufacturing, logistics, banking/brokerage functionality, micro-fulfillment, or reverse logistics. I have heard Larry Ellison similarly use the ERP moniker in earnings calls and event keynotes, but never really discuss any operational functionality. Leads me to ask: Is that the new, shrunk definition of ERP - core financials and possibly human resources?

While I was pondering that, I found myself going down memory lane to 1995 when I joined Gartner. Gartner had coined the ERP term and they had made a conscious effort to bring in several new recruits with business process expertise. Tom Ryan, as part of the ILS service, brought warehouse management and broader logistics experience. Chris Jones, part of CIM, brought process manufacturing. As part of AAS, I brought financial and hr expertise from years at Price Waterhouse. There were several others who focused on PDM, MKT and other functional areas. We definitely contributed to a proliferation in TLAs but I know for a fact we drove vendors to sharpen their process breadth and depth.  Talking of TLAs, I had coined one - AMM - Addressable Market Myopia for vendors who were narrow in their functional reach, but did not dare propose it to Gartner censors :) 

When I left in 2000, I was confident Gartner would expand its ERP focus beyond manufacturing sectors. After all, in most western economies, nearly 3/4 of jobs were in the service sector. And each has unique books of record - insurance needs those around policies and claims, health care had unique clinical and compliance requirements and so on. The manufacturing sector itself was morphing significantly. The products are smarter with embedded software and sensors. The plant was becoming more autonomous. Asset management was no longer just about calculating depreciation for the CFO. It is about predictive maintenance, more sophisticated servicing via digital twins and augmented reality.

But Gartner has only inconsistently focused on this functional evolution. Many of the process experts they had hired in the 90s were gone by the end of the decade.  If anything, it swung back to its IT comfort zone and has emphasized the architectural aspects of cloud computing. And, almost on cue, many ERP vendors made transitioning to the cloud their major focus of the last couple of decades. Functionality and process expertise took a back seat. No wonder, some vendors are shrinking their definitions of ERP to suit their limited functionality. And CRM, EAM and other categories have encroached on spaces ERP vendors have neglected.

I sense a new generation of ERP coming. The pendulum is swinging from a technology focus to a functional focus. The pandemic has sharpened industry specific needs. Telemedicine in healthcare, distance learning in higher education, virtual open houses and digital mortgages in real estate are just some of the examples.

Just last week, I had several reminders of the functional evolution. Zoho gave me a pre-briefing on its updated Zoho One suite. It will officially be announced in a couple of weeks, but the suite has now grown to 45 applications. SAP has lined up 9 briefings for me across its verticals. I met with Mike Ettling, CEO of Unit4 and we discussed how his verticals are evolving. I was part of a virtual event on Servitization and heard how automotive, construction and many other sectors are increasingly moving to "everything as a service".     

Gartner coined the term ERP just prior to when I got there. But for a couple of decades companies had already been deploying MRP and MRP II functionality. We will similarly see a next generation. It may not even be called ERP - to shed the baggage the moniker has acquired with too many delayed and bloated projects.

But the market is definitely marching forward. One thing I am fairly certain of - the next gen of ERP will not suffer from AMM - Addressable Market Myopia.

Adding from a twitter thread with Jon

In fairness many other vendors have not evolved their functionality especially during the pandemic and with recent supply chain issues. Lots of brilliant architects but few process visionaries. Need both.

With brilliant architects but no process visionaries you would never get Amazon’s fulfillment center with chaos theory models, miles of conveyors and hundreds of robots. You would deliver the old process model.

Burning Platform: AI in the Enterprise

In this 53rd episode of Burning Platform, we have Roy Altman, CEO of Peopleserv.

We draw on his recent experience editing of an issue of Workforce Solutions Review focused on AI (available here)

We cover a wide range of angles - the long history of AI , how it has under-delivered in the past and why the current iteration is more promising. We talk about abundance of data in consumer world to train machines, compared to that in enterprise settings where most data is locked up in proprietary data centers. We cover ethical issues around smart machines and whether AI will lead humanity to utopia or dystopia. 

Marc Benioff's bet on 'Trusted Enterprises"

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, used his keynote at Dreamforce to point out that we are "in a trust crisis". He coined a new term, Trustblazers, building on the successful Trailblazer community around the company. He showcased several of his customers as examples of "trusted enterprises" and promised “We want to have a playbook for this new trusted enterprise. It‘s got to start with trust. It has to.”

Watch the rerun here

To me, Marc and his team definitely have the credibility to talk about "trusted enterprises".  As far back as 2010, I wrote "I saw several signs of openness  - like its trust site which showcases performance metrics for all, including competitors, to see. How many vendors, even years after salesforce started that site, openly showcase their operational metrics?"

When Marc talks diversity and inclusion, I see it in his executives like Tony Prophet, Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh and Jujhar Singh. Not only are they competent, they are modest enough like Tony is in the interview linked to say, they themselves have a long way to go.  I hear it in the words of Tyler Prince when he describes how he has also pushed a focus on diversity in the ecosystem around Salesforce.

He has credibility as customers plan for COVID recovery with the push around his recent acquisition, Slack as a collaboration, work from anywhere, platform and as he calls it his "Digital HQ"

What I would caution Marc (and other influential executives) about is the zealots who jump on the bandwagon of "causes". I recently commented on Dennis Howlett's post on "Wokeistan" "These are do gooders who guilt us all about gender, race, sexual orientation, inequality, sustainability, vaccines and so much else. You must agree with our position - don’t dare present contrary data or else you are racist, sexist, MAGA, deserve canceling, and worse."

Let's look at sustainability, as an example. We should have been focusing on the "circular economy" which the WEF defines as “an industrial system that is restorative or regenerative by intention and design." Instead, a lot of attention has gone toward demonizing fossil fuels and building up renewables, particularly wind and solar fuel.

As Europe stares at a winter with major fuel shortages, it is useful to learn from the German experience over the last decade 

I started pointing out a few years ago that "in spite of spending hundreds of billions of euros on subsidizing renewables, Germany will struggle to meet its 18% renewables target for 2020. The country continues to rely heavily on its coal and lignite, and more recently on natural gas from Russia."

However, most just lauded Angela Merkel as Klimakanzlerin  or "climate chancellor". Now that she is out of office, we are starting to see sobering assessments. Here's Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and New Statesman.

The reality is Lufthansa will fly on aviation fuel, the German export engine will rely on tankers which run on bunker fuel, German auto makers will make diesel cars for a long time. Look at this site about carbon intensity (the amount of CO2 produced to generate a unit of electricity - a kilowatt per hour) across Europe. 

The important thing is not to just focus on Germany which looks a bit stark. Look instead at how green France, Iceland and Norway look. They have done so with a focus on nuclear, geothermal and hydroelectric power  It is a reminder to other economies to not just look at renewables. We should all be looking at a balanced energy strategy. And expand the definition of sustainability.

In their fervor, fanboys actually hurt the credibility of so many other worthy causes. I can provide several more examples around many causes where they have narrowed the focus. Hope Marc emphasizes a 360 degree view as he builds the playbook. 

In the meantime, watch the keynote and Marc's passion about building trust.

A SAP vertical "Dream Team"

I have long believed navigating SAP is like going on an Easter egg hunt. You know there are lots and lots of goodies, but it takes effort to find them. That was reinforced when I wrote SAP Nation 3.0. I kept asking about CX, AIN, IBP and vertical products. Thanks to Stacey Fish, I was able to delay the book a few times and get those perspectives in the book.

I have been pushing SAP to hear more about verticals especially after seismic changes in so many industries with the pandemic last year. It took a while but Stacy Comes managed to put together a briefing for me with the following executives

• Torsten Welte - Aerospace & Defense
• Matt Laukaitis – Consumer Industries
• Hagen Heubach – Automotive
• Achim Schneider - Retail
• EJ Kenney – Consumer Products
• Markus Bechmann– Utilities 

It was exhilarating and there was very little mention of S/4HANA and cross-industry business networks, which usually get plenty of SAP coverage. 

