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 Tom Ryan, my former Gartner colleague. Along with Michael Wohlwend, Managing Principal at Alpine Supply Chain Solutions, they recently presented an hour-long webinar "Battle of the Bots" focused on warehouse automation. They kindly allowed me to excerpt about 18 minutes below.
One of the most sophisticated examples of warehouse automation has shown up in Amazon's massive fulfillment centers. I wrote about my tour to one here. I also excerpted from their virtual tour of 5 of their centers in the Analyst Cam episode here. I also interviewed the co-CEOs of 6 River Systems (now part of Spotify, both Amazon alums) last year, and also had an Analyst Cam episode on their bots here.
Tom discussed 6 fulfillment methods/use cases where robots increasingly participate. I have excerpted 3 below - Goods to Person, Order to Person and Long Distance Product Moves. He also discusses some of the vendors and models for each. I have also included his commentary on economics of such automation.
Very nicely done in plain English and with crisp graphics.
The full webinar which contains more commentary on the evolution of warehouse automation, some polling and q&a during the webinar and 3 other fulfillment scenarios is available here.
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 Muddu Sudhakar, CEO of Aisera.
He presents on their Conversational AI driven workflow automation. How it helps takes conversational service requests from what he calls today's "happy hour platforms" where users are spending several hours every day like MS Teams, Slack, Zoom and from traditional IVRs, bypass human intervention and route them appropriately to facilitate as much self-service as possible.
The investment he says is easy to justify - savings in service agent (especially in large, multi-lingual settings), IT and HR time and service licenses can be significant.
He uses the term "hyperautomation" - I asked him to clarify and they support automation in the white collar world (both with on prem and SaaS applications) , not around physical world automation with warehouse bots, drones or industrial robots.
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 Barbry McGann, SVP and Managing Director of Workday Ventures. She is a repeat presenter in this series, though this is the first time she is presenting on the Ventures portfolio. She took over from Leighanne Levensaler who had presented on the fund here
As usual, Barbry is extremely crisp and covers a lot of ground in 20 minutes. She discusses 9 new investments in the first 6 months of the year and some exits (including 2 profiled in this series - Suplari acquired by Microsoft and Zimit acquired by Workday). She discusses a very vibrant market for startups, Workday's growing focus (both functionally and around its Prism, Adaptive, Extend tools) and areas which are being prioritized by investors like digital health and fintech.
Earlier this week, I wrote a post titled Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying. I pointed out vendors which look like the "living dead" with very little innovation. Listening to Barbry excitedly talk about the portfolio and even more about new opportunities, I am more convinced Workday has been very busy living.
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 Fred Goff, CEO of Jobcase. More than just a hiring site, Jobcase calls itself "a “people-first” social platform – "built to help you improve and manage your work-life." I was introduced to them by Workday Ventures - it is a portfolio company and Jobcase and Workday have 200+ joint customers.
As he says, Jobcase is focused on 80% of the employment market which may not have college degrees - baristas, trade, blue collar jobs etc. Also it is pragmatic as its over 100 million community members provide real-world advice to peers about opportunities, risks etc.
We cover wide ground about the changing labor market - shortages, automation, anxiety in the work force, college degrees and student debt, middle class trends and how his company is working with various state labor/reemployment agencies - W. Virginia and Rhode Island among others which are committed to helping people find opportunities and stay positive about the future of work.
A few months ago, Cognizant asked a few market watchers to look at how we would live, work and learn differently as a result of the 2020 pandemic. Our forecasts were published in 16 themes in their Timeline of Next report - download a copy here.
A week ago, Cognizant invited three of us: Beth Porter, CEO of Riff Analytics and Managing Partner of Esme Learning, Clay Griffith, Director of Product Marketing, Cognizant Softvision and me to a hour-long webinar on the themes from the report. Manish Bahl, AVP of the Cognizant Center for the Future of Work moderated the discussion.
I have excerpted below 2 segments from each of the living, working and learning sections of the webinar. We covered a lot more ground in the webinar. I would encourage you to watch the whole session by registering here and to read the report.
We got a lot of questions during the webinar - we answered some live, and responded to many others in writing after the session. If you have any questions, send me an email and I will similarly get one of us to respond.
BTW, I mention a business travel survey I recently conducted - you can read details in this post .
When they held ZohoDay in February, Zoho had briefed me in detail on their BI roadmap. I had given them some feedback. So did several other analysts during the day. They took that input and managed to work through the chaos of the recent COVID surge in India and launched their expanded BI platform this week.
Zoho Analytics is already used by more than 50,000 organizations. Interestingly, Zoho says 60% of existing users have chosen it as their BI tool even when running on non-Zoho applications and data sources.
