deal architect

Analyst Cam: Unit4 ERPx Briefing

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

Dmitri Krakovsky, Chief Product Officer of Unit4 spent a generous hour briefing me about the rollout of the ERPx version announced last October. I am running Part 1 today and Part 2 tomorrow.

Dmitri starts with an update on the TA Associates investment in Unit4 with a valuation in excess of $ 2 billion.

Several things I liked in the presentation

• The new architecture reflects the seismic changes in the industry since Unit4 launched its first gen cloud in 2017 - lot more focus on microservices, ML etc. From a user point pov, there are digital assistants, smart automation, instant mini apps and a lot more mobility. You can see a lot of his influence from recent time at Google.

• There is a lot more thought on migrations and upgrades. His Intuit background shows up in a lot more user controlled destiny versus dependence on IT or SIs.

• I like that the first 15 early adopters are a microcosm of Unit4's global differentiation and focus on services verticals like nonprofits, higher education etc. I particularly liked the portion around industry specific "mesh" architecture.

Next up - hope to interview some of the early adopter customers.  Well, Part 2 before that, tomorrow.  

 

Burning Platform: The future of "as a service"

In the 39th (yesterday) and 40th (today) episode of the series  we have Phil Wainewright of Diginomica and Jeff Kaplan of THINKstrategies, two of the pioneering influencers in the SaaS/cloud marketplace.

In part 2 below we talk about how business models are evolving and how servitization has become a significant trend in every industry vertical, not just in enterprise technology - as Phil calls it Everything as a Service.

In part 1 yesterday we had taken a walk down memory lane on how the SaaS, cloud infrastructure and platform economies have evolved over the last 25 years.

Analyst Cam: Salesforce Vaccine Cloud

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

Over the last year, I have been impressed with a variety of pandemic and related crisis -driven applications Salesforce and its partners have launched. They have helped with contact tracing of 200 million people, source over 60 million pieces of PPE, helped process millions of SBA PPP loans. I have profiled them here, here, here   

In that tradition, it was nice to have Meredith Flynn-Ripley, SVP Product Growth and GM at Salesforce present on their Vaccine Cloud. It is designed to help 3 broad constituencies - public health authorities, healthcare providers and employers with the whole lifecycle of vaccine management including education, communications, scheduling, inventory management and certifications.  

Meredith does a nice job in 20 minutes covering a lot of ground. As she mentions, Salesforce is starting to deliver a similar scale of results to over 150 customers and millions of vaccinations in this critical endeavor.

 

Burning Platform: Amazon, automation and society

In the 36th (yesterday) and 37th (today) episode of the series we have Dr. Robin Gaster, President, Incumetrics Inc. and Visiting Scholar, George Washington University Institute of Public Policy. We discuss various aspects of Amazon's growing empire from his new book, Behemoth, Amazon Rising.

In part 2 below we talk more about Amazon and other automation trends which accelerated during the pandemic. Throughout both episodes, we cover Amazon's amazing growth and its impact on retail, book publishing, data centers, ecommerce and many other industry sectors. The discussion is part admiration especially from a consumer pov, part concern from a societal pov about Amazon's ruthless efficiency.

 

Analyst Cam: Vida Health

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

Stephanie Tilenius, CEO of Vida Health, a Workday Ventures portfolio company presents on their solution leveraging a network of therapists, nutritionist and coaches in every one of the 50 US states.

Vida focuses on "holistic health" - physical and mental with a focus on chronic conditions such as diabetes and anxiety. Chronic conditions drive 90% of US healthcare spend. A whopping 41% is spent on 12% of the population who have 5 or more such conditions.

She provides several examples of improved patient outcomes when they get what Vida calls "integrated, polychronic" treatment such as a 33% greater improvement in A1c when diabetes and mental health were treated together.  Their key message is point solutions often miss the mark.

The pandemic dramatically accelerated adoption of telemedicine. Personal health data grew significantly as we adopted digital fitness equipment and trackers. Add to that digital networks like this one. It is a symbiotic relationship - plenty of data for Vida's machines to create more personalized support and matching with providers.

They have grown nicely in the last 5 years - with 1.9 million covered "lives' and a network of over a thousand service providers with the fees paid for by employers and healthcare payers. 

Burning Platform: Relentless Amazon

In the 36th (today) and 37th (tomorrow) episode of the series we have Dr. Robin Gaster, President, Incumetrics Inc. and Visiting Scholar, George Washington University Institute of Public Policy.

We discuss various aspects of Amazon's growing empire from his new book, Behemoth, Amazon Rising.

In part 1 below we cover Amazon's amazing growth and its impact on retail, book publishing, data centers, ecommerce and many other industry sectors.

The discussion is part admiration especially from a consumer pov, part concern from a societal pov about Amazon's ruthless efficiency.