We identified several topics where one of them will present as part of my Analyst Cam series over the next few weeks. Here are a few:

• Direct to Consumer trends
• The shifting transportation/mobility market and related networks
• Outcome based business models
• Circular economy trends
• Fragmentation in the utility sector
• Energy transition in utilities
• Personalized Medicine

SAP, of course, plays in many more sectors and it will be good to also explore those in future. SAP's backyard is full of impressive customer brands across industries and countries. Makes for a nice egg hunt. 

Burning Platform: Customer Service as Competitive Advantage

Last year, I launched a video series titled Acrobatics during the Crisis. I saw all kinds of heroics scaling up healthcare, ecommerce, last-mile delivery, millions of emergency PPP loans and many other services. This year, while the pandemic continues, I have seen a noticeable decline in service quality - supply chain disruptions and labor shortages explain much of that but I also see quite of bit of that is what I call COVID and BREXIT "copouts."

The stage is set for companies to step up with service heroics and gain sustainable advantage over their competitors. In the enterprise, industrial world, there is a clear acceleration in the trend of servitization - where product companies are selling them on "as a service" and outcome based models and service companies are moving from transactional, break-fix type services to more strategic relationships. Again, a huge opportunity to differentiate.

With this background, I invited Sarah Nicastro, Vice President of Customer Advocacy at IFS and creator of industry resource Future of Field Service to this 52nd episode of Burning Platform.  

Sarah is a keen observer of trends in customer service with her regular podcasts on the Future of Field Service which features leaders from global brands across industries such as AT&T, Peloton, Southwest Airlines, Tetra Pak and Unilever.

We cover wide ground especially around the people/work aspects of the service economy. We also discuss that IFS has become very service savvy. People still view it as an ERP player but as Sarah points out it is also a 6 time leader in the Gartner Field Service Management MQ. IFS has also gone through a major rebranding exercise with a focus on what it calls "Moments of Service" and we will be hearing a lot more about their service capabilities.

Analyst Cam: Workday Ventures Portfolio Update

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 Barbry McGann, SVP and Managing Director of Workday Ventures. She is a repeat presenter in this series, though this is the first time she is presenting on the Ventures portfolio. She took over from Leighanne Levensaler who had presented on the fund here 

As usual, Barbry is extremely crisp and covers a lot of ground in 20 minutes. She discusses 9 new investments in the first 6 months of the year and some exits (including 2 profiled in this series - Suplari acquired by Microsoft and Zimit acquired by Workday). She discusses a very vibrant market for startups, Workday's growing focus  (both functionally and around its Prism, Adaptive, Extend tools) and areas which are being prioritized by investors like digital health and fintech.

Earlier this week, I wrote a post titled Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying.  I pointed out vendors which look like the "living dead" with very little innovation. Listening to Barbry excitedly talk about the portfolio and even more about new opportunities, I am more convinced Workday has been very busy living.

Enterprise Applications: Get busy living or get busy dying

I have been telling some of my friends "I started my career when the pendulum said "Build systems, don't buy them". Since my first implementation (a mainframe application in 1983) I have enjoyed a glory time for packaged applications and related services. However, I am afraid I will end my career with the pendulum swinging back to "Build, don't Buy"

Ok, for starters, I am not retiring anytime soon, so this is not likely to happen for a few years. But then, I have been saying it for a while. In SAP Nation 3.0, which came out two and half years ago, I wrote

"Enterprise vendors, who were sitting so pretty at the turn of the century, have lagged in many new markets, as profiled in the last bunch of subsections (I had identified markets like smart products, digital marketing and the Industrial Internet they missed)."

and

"More alarmingly, we are starting to see customers get tired of waiting for vendors and go back to building their own replacement systems. With microservices, open source and other options, we are seeing the pendulum swing away from buy back to build. That’s a stunning reversal from the 1990s."

What happened last year has only accelerated the pace. We saw new ways of doing business (micro-fulfillment, telemedicine, virtual open houses in real estate etc etc) in most industries and geographies, but many vendors continue to sell what they had in the bag in January 2020.

I saw The Shawshank Redemption recently (for the nth time) where the Andy Dufresne character says at a pivotal point "Get busy living or get busy dying". And I asked myself why are we wasting time with vendors which 2020 confirmed are the 'living dead",  when there are so many others are vibrant?

Let's talk about the vibrant ones first. Whether you think they can get there or not, I love Salseforce's ambition to get to $50 billion in 5 years - 2.5 today's revenues or Workday with its goal of $10 billion by 2025.  My recent conversation with Tyler Prince, who runs Global Alliances at Salesforce only confirmed it.  

You can see the whole interview with Tyler here and he talks about how Salesforce ISV partners like nCino helped banks through the pandemic. He talks about how SI partners pivoted to a world of virtual deliveries. How with the Slack acquisition Salesforce is helping customers deliver Success from Anywhere with the continued chaos of COVID workplaces. How the TrailBlazer community continues to blossom.

In background, we had a chance to reminisce a bit. Tyler and I helped Price Waterhouse set up a software intelligence group - an internal, mini Gartner - in the early 90s. Tyler reminded me we "found" i2, Commerce One, Platinum Software and many other vendors and introduced them to the PW field. Most of those vendors are a distant memory - as they have changed names or are part of other entities. But it reinforced to me, Salesforce has been busy living.

There are many others who are keeping up with rapid changes. In a book, I recently helped narrate for a CEO I talked to a number of companies which are dramatically reshaping their business models to outcome based contracts and developing platforms like those of Apple and Google. I have talked to strategy consultants and investors who are putting together application portfolios for micro-verticals most vendors know very little about. More proof of busy living.

Now for the living dead. While they continue to invest in areas like quantum computing, they have done little to help move along the enterprise application game. If anything, their products and services burden applications with a significant layer of overhead.

Take Arvind Krishna, the new CEO at IBM. He inherited from the previous CEO, Ginni Rometty a labor-intensive outsourcing business and an aging systems software portfolio where application assets like Maximo struggle to be recognized (Tivoli, Domino - want me to go on?).  Ginni herself was dealt those cards by Sam Palmisano a decade prior. IBM now has a cash dividend yield which makes some public utilities look stingy. Not my idea of "get busy living" in this vibrant digital market.

Or Oracle. It continues to spend billions of dollars in legal fees trying to protect a business model of maintenance revenue which is decades old. Think how long it would take them to move to outcome based models. They call themselves an ERP vendor, but hardly ever talk about operational areas. They spent billions acquiring retail, utility, telco and other vertical industry assets but largely talk about their cross-industry accounting and HCM products. The cross-industry space is one of the most crowded with competitors. Their prerogative - but not my idea of "get busy living"

In contrast, there are companies like Amazon and Spotify delivering ecommerce and fulfillment capabilities to thousands of small merchants. On a pay-as-you-go basis. There is Zoho which has taken a page out of Amazon Prime and keeps delivering to thousands of SMEs  more apps each year for the same price as part of its Zoho One suite. Think these customers are going to sign up for Oracle or NetSuite licensing and IBM's hybrid clouds and services given the price points and convenience they have become used to? Or even large companies - I know several executives who have unwritten "no new purchase" policies around vendors who have treated them like cash cows over the last decade.

Don't mean to pick on just those two vendors. There are many other vendors who have wasted much of the last decade.

They have been busy:

- renaming products (over and over) instead of building new functionality

- pretending to be focused on UX and "experience" when much of the innovation there has come from consumer tech.

- investing heavily in analytics and cloud architecture but not growing their geographic or vertical functionality

- continuing to rely on armies of people when they should be automating and moving to digital services like their customers

- screaming about machine learning when very little customer data is available in their clouds or worse, is locked up in customer data centers their machines cannot learn from

- scheming to charge more for the same while claiming to be proud about Moore's Law

- bragging about their diversity, their "ethics", their green policies. Nice, but how about also some new features and functions?

I do hope they turn around. I am reminded of this quote from Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.”

I plan to spend much more time with those busy living. And especially with those that recognize they are at a critical juncture and like Andy decide they need to do something radical.

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, has long preached the Zen Buddhist concept of Shoshin = Beginner's Mind. Look at everything afresh, even if you are an expert in the field. He said again recently "In this new world, if you're not cultivating a beginner's mind as a CEO, you're making a mistake."

