Dennis Howlett writes about the "current levels of public angst among independent industry analysts at the state of enterprise software". He cites Raven Intel, Josh Greenbaum, Upper Edge, Brian Sommer, Jarret Pazahanick and me pointing to different problem areas in the market.
What's interesting is most of them are in my upcoming book, as are many other industry observers like Holger Mueller, Frank Scavo, Cindy Jutras and Dennis and his colleagues at Diginomica. However, in total they probably make up 50 pages in the book. 40 customer case studies make up 250 pages. In many ways, the customers are more critical than the analysts. As I write in the intro to the book
"All were brutally honest about what they did or did not like on their projects. Vendors will cringe when they read some of those comments, but other customers should benefit from their candid feedback. A point worth making is that vendors are likely to home in on the negatives in comments about their competitors. Trust me, all of them have similar warts."
Here's the reality. 20 years of cloud computing, yet 80% of customers are still hanging on to antique, on-prem solutions. Certain segments of the market like HCM and CRM have decent coverage - most operational areas do not. We are being delusional if vendor executives and analysts together do not scream out loud and say "something is not right". I pointed out a few areas in my note 'Polishing Brand ERP'. My colleagues have other issues.
Vendors love praise. Some of them live for the stream of tweets they get at their events. Not sure that helps them close deals. Very few buyers are on Twitter, and only when they are in evaluation mode (once every couple of decades) do they read streams about vendors they decided against. They do listen to analysts, consult with them and read their long form reports. Especially balanced reports which point the good and the bad, and then allow them to make their complex decisions.
I was part of the analyst corps at Gartner from 1995 to 2000 which can take credit (and blame) for advising clients on 000s of ERP and related SI decisions. Ask vendor execs who dealt with us then - we were a terror. But if they are honest, they will also acknowledge that we made the market stronger and the solutions durable enough to last as long as they have. Current vendor executives would similarly benefit from a much more vigorous back and forth with analysts. As the saying goes "the strongest steel is forged by the fires of hell"
Having said that, I was pleasantly surprised at the openness I saw at SAP while writing the book. I write in the Acknowledgments
"Next, I want to thank Stacey Fish at SAP. While many others at SAP were helpful, she was my go-to contact and arranged for me to talk with several SAP customers and executives. In a world where software vendors only want to publicize positives, she allowed me "unfiltered access" to these executives. I told her to help SAP put its "best foot forward." What I expected was plenty of marketing; what I also got was plenty of conversation and candor."
I would love to see similar conversation and candor from other vendors. I cannot force it from them, but I will continue to talk to their customers. I have gotten used to the heat in the forging shop.
Thank you, Dennis Howlett
Dennis has announced he is retiring. I knew it was coming - he would often fret he did not have enough time for his large and growing family - but I would have bet it would be towards end of this year. Or next. I am glad I managed to record a couple of episodes with him in the last few weeks.
We had our fair share of disagreements - show me someone who has been spared that by Dennis? :) But I admired several things about him and let me share a few things you may not know about him
a) he is a Polymath
Every few months I would learn something new about him. Listen to his bio in the excerpt below - it will blow your mind. And he does not even mention here what he has been up to recently - building and painting 1/35 scale armored vehicles (three in progress and 18 more in his 'stash' he says)
b) a true blogging pioneer.
It hit me when Dennis, Frank Scavo and I recorded a Christmas episode. We took a walk down memory lane - see excerpt below. Each of us has been blogging for 15+ years. He was a purer play than either of us. Frank and I had advisory distractions. I spent a fair amount of time on my many books. He dedicated the last phase of his career to making enterprise blogging and the independent analyst model a respected source of industry influence.
c) he made time for so many
He was a whisperer to so many in the industry - check out the flattering comments on his LinkedIn post where he announced his retirement. I was constantly amazed how he could find the time. I certainly benefited - he reviewed every one of my books.
So, Dennis, thanks for the many laughs and cries. Enjoy time with the family and your train rides.
But please come back and record more episodes from time to time. I want the opportunity to say it a few more times - GFY :)
February 26, 2021 in Industry analysts (Gartner, Forrester, AMR, others), Industry Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0)