deal architect

Unit4 pioneers the “hybrid analyst summit”

Since Workday held its first Analyst Summit in 2010 - I had called their effort exhilarating - I have encouraged vendors to adopt a similar format. User Conferences are more for customers - I find analysts intrude on their time when we are invited to those events.

Since then, vendors have become increasingly creative in their summit formats. Plex used to combine them with customer plant visits. Workfront co-mingled one with a customer advisory board meeting. Others have used them to also showcase their new real estate - Infor and SAP in New York, Zoho in Austin.

During the lockdowns of the last 18 months, vendors moved the summits to virtual format. Recognizing every one’s digital fatigue, most vendors kept them short and spread them out. But as Jon Reed of Diginomica and I discussed - see starting at 26.15  here - the virtual format has been somewhat flat. I have compensated with lots of 1:1 conversations and shared over 300 of them in my Analyst Cam, Burning Platform and other video episodes. 

So it was good to spent time with Unit4 executives last week, first virtually, then in person in Boston. The virtual part was broadcast from their X4U user conference. The in-person portions were a dinner, followed by a 6 hour event at the very pleasant Intercontinental which harkens memories of the Tea Party in 1773. The access to Unit4 executives in all 3 segments was impressive and they had safety protocols in place with certification requirements, masks etc. Not overbearing, just prudent.

The content in the in-person day was particularly striking. CEO Mike Ettling described how he had focused Unit4 in his 3 year tenure- as he described it they had accumulated a variety of "hot dog stands" he had cleaned out. He presented on how they adapted to the pandemic. He discussed the ‘dikes’ they raised - operating principles to keep them protected. He had described some in this episode. 

He also discussed the move from Advent to TA Associates as their lead private equity investor earlier this year. In the middle of the pandemic, they had face to face meetings and due diligence with 15 PE firms before settling with TA. Off the record, he had described to me more of the intense 4 month process. PE firms are a mystery to most of us - this would make for a dramatic book. I hope someday he writes it. Or let’s me narrate it for him.

He then invited Morgan Seigler, a Managing Director of TA and co-head of TA's Europe Technology Group to present their perspective and expectations. As he told us, they see ‘riches in niches’ and are investing in a variety of vertical enterprise software vendors.

That was a good segue for later sessions which featured the product - an update on the ERPx rollout and the Industry Mesh they announced - see image below, with plans to verticalize for Unit4's target industries. It also included a customer section which profiled Buro Happold – a global firm with 1,700 staff who consult with architects and engineers - in line with Unit4’s vertical focus on service- and project-focused businesses. 

The variety in the sessions and the generosity in executive access truly stood out. Brad Everett and Antonella Crimi who head their corporate marketing and AR efforts did a really nice job coordinating the complex logistics of the hybrid agenda. Either in virtual or in person mode, I think they managed to engage over 50 analysts. 

I think every vendor can learn from the Unit4 event, but I should point out not every vendor had bought into the in-person summit format even prior to the pandemic. In fact, I got feedback from one they were offended that I had recommended they adopt the format. This vendor also turned down my offer to profile some of their execs in my video series in the last year. They appear comfortable with having analysts wander the halls of their user events. Travel should be a lot easier next year, but I do hope the hybrid format takes off and vendors get even more creative.  

 

Marc Benioff's bet on 'Trusted Enterprises"

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, used his keynote at Dreamforce to point out that we are "in a trust crisis". He coined a new term, Trustblazers, building on the successful Trailblazer community around the company. He showcased several of his customers as examples of "trusted enterprises" and promised “We want to have a playbook for this new trusted enterprise. It‘s got to start with trust. It has to.”

Watch the rerun here

To me, Marc and his team definitely have the credibility to talk about "trusted enterprises".  As far back as 2010, I wrote "I saw several signs of openness  - like its trust site which showcases performance metrics for all, including competitors, to see. How many vendors, even years after salesforce started that site, openly showcase their operational metrics?"

