As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission) as part of my Analyst Cam series.
Most vendors have software demos as part of their events. SAP has taken that up a notch by blending the digital with the physical world. They showcase robotics, sensors and other physical world technologies in the many experience centers Sven Denecken had described in this episode.
Last year at Sapphire, the show floor had the Trilogy fashion/apparel demo company on the show floor which showcased next-gen tech for product innovation, sustainability, robotic manufacturing and retail experiences.
This year they went much further and actually served 25,000 helpings of (real) ice cream to attendees while showing off the Farm to Consume process flow.
I invited Andre Bechtold architect of the setting and other similar experiences to present. He has a 4 minute video of the show floor in Orlando then double clicks into the Farm-Source-Make-Deliver-Consume flow across agribusiness, CPG, logistics, retail and other industries.
Andre also talks about a similar setting he is working on which simulates the energy-mobility sector convergence around EV charging. He also discusses the investment and logistics of repeating the experience in 3 consecutive weeks of Sapphire in Orlando, Barcelona and Sao Paolo.
Very nicely done in about 30 minutes - he makes the setting look so easy - took lots of coordination across partners, technologies and locations. Brings to life the art of the possible to re-imagine business processes in the midst of industry convergence.
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 Sven Denecken, Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer for SAP Industries and Customer Experience. I had enjoyed his session on Industry Convergence at Sapphire last month and invited him to present an adapted version for this series. My write up from Sapphire is linked here
He discusses some of their research around industries creeping into each other’s turf including an extensive analysis of the SEC database for shifting industry density. He drills into the Farm to Consume process flow which was brought to life at the Sapphire show floor – bringing out SAP’s strong agribusiness, commodity trading, CPG, sustainability, traceability and supply chain credentials. He also describes the convergence of utilities and oil and gas sectors and the growing influence of retail and entertainment as EV charging opens up opportunities for new consumer experiences.
He describes four new Industry Networks – industrial manufacturing, life sciences, consumer products and high-tech - which plan to leverage progress over last couple of years in the automotive Catena-X network. These take SAP beyond networks of indirect materials like Ariba and Concur into tiers of direct suppliers.
Sven covers much more – Business AI around vertical operational data, two-tier ERP to transfer industry configurations from western markets to emerging economies, sustainability applications across industries including the Green Ledger announced at Sapphire, and Experience Centers across the world which increasingly bringing to life “the art of the possible” with SAP and partner applications, robotics and sensors
All that in around 25 minutes. I have invited Andre Bechtold from his team to present more on the Farm to Consume show floor and invited Sven back to drill down into many of the topics he quickly presented.
Vinnie Vertical is always energized after such industry focused sessions!
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 Chip Rodgers, Chief Partner Officer at WorkSpan. He describes how enterprise technology has evolved over the last couple of decades especially as we have moved to a cloud, API first world and a co-selling model.
Chip provides an example of the complexity of today’s deals.
"Think of an example like SAP, working with Accenture or Wipro. And deploying it all in the cloud on Google or in Azure. Maybe there's some technology in there, or there's a specific industry solution. Most deals have three, four or sometimes six or seven partners working together. And by the way, each of those partners has their own technology, their own solution, their own deal, and likely some subcontractors. Everybody's got their own CRM so how do you coordinate that co- selling effort and leverage the best of each of the players that are participating?”
Their solution covers collaboration across various marketing, sales, and other activities across partner cohorts.
WorkSpan has grown nicely in the last few years and claims $50 billion in joint pipeline value across vendor ecosystems
Chip explains all that and more in about 20 minutes – very nicely done.
In the 93rd episode of Burning Platform, we host Pete Tiliakos of GxT Advisors and Brent Skinner of 3Sixty Insights
One of the Deal Architect research agenda items is the rapidly changing global landscape for business and impact on enterprise software and processes. Pete and Brent bring a HCM lens to major global trends.
We discuss UKG’s acquisition of immedis (Pete’s more detailed commentary is here) we cover EOR, payroll and benefits managed services, and cloud software available to customers. We other global players like SAP, Workday, ADP, Ceridian and Papaya Global among others
We discuss what it means to be a “multinational company” these days. You don’t have to be a F500 company – even startups are born global. And as I have written earlier, MNCs are shifting country commitments at an unusually fast pace – some due to embargoes, others to escape high inflation, still others to balance out their global supply chains.