I could not agree more. Pivots, rebrands and turnarounds are always more fun to work with. Let's get busy living. So many new applications to create and deliver.

Burning Platform: Labor shortages, mindsets and other talent trends

In this 51st episode of Burning Platform, we have Fred Goff, CEO of Jobcase.

More than just a hiring site, Jobcase calls itself "a “people-first” social platform – "built to help you improve and manage your work-life."

As he says, Jobcase is focused on 80% of the employment market which may not have college degrees - baristas, trade jobs etc. Also it is pragmatic as community members provide practical, real-world advice to peers about opportunities, risks etc.

We had already started the discussion of the changing labor market when he presented about his company in the Analyst Cam episode here. 

We converse a lot more about the changing labor market - the effect of the pandemic, the talent shortages, automation, anxiety in the work force and middle class trends.

One interesting, perhaps counter-intuitive point he makes is the stimulus checks have not made much of an impact on people's desire to work. He has data to back his viewpoint. 

We cover a lot of ground - you may not agree with everything he or I say but it will make you think more about the crazy talent market we are in the middle of - lots of early retirements, rising wages and likely impact on inflation. 

 

Burning Platform: Ecosystems Galore!

In the 50th episode of the series we have Tyler Prince, EVP Worldwide Alliances and Channels at Salesforce.

While most vendors have siloed groups to manage their SI partners, their platform ISVs and their developer communities, Tyler plays a role in all 3 in Salesforce world. That includes their SI ecosystem with a wide range of global, regional, and vertical specialists, that on their AppExchange platform and in the Trailblazer community.

That gives him a unique perspective on the cross-currents across these very different ecosystems and the vital role they will play to deliver to CEO Marc Benioff's ambition to get to revenues of $50 billion by fiscal 2026 (in FY 2021 they delivered $21 billion)

We also discuss the impact the pandemic had on the SI community and the move to virtual project delivery, how Salesforce has woven diversity and inclusion in its ecosystems and the growing role of Slack acquisition and the Success from Anywhere initiative as lockdowns continue around the world.

Refreshingly different perspective on ecosystems!

Analyst Cam: Jobcase

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 Fred Goff, CEO of Jobcase.  More than just a hiring site, Jobcase calls itself "a “people-first” social platform – "built to help you improve and manage your work-life." I was introduced to them by Workday Ventures - it is a portfolio company and Jobcase and Workday have 200+ joint customers.

As he says, Jobcase is focused on 80% of the employment market which may not have college degrees - baristas, trade, blue collar jobs etc. Also it is pragmatic as its over 100 million community members provide real-world advice to peers about opportunities, risks etc.

We cover wide ground about the changing labor market - shortages, automation, anxiety in the work force, college degrees and student debt, middle class trends and how his company is working with various state labor/reemployment agencies - W. Virginia and Rhode Island among others which are committed to helping people find opportunities and stay positive about the future of work.  

 

My Happy Place: New Florence

The New Florence. New Renaissance innovation blog was born in March 2005. Facebook had a different name then. No one had heard of the iPhone. Or SpaceX.  Or AWS. Honestly, I thought I would run out of material in a couple of years. After 6,500 posts, I can safely say I grossly miscalculated. If anything, innovation keeps accelerating.

Someone asked me if it took 15-20 minutes to write a post. He was off by a 10X factor. Much of the effort is in deciding what to profile. I note down everything interesting I read, I see on TV, I experience in my travels, I see in my advisory work. One in 5 finally makes it to a post. Then I find a couple of articles and videos to embed which provide different perspectives on the topic. Digitizing much of the content takes surprising amount of time. I used to go to Barnes and Noble once a month and run through a bunch of magazines and get ideas from them. Now I get them from over 50 magazines on Apple News, similar number of channels on YouTube TV and some direct subscriptions. The next challenge is to find as many non-paywall versions of the content to embed. Some of them annoyingly will not even let me access the full content even though I have paid for them via Apple or Google. Why would I burden my readers with those pubs?

In the last year, I have launched a whole bunch of video series (on the Deal Architect YouTube channel) and several travel posts on Instagram. I have been busy helping a CEO narrate a book, and work on several advisory projects. All that has reduced time for New Florence. But I carved out time for it in the last few weeks. 

And it has been a joyous time. I got to research the drones, the autonomous shuttles and other technology at the Tokyo Olympics. I have explored what Paris will offer at the 2024 games. I have seen Jeff Bezos pivot to space, Mark Zuckerberg to his vision of metaverse, and Elon Musk to domestic robots. I got to profile our trip to the sites and history of Wyoming and South Dakota. Much more coming.

In contrast, I see so many people continue to scare others about COVID or harp on woke stuff. Whatever. To me, the world moves forward when people deliver innovative products, amazing customer service and creative solutions to problems. They deserve to be profiled.

I chose the title of the blog 16 years ago because I thought Florence must have felt as vibrant and creative during the European Renaissance. I am even more convinced of that.

It is a great time to be alive!

Projecting technology leaders for this decade

Over my career I have seen tech industry leadership change every decade or so. Analysts like to come up with acronyms for the leaders and I have seen them evolve from BUNCH to JBOPS to FAANG. I myself coined the acronym SWITCH when the Indian outsourcers were in ascendancy in the early 2000s.

In the past, we have seen technology architecture changes deliver windows for major disruptions - the move from mainframe to client/server, then to the cloud. You could argue we are now seeing an acceleration to the cloud. Hyperscalers - Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Alibaba and dominant SaaS category vendors like Salesforce and Workday are taking over.

But I want to be careful and not fall into the trap of linear thinking and just extrapolate from the past  I think there are at least two other new trends at play this time around - growing interest in new business models and big changes in how we live, work, play and the impact that is having on various industries and their technology needs. And that is opening the door for many new players to have a shot at joining the leadership suite.

Let me give you some examples

a) Every major vendor talks about how ecommerce took off last year - thanks to the pandemic. Very few of them talk about the need to fulfill that massive incremental demand. I was reminded of that when I attended a virtual tour of Amazon Fulfillment Centers last week. It had been 2 years since I had gone to an in-person tour of their JAX2 center, and they keep scaling and navigating around the pandemic.  What's impressive is the integration of Kiva and other robots, miles of conveyor belts, "chaotic storage" with locations all stored in AWS memory, thousands of scanners, cameras and printers at each of the centers and the growing transport fleets of electric vehicles and Boeing 767s and coordination with countless 3PLs. The efficiency is mind boggling - 2,000 or so humans process a million packages a day and most are delivered within 2 days of when the order is placed. You think Amazon will stay content as a AWS infrastructure provider? The level of technology capability and integration in their fulfillment positions them to be a dominant technology integrator in many other industries. Just as impressive is the "scaling down" the co-CEOs of 6 River Systems described here and have been delivering for Spotify. The move to "micro-fulfillment" allows them to accommodate new models like flash sales, order on-line, pick-up in stores, regionalized inventories, last-mile delivery expectations and constraints while keeping warehouse workers safely distanced, quickly trained and incredibly productive. 

These new fulfillment models have called for bunch of new functionality (I didn't even touch on the hairy reverse logistics) and importantly a very different business model. They don't sell licenses or subscriptions to the merchants who use their platform - it is an outcome based model. They get paid as the merchants get paid.

b) Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase wrote in his annual shareholder letter earlier this year.

“Banks already compete against a large and powerful shadow banking system. And they are facing extensive competition from Silicon Valley, both in the form of fintechs and big tech companies (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and now Walmart), that is here to stay. As the importance of cloud, AI and digital platforms grows, this competition will become even more formidable. As a result, banks are playing an increasingly smaller role in the financial system.”

Notice that he did not mention any of software vendors and outsourcers we have long known.

Walmart? Yes look at all the financial services they are into. Even more impressive is Apple. While everyone talks about the success of their devices, the biggest achievement Tim Cook has delivered is the move into services - App Store fees, Apple Music, AppleCare, and revenue from Apple Pay. And much of these are digital services not the labor intensive models outsourcing firms continue with.