When Marc talks diversity and inclusion, I see it in his executives like Tony Prophet, Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh and Jujhar Singh. Not only are they competent, they are modest enough like Tony is in the interview linked to say, they themselves have a long way to go.  I hear it in the words of Tyler Prince when he describes how he has also pushed a focus on diversity in the ecosystem around Salesforce.

He has credibility as customers plan for COVID recovery with the push around his recent acquisition, Slack as a collaboration, work from anywhere, platform and as he calls it his "Digital HQ"

What I would caution Marc (and other influential executives) about is the zealots who jump on the bandwagon of "causes". I recently commented on Dennis Howlett's post on "Wokeistan" "These are do gooders who guilt us all about gender, race, sexual orientation, inequality, sustainability, vaccines and so much else. You must agree with our position - don’t dare present contrary data or else you are racist, sexist, MAGA, deserve canceling, and worse."

Let's look at sustainability, as an example. We should have been focusing on the "circular economy" which the WEF defines as “an industrial system that is restorative or regenerative by intention and design." Instead, a lot of attention has gone toward demonizing fossil fuels and building up renewables, particularly wind and solar fuel.

As Europe stares at a winter with major fuel shortages, it is useful to learn from the German experience over the last decade 

I started pointing out a few years ago that "in spite of spending hundreds of billions of euros on subsidizing renewables, Germany will struggle to meet its 18% renewables target for 2020. The country continues to rely heavily on its coal and lignite, and more recently on natural gas from Russia."

However, most just lauded Angela Merkel as Klimakanzlerin  or "climate chancellor". Now that she is out of office, we are starting to see sobering assessments. Here's Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and New Statesman.

The reality is Lufthansa will fly on aviation fuel, the German export engine will rely on tankers which run on bunker fuel, German auto makers will make diesel cars for a long time. Look at this site about carbon intensity (the amount of CO2 produced to generate a unit of electricity - a kilowatt per hour) across Europe. 

The important thing is not to just focus on Germany which looks a bit stark. Look instead at how green France, Iceland and Norway look. They have done so with a focus on nuclear, geothermal and hydroelectric power  It is a reminder to other economies to not just look at renewables. We should all be looking at a balanced energy strategy. And expand the definition of sustainability.

In their fervor, fanboys actually hurt the credibility of so many other worthy causes. I can provide several more examples around many causes where they have narrowed the focus. Hope Marc emphasizes a 360 degree view as he builds the playbook. 

In the meantime, watch the keynote and Marc's passion about building trust.

Burning Platform: Leading with authenticity

In the 49th episode of the series we have a repeat appearance by Sabrina Horn, CEO of Horn Strategy

We discuss her new book "Make it, don't fake it". The book shows how authentic leadership eliminates the need for the shortcuts that sabotage success. “Fake it till you make it” just doesn’t work—at least not long enough to build a sustainable business.

It is being released this coming Tuesday. She sent me an advance copy and it has great quotes and monikers  - Fake-o-meter, "Work-life balance? Here’s why I gave up on it" and " Leader and loser both begin with the letter L" but overall it is about values in  the tech industry which is overwhelmingly driven by unicorn valuations and Wall Street attention. 

It is part autobiography, part thank you to mentors like Dave Duffield and Geoffrey Moore,  her parents, her employees and kids, but chockfull of examples on how to behave ethically in a variety of situations.  She must identify "50 shades of lies"  - some of the 'white lies" variety, some of the other extreme, fraudulent kind. She has spent a lifetime in PR, so this must have taken plenty of introspection on whether she and her firm(s) advised clients on doing the right thing, not just hyping what they had in their bags. 

We also discuss activism around so many "causes" these days - racial/ gender matters, equality, climate change etc.

I particularly like the fact that she wrote the book during the pandemic. While so many of us were so distracted by the crisis and the politics of 2020 she managed to concentrate on her first book, and it is an excellent one.