We discuss fast-growing emerging economies which look poised to grow quicker than the Western world over the next decade. They will be major software markets with unique functionality, language requirements and different price points.
We just scratched the surface in this 32 minute episode. Will be good to bring the two of them back on a regular basis for updates. As I like to say, there will be plenty of churn in the turbulent world we find ourselves in.
In the 92nd episode of Burning Platform, we host Meg Bear, President and Chief Product Officer for SAP SuccessFactors and Trish Steed, co-founder of H3HR Advisors, both longtime influencers of the world of work and workplaces
My team recently helped two SAP executives explore the impact of 4 major shocks – COVID, Ukraine crisis, climate change urgency and massive digital transformations on several industries and the resulting vertical “edge” applications which have emerged. The results were presented in a book titled “Business as Unusual with SAP” – the badge on left links to the Amazon page.
Did we naively believe the shocks would slow down or that the HCM function would be exempt from them?
Meg, Trish and I explore 2 macro trends - back to office mandates and re-balancing of employee, investor, consumer, other stakeholder voices and 2 exciting new technologies - Generative AI and Apple Vision Pro and their impact in the workplace.
We start with a discussion of work locations. Work from home, celebrated at the start of COVID is now being litigated in just about every workplace. Trish holds out hope we will not swing the pendulum all the way back. She quotes Pew Research which estimated in early 2020 at the start of COVID about 23% of people worked remotely. By October 2020, the number was up to 71%. In January of 2022, it was down to about 59. Will we go all the way back to 23% or settle at around 50%?
We then talk about Generative AI. Meg nicely summarizes we are going through an overabundance of both enthusiasm and fear and uncertainty. She talks about SAP’s announcements at Sapphire last month (see my commentary about the event here). Meg comments “AI is really about augmentation of what we as humans can do. It will change how we spend our days, that creates real opportunities for each of us to kind of re-imagine how we bring value to work, and how work brings value to us.”
We next talk about Apple’s recent release of its mixed-reality Vision Pro headset. We discuss fun uses in our personal lives and likely work use cases. We also discuss how it will play in a world where we are pondering the appropriate mix of remote v office work. We pause to wonder about eye fatigue most of us experienced over the last couple of years.
Next, we discuss the seesaw where HCM is pivoting toward focus on worker productivity and less on DEI and other topics which got more focus in recent years. Meg and Trish both comment that DEI needs continued maturation with the reality check that the voice of the shareholder, and especially of the consumer is as important as that of the employee.
No easy answers but continued change for HCM executives. It will be good for them to also adopt the “Business as Unusual” mindset. Meg and Trish do a great job covering a lot of ground in 35 minutes. We will have them back for more - we just scratched the surface!
Over the last few days, I have drooled plenty as I have watched videos and reviews of Vision Pro and Apple’s new era of spatial computing.
Personally I would love it as my virtual “IMAX theater”, as a HUD in a vehicle, as my companion on long flights.
But I am especially drooling as I see how far we have come since I was one of Gartner’s first remote analysts starting in 1995. The technology I had back then was-a-hand me down Apple laptop, a first-gen HP multi-function printer, and an additional phone line to support 14.4K baud digital communications. So, I am thinking ahead to the next decade as this device scales down to (even) more portable form-factors, longer battery life, and more affordable pricing and of course far speedier connectivity, especially on the road and in the air.
And a lot more enterprise use cases. I can see plenty of mixed reality applications in field service, on-boarding, training and other enterprise areas but I would like to see it enable even broader white collar collaboration.
Two reasons to pause:
Having spent inordinate time on video channels the last 3 years I worry about even more eye fatigue. Being so dependent on eye tracking, Apple wants eyeglass wearers to take them off and use Zeiss optical inserts for optimal performance with the new device. Interesting that Apple has simultaneously focused on digital eye strain in the iOS17 Health Feature set.
The launch comes smack-dab in the middle of an attempt by a number of employers to re-balance the hybrid workforce mix to encourage more in-person interaction. I have a feeling if Apple had this available in 2020, lots more of us would be using it and FaceTime compared to Teams or Zoom on laptops and mobile devices.