I have excerpted below 3 new components demoed by Chandrashekar LSP, the Chief Evangelist for that product area. There is a definite emphasis on self-service.
It starts off with DataPrep, an AI-driven data preparation tool. Next at 4.35, he walks through Data Stories. It includes a portal builder (Zoho Sites) and presentation software (Zoho Show). Finally at 8.37, he presents on the augmented analytics layer which leverages Ask Zia, Zoho's conversational interface.
The recent enhancements make it even more intuitive to end users and should make it even compelling for use either with Zoho data (especially if an enterprise is using many of nearly 50 integrated Zoho One apps) or from other sources.
As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission ), as part of my Analyst Cam series.
SAP's annual event - Sapphire Now - is usually about drinking from a fire hose. Content for customers across so many industries and global regions, and so many products in the SAP portfolio screaming for attention. This year, the second year where COVID restrictions have precluded travel to Orlando where it is normally held, the event was again virtual. I took a industry viewpoint, especially since a major announcement this year was the verticalization of its RISE initiative for an initial set of 5 sectors - utilities, consumer packaged goods, automotive, industrial machinery and components (IM&C), and retail.
In part 1 yesterday, I excerpted from CEO Christian Klein's keynote and from an interview of Dr. Hasso Plattner.
In Part 2 below, CMO Julia White leads off with a nice summary across industries. At 4:41, the focus shifts to changing business models - an increasingly common trend as industries morph. It is a discussion with Peter Maier, President of SAP Industries and with executives from Discovery Limited which is a South African-founded financial services firm in healthcare, insurance, banking, and wellness markets. Lots of discussion around outcome based models. Finally at 11.47, Georg Kube, Global Vice President of the Industrial Machinery & Components vertical drills down into his sector and details the RISE offering there.
As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission ), as part of my Analyst Cam series.
Salesforce held an Industries Summit earlier this month. They invited me to an analyst pre-briefing and gave me access to keynotes and sessions across 8 sectors - Communications, Energy and Utilities, Financial Services, Government and Public Sector, Healthcare and Life sciences, Manufacturing, Media, Retail and Consumer Goods.
I have excerpted segments across the sectors and am posting them into three parts.
Part 1 covered 3 "mega-trends" I heard during the sessions, around sustainability on the energy sector, servitization on the industrial sector and the impact of "everything from home" on the communications and media sectors.
Part 2 yesterday profiled Jujhar Singh, the EVP and GM of Salesforce Industries with the theme of "industry success from anywhere" as we move into hybrid work and shopping world. There is a demo of a new Salesforce offering for investment bankers. Next, Kristen Jensen of the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity brought a public sector perspective on change. Finally, there were demos relevant for channels in retail and consumer goods covering rebates, incentive management and trade promotions.
In Part 3 below Bret Taylor, President and COO of Salesforce touches on the "digital first" and "transform now" themes in every industry. He also covers industry specific AI and Hyperforce - Salesforce's infrastructure architecture that allows customers to scale rapidly and securely using its public cloud hyperscaler partners. Next at 5.34 is a demo of a local government application - the use case revolves around licensing of a day care facility. We next switch at 10.09 to a telco and the opportunities 5G is opening up. Mallik Rao, CTIO at Telefonica Germany is certainly qualified to describe that. Finally there are two product discussions - one around wealth management at 18.42 aimed at financial services customers and the other at 21.54 on patient appointments aimed at healthcare customers.
While every vendor is talking up "industry clouds", the breadth of vertical processes covered during the Salesforce Summit was truly impressive. I have excerpted only a small fraction of what I saw and heard. You too can sign up and watch the full range of sessions or an industry specific track by registering here
As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission ), as part of my Analyst Cam series.
Salesforce held an Industries Summit earlier this month. They invited me to an analyst pre-briefing and gave me access to keynotes and sessions across 8 sectors - Communications, Energy and Utilities, Financial Services, Government and Public Sector, Healthcare and Life sciences, Manufacturing, Media, Retail and Consumer Goods.
I have excerpted segments across the sectors and am posting them into three parts.
Part 1 yesterday covered 3 "mega-trends" I heard during the sessions, around sustainability on the energy sector, servitization on the industrial sector and the impact of "everything from home" on the communications and media sectors.
Today in video below, Jujhar Singh, the EVP and GM of Salesforce Industries leads off with the theme of "industry success from anywhere" as we move into hybrid work and shopping world. At 4.48 there is a demo of a new Salesforce offering for investment bankers. Next, at 10.06, Kristen Jensen of the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity brings a public sector perspective on change. Finally, at 16.26 there are demos relevant for channels in retail and consumer goods covering rebates, incentive management and trade promotions.
