In the 32nd episode of the series is Bret Greenstein, SVP and Global Markets Head of AI & Analytics at Cognizant.
'How has COVID changed the way customers are looking at analytics?" - I asked that in this post which covered 12 data streams and use cases from 2020.
I invited Bret to talk about how the world changed with his client base and from his regular interactions with Chief Data Officers.
He presents with a series of simple questions like What Happened? Why did it happen? How did we miss that? and provides plenty of examples.
A compelling case for why decisioning needs to be refreshed. Very effective set of questions enterprises should be asking post-pandemic about their data strategies and analytics.
Dennis has announced he is retiring. I knew it was coming - he would often fret he did not have enough time for his large and growing family - but I would have bet it would be towards end of this year. Or next. I am glad I managed to record a couple of episodes with him in the last few weeks.
We had our fair share of disagreements - show me someone who has been spared that by Dennis? :) But I admired several things about him and let me share a few things you may not know about him
a) he is a Polymath
Every few months I would learn something new about him. Listen to his bio in the excerpt below - it will blow your mind. And he does not even mention here what he has been up to recently - building and painting 1/35 scale armored vehicles (three in progress and 18 more in his 'stash' he says)
b) a true blogging pioneer.
It hit me when Dennis, Frank Scavo and I recorded a Christmas episode. We took a walk down memory lane - see excerpt below. Each of us has been blogging for 15+ years. He was a purer play than either of us. Frank and I had advisory distractions. I spent a fair amount of time on my many books. He dedicated the last phase of his career to making enterprise blogging and the independent analyst model a respected source of industry influence.
c) he made time for so many
He was a whisperer to so many in the industry - check out the flattering comments on his LinkedIn post where he announced his retirement. I was constantly amazed how he could find the time. I certainly benefited - he reviewed every one of my books.
So, Dennis, thanks for the many laughs and cries. Enjoy time with the family and your train rides.
But please come back and record more episodes from time to time. I want the opportunity to say it a few more times - GFY :)
As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series.
I had a chance to catch up with Darren Roos, CEO of IFS and he gave me a sneak preview on the IFS Cloud which it will launch on March 10.
It's been good to see IFS use the pandemic to accelerate its focus on enterprise service and asset management (see this episode with use cases like Rolls Royce), the investment in its cloud and also its rebranding. CMO Oliver Pilgerstorfer provided details of the branding exercise in this episode here.
Following my conversation with Darren in video below is a snippet of the vibrant displays IFS has at Times Square in New York, Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and Piccadilly Circus in London.
More details on the cloud offering to follow after the launch in a couple of weeks.
As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series.
SAP hosted for analysts a Industry Cloud briefing last week. I have excerpted below about 15 minutes from an hour long session.
Peter Maier, President Industries and Customer Advisory kicks it off and I liked that he gave several examples of new industry functionality. SAP (and in fairness other large vendors) often talk about industry qualifications in generalities and about past efforts ignoring that every industry turned upside down last year.
I had interviewed him last May and you can definitely see progress.
At 6.50, Peter and Kai Finck, who heads Industry Cloud Program respond to a question about industries where SAP has seen most momentum in the last year.
At 9.15, Svend Wittern, who heads Industry Strategy and Peter explain that business networks where SAP plays a big role with horizontal functionality from Ariba, Concur and others are increasingly moving to industry versions.
At 12.18 Ralph Stemler, who heads Industry Ecosystems mentions that strategy firms like McKinsey may be partnering with SAP and getting into the IP business with their industry knowledge
At 13.30 Steffen Schad, Product Manger, SAP Business Technology Platform talks about how partners and customers are starting to use the platform (including recent acquisitions of Signavio and AppGyer) to build industry functionality
Overall, I liked the momentum Peter showcased, but I still don't think SAP is thinking small enough. It has missed the boat on so much demand we saw for vertical edge apps like telemedicine, distance learning in higher ed, warehouse automation, last mile delivery in retail and food service, virtual open houses in real estate in the last year. It is still focused on big "intelligent enterprise" type positioning which will take years to flesh out.
Also, in the next briefing, it would be nice to hear much more specifically about how strategy firms (and the traditional SI partners) and low code tools are helping develop specific industry functionality. Similar about how RISE with SAP is being verticalized.
As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series.