Back to my 1995 experience. Gartner was not exactly visionary with their decision to allow my cohort to work remotely. The stubborn fact is none of us was keen to relocate to HQ in Stamford, CT. Instead, I had to commit to relocate to a compromise location, Atlanta, within 12 months. I spent most of the first few months commuting to HQ learning the ropes. However, Gartner was a smart organization with tons of data. They could measure analyst productivity seven days to Sunday – number of client query calls, number of pages of new content generated, new presentation slides created etc. As part of my 6-month review they had enough data to see our remote cohort was off the charts in productivity and they listened to that data and told me to stay put in Tampa. As my boss told me “I can put the relocation budget to better use.” In the three decades since, while Gartner’s competitors stubbornly stuck to relocation policies, Gartner made remote work part of its culture, and expanded it to international recruiting and other talent sourcing.
I hope more companies who are mandating back to work are similarly smart about metering the hybrid-work mix and not just letting real estate economics and management egos drive the in-person time. And one smart technique for them will be to invest in Vision Pro pilot project. They need to see if they can get their productivity which should balance out commute time, family demands and other reasons staff prefer to work at remote locations. That will need a lot of metering and a lot of technology. Honestly, it is a shame that few HCM groups have evolved their talent metering over the 30 years since Gartner showed it could be done to measure a high-functioning, white collar role. Now is a good time, and Vision Pro could be an enabler.
And by the way, my experience at Gartner was a stark contrast to my previous experience at PwC which was was more of "drop everything and meet a client in person" culture. I have learned to work from anywhere - in an aisle seat, at a Starbucks, at hotels, at events. Six million air miles on Delta and others , over 1800 Marriott and 1500 elsewhere nights, over 500 Avis car rentals, visas from over 75 countries are proof of that.
Today's younger workers need to be similarly flexible. It is frustrating to see intransigent bosses and employees tussling over where and how to get work done. Just do it - ffs!
I shared in this post that our research agenda is tracking four large software and services markets – vertical “edge” applications, applications for fast-growing global economies, custom development using low and no-code tools and Generative and other AI.
The interest and noise around Generative AI is off the charts. In my long career in technology, other than the Y2K scare, nothing else has generated this much attention, so quickly. Much of it is coming from:
Investors – NVIDIA’s blowout quarter and ChatGPT’s eye popping user growth have woken up capital markets after the funk about tech in the last couple of years
Chicken Littles – many in the media who thrive on anxiety are busy projecting massive job losses from the AI automation
Politicians – who are never afraid to meddle are fascinated with the opportunity of regulating the new wave of “prompt gurus”
Enterprise Gen AI will be a major focus in one of my coming books. That I can say with some confidence. But in my very next one? Not so sure. My books are full of case studies and use cases, and the early Gen AI ones I have heard about in enterprise settings are still not that compelling. Maybe because they are still early in their deployment, and teams are acutely conscious of “hallucinations” and inadequate audit trails, potential loss of control over their data and IP. In some cases, they will end up with competitive offerings and they don't want to show their cards too early. Vendors, in turn, are being cautious of use cases they promise because they realize the vertical operational data (that will generate the best business payback) is locked up in customer data centers, not in their clouds. Besides, many don’t have explicit customer permissions to use their data to train machines.
I must add that just a few short years ago, I conducted a comprehensive look on automation (robotics, AI, drones, exoskeletons, autonomous vehicles etc across 50 industry settings) for my book, Silicon Collar. It covered over a century of UPC scanners, ATM machines, driver assistance, AI and other technologies. I summarized the findings in this Strategy+Business article and concluded “History shows that new technologies evolve faster than society adopts them.”
In the years since, COVID, Ukraine, climate change and massive digital transformations have turned every industry and country upside down. That is brought out vividly in the new book, we helped SAP executives write titled Business as Unusual.
In this changed world, perhaps Gen AI will have a more rapid impact on businesses. That’s why I am eager to learn about a variety of use cases across industries, business processes and countries. Not just in the back office, also customer facing, product creation, supply chain and vertical operational areas
All this will be sorted out – but it will will take some quarters, not mere weeks.
As Sayan Chakraborty, Co-President of Workday pointed out in his presentation at their AI and ML Innovation Summit in March we have been in a long “AI Winter”.
I am looking forward to the "AI Spring" and writing that book.
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