deal architect

Analyst Cam: CRM Watchlist

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 Paul Greenberg, Managing Principal, The 56 Group, LLC. He summarizes the results from his latest CRM Watchlist survey. He is a repeat guest and was last on the Burning Platform episode where we discussed generational shifts in content creation and distribution.

This is the 19^th edition of his signature, annual project. He describes how the effort has evolved over the years. Lot of factors go into his scoring and they change every year. As he says, he looks at a vendor’s strategy and scores it on how well they executed on what they said they would. He then measures the impact they had on the market. Impact as a company – so not just their architectural excellence or financial performance or social responsibility posture. And it is based on the vendor’s stated strategy and market focus – which allows smaller vendors to be evaluated fairly depending on how they delivered against their geographic, vertical or size of customer focus.

He does factor in what he calls “intangibles”. His scoring for that category is a bit less transparent considering how much he guides vendors about the others. But he shares one nugget - he deducts points for “competition bashing”. Good for him.

He is tough and thorough, but very fair. Does not matter if you are a client of his or a close friend. This year, he evaluated 59 vendors reading every word of the 4,682 pages (yes!) if they were submitted to his guidelines. It is a testament to his market impact that vendors spend so much time and effort on their responses.

He has three winning categories -Winners, Winners with Distinction, and Elite. Only a handful have qualified for the Elite designation over all these years. There were 4 winners with Distinction this time around – Oracle, ServiceNow, Thunderhead and Zoho. He discusses another 12 in the Winners tier. Zoho scored highest in total this year. It also submitted the longest response at 259 pages. Paul insists there is no correlation between size of the response and his scoring.

He also shares the vendors who scored highest for each of his categories and summarizes with 4 promising and 2 concerning trends he gleaned from this year's responses.

I have run competitive evaluations of software vendors and outsourcers for many a client. At Gartner, I ran similar structured reviews for Magic Quadrants and other long-form content. I feel no shame saying I did not ever come close to evaluating 50+ vendors or reading 4000+ response pages for a single deliverable.

Next year, Paul says will be the final Watchlist. I suspect he will get an even larger population of vendors who pay homage by participating. In the blog post he said “Since this upcoming one is the very last one so, if I'm you, I'm registering to take a crack at it. Even if most companies don't win the award, they more often than not appreciate the exercise that you go through to put together the submission because it, when completed, gives you a holistic look at your company that you otherwise do not have.  It's worth it for the workout.”

I will absolutely bring him back for to describe the process for the 20th in the series. In the meantime, I need to have him back around his other passion – professional sports. We can discuss Tom Brady’s “un-retirement”, the return of baseball after a near shutout and so much else.

Analyst Cam: IFS Industry Solutions

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 Antony Bourne, Senior Vice President of Industries at IFS. He presents an overview on 5 sectors they particularly focus on

• Aerospace and Defense
• Utilities, Energy, Telecom
• Construction and Engineering
• Manufacturing
• Services

While many other vendors can claim to be focused on these industries, IFS usually has a nuanced perspective. Services for many vendors means call centers or PSA – Professional Services Automation and project time and expense billing. The IFS perspective is much wider to include field services, digital twins and remote assistance to those technicians and to support outcome-based business models. Their aerospace customer base covers OEMs, operators, MRO vendors, national defense agencies – again a much wider definition.

Antony also talks about several strategic trends across these industries including:

• Servitization – where industrial companies are getting more revenues from post-sales services, adopting subscription and other business models and organizationally blending product and service organizations. (I had previously hosted Marne Martin and Mark Brewer of IFS on two episodes of Burning Platform on the topic here)
• Resurgence of Capex – as he points out 70% of industrial assets are over 25 years old so there is a growing focus on capex spend and harnessing the mountains of data that modern assets with sensors and software are generating
• Smarter Construction – Pre-fab concepts are allowing manufacturing concepts to be applied to that sector

I have invited his group to do a drill down across a few of their verticals. Antony whets our appetite in a 25-minute presentation – actually more of a back and forth. He did not need any slides. Nicely done.

More urgency around energy transition

I have been preaching a focus on balanced energy – invest in wind and solar, but also in upgrades to nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal and other energy sources. And don’t demonize fossil fuels till the others scale up significantly.  My note last year, The road to energy hell…is being paved with good intentions, predicted a bumpy transition away from fossils. The recent crisis in Ukraine and the resulting spike in energy prices are just the beginning and are forcing an urgent rethink of energy strategies.

