deal architect

Burning Platform: The Right to Repair and Service

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

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

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

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

Fascinating and much needed conversation.

Burning Platform: Experience, Inc.

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

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

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

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

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

Analyst Cam: Zoho Marketing Plus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sapphire Preview: Next-Gen SAP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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