Get a copy of the book, in the meantime, enjoy the sneak preview below.

New Normal: A conversation with Emily McEvilly of Workday

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. Here is the index to all the interviews in this series. 

This time it is Emily McEvilly, Chief Customer Officer at Workday. Aneel Bhusri, co-CEO of Workday has been one of the early guests in this series so it was good to get Emily back to provide an update. 

Emily talks about more customer heroics and also those at partners. Every project implementation, training etc. has been virtual during the last few months. Not just small projects - she mentions payroll/HCM projects tackling up to half a million employees.

She talks about how the CHRO's world has turned upside down during the pandemic and how Workday has helped them - work from home, remote training, social justice, physical site protocols, employee mental health issues among other demands. As I have written here there have been at least 12 major disruptions to the world of analytics and we discuss how Workday and its CFO customers have similarly coped. She describes "record number of plans", external auditor remote access of records etc. 

I had interviewed Emily in January about her SI partner ecosystem, so it was good to hear her compliment how they have since adjusted to a world of restricted travel. She describes that but goes on to say virtual deployments are increasingly "table stakes". She is as impressed with the "tooling" and automation they have invested in and passing labor savings on to customers.

I did not expect her to talk much about Workday internally but I am glad she does about how they have "led with transparency and authenticity" and how they have been inspired by customer creativity, while continuing to themselves inspire customers.

Very symbiotic how Workday, customers and partners have coped together during the crisis. Emily does a nice job describing multiple dimensions of those relationships.

 

New Normal: A conversation with Dr. Patti Fletcher and Grant Beckett of Workhuman

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. Here is the index to all the interviews in this series. 

This time it is Dr. Patti Fletcher, VP Brand Marketing and Grant Beckett, VP Product Strategy at Workhuman whose platform "connects teams and strengthens global workforces through gratitude, feedback, and celebration."

They provide plenty of examples of leadership, collaboration and workplace dynamics during the last few months, particularly in the pharma, healthcare and banking sectors. They mention Maslow's hierarchy a couple of times - during the crisis, gratitude and rewards have to aim much lower given fear, grief, loneliness so many of us have encountered. Also, reach low in the organization - Grant provides a great example of a senior doctor complimenting a gardener for the impact of his work on the well-being of patients, while healthcare workers rightly get much of the credit.

Patti also provides some sobering input on how ladies, especially minorities, have slipped significantly in their diversity and equity progress during the last few months. She quotes a BCG study that women are putting in 15 more hours a week than men on "unpaid labor" as they work from home. She says 1 in 4 are thinking of leaving their jobs. I had reviewed her book Disrupters, and Michelle Turman's Jumping the Queue a couple of years ago. Both had described the struggles and the progress and were optimistic in their tone - clearly this year has stalled the progress. So it was good to have Barbry McGann of Workday present on tools like VIBE which help quantify how much further we have to go - see my post here.

Overall, a very interesting perspective on how organizations are dealing with a new set of challenges when it comes to traumatized and yet heroic human beings in the workforce. 

 

Salesforce's acrobatics

Jim Cramer at CNBC pointed out the irony that ExxonMobil, a major carbon contributor as an oil and gas company is being replaced by Salesforce in the Dow Jones Industrials Index. Salesforce is a major supporter of the WEF's 1T.org initiative to plant a trillion trees by 2030 to offset the effects of climate change.

The official communication said it was related more to Apple's recent stock split and the need to add more tech to the index. However, to me it is another example of CEO Marc Benioff willing to take positions where most other corporate executives fear to tread - on diversity, homelessness in San Francisco and so many other causes - and increasingly being recognized for it. I have been impressed how many other executives mention Marc as an inspiration in the "acrobatics during the crisis" Zoom series I have been running. They have been doing so, unsolicited. 