In Part 3 tomorrow, Bret Taylor, President and COO of Salesforce will touch on the "digital first" and "transform now" themes in every industry. He also covers industry specific AI and Hyperforce - Salesforce's infrastructure architecture that allows customers to scale rapidly and securely using its public cloud hyperscaler partners. Next is a demo of a local government application - the use case revolves around licensing of a day care facility. We next switch to a telco and the opportunities 5G is opening up. Mallik Rao, CTIO at Telefonica Germany is certainly qualified to describe that. Finally there are two product discussions - one around wealth management aimed at financial services customers and the other on patient appointment aimed at healthcare customers.
While every vendor is talking up "industry clouds", the breadth of vertical processes covered during the Salesforce Summit was truly impressive. I have excerpted only a small fraction of what I saw and heard. You too can sign up and watch the full range of sessions or an industry specific track by registering here
As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission ), as part of my Analyst Cam series.
Salesforce held an Industries Summit earlier this month. They invited me to an analyst pre-briefing and gave me access to keynotes and sessions across 8 sectors - Communications, Energy and Utilities, Financial Services, Government and Public Sector, Healthcare and Life sciences, Manufacturing, Media, Retail and Consumer Goods.
I have excerpted segments across the sectors and am posting them into three parts.
The part in the video below covers 3 "mega-trends" I heard during the sessions. The first is around sustainability - while the desire for clean energy is affecting every sector, it is especially impactful on utilities. I have excerpted from a conversation with Yves Le Gerald, EVP at Engie, the French multinational electric utility company and Megan Lorenzen, Sustainability Manager at Salesforce. It is nice to hear the perspectives of both a procurer and a producer of energy.
At 13.10, the focus shifts to "servitization" - a growing trend in the industrial sector as product makers get more revenues from services and move to as-a-service, subscription and outcome based business models. It features Thomas Gocke who heads digital business transformation at Koenig and Bauer, the German company that makes printing presses and is very well versed in servitization trends.
At 21.19, focus is on "everything from home" - the impact of working, dining, studying, entertaining at home and the impact on broadband and media. Linda Yaccarino, Chairman of global advertising sales and client partnerships at NBCUniversal has a front row seat watching the massive changes that the pandemic accelerated.
In Part 2, Jujhar Singh, the EVP and GM of Salesforce Industries will lead off with the theme of "industry success from anywhere" as we move into hybrid work and shopping world. Then, there is a demo of a new Salesforce offering for investment bankers. Next, Kristen Jensen of the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity brings a public sector perspective on change. Finally there are demos relevant for channels in retail and consumer goods covering rebates, incentive management and trade promotions.
In Part 3, Bret Taylor, President and COO of Salesforce will touch on the "digital first" and "transform now" themes in every industry. He also covers industry specific AI and Hyperforce - Salesforce's infrastructure architecture that allows customers to scale rapidly and securely using its public cloud hyperscaler partners. Next is a demo of a local government application - the use case revolves around licensing of a day care facility. We next switch to a telco and the opportunities 5G is opening up. Mallik Rao, CTIO at Telefonica Germany is certainly qualified to describe that. Finally there are two product discussions - one around wealth management aimed at financial services customers and the other on patient appointment aimed at healthcare customers.
While every vendor is talking up "industry clouds", the breadth of vertical processes covered during the Salesforce Summit was truly impressive. I have excerpted only a small fraction of what I saw and heard. You too can sign up and watch the full range of sessions or an industry specific track by registering here
Analyst Cam: Cognizant "Timeline of Next"
A few months ago, Cognizant asked a few market watchers to look at how we would live, work and learn differently as a result of the 2020 pandemic. Our forecasts were published in 16 themes in their Timeline of Next report - download a copy here.
A week ago, Cognizant invited three of us: Beth Porter, CEO of Riff Analytics and Managing Partner of Esme Learning, Clay Griffith, Director of Product Marketing, Cognizant Softvision and me to a hour-long webinar on the themes from the report. Manish Bahl, AVP of the Cognizant Center for the Future of Work moderated the discussion.
I have excerpted below 2 segments from each of the living, working and learning sections of the webinar. We covered a lot more ground in the webinar. I would encourage you to watch the whole session by registering here and to read the report.
We got a lot of questions during the webinar - we answered some live, and responded to many others in writing after the session. If you have any questions, send me an email and I will similarly get one of us to respond.
BTW, I mention a business travel survey I recently conducted - you can read details in this post .
August 08, 2021 in Analyst Cam, Future of Work, Industry Commentary, New Normal COVID-19 | Permalink | Comments (0)