As one of my New Year resolutions, I promised a lot of focus on energy, carbon reduction and the circular economy on my innovation blog,  New Florence.

Here are 10 recent entries:

The promise of the hydrogen economy

Tesla’s Megapacks in Alaska

Hydroelectric as most popular renewable fuel

Solar energy from the American desert

Exciting progress on nuclear fusion

Creative uses of captured carbon

The complex LNG supply chain

Solar panels covering canals – avoiding evaporation and generating energy

Synthetic biology to create carbon negative chemicals

ML maps nearly 70,000 solar energy sites with capacity of at least 10 kilowatts.

Much more to come.

Analyst Cam: ASUG – Pulse of Customer Survey

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 Geoff Scott, CEO of the Americas' SAP Users' Group. He has been a frequent guest in this series and on Burning Platform. Here he summarizes results from their recent N. American Pulse of Customer survey including:

• How does the COVID-19 pandemic continue to affect organizations’ operations?
• Who is making IT buying decisions today?
• Where are SAP customers placing their focuses in 2022?
• What technology is having the most impact on digital transformation efforts?
• What’s the status on migrations to SAP S/4HANA?
• What role is cloud playing in organizations’ current landscapes?
• Why does SAP talent and training continue to challenge SAP customers, especially with the “great resignation” affecting most talent sectors?

This truly is an abridged version, though as you will see I asked a number of questions. If you are an ASUG member you can access a much longer version here. And if you are not a member yet, as Geoff says you should definitely consider signing up here

 

 

Analyst Cam: Empower – Digitizing the journey from linear to circular econo

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 Wilhelm Myrer, Founder and CEO of Empower.eco, an Oslo, Norway based startup. Empower is the last in the Sustainability cohort introduced to me by SAP.iO Foundries, which represent SAP’s startup programs, including accelerators, that enable startups that can deliver value to SAP customers (see their presentation here ).

The US EPA defines a circular economy as one which “reduces material use, redesigns materials to be less resource intensive, and recaptures “waste” as a resource to manufacture new materials and products.”

In many ways, Norway, and Scandinavia broadly, epitomize the growing focus on the circular economy. Norway has an incredibly effective plastic exchange system - 97% of all plastic bottles are recycled, while most countries around the world barely get to 10%. Norwegian company, Tomra, has since inception in 1972, become an icon for the circular economy with its reverse vending machines which collect bottles and cans from consumers. Mark Brewer of IFS had described them here https://bit.ly/2KvjkXg

Wilhelm describes the basic principle which works for Tomra and Norway – reward consumers for each bottle returned with cash or credits and businesses with tax and other incentives. Enpower is helping companies digitize the flow from consumer through the recycling ecosystem using blockchain technology, providing detailed traceability, accountability, metrics and "product passports" along the way. The traceability is showing up in interesting ways to delight customers - he tells the example of how seats from a soccer stadium in Spain are being recycled and the end products will allow consumers to proudly brag about that origin.

While the major focus is on plastics, the concept can be applied to paper, glass, metals and so many other materials. 

Very inspirational conversation below.

Analyst Cam: Specright – making standards and specifications sexy

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 Matthew Wright, Founder and CEO of Specright which provides specification data management to Fortune 1000 companies with complex needs.

They were introduced to me by SAP.iO Foundries, which represent SAP’s startup programs, including accelerators, that enable startups that can deliver value to SAP customers (see their presentation here ).

Specright was one of the startups in their Sustainability cohort last year but as you will hear precision in specifications can have an impact in every  process which touches raw materials, ingredients, formulas, packaging and finished goods.

Matthew’s passion comes from a couple of decades in the packaging industry. As he describes in his book The Evolution of Products and Packaging, we have seen an explosion in SKUs and complexity in supply chains. As he says, existing ERP, PLM and other software were designed before complexity grew exponentially, and the lack of focus on specifications is the root cause of many supply chain issues we are seeing. BTW, Gartner identified them as a Cool Vendor in their Supply Chain category in 2020.

He presents on three customers and how they have benefited from better specs – one reduced scrap production, the second reduced spend on corrugate packaging and the third in sourcing a critical ingredient across multiple product SKUs. He also describes how they have helped industries set standards and work with other bodies which are tasked with defining them.

Very nicely done, and I am looking forward to reading his book.

Analyst Cam: Zoho Creator Platform 6 and low-code positioning

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

Zoho announced today version 6 of their Creator Platform and are also positioning it as a low-code development solution. As it says "Organizations currently face soaring demand for new business software, but existing low-code platforms for business users only facilitate basic app building, lacking the sophistication needed to develop scalable, enterprise-ready end-to-end tools."