Of course, it is not just his leadership around "purpose". Salesforce has deftly pivoted its product mix during the pandemic. I could see it in the interview I did with Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh, EVP, Industries in May.  She was talking about Salesforce's work helping various verticals including public health officials and with partner nCino helping community banks process thousands of PPP loans

The Work.com launch has been brilliant. One executive after another has told me site re-open protocols are turning out to be much more complex than lockdown processes - which themselves were not easy as thousands were being moved to WFH. Schools, college campuses, sports teams, amusement parks are facing even more urgent and complex reopening scenarios. 

As part of my recent interview with Tony Prophet, the Chief Equality Officer I wrote "Salesforce is a company which elevates equality as a core value and has been widely recognized as a company which is leading conversations on moving to a broader stakeholder, not just shareholder, focus. Given how well it has done for shareholders, the stakeholder goals are even more ambitious and Tony is clearly a key player in that effort and as he advises "aim high".  

I know of customers who think Salesforce tries to be "woke" and support too many social causes. Well, after their product and financial performance (they just reported a blowout quarter) during the pandemic, I say - if they can walk the tightrope, let's just watch in awe.

New Normal: A conversation with Charles Phillips of RECOGNIZE

I have been doing video interviews with a number of C-level execs and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. Here is the index to the growing list of interviews. 

This time, it is Charles Phillips. He has had an amazing career in the Marines, on Wall Street, then as President of Oracle, as Chairman of Infor (which was sold to Koch Industries earlier this year), now as an investor, philanthropist and as board member of several public and private sector institutions.

He has been spending a lot of time thinking about next-gen business processes. He sees a breakdown of jobs into tasks and a lot more automation at that component level. He sees the process re-think as both an opportunity and a threat to today's enterprise vendors.  We also discuss the likely impact on the job market. He discusses a Business Council project he in involved with which is looking at next-generation jobs in construction, advanced manufacturing, healthcare and tech. They are looking at "mid-skill" jobs that don't need 4 year college degrees. We have 'over-credentialed" too many jobs requiring such degrees in the recent past.

I have always been impressed with how Charles, as a person of color, has navigated his way around so many organizations. He humbly credits his upbringing in a military family and moving around every couple of years. That taught him to get along with people of every stripe. I particularly liked his views and advice to younger folks and civic leaders starting around 8:25. He is optimistic the conversation around diversity in business and society this time "has legs".

We also discuss Wall Street, its highs when Main Street is hurting, the coming market for vertical applications, the Fed's performance in the last few months, revving up the New York City economy post-pandemic and making it safer and more attractive to visitors. (BTW, he talks about the Fed's acrobatics - you can hear more of their policies in this unprecedented live webcast today at 9 am from Kansas City)

He is also very involved in party politics, but we stayed away from that. I liked the positive end when he talks about his son returning from a deployment in Okinawa. Having been "outside the bubble" for 4 years, he comments positively and optimistically about the state of the country. Charles says "someone that age saying that, I hope they are all saying that"   

An uplifting conversation at many levels.

New Normal: A conversation with Rich Karlgaard of Forbes Media

I have been doing video interviews with a number of C-level execs and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. Here is the index to the growing list of interviews. 

This time, it is Rich Karlgaard, former Publisher, now Editor-at-Large and Futurist at Forbes Media. He writes a regular column for Forbes Asia. He is also a bestselling author including that of a book he released last year, Late Bloomers. Even though he writes plenty about tech and innovation, I have always found his views on public policy very incisive, so we had a broad conversation about political leaders, enterprise software and the state of media.  

We spent the most amount of time on his views on enterprise software and he is generous to Bill McDermott, Satya Nadella, Diane Greene, Tom Siebel, Hasso Plattner and many other industry leaders. 

We discuss the Federalism trend in the US - 50 states approaching COVID-19 and managing economies in their unique ways. He is balanced and talks about governors in both red and blue states but is particularly generous to Doug Burgum in N. Dakota. Internationally, he spends a lot of time on what he admires about Singapore and how it is likely to benefit from the current issues in Hong Kong.