BTW, JPM and other big financial institutions themselves are no slouches. They spend as much on technology annually as the R&D budgets of IBM and Oracle combined. JPM's technology group has an annual $11 billion technology spend. Who's to say they cannot become tech vendors in their own right?

c) In the last year, I have had a chance to speak to execs in several asset intensive industries - aviation, railroads, energy etc. It is impressive how tech savvy many have become. They are setting up digital twins of their equipment, making their assets autonomous, using AR in field service, sensors for predictive maintenance, investing heavily in OT (as different from IT) security. Some are eyeing plans to support other's equipment, even in unrelated industries. They are moving to servitization business models at stringent SLAs that are far more demanding that what tech vendors are used to. The asset management software of many tech vendors are glorified depreciation calculators. They have not evolved their functionality, and certainly not their business models. Don't count out the GE's, the Siemens and other industrial companies as potential leaders of tech world.

d) The pandemic exposed us to a world of new digital "channel masters". What's to stop an Instacart from pivoting from delivering groceries and setting up their own supply chain of farmers and consumer goods? Or a Doordash from establishing a chain of ethnic ghost kitchens? Or a Teladoc setting up their own network of telemedicine health care professionals?

I think this decade is going to be a wild one with a blurring of traditional tech buyer/vendor lines. I advise my buy side clients - don't just look at Magic Quadrants. They reflect yesterday's tech categories and yesterday's leaders. I advise vendor clients - don't define your addressable market too narrowly. If the competitors who show up in your win/loss analysis next year are the same as those that appeared last year, maybe, just maybe you are not evolving quick enough.

Analyst Cam: Cognizant "Timeline of Next"

A few months ago, Cognizant asked a few market watchers to look at how we would live, work and learn differently as a result of the 2020 pandemic. Our forecasts were published in 16 themes in their Timeline of Next report - download a copy here. 

A week ago, Cognizant invited three of us: Beth Porter, CEO of Riff Analytics and Managing Partner of Esme Learning, Clay Griffith, Director of Product Marketing, Cognizant Softvision and me to a hour-long webinar on the themes from the report. Manish Bahl, AVP of the Cognizant Center for the Future of Work moderated the discussion.

I have excerpted below 2 segments from each of the living, working and learning sections of the webinar. We covered a lot more ground in the webinar. I would encourage you to watch the whole session by registering here and to read the report.

We got a lot of questions during the webinar - we answered some live, and responded to many others in writing after the session. If you have any questions, send me an email and I will similarly get one of us to respond.

BTW, I mention a business travel survey I recently conducted - you can read details in this post . 

On the road again - Part 2 - the Wild West of business travel

In part 1 last week, I described our family's experiences on a trip to Mountain States - 3 airports, 5 flights, 9 hotels, 2 rental cars, plenty of restaurants. While I was balanced and  reported what worked well, we saw a bunch of what I call "COVID copout" excuses for poor, even scary, service and often predatory pricing. And they are doing so while expecting sympathy for a poor 2020, neglecting that many of them qualified for bailouts and PPP loans. 

To check if our experiences were outliers, I polled a few executives I know who have taken several (at least 3) business trips in the last few months and a few analysts who have ventured to vendor events. Here are some of their comments. Interestingly, many have adjusted their travel patterns to compensate for the poor service. We are also starting to see them evaluate new competitors emerging in different travel categories.

Many executives I talk to complain of the fatigue from all-day Teams and Zoom calls. They cannot wait to get on the road again. Hopefully the experiences in these two notes will help you prepare for your own trips after 18 months of "lack of practice"

Airports

• If you don’t have it already, get Global Entry, TSA Precheck or Clear. Much of airport traffic for now is tourists without any of those pre clearances and regular TSA lines are long and chaotic.
• Have your coffee and snack before you get to airport. Airport facilities are understaffed and have long lines.
• If you are checking bags, not every airport has reopened curb side check in.
• If you use an airport and airline regularly, pay for a one time visit to their lounge. If they are less crowded and less noisy, if they offer WiFi and food and drink that would definitely justify an annual membership. But many still are not at full service, so check before you sign up.
• With most traffic for now being tourists and families, at some airports, long term parking may be in short supply.
• Allow 30-60 minutes more than that you did before the pandemic.

Airlines

• Expect significantly shrunk choice in flights. Read those airline emails and text messages more carefully - schedule and gate changes are way more common these days. Don’t be surprised with nonstops revised to those that require plane changes, frequent delays and cancellations .
• My one stop, no plane change was changed to a 2 stop, 2 plane itinerary. One layover was 4 hours, the other so tight I may not have made it
• International flying is chaotic as hell. You get contrary advice on quarantine requirements, COVID tests and vaccine requirements. Flight cancellations are very common. Major hubs like London Heathrow have become especially unpredictable
• On the positive side, international business class fares are much more competitive but be prepared to wear a mask for that long flight.
• I used to see a lot more consultants on flights on Monday mornings and returning Thursday nights. I think clients are telling them it is fine to work virtually.
• There are many changes in the airline landscape.  The ex founder of JetBlue has started a new airline, Breeze servicing secondary cities. Southwest has opened service to several new secondary cities including Sarasota, FL and Bozeman, MT and to even major airports like Miami and Chicago O’Hare.
• Delta, United, American are flying their larger planes meant for international routes on US trunk routes.
• Ask for a full can of a beverage to last the flight - the choices in flavors are likely much smaller. Many airlines are not serving alcohol. Or serving food, even for sale.
• I brought a sandwich to eat on the plane but felt awkward eating it 6 inches from my neighbor so waited till we landed
• I ate a sandwich I had brought on the plane and got many looks - some jealous, some hostile because I had my mask off
• The airline hygiene has improved somewhat during the pandemic - most are deep cleaning planes overnight, have newer air filters. But still take your own wipes, sanitizer as back up.
• They have social distancing and mask warnings everywhere in the airports, then they pack the planes so full, you are just inches away from strangers?
• Honestly, I am not ready for business travel, or any air travel for that matter, at this point.

Hotels

• Hotels miss their business travelers. They are more polite, less crazy and more savvy than tourists, especially families
• Many have moved to no cleaning of rooms or clean towels or sheets between stays. I guess if you yelled enough they would comply.
• They used to offer you reward points or discounts if you did not ask for clean towels each day. Or position it as "green" - less wasteful for the environment. Now the standard excuse is "labor shortages"
• Most of the large hotel chains used to tier their brands into logical price groupings based on breadth of services. Now even their low-end brands are shockingly priced. They are just being opportunistic
• I think I am going to ask my travel group to renegotiate our hotel contracts. I will make sure rates guarantee hot breakfast and daily cleanings. I will also ask them to negotiate a boutique or independent hotel in the cities we frequent, so our employees have options beyond the big chains.
• They brag about improved COVID hygiene then don’t clean rooms for days? I shudder to think how unhygienic the exercise room and pool have become.
• Hot breakfast has taken a huge hit. You may get a brown bag with a muffin and a bottle of water.
• There appear to be very few staff - tough if you need help with luggage, arrive late, need cleaning etc.
• I tried to get room service. Called several times. Went into an IVR - never spoke to a human. Gave up and raided the minibar. Fortunately my room had one.
• Hotels are struggling to reopen their dining. Hot food of any kind is a luxury.
• I was in a suite hotel, and the kitchen cabinets were completely bare. No plates, cutlery or towels. Defeats the value proposition of a suite hotel if you cannot make your own meals.
• I avoid the giant hotel complexes these days. They don’t have decent amenities  and you add a dependency on Uber since nothing is within walking distance. I try to find a boutique or smaller chain hotel with restaurants within walking distance
• Use electronic checkin and checkout. Most lobbies are understaffed
• The hotel check in kiosks were shut down and it took me 30 minutes to check in with a human. Not a great experience at 1 am.