In advance of the announcement, Zoho arranged a conversation with Hyther Nizam. I had talked to him about his regional role in the Middle East and Africa here. In the segment below he provides a 10 minute long exec overview on the low-code market. As he says. we have “crossed the chasm” in terms of IT acceptance of citizen developers. I also liked his point how customers are using the tool for developing industry specific application extensions. 

I also had Tejas Gadhia in Product Management at Zoho present in a longer segment below about new functionality in the platform. It includes role-based access controls and comprehensive audit trails and backup to give IT more visibility and comfort about casual developers and has an embedded business intelligence and analytics engine among other features. More about the features here

It is clearly not just for citizen developers. If anything, I hope Zoho does not overemphasize the low-code moniker - the platform is being used by much more sophisticated developers 

Analyst Cam: Algramo – Redefining CPG plastic packaging

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission ) as part of my Analyst Cam series. https://bit.ly/34eWDMD

This time it is Carlos Oliveira, CTO of Algramo, which is helping CPG companies rethink packaging and refilling of cleaning, personal care, pet food and other products which are today mostly sold in plastic containers. Based in Santiago, Chile, Algramo translates to “by the gram”.

Algramo’s delivery mechanism is a vending machine dispenser where consumers refill in their reusable smart containers. Carlos says these containers can last up to 250 uses. RFID IDs in the containers and mobile apps help track consumption, container life and reuse patterns and also have a gamification angle. Carlos goes into some of the dispensing and sanitation technology.

The value propositions - Retailers save on shelf space. Producers like Unilever, Nestle, Colgate and Clorox are some of their customers who ship in bulk and save on packaging. Consumers pay for bite-size purchases at their point of need e,g, detergents are sold in public laundromats.  The world benefits from reduced plastic pollution. Carlos presents on data on their plastic, water and C02 savings

Carlos gave me a personal invite to go test his dispensers in Chile! But closer to many of us they are at the following locations if you want to support this creative contribution to sustainable world.

San Francisco

• Target, 115 4th St, San Francisco, CA 94103

NYC

• 259 Malcolm X Blvd, Brooklyn, NY 11233
• 141 Flushing Ave Building 77, Brooklyn, NY 11205
• 115 4th St, San Francisco, CA 94103, United States
• Brooklyn Navy Yard (Building 77) - 141 Flushing Ave, Brooklyn NY 11205
• Essex Market - 88 Essex St, New York, NY 10002

London

• Lidl, Stalling's Ln, Kingswinford DY6 7BG

They are also represented in Indonesia and soon will have presence in Mexico. Carlos explains how they decide on global expansion.

They were introduced to me by SAP.iO Foundries, which represent SAP’s startup programs, including accelerators, that enable startups that can deliver value to SAP customers (see their presentation here ). Algramo was one of the startups in their Sustainability cohort last year.

Analyst Cam: HCL Technologies and complex industrial asset monitoring and maintenance

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

HCL is a leading Indian outsourcing firm. Differently from some of its Indian peers, it has long had a strong product engineering/testing focus, not just an IT practice. I profiled some of that prowess in a case study I wrote (see excerpt here) on the innovative Boeing 787 design and the radically redesigned supply chain for the plane’s components. HCL had helped Boeing with testing and other services.   

HCL has also been investing in and offering more in packaged software and IP, not just selling labor and project services. As an example, it acquired collaboration, commerce, digital experience, AppScan, & BigFix solutions from IBM in 2019.

With that backdrop, we had Colin Breakwell, Associate Vice President at HCL Technologies present on their iMRO and iSAM extensions to SAP’s S/4HANA ERP core for applications in aerospace and other complex equipment settings.

Many of those complex product industries have been generating more in services revenues – it is a trend called servitization – see episodes here and here which go into more of that trend. That transition to services is calling for a wide range of asset tracking, digital twin, field service, spare part inventory, outcome based business models, SLA management and other functionality and as Colin points out coordination across a vast ecosystem of cross-border equipment makers, operators, lessors and service providers. 

It is also leading to legislation around the world under the moniker of “Right to Repair”. Customers want the choice to maintain these assets on their own or with third party service providers, not just be forced to sign up for multi-year service contracts with the equipment maker.  

Colin does a nice job describing in about half an hour this new world of making, maintaining and monitoring some of the most complex aircraft engines, wind turbines, mining, oilfield, medical, transportation and other equipment. And the wide range of software functionality SAP and HCL offer this sector.