Today is a huge day for IFS with a major rebranding exercise. Oliver Pilgerstorfer, CMO gave me a sneak preview of the many dimensions of the project. They considered changing the name IFS, but kept it and instead added an energetic new logo, a new typeface, a focus on the tagline of "Moment of Service" (with their growing service management and enterprise asset management/maintenance focus) and a vibrant new shade of purple. They also have a major launch of the IFS Cloud in a couple of weeks
The video below leads off with that "reveal", then with my session with Oliver. In the middle of the interview are high-visibility displays they have at 3 iconic places around the world - Times Square in New York, Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo and Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Piccadilly Circus in London will have the big finale next week.
At the end of the interview is an asset which focuses on the Moment of Service theme.
I have been to each of the 4 display locations in the last few years. With the pandemic curtailing travel, the locales brought back to me "wow" memories - as I am sure it will for many of IFS's global customers.
The whole thing is very tastefully done. I hope IFS sets up a gift store with swag to showcase the new art and colors. I definitely would like a couple of items!
In the meantime, kudos to Oliver and his team. Amazing amount of work - particularly with having to navigate all the quarantine restrictions around the world
As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series.
I attended a few sessions at the Adobe Developers Live event and have excerpted about 20 minutes from two very interesting sessions, both hosted by Bertrand Delacretaz, and involving Principal scientists and senior software engineers at the company.
The first is from a q&a with Roy Fielding, co-author of the HTTP protocol and inventor of REST. He talks about the evolution of HTTP from early days ( the whole www was a grand total of 48 pages when he started!) to current work on QUIC & HTTP/3. I particularly liked the audience q&a where he was asked what makes him go "wow" as he sees the evolution. I wished he had more time for the question about how state and other actors are trying to limit access to so much of the content we take for granted on the Web. The full session is here.
The event was also aimed at what Adobe calls "experience builders" - their big differentiator. So, I enjoyed and have excerpted starting at 9.27 from a panel with Ian Boston, Tomek Rekawek, and Carlos Sanchez, on how they successfully migrated Adobe Experience Manager to the Cloud. While many vendors have moved single tenant, on-prem apps to the cloud in the last decade, it is always fascinating to hear about the innovations in each move. This panel discusses efficiencies like the Golden Repository and automation in the form of hibernation that they engineered into the solution. The full panel session is here.
You may enjoy other sessions from the event - the replays are here.
As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series.
Barbry McGann, Executive Director, Office of the HRO at Workday returns to present on the new Vaccine Management solution. It expands on their Return to Workplace offerings. She had previously presented in this series on their VIBE offering (which is acronym for Value Inclusion, Belonging, and Equity)
The Vaccine Management solution addresses multiple goals - as a way to educate employees on a growing variety of COVID vaccines (mRNA, vector, protein subunit etc), to guide them where and how to get vaccinated, to allow them to confidentially report the vaccination details. In turn, corporations can identify employees who should be prioritized as vaccine inventories become more widely available in the health ecosystem. They can use the data to make smarter decisions on which offices and sites to safely reopen and plan on workforce availability and related workspace and resource (like PPE) needs. There are plenty of dashboards and compliance analytics.
Barbry says 60% of companies are encouraging employees to get vaccinated (though not necessarily mandate it). No wonder the initial interest in this solution has been huge. They had over 1,900 registrations (a record for Workday) for a recent webinar on the solution.
In the 31st episode of the series I am joined by James Governor, co-founder of Redmonk.
In September 2000, Steve Ballmer was ahead of most executives in loudly cheering for software developers. The video below leads off with his exuberance at Microsoft's 25th anniversary celebration. Since then. we have seen an explosion in developers in every corner of the world.
James has had a front row seat to these changes. Along with Stephen O'Grady and others at Redmonk they are a bit more subdued than Ballmer but they have been influential cheerleaders for developers, DBAs etc - and not just those with the Microsoft flavor.
James' view is we have gradually moved away from top-down dev mindsets to bottom- up ones facilitated by the intersection of Cloud Computing, Open Source and Social Coding
We cover wide ground - the trend towards more buy v build in the industry, the growth in citizen developers (see also the session with Amit Zavery of Google Cloud here), software quality, vertical differences. We discuss the growth of software communities around the world - he has some really interesting comments about Salesforce Trailblazers and the relatively untapped community in Nigeria. We also discuss Armenia, China and India and several other parts of the world.