Rental Cars

• They significantly reduced their fleets in the last year and it is showing at most airports. If you don’t have negotiated corporate rates the cost can be crazy.
• If you don’t have status with a car company, they may take your reservation but you may still not get a car. You should consider pre paying.
• The car hygiene is often unacceptable. You may have to stop at a store and buy some wipes and air freshener
• I know people who take Uber to a neighborhood Enterprise Car location. Or try lesser known car companies like SIXT.  They may have newer cars and more reasonable rates
• We ended up having to rent a U Haul truck. Reminded me of rental car chaos after 9/11.
• Airport shuttle buses for rental cars are unhealthy, how crowded they are

Uber/Lyft

• My Uber driver stayed off the freeway and didn't talk to me, so I would rate him an A+
• Long waits are common, surge pricing is increasingly common.
• Lots of Uber drivers appear to have switched to food or grocery delivery
• Seems like more ex-taxi drivers have moved over and brought their bad habits - loud music, complaining how lousy things are
• In my town, I have noticed they congregate at a certain mall near the airport, and you can see on your app, they don't move for 10 minutes. I think they have learned to game the system - they are waiting for a better fare.

Taxis

• In Paris, a taxi service took advantage of the pandemic to launch a mobile app, cleaned up their cars, and their driver attitudes. They regained market share from Uber.
• In most other cities, taxis have become even less reliable.
• I think airport authorities and mayors of cities should start monitoring taxis and Uber/Lyft more closely. I am afraid we have many gypsy/unprofessional drivers and crime will start to increase.

Dining

• Book ahead. Many places have much fewer spaces due to distancing. Many also close couple of days a week due to staffing shortages
• You are competing for reservations against locals and those who are driving, not flying, in to town. We tried to book at a restaurant a month out and all they could offer was 10 pm slots for several days. They open their schedule 3 months out and local patrons tend to grab the best slots.
• It’s annoying how Starbucks happily takes your money but have not opened up their restrooms or sitting space with WiFi.
• Even takeout places expect tips these days .What’s that about?

Events

• We went to an event which need a positive COVID test even if you were vaccinated. They had so many show up without test results they had to get a clinic to set up a test facility at the hotel
• We went to an event in Vegas with NO vaccine or test requirements. Only about 15% of attendees were wearing masks.
• I see that a lot of conferences are starting to push in-person options ("don't you miss getting together?") but hopefully don't drop the online/hybrid things that they learned during the past year and a half.

Bottom Line

The travel and hospitality sector is seeing an uptick but a large portion of that is leisure travel especially summer family trips. For business travel to return, service will have to dramatically improve and pricing become far more predictable and reasonable. If not, most travelers will after a couple of trips come to the conclusion "this is not really a better alternative to the digital fatigue of the last 18 months".

On the road again: Pandemic travel experiences - Part 1

Many executives I talk to complain of the fatigue from all-day Teams and Zoom calls. They cannot wait to get on the road again. So, I thought I would share our family's recent experience - 3 airports, 5 flights, 9 hotels, 2 rental cars, plenty of restaurants. I had described our journey across the US states of Colorado, South Dakota and Wyoming in this note here. 

Accenture's design agency Fjord, coined a term "liquid expectations" — "when you experience a service in one industry, it raises the bar for what you expect from other industries." I like the term and additionally like to benchmark against my experiences from competitors within an industry. I also benchmark against past experiences with a company.

Marriott tells me I have slept over 4 years in their hotels. Avis told me a couple of years ago some similarly crazy number of times we have rented from them. I have qualified for Southwest's highest level - Companion Pass - for nearly a decade. I am a Delta 3 million miler. Been to 75 countries. I have plenty to benchmark against.

This time I broadened the benchmark even further. I ran a survey of fellow analysts and business execs who have done multiple trips in the last few months. I will share that in Part 2.

Long and short - there is a noticeable decline in service across all travel categories I list below. While some of that is explained by labor shortages/supply chain issues plaguing the economy, there is also what I call "COVID copouts" - using the pandemic as an excuse for lowered service

Airports

All 3 of us (my wife, Margaret daughter, Rita and I) flew on different Southwest flights from Tampa (TPA) to Denver (DEN) and back. In addition I had a weather diversion on the way back and we had to land in Orlando (MCO) for a couple of hours.

With TSA Precheck, both Margaret and I found TPA and DEN security lines actually friendlier and quicker than before the pandemic. My daughter does not have it, and found her lines chaotic.

All 3 airports required masks, but the Southwest terminals were overcrowded. I tried to listen to a vendor presentation at DEN airport and it was so noisy I gave up.  The food outlets at their terminals also had long lines.

Southwest at DEN took inordinate amount of time delivering bags - almost 45 minutes both for our flight and for Rita's

Southwest at TPA did not have curbside baggage check-in (when we asked they said "COVID"). DEN did. Southwest had kiosks in both airports which generate tags which speed up the luggage check in process somewhat - however, many first time users find the UX confusing.

TPA usually has a taxi dispatcher. I waited 20 minutes - his handheld radio was crackling at the booth but he was nowhere in sight. One taxi asked for my destination and said it was not on his way home and he drove off. The next one tried to force me to ride share. A taxi! I refused. Even though the car showed the official United Cab logo, he appeared to be a gypsy driver. There was no identification, no fare meter - he quoted me a "take it or leave it" fare. He would not take a credit card or provide a receipt. As we were exiting the airport he nearly had an accident. At that moment, I briefly panicked and was about to call 911 to have him arrested. I have heard that in some cities, taxicabs have used the pandemic to clean up their cars and their acts to regain market share from Uber and Lyft. Clearly, not my experience at TPA, which in other ways still is one of the best airports in the country.

Airlines

Southwest reservations (including a call to upgrade), check-in, wifi on board all worked smoothly. Other than my weather diversion, flights were on time.

The in-flight experience was disappointing. They have quit serving alcohol because of unruly behavior on flights. No problem, but their COVID copout has been to reduce the choice in drinks down to only Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Coffee or Water. I had told some kids while boarding they had could have a treat onboard - Hot Chocolate. Before the pandemic, I have ordered that on many Southwest flights. I had to walk back and apologize to them. No hot tea - if you had a tea bag, they could offer you hot water, With the extra time from simpler orders, the flight attendants appear to have more time for monitoring for mask compliance. If you had it off for more than a few seconds while you were eating or drinking you would feel a tap on your shoulder. In contrast, I was surprised that the announcements made no mention of the HEPA filters, the electrostatic disinfectant and daily deep cleaning the planes go through. To me, making passengers relax is far better than tapping them on their shoulders.

More positively, the upgrade to Business Select was much more affordable than it used to be before the pandemic.   

Hotels

We stayed at 4 different Marriott brands - Gaylord, Residence Inn, Springhill Suites, Fairfield Inn, a Xanterra property (Old Faithful Inn), a Best Western and independent properties in smaller towns. Each had their good and bad but using the liquid expectations thinking you wonder why the Gaylord and the Best Western had superb buffets, but the Residence Inn and Springhill Suites had excuses why they could not host breakfast buffets. Old Faithful Inn had NO hot food at all. Across all the hotels we saw insufficient staff - my wife has a bad back and we would have appreciated some help with the bags.  Our worst experience was at the Old Faithful Inn. Margaret was looking forward to the historic property and we were paying Four Seasons type prices. She is not one to complain but was so disappointed that she went with a long list of issues to the manager who, without hesitation, knocked 50% off our bill. 

Rental Cars

I rented a SUV from Avis at DEN at an average rate $75 a day (we got a break for a week long rental). Not bad considering someone told us when we were in Jackson, WY the rates there were $500 a day. But ours had 45,000 miles, was all scratched up, did not have a toll tag (so we will see what that means in tolls and Avis add-ons). The Avis bus drivers at DEN airport were like the Southwest flight attendants - more eager to bark about masks than help people with bags. So bags were rolling all over the buses. Unsafe experience. On the positive side, the reservation online, the Express checkin and checkout were pretty smooth.

Rita rented a car from Thrifty at DEN and the checkin line was an hour long. She paid $100 a day for a compact car.   

Uber/Taxis

My taxi experience described above was scary. Rita used Uber/Lyft and found them fine. I have heard from others of long waits and that surge pricing is increasingly the norm for both services.

Dining

The best advice we picked up - ask locals. Some of the best meals we had on the trip came courtesy of our son, Tommy who works in the Denver area, and knows what is open, how long a wait etc. Thanks to COVID copouts at Starbucks and McDonalds we discovered that in smaller towns some of the gas stations have decent comfort food. We asked each if we could use their restroom and they pointed us to the gas stations :)

Mobile service

T-Mobile claims to have largest, fastest, and most reliable 5G network in the country. I would say in 1,800 out of the 2,000 miles we drove across the 3 states there was no 5G coverage. In fact, in half the distance there was NO coverage at all. I am glad we had backup AAA paper maps. The most shocking was at the Old Faithful geyser that we stayed near. It is estimated to get 4 million visitors a year and the best we could do was text each other. 

