deal architect

A turning point for Oracle?

I must admit I did a double take when I read this from Bob Evans

"On top of that, Ellison mapped out Oracle’s desire to offer a massive portfolio of industry-specific solutions that fuse (no pun intended) the broad capabilities of his Fusion enterprise apps with unique industