In the 34th (today) and 35th (tomorrow) episode of the series we have Brad Feld, Founding Partner, Foundry Group and Ian Hathaway who leads the global ecosystems business at Techstars,
They also discuss how the pandemic has led to population shifts away from several urban centers and the resulting opportunities and challenges for new startup communities. They discuss how things are likely to shake out as we come out of the pandemic. Brad describes the trajectory the city of Boulder, CO has seen over the last few decades in its evolution as a startup magnet.
In tomorrow's episode, they will discuss how the world has changed for entrepreneurs with the pandemic and with the new administration in the US.
OK, don't freak out. 2021 will hopefully not be as miserable as 2020. However, from a Deal Architect content point of view, 2021 can only look back at 2020 with envy.
We initiated or accelerated contributions to 5 series in 2020:
In the 33rd episode of the series is Jyoti Banerjee, co-founder of North Star Transition.
I first met Jyoti a quarter of a century ago and have always known him for focusing on better corporate reporting and finance. He has been globally influential in the Integrated Reporting movement. More importantly, he has also been an "impact investor" for two decades in various greentech/cleantech initiatives around the world. I heard him present on his work on the Wales Transition Lab and invited him to be part of this series. I like the systemic thinking he is bringing there by involving farmers, insurance companies, public health, environmental and other government agencies.
As background, in The New Polymath, I had written about the globe's "Grand Challenges". I have been frustrated at the progress over the last decade. Jyoti is similarly frustrated at how little progress we are making on the environment and other sustainable goals. My view of systemic thinking, however, is slightly different than his. As some of you know I have developed my "multiple locomotive" model from my travels to over 70 countries. In my view the biggest, most affluent countries need to all step up to power the global "freight train" when it comes to the environment, trade, immigration, policing of hot spots and many other challenges. It has been easy to expect the US and couple of other countries to carry most of the burden.
You can see both our points of view come out in the episode. I tell him he is expecting too much from corporations in the Western world when we should also be calling out China, India, Russia, Germany, Japan and many other countries. Why continue to criticize the US whose emissions have been going down for the last decade and not challenge China which is now the world's biggest polluter and just accept their 2060 Net Zero emissions horizon? If things are really dire, we cannot be giving concessions to India, Russia, China and others to continue to use coal. Offline, I told him after more than a decade EVs still have only 3% global market share. Part of the reason - even with 25% lighter bill of materials, EVs are priced 50% or more than internal combustion vehicles. In most countries, the utilities that power EV batteries still largely run coal and fossil fueled plants. Solar and wind are still not that competitive in spite of massive subsidies. In some ways, that makes your EV dirtier than your Humvee. We should have the courage to call out ALL the slackers.
Definitely watch starting at 14.00 what he describes of his work in Wales and what he describes around the systemic work in Finland around cardiac health But please watch the whole episode. You may not agree with everything Jyoti or I say, but it will hopefully make you challenge simplistic mainstream, woke thinking and get impatient like the both of us with ALL the slackers.
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.
In the 28th episode of the Burning Platform series is Amit Zavery of Google Cloud. We discuss the exciting growth in no-code, Citizen Development.
Amit and I discuss how the pandemic has revealed several problems in on-prem systems and also that most cloud application packages were mostly horizontal in reach. Boutique vendors had to step up in many industry areas like ecommerce, fulfillment, telemedicine, distance learning, digital real estate etc. It would suggest we are at a tipping point where customers will need to build more rather than wait to buy functionality from their traditional vendors for agility in the changed world.
Yet, IT has it hands full with new issues around WFH, previous dev backlogs, enhanced security focus. It would suggest more of a focus on low- and no-code development to bridge the gap. Not just dev - we have seen acceleration in democratization of analytics, integration with other enterprise apps, the ability to use voice interfaces to do so much without much IT involvement. Amit describes how healthcare workers stepped up to build fairly sophisticated hospital applications.
The impact on small businesses has been even more dramatic. Restaurant owners have been forced to adjust to a digital world of customer interaction and last mile delivery. Small merchants have been forced to embrace e-commerce, real estate agents adjust to virtual open houses and digital mortgages. They have become tech-savvy in a hurry. It's not just DevOps - it's digital business transformation.
We also discuss platforms of SaaS vendors like Salesforce, those of mostly on-prem vendors like IBM and Oracle, and those of hyperscalers like Google.
In the past, citizen IT tools have led to a lot of duplication and proliferation - millions of spreadsheets, Lotus Notes databases everywhere. We discuss how to put guard rails to avoid similar sprawl this time around and also factor security concerns which leads cynics to call this "shadow IT"
Amit has long been a cheerleader for low-code, no-code. His excitement comes through very clearly. We are definitely at a major inflection point in the industry. We have a lot more tech-savvy users and citizens than we did a year ago. That is exciting and scary at the same time.
Brian Sommer and I have recorded 12 episodes in this series - see index here . Last couple of months, we have had several guests - Rob Kugel of Ventana, Josh Greenbaum of EA Consulting, Bonnie Tinder of Raven Intel, Frank Scavo of Avasant, Dennis Howlett of Diginomica, Cindy Jutras of Mint Jutras, Dave Hofferberth of SPI Research, Holger Mueller of Constellation Research, Tamas Hevizi of Automation Anywhere, Bob Ferrari of Supply Chain Matters, Sabrina Horn of Horn Strategy, Sandra Lo of Zoho, Bob Evans of Evans Strategic Communications, Paul Coetser of Big Blue Ventures and Mark Smith of Ventana Research
In the 27th episode of the series is Dennis Holwett, co-founder of Diginomica. Like me, he is a long-time SAP watcher and we discuss last week's RISE with SAP event. I had written about the event in the Analyst Cam series here.
We cover a lot of ground - it is the longest episode of Burning Platform.
RISE is a complex bundle - in fact, in his keynote Christian took at swipe at the term "simplification". That's been SAP's mantra for the last decade or so, but key execs like Christian, Juergen Mueller and Thomas Saueressig are pretty articulate about product details. 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.
Dennis responds to my observation that Christian led off with his SI partners and had the hyperscalers further down in his presentation. Shades of the old SAP or signs of likely co-opetition with the hyperscalers especially at the platform layer?
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.
I told him I thought RISE would focus more on execution mechanics and economics. Instead they broadened the product mix with the Signavio and the MS Teams announcement and glossed over what will be hairy execution and contractual issues. SAP has historically shown little ability to manage its SI partners, can it additionally manage the hyperscalers and its own broad product portfolio and deliver coherent economics, SLAs etc?
We discuss the changing hyperscaler landscape. IBM has joined the Big 4 - AWS, Azure etc in the SAP infrastructure stack mix, but not Oracle. During the pandemic, Oracle appeared to pick up some momentum with customers like Zoom and TikTok. Oracle, at least at the database layer, is also more prevalent in the SAP customer base. We discuss how customers are likely to navigate SAP's choices.
We do agree that SAP should never be underestimated. It has an amazing global customer base, spread across industries and is increasingly cultivating a dynamic, young executive suite.
Brian Sommer and I have recorded 12 episodes in this series - see index here. Last couple of months, we have had several guests - Rob Kugel of Ventana, Josh Greenbaum of EA Consulting, Bonnie Tinder of Raven Intel, Frank Scavo of Avasant, Dennis Howlett of Diginomica, Cindy Jutras of Mint Jutras, Dave Hofferberth of SPI Research, Holger Mueller of Constellation Research, Tamas Hevizi of Automation Anywhere, Bob Ferrari of Supply Chain Matters, Sabrina Horn of Horn Strategy, Sandra Lo of Zoho, Bob Evans of Evans Strategic Communications and Paul Coetser of Big Blue Ventures
In the 26th episode of the series is Mark Smith, CEO and Chief Research Officer of Ventana Research. We discuss how Business Continuity plans performed in what I call a Black Swan(S) year. How do you plan for continuity, disaster recovery and contingencies given one crisis after another - health, financial, diversity, sustainability?
We discuss how various forms of planning performed, whether they are too siloed and whether we will revert to long term, econometric, scenario planning.
Even more than corporations, it would appear government bodies need to revisit BCP. Their guidance, especially around public health to citizens has been chaotic. Their guidance to corporations around site re-opening protocols has been conflicting. Mark comments how one positive from the chaos is increased public/private collaboration.
We discuss how technology vendors have stepped up, especially planning vendors and how vendors like Salesforce and Workday have delivered new health and diversity related offerings.
We cover a lot of ground - going forward we will need to balance the desire for continuity and predictability with the reality of continued chaos and need for agility. As Mark says "every day is a new day - the sun rises and the sun sets - and anytime in between something can go wrong"
Brian Sommer and I recorded the first 12 episodes in this series. Since then, we have had several guests - Rob Kugel of Ventana, Josh Greenbaum of EA Consulting, Bonnie Tinder of Raven Intel, Frank Scavo of Avasant, Dennis Howlett of Diginomica, Cindy Jutras of Mint Jutras, Dave Hofferberth of SPI Research, Holger Mueller of Constellation Research, Tamas Hevizi of Automation Anywhere, Bob Ferrari of Supply Chain Matters, Sabrina Horn of Horn Strategy, Sandra Lo of Zoho and Bob Evans of Evans Strategic Communications. See the index here
Kicking off this year in the 25th episode of the series is Paul Coester of Big Blue Ventures. He has played a role in 20 SAP ECC and 12 S/4HANA projects - most of them in the Asia Pacific region. We discuss how 2020 played out for SAP in that region and how 2021 is likely to shape up - around S/4HANA, its cloud properties and its industry applications.
We also discuss how SIs and hyperscalers have evolved over the last couple of years. Finally, we discuss the growth in "fractional IT" - he is a prime example of that with his simultaneous hand in enterprise architecture, quality assurance and other roles on multiple projects.
I have always known Paul to call it as he sees it. He appropriately calls himself a "SAP Whisperer" Nice to get his perspective from "Down Under".
Burning Platform: Developers, Developers...
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.
February 16, 2021 in Burning Platform, Industry analysts (Gartner, Forrester, AMR, others), Industry Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0)