Bottom Line

While GE has adopted a new tag line "Building a World that Works", I don't get the same sense from travel executives that there is a focus on the "world that works" part. They are looking for sympathy because they had a crappy 2020. They conveniently ignore all the bailouts and PPP loans they got.

As the new CEO of Marriott recently said "I’ve described this phenomenon as the friction that exists between the short memory of our guests and the long memory of our owners.” Translation - "we need to take care of our investors/franchisees, sure customers will put up with the lowered service"

I am afraid the travel industry is the one with the short memory. They appear to have forgotten they desperately need to bring business customers back in droves. These executives may initially be excited to hit the road but after a couple of trips come to the conclusion "this is not really a better alternative to the digital fatigue". I heard some really interesting adjustments executives are already making. Will discuss them in Part 2 next week.

Ironically, Whole Foods opened a 48,000 square foot store in my town last week. It has a salad bar with 15 soups and 50 salads (not just individual items, specialty salads). They have gloves, disposable plates and cutlery for patrons, so the hygiene concerns are lowered. They have a decent sized sitting area where you can reasonably distance. Think of the chain of liquid expectations that is setting in motion. If they can do it, why not you, Mr. Hotel or Restaurant operator?     

Vertical Velocity

While there is a lot of noise about "Industry Clouds", I have been encouraged to see specifics in the form of new product launches and M&A/ownership changes in the last few weeks. They promise to bring a lot more industry focus and functionality.

Admittedly, the valuations in the transactions below are frothy - but one way to look at it - you have to believe they are serious about the market segment if they are willing to pay that much for it.  

Rockwell Automation is acquiring Plex Systems. As I have been reporting for the last few years Plex, has been increasingly investing in plant level and sensory/IoT capabilities. Infor is selling its EAM product line to Hexagon AB, a Swedish vendor focused on asset-intensive energy, construction and manufacturing sectors.

Both Rockwell and Hexagon should bring operational, industrial depth to products which have been positioned for broader ERP markets.

Unit4 is separating its Higher Education Student Information System into a new entity called Thesis. Again, it should allow a sharper focus in a segment which was turned upside down last year as campuses shut down and online education took off.

I have requested briefings with each of these vendors and as the transactions formally close, hope to be able to line up those sessions.

I was also part of two briefings this week:

Christopher Dean, GM of Salesforce's Media Cloud presented on their Advertising Sales Management offering. Listening to him, I was fascinated by how complex advertising world has become. The definition of a media company keeps morphing - everybody from traditional broadcasters to telcos to gaming companies to digital agencies and many others can lay a claim. From a brand pov, clearly digital advertising is exploding but traditional print, billboard, radio and other channels are not exactly dead, especially in major markets around the world. Good to see Salesforce help both sides navigate the complexity.

SAP ran its annual Industry Analyst Base Camp event. I recently ran two Analyst Cam episodes on their Industry Clouds and RISE offering aimed at 5 of those industries - see here  and here. The Base Camp did not add much new coming so soon after SapphireNow. But, frankly, the more SAP talks about industries the better. The verticals market is theirs to lose, after establishing leadership with their IS solutions two decades ago. And as we are seeing new, serious players are starting to focus on deep vertical capabilities.

Analyst Cam: Zoho's new Business Intelligence platform

When they held ZohoDay in February, Zoho had briefed me in detail on their BI roadmap. I had given them some feedback. So did several other analysts during the day. They took that input and managed to work through the chaos of the recent COVID surge in India and launched their expanded BI platform this week.

Zoho Analytics is already used by more than 50,000 organizations. Interestingly, Zoho says 60% of existing users have chosen it as their BI tool even when running on non-Zoho applications and data sources.

I have excerpted below 3 new components demoed by Chandrashekar LSP, the Chief Evangelist for that product area. There is a definite emphasis on self-service.

It starts off with DataPrep, an AI-driven data preparation tool.  Next at 4.35, he walks through Data Stories. It includes a portal builder (Zoho Sites) and presentation software (Zoho Show). Finally at 8.37, he presents on the augmented analytics layer which leverages Ask Zia, Zoho's conversational interface.

The recent enhancements make it even more intuitive to end users and should make it even compelling for use either with Zoho data (especially if an enterprise is using many of nearly 50 integrated Zoho One apps) or from other sources.

The Timeline of Next

A few weeks ago, Cognizant invited a few of us to look at the future of world over the next few years. We considered trends that were already in motion and were accelerated by what happened over the last year.

They have put together a nice composite report titled the "Timeline of Next". It looks at the impact on education, work, economies and life itself.

It asks questions like: How will we live and work with technology all around? How will we design cities in the future? How will a year of home-schooling reshape the feelings of this generation and the next about capitalism?

On July 28, they are hosting a webinar at 11 AM ET. Beth Porter, CEO of Riff Analytics and Managing Partner of Esme Learning, Manish Bahl, AVP of the Cognizant Center for the Future of Work and Clay Griffith, Director of Product Marketing, Cognizant Softvision and I will be part of it.

The agenda includes:

• 16 intriguing ideas that will shape the future of work and society

• How machine-learning based software, artificial intelligence and big data will transform our lives

• What digital fail-safes will become commonplace as we emerge from the pandemic

• How the future of mental health services and personal wellness will be more accessible and effective than ever before

• The purpose of the office when work can be done from anywhere

Register here. Look forward to seeing you.

Analyst Cam: Sapphire Now - Industries perspective, 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. 

SAP's annual event - Sapphire Now - is usually about drinking from a fire hose.  Content for customers across so many industries and global regions, and so many products in the SAP portfolio screaming for attention. This year, the second year where COVID restrictions have precluded travel to Orlando where it is normally held, the event was again virtual. I took a industry viewpoint, especially since a major announcement this year was the verticalization of its RISE initiative for an initial set of 5 sectors - utilities, consumer packaged goods, automotive, industrial machinery and components (IM&C), and retail.

In part 1 yesterday, I excerpted from CEO Christian Klein's keynote and from an interview of Dr. Hasso Plattner.

In Part 2 below, CMO Julia White leads off with a nice summary across industries. At 4:41, the focus shifts to changing business models - an increasingly common trend as industries morph. It is a discussion with Peter Maier, President of SAP Industries and with executives from Discovery Limited which is a South African-founded financial services firm in healthcare, insurance, banking, and wellness markets. Lots of discussion around outcome based models. Finally at 11.47, Georg Kube, Global Vice President of the Industrial Machinery & Components vertical drills down into his sector and details the RISE offering there.

 

 

Long live long-form content

I have just finished work on my eighth book. Correction - it’s NOT my book. I have narrated it for a visionary tech CEO and his incredibly innovative team. We interviewed over 50 of their customers, partners, executives and industry watchers. You will hear more about the book and the impactful trends they are driving in the next few weeks when they finish the imagery and other production details.  I have also contributed a foreword to a book about automation in SAP world. You will similarly hear more about that shortly.

Every one of these books has been written since Mashable declared ‘How Twitter conquered the world in 2009’. Yes, social media has taken off exponentially in the last decade - and I have contributed thousands of blogs, videos and tweets to the world. But I am here to tell you books continue to be a far better format for storytelling. If you want entertaining, yet logical, content there is nothing like the long, written and graphical form.

The recent project showed me a book can be written in a few weeks, not years. We created the first draft in roughly 3 months. I have used Zoom interviews for previous books, but this time every single conversation (across 12 countries) was digital thanks to Teams and Zoom. The transcripts, by themselves, totaled over 2,500 pages. Then there was plenty of other industry research.

The intensity reminded me books are hard work and authors, editors, transcriptionists, project managers and designers deserve plenty of kudos. My way of saluting is to invite them to my video series. Here are some authors I have profiled in the last few months.

