I am writing this on a flight home. Been gone 12 days in 4 hotels, 7 flights, 20 Uber rides. Have not checked two bags in a long, long while.
A friend asked me if I was ok since I have not posted on this blog in those days. I said yes, there was an entry a day on New Florence. And on this trip I have picked up tons of content. In scripted scenarios vendors are demoing at a consulting client which is modernizing its shop floor. In mind-expanding keynotes at Cognizant Community ranging from technology in healthcare, in the warehouse, to that in financial services and in conversations with executives from a wide variety of executives. And learning about vertical analytics at the Anaplan Hub event.
My reaction has shown up in advice to the client, in comments on the Cognizant Events mobile app and will also show up down the line in two blogs, books, social media, more consulting and presentations. It’s omni-channel in content world. And a reality check that not everything shows up in instant social media for all to see.
My accountant has long been used to the ebbs and flows in the channels we play in. Over the last year, the consulting channel has been vibrant. Lots of ERP customers are embarking on a 20-25 year refresh cycle. Many first-gen SaaS contracts are coming up for renewal. Outsourcers are pitching digital transformation projects. Lots of interest in a variety of automation technologies I covered in Silicon Collar. Even the vendor events I go to are changing – they include new names like Anaplan and Uptake. Briefings include those from new vendors like Aera and Workspan.
Our revenue mix changes from quarter to quarter with the pull and push of technology markets and our channels.What has not changed much is most vendors want influence, not intelligence. Some even get upset when we cannot make time for their events. But in the months following they don’t bother to check in. Bi-directional conversations don’t appear to matter. Just listen to what we have to say and write and tweet nice things about that. That’s influence in their minds.
The really smart ones want to mine all the other stuff we are exposed to and may cite somewhere, sometime in one of those channels. They don’t want to wait for that intelligence to show up in the public domain.
I chuckle that most vendors will gladly show analyst research (so long as it is positive) to their customers. But they ignore that very mother lode when they strategize about their own products.
I did not understand that when I was at Gartner. I don’t even today. In the mean time, far more important things await – like cleaning out the two bags I checked in