We spend time on his book and discuss ageism in Silicon Valley. He thinks enterprise software, as different from consumer tech, should continue to leverage "grey hair". I enjoyed his description of how he considers himself a late bloomer, and also how the great pitcher, Sandy Koufax benefited from advice he received mid way through his career.

We spend time on the state of media and whether we will see a "correction". He describes his own reading preferences and how he focuses on properties that keep him optimistic including TechCrunch and Seeking Alpha.

An amazingly positive, wide ranging conversation

 

New Normal: A conversation with Sue Fellows of Workfront

I have been doing video interviews with a number of C-level execs and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. Here is the index to the growing list of interviews. 

This time, it is Sue Fellows, Chief Customer Officer at Workfront. She is a passionate customer advocate and the whole conversation is a celebration of customers. She describes several customer acrobatics in healthcare and life sciences but one of my favorites is her description of John Paul Mitchell Systems. They re-purposed their 40 year anniversary celebration budget to create a fund for hair care salons - so many mom and pop businesses which have been badly hurt by lockdowns. Given the uneven impact of the pandemic, it is nice to hear her describe how Workfront has worked with both ends of the spectrum - customers which are rocketing like one which helped process stimulus checks the government mailed out to hundreds of millions of homes and also those which are struggling.

The pandemic has forced every business to adapt to new WFH and site re-opening protocols and those around new products and revenue sources. We discuss how Workfront has always helped customers with unfamiliar and unstructured processes.  I wrote recently about their scenario planner as customers look to navigate wild swings in macroeconomic signals. 

She has helped build a very strong customer community around Workfront - I have felt the positive vibe during a customer advisory meeting and at their LEAP conferences. She describes how that has been carried forward in our increasingly digital, distanced world.

We also discuss leadership during this crisis. I had interviewed her CEO, Alex Shootman at the start of this series in April  - he had talked about resilience in a crisis. Sue adds her own perspectives on leadership. 

While I was editing the video, I noticed she is smiling or laughing in just about every frame. It is a very positive, uplifting conversation.

New Normal: A conversation with Tony Prophet of Salesforce

I have been doing video interviews with a number of C-level execs and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. Here is the index to the growing list of interviews. 

This time, it is Tony Prophet, Chief Equality and Recruiting Officer at Salesforce. Tony has had a remarkable career. I profiled him in one of my books optimizing HP's supply chain. He had also described China's meteoric surge in the early 2000s. I then profiled him in another book at Microsoft helping digitize the education sector. Now he is in an even more influential role at Salesforce, especially with the recent focus on BLM and other diversity issues.

Salesforce is a company which elevates equality as a core value and has been widely recognized as a company which is leading conversations on moving to a broader stakeholder, not just shareholder, focus. Given how well it has done for shareholders, the stakeholder goals are even more ambitious and Tony is clearly a key player in that effort and as he advises "aim high".

On Equality.com, Saleforce says "We aspire to have 50% of our U.S. workforce made up of Underrepresented Groups (Women, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Multiracial, LGBTQ+, People with Disabilities, and Veterans) by 2023 and to continue building a workplace that reflects society around the globe." They are already at 43.9%. So, I was struck by his humility. He says a couple of times, Salesforce does not have all the answers and they still have a ways to go. But he names names of several colleagues and others who are leading the way when it comes to diversity awareness.

He has some great leadership advice - "in a crisis, the tendency for leaders is to be communicate less. Need to do just the opposite". He also advises more openness - not to be afraid to talk about race issues for fear of saying the wrong thing. He cites a colleague who quoted a version of "closed mouth gathers no feet"

Most of the videos in this series have focused on heroics around the health, operational and financial impacts of the pandemic, so I was glad to get a chance to talk to Tony about the diversity angle. It took a while for us to schedule the talk given so many other executives, panels and forums are also seeking his counsel in what he calls a "moment of reset".

Definitely worth the wait...very inspirational conversation.