Sabrina Horn: Make it, don't fake it 

Ray Wang: Everybody wants to rule the world 

Ben Pring: Monster 

Robin Gaster: Behemoth - Amazon Rising 

Brad Feld and Ian Hathaway: The Startup Community Way 

Rich Karlgaard: Late Bloomers 

Evangelos Simoudis: Transportation Transformation 

Many more coming. If you are an author or a publisher, happy to consider profiling your upcoming book. And if you have long thought about writing a book, I am here to cheer you on. Please drop me a note.

Analyst Cam: Sapphire Now - Industries perspective, 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. 

SAP's annual event - Sapphire Now - is usually about drinking from a fire hose.  Content for customers across so many industries and global regions, and so many products in the SAP portfolio screaming for attention. This year, the second year where COVID restrictions have precluded travel to Orlando where it is normally held, the event was again virtual. I took a industry viewpoint, especially since a major announcement this year was the verticalization of its RISE initiative for an initial set of 5 sectors - utilities, consumer packaged goods, automotive, industrial machinery and components (IM&C), and retail.

I reviewed hours of video and have excerpted in Part 1 below, from CEO Christian Klein's keynote. He nicely lays out how 2020 turned the world upside down and the impact on most industries. I found fascinating CMO Julia White's interview of Dr. Hasso Plattner, one of the co-founders, who for me is still the "Chief Enterprise Architect" at SAP (for legal reasons, he does not have a formal executive position).

Starting at 9:40, the conversation is partly a history lesson, and partly a "state of the possible" when it comes to business processes facilitated by technology. Let's face it, most vendors, SAP included, have done much better with horizontal, cross-industry processes. Most vertical operational processes are still done by custom applications or by specialist vendors, so it is interesting to hear what may be different going forward.

In Part 2 tomorrow, CMO Julia White will lead off with a nice summary across industries. Next the focus shifts to changing business models - an increasingly common trend as industries morph. It is a discussion with Peter Maier, President of SAP Industries and with executives from Discovery Limited which is a South African-founded financial services firm in healthcare, insurance, banking, and wellness markets. Lots of discussion around outcome based models. Finally, Georg Kube, Global Vice President of the Industrial Machinery & Components vertical drills down into his sector and details the RISE offering there.

 

Analyst Cam: Salesforce Industries Summit, Part 3

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

Salesforce held an Industries Summit earlier this month. They invited me to an analyst pre-briefing and gave me access to keynotes and sessions across 8 sectors - Communications, Energy and Utilities, Financial Services, Government and Public Sector, Healthcare and Life sciences, Manufacturing, Media, Retail and Consumer Goods.

I have excerpted segments across the sectors and am posting them into three parts.

Part 1 covered 3 "mega-trends" I heard during the sessions, around sustainability on the energy sector, servitization on the industrial sector and the impact of "everything from home" on the communications and media sectors.

Part 2 yesterday profiled Jujhar Singh, the EVP and GM of Salesforce Industries with the theme of "industry success from anywhere" as we move into hybrid work and shopping world. There is a demo of a new Salesforce offering for investment bankers. Next, Kristen Jensen of the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity brought a public sector perspective on change. Finally, there were demos relevant for channels in retail and consumer goods covering rebates, incentive management and trade promotions.

In Part 3 below Bret Taylor, President and COO of Salesforce touches on the "digital first" and "transform now" themes in every industry. He also covers industry specific AI and Hyperforce - Salesforce's infrastructure architecture that allows customers to scale rapidly and securely using its public cloud hyperscaler partners. Next at 5.34 is a demo of a local government application - the use case revolves around licensing of a day care facility. We next switch at 10.09 to a telco and the opportunities 5G is opening up.  Mallik Rao, CTIO at Telefonica Germany is certainly qualified to describe that. Finally there are two product discussions - one around wealth management at 18.42 aimed at financial services customers and the other at 21.54 on patient appointments aimed at healthcare customers.

While every vendor is talking up "industry clouds", the breadth of vertical processes covered during the Salesforce Summit was truly impressive. I have excerpted only a small fraction of what I saw and heard. You too can sign up and watch the full range of sessions or an industry specific track by registering here

 

Analyst Cam: Salesforce Industries Summit, 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. 

Salesforce held an Industries Summit earlier this month. They invited me to an analyst pre-briefing and gave me access to keynotes and sessions across 8 sectors - Communications, Energy and Utilities, Financial Services, Government and Public Sector, Healthcare and Life sciences, Manufacturing, Media, Retail and Consumer Goods.

I have excerpted segments across the sectors and am posting them into three parts.

Part 1 yesterday covered 3 "mega-trends" I heard during the sessions, around sustainability on the energy sector, servitization on the industrial sector and the impact of "everything from home" on the communications and media sectors.

Today in video below, Jujhar Singh, the EVP and GM of Salesforce Industries leads off with the theme of "industry success from anywhere" as we move into hybrid work and shopping world. At 4.48 there is a demo of a new Salesforce offering for investment bankers. Next, at 10.06, Kristen Jensen of the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity brings a public sector perspective on change. Finally, at 16.26 there are demos relevant for channels in retail and consumer goods covering rebates, incentive management and trade promotions.

In Part 3 tomorrow, Bret Taylor, President and COO of Salesforce will touch on the "digital first" and "transform now" themes in every industry. He also covers industry specific AI and Hyperforce - Salesforce's infrastructure architecture that allows customers to scale rapidly and securely using its public cloud hyperscaler partners. Next is a demo of a local government application - the use case revolves around licensing of a day care facility. We next switch to a telco and the opportunities 5G is opening up.  Mallik Rao, CTIO at Telefonica Germany is certainly qualified to describe that. Finally there are two product discussions - one around wealth management aimed at financial services customers and the other on patient appointment aimed at healthcare customers.

While every vendor is talking up "industry clouds", the breadth of vertical processes covered during the Salesforce Summit was truly impressive. I have excerpted only a small fraction of what I saw and heard. You too can sign up and watch the full range of sessions or an industry specific track by registering here

 

Analyst Cam: Salesforce Industries Summit, 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. 

Salesforce held an Industries Summit earlier this month. They invited me to an analyst pre-briefing and gave me access to keynotes and sessions across 8 sectors - Communications, Energy and Utilities, Financial Services, Government and Public Sector, Healthcare and Life sciences, Manufacturing, Media, Retail and Consumer Goods.

I have excerpted segments across the sectors and am posting them into three parts.

The part in the video below covers 3 "mega-trends" I heard during the sessions. The first is around sustainability - while the desire for clean energy is affecting every sector, it is especially impactful on utilities. I have excerpted from a conversation with Yves Le Gerald, EVP at Engie, the French multinational electric utility company and Megan Lorenzen, Sustainability Manager at Salesforce. It is nice to hear the perspectives of both a procurer and a producer of energy.

At 13.10, the focus shifts to "servitization" - a growing trend in the industrial sector as product makers get more revenues from services and move to as-a-service, subscription and outcome based business models. It features Thomas Gocke who heads digital business transformation at Koenig and Bauer, the German company that makes printing presses and is very well versed in servitization trends.

At 21.19, focus is on "everything from home" - the impact of working, dining, studying, entertaining at home and the impact on broadband and media. Linda Yaccarino, Chairman of global advertising sales and client partnerships at NBCUniversal has a front row seat watching the massive changes that the pandemic accelerated.

In Part 2, Jujhar Singh, the EVP and GM of Salesforce Industries will lead off with the theme of "industry success from anywhere" as we move into hybrid work and shopping world. Then, there is a demo of a new Salesforce offering for investment bankers. Next, Kristen Jensen of the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity brings a public sector perspective on change. Finally there are demos relevant for channels in retail and consumer goods covering rebates, incentive management and trade promotions.

In Part 3, Bret Taylor, President and COO of Salesforce will touch on the "digital first" and "transform now" themes in every industry. He also covers industry specific AI and Hyperforce - Salesforce's infrastructure architecture that allows customers to scale rapidly and securely using its public cloud hyperscaler partners. Next is a demo of a local government application - the use case revolves around licensing of a day care facility. We next switch to a telco and the opportunities 5G is opening up.  Mallik Rao, CTIO at Telefonica Germany is certainly qualified to describe that. Finally there are two product discussions - one around wealth management aimed at financial services customers and the other on patient appointment aimed at healthcare customers.