We also talk about Amazon and other automation trends which accelerated during the pandemic.

Part 2 link

Analyst Cam: Plex acquires Kors Engineering

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

Ben Stewart, VP of Product Strategy and Dave Mofars, VP of Product Marketing at Plex Systems presented on their recent acquisition of Kors Engineering and its MACH2 integration platform that interacts with shop floor machines.

Plex and Kors have partnered for nearly two decades and the combination made even more sense as we see increased automation in the shop floor with enterprises bringing more manufacturing back in the face of blue collar labor shortages.

It blends well with the Industrial IoT strategy Plex has been pursuing. MACH2 focuses on the What, the IOT detail allows for pursuing the WHY such as details on machine health.

 

The Analyst Cam: IFS Cloud launch

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

IFS is hosting its Cloud Launch event today and tomorrow. You can register here to watch the packed agenda. I have excerpted about 20 minutes from today's keynote in the video below.

CEO Darren Roos had given us a sneak preview of the event here.  In his keynote today, he reiterated his messages around digital business models and "moments of service" and the role of cloud platforms in their delivery. At 3.43 Ann-Kristen Sander, Sales Director highlights the complex industrial and services verticals like aerospace and defense the IFS cloud is meant to serve. There are plenty of sessions on each industry in the next couple of days. At 4.11 Amy Eager, Technical Solution Consultant talks about the multiple deployment modes for the IFS cloud and portability across them. At 4.43, Cathie Hall, SVP of Product Experience describes the concept of Lifecycle Experience that comes with the IFS cloud.

At 5.46, Christian Pedersen, Chief Product Officer introduces an early adopter, "Pioneer customer", CIMCORP which provides robotics to automate warehouses and distribution centers. I included this segment in its entirety in the video below. I love all the scenarios presented including field service scheduling and mixed reality support. Very different from most enterprise vendor demos which mostly emphasize white collar processes and slick analytics and often ignore blue-collar, operational areas.

The whole event reflects the vibrant new branding CMO, Oliver Pilgerstorfer had described here .

Very nice start to the event.

The Analyst Cam: SAP Industry Cloud

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

SAP hosted for analysts a Industry Cloud briefing last week. I have excerpted below about 15 minutes from an hour long session.

Peter Maier, President Industries and Customer Advisory kicks it off and I liked that he gave several examples of new industry functionality. SAP (and in fairness other large vendors) often talk about industry qualifications in generalities and about past efforts ignoring that every industry turned upside down last year.

I had interviewed him last May and you can definitely see progress. 

At 6.50, Peter and Kai Finck, who heads Industry Cloud Program respond to a question about industries where SAP has seen most momentum in the last year.

At 9.15, Svend Wittern, who heads Industry Strategy and Peter explain that business networks where SAP plays a big role with horizontal functionality from Ariba, Concur and others are increasingly moving to industry versions.

At 12.18 Ralph Stemler, who heads Industry Ecosystems mentions that strategy firms like McKinsey may be partnering with SAP and getting into the IP business with their industry knowledge

At 13.30 Steffen Schad, Product Manger, SAP Business Technology Platform talks about how partners and customers are starting to use the platform (including recent acquisitions of Signavio and AppGyer) to build industry functionality

Overall, I liked the momentum Peter showcased, but I still don't think SAP is thinking small enough. It has missed the boat on so much demand we saw for vertical edge apps like telemedicine, distance learning in higher ed, warehouse automation, last mile delivery in retail and food service, virtual open houses in real estate in the last year. It is still focused on big "intelligent enterprise" type positioning which will take years to flesh out.

Also, in the next briefing, it would be nice to hear much more specifically about how strategy firms (and the traditional SI partners) and low code tools are helping develop specific industry functionality. Similar about how RISE with SAP is being verticalized. 

Look forward to more of these periodic briefings. 

The Analyst Cam: Cella Technologies and shop floor optimization

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

During the last few months we have seen growing interest in bite-sized applications in various vertical sectors. I have written about edge applications like telemedicine in healthcare, eCommerce and fulfillment in retail and food, distance learning in higher ed and many others.

Jason Prater and Marty Black, both ex-Plex, presented on their startup, Cella Technologies which is focused on waste on the shop floor. Machines often wait for materials (which have often traveled thousands of miles without an issue) while handling staff drive around in forklifts with walkie talkies. They are like taxis looking for pickups when digital technologies like "ride-sharing for forklifts" could eliminate the gap. Machines are getting smarter and predictively issuing requests. In the meantime, COVID has amplified the already difficult task of hiring workers for plants, their absenteeism and reduced productivity.

They say the waste from such "downtime waiting around" often exceeds that from scrap in many facilities.

They also describe other use cases to connect MES to the supply chain.