Lots of positive energy from James - as there is in the rapidly multiplying developer pools around the world.
In the 30th episode of the series I am joined by Mark Taylor, SVP and Global Practice Lead at Cognizant Digital Experience.
I first met Mark when I profiled Cognizant's research on the spurt in voice interfaces in 2020 in this Analyst Cam episode. He has lots of experience in the digital agency world and brings a very different perspective on evolving expectations of customer experience than you hear from most CRM vendors.
He emphasizes the importance of a brand "to act like a human". As he eloquently puts it "The voice of a brand is no longer a metaphor, it is a reality." Technology should allow a brand to do that with empathy at scale.
We discuss several verticals and how the pandemic has accelerated the "direct to consumer" trend in many of them.
I love how he cites examples from several leading brands around the world. And how ML and other technology should allow you to blend "intimacy with industrialization". He covers a lot of ground in 22 minutes.
In the 29th episode of the Burning Platform series is Geoff Scott, CEO of ASUG (Americas' SAP User Group). He provides perspective on RISE by SAP - the recently announced SAP initiative. See Analyst Cam post about it here. Dennis Howlett of Diginomica had provided his feedback here.
Geoff and ASUG had worked with SAP in envisioning RISE and he provides that nuanced perspective and that of his membership. We have a friendly debate on the topic - we keep it light hearted weaving in the Super Bowl and the iPhone 12.
I make the point that RISE is a complex bundle. In his keynote, Christian took at swipe at the term "simplification". That's been SAP's mantra for the last decade or so. Key execs like Christian, Juergen Mueller and Thomas Saueressig are articulate about RISE. I told him I was reminded of Thomas Kurian's encyclopedic knowledge when he was at Oracle. We discuss if that level of intimate product knowledge can carry over further down the organization, in the field and in the partner ecosystem. Geoff rightfully points out SAP deals with complex, global customers - anything like RISE cannot be simple.
SAP has historically not done a great job managing its SI partners, so how would RISE improve that? The pandemic has shocked the SI ecosystem with WFH and travel restrictions and pressure on them to automate operations. It would be nice for RISE to build on that not just continue to pass along poor SI performance. Geoff points out he would also like SAP to deliver more tooling to automate implementations.
During the pandemic we have seen customers move to bite-size, industry specific projects. Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, others have accordingly made some adjustments. We discuss why RISE with S/4 looming large does not come across as bite-sized, or verticalized enough. Geoff provides the perspective that he is seeing growing interest in S/4 in his membership. Throughout March ASUG is running a series of S/4 Best Practice sessions and they are seeing huge interest - register here
We also discuss the BPI imitative, SAP's hyperscaler partners and much more. I think Geoff does a nice job explaining which SAP customers should care about RISE and why.
Thank you, Dennis Howlett
Dennis has announced he is retiring. I knew it was coming - he would often fret he did not have enough time for his large and growing family - but I would have bet it would be towards end of this year. Or next. I am glad I managed to record a couple of episodes with him in the last few weeks.
We had our fair share of disagreements - show me someone who has been spared that by Dennis? :) But I admired several things about him and let me share a few things you may not know about him
a) he is a Polymath
Every few months I would learn something new about him. Listen to his bio in the excerpt below - it will blow your mind. And he does not even mention here what he has been up to recently - building and painting 1/35 scale armored vehicles (three in progress and 18 more in his 'stash' he says)
b) a true blogging pioneer.
It hit me when Dennis, Frank Scavo and I recorded a Christmas episode. We took a walk down memory lane - see excerpt below. Each of us has been blogging for 15+ years. He was a purer play than either of us. Frank and I had advisory distractions. I spent a fair amount of time on my many books. He dedicated the last phase of his career to making enterprise blogging and the independent analyst model a respected source of industry influence.
c) he made time for so many
He was a whisperer to so many in the industry - check out the flattering comments on his LinkedIn post where he announced his retirement. I was constantly amazed how he could find the time. I certainly benefited - he reviewed every one of my books.
So, Dennis, thanks for the many laughs and cries. Enjoy time with the family and your train rides.
But please come back and record more episodes from time to time. I want the opportunity to say it a few more times - GFY :)
February 26, 2021 in Industry analysts (Gartner, Forrester, AMR, others), Industry Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0)