While every vendor is talking up "industry clouds", the breadth of vertical processes covered during the Salesforce Summit was truly impressive. I have excerpted only a small fraction of what I saw and heard. You too can sign up and watch the full range of sessions or an industry specific track by registering here

 

Burning Platform: Leading with authenticity

In the 49th episode of the series we have a repeat appearance by Sabrina Horn, CEO of Horn Strategy

We discuss her new book "Make it, don't fake it". The book shows how authentic leadership eliminates the need for the shortcuts that sabotage success. “Fake it till you make it” just doesn’t work—at least not long enough to build a sustainable business.

It is being released this coming Tuesday. She sent me an advance copy and it has great quotes and monikers  - Fake-o-meter, "Work-life balance? Here’s why I gave up on it" and " Leader and loser both begin with the letter L" but overall it is about values in  the tech industry which is overwhelmingly driven by unicorn valuations and Wall Street attention. 

It is part autobiography, part thank you to mentors like Dave Duffield and Geoffrey Moore,  her parents, her employees and kids, but chockfull of examples on how to behave ethically in a variety of situations.  She must identify "50 shades of lies"  - some of the 'white lies" variety, some of the other extreme, fraudulent kind. She has spent a lifetime in PR, so this must have taken plenty of introspection on whether she and her firm(s) advised clients on doing the right thing, not just hyping what they had in their bags. 

We also discuss activism around so many "causes" these days - racial/ gender matters, equality, climate change etc.

I particularly like the fact that she wrote the book during the pandemic. While so many of us were so distracted by the crisis and the politics of 2020 she managed to concentrate on her first book, and it is an excellent one.

Get a copy of the book, in the meantime, enjoy the sneak preview below.

SAP SapphireNow: An early report

Let's start with the positives from the keynote last week: I loved Julia White's (the new CMO who has joined from Microsoft) omnipresence and bundle of energy. Christian Klein has come of age in the age of digital keynotes. He is so comfortable in the format. It was good to see Hasso Plattner again - wish we could have had our annual (unscripted) session with him.

However, this split schedule over 3 weeks has been tough to work with. I have asked for replays of several sessions for the Analyst Cam series so will get a chance to watch them in detail. Not sure when SAP can deliver those. I do miss not driving to Orlando and blocking out a few straight days on my calendar. Hopefully next year, Lufthansa will bring back its gorgeous 747-8 to Orlando - as a thank you to SAP executives for holding a live event.

3 themes from the keynote and my questions

a) Five Vertical RISE with SAP offerings

When RISE was announced earlier in the year, I thought it was too ambitious as I wrote here and here. I also thought it glossed over the SI/implementation portion which has been SAP's Achilles Heel for a long time. Books have been written about that:)

So, now they announce 5 vertical versions of RISE - for utilities, consumer packaged goods, automotive, industrial machinery and components (IM&C), and retail. I would like to understand how those 5 rose to the top. Given all the activity in Life Sciences around the COVID vaccine and therapeutics and SAP's strong presence in that industry, that would have been high on my list. Ditto with oil and gas which has been building a cloud for upstream functionality.

The good news is SAP (appears) to have taken a stand on the 5 verticals. In the past, going back a decade or longer there has been vague talk about "we are strong in 20+ industries" or "we are working with one of our large partners". My big question is what is new functionally for these 5 industries? So much changed in 2020 - hopefully RISE is not just a pricing package, but a major feature/function leap forward. Look forward to learning more about each of these industry solutions.

b) Business Networks

Christian summarized it well "Our new vision will build the world’s largest business community, enabling customers to easily connect with companies across supply chains and creating networked economies across industries.”  With so much supply chain chaos last year and continuing this year (Google for PPE, toilet paper, cold chain, Suez Canal) , it is bound to catch executive attention. But much of SAP's networks - Ariba, Fieldglass, Concur, AIN - deal with indirect spend - pencils, temporary staff, travel,MRO. I would love to spend some time with John Wookey and hear how direct suppliers and their tiers will become part of this network given those relationships tend to be tight and very proprietary in terms of contractual and IP protection details.

c) Sustainability

A decade ago, SAP was hot on sustainability. My concern back then was they were mostly focused on analytics and reporting of carbon data. Now you can argue "you cannot manage what you cannot measure". My point to SAP was don't stop there - work with your vast ecosystem and look for ways to get to the "source" - in factories, R&D, data centers and reduce the emissions, not just report on them. They did not back then. I hope they do this time, as they try again.

The other thing to watch is how they will navigate the politics. To me, renewable energy has hijacked the sustainability conversation, when the circular economy with reuse, better product design, packaging and other topics deserve as much attention. Christian brought up EVs a couple of times. There is much to like about the early wave of EVs. They have a much lighter BOM. With web sales, OTA updates, mobile techs they are redefining the auto experience. But I don't think we have asked the tough questions - what will happen to used batteries? How much will ubiquitous charging infrastructure cost around the world? Why are EVs still so much more expensive than internal combustion cars even with the much lighter BOM and direct sales models? And lets face it, an EV is only as clean as your public utility. The vast majority of utilities around the world still run on gas, oil and still way too much coal and in Germany, even dirtier lignite. So, I hope the analytics SAP presents reflect the TCO of EVs not just the positive angle that is being presented in our current infatuation with them. 

The good news is you can at least have these conversations with SAP. Not too many vendors I can even ask - how did you decide to prioritize those 5 verticals?

Burning Platform: Not your grandpa's Services economy

In the 48th episode of the series we have Peter Bendor-Samuel of Everest Group, a research firm focused on IT, business process, and engineering services since it was founded in 1991.

I enjoy catching up with Peter on a regular basis to get his perspective on trends in outsourcing and the broader IT, BPO, strategy services market.

He says the market is broadly strong - "rising tide raises all boats" - with the confluence of digital transformations, modernization projects/ related legacy outsourcing and pent up demand from projects slowed down or postponed in 2020.

What's different is the influence of hyperscalers like Google and Amazon and strategy firms like McKinsey, BCG and Bain. We also discuss the trend of "servitization" - where industrial and other sectors are generating more service revenues around their products and moving to "as a service" models with subscription revenues and outcome based models.

BTW, on the last point about servitization, I have been researching that trend in detail over the last few months. You will hear more from me on that in the next few weeks. In the meantime, enjoy this conversation.  

We cover wide ground, as is common with my conversations with Peter. I always learn something new from him.

Burning Platform: The end of ERP?

In the 47th episode of the series we have Patricia Harris of Workday

Workday has coined a new category, Enterprise Management Cloud and is distancing itself from the ERP moniker.  Makes a lot of sense to highlight their cloud and analytical strengths. Besides, the market started looking more during the crisis in 2020 for bite-sized applications, not intergalactic commitments. So, we have a fun few minutes on Magic Quadrants.

But most of the time is spent on her solution marketing focus and Workday's path as it paces toward a $10 billion revenue goal. We also discuss how her background at IHS Markit and their extensive research on various industries is going to help Workday's vertical moves. We spend some time about her time at Hitachi Vantara, how the world of IT infrastructure is changing and how to navigate the growing influence of hyperscalers.

Nice, broad ranging conversation. 

The Analyst Cam: Monster: A Tough Love Letter On Taming the Machines that Rule our Jobs, Lives, and Future

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

Ben Pring of Cognizant makes a repeat appearance, this time giving us a sneak preview with couple of themes from his new book with regular co-author, Paul Roehrig.

The book is about the beast that technology has become in our personal lives and how to tame and regulate it. He makes a great point. In the early days of the automobiles, roads did not have lane markings, street signs, traffic lights. Within a couple of decades they were common place. He says we need the same on the information highway.

I tell him my libertarian instincts are suspicious of government regulation. I am already bothered by the censorship social media giants are engaging in. And from a productivity and sanity pov, I am worried about how much time and energy we waste on social media. To me, personal responsibility as parents and good citizens should kick in. 

They raise a number of troubling points. It is a short book, but a long letter at 176 pages:) Check it out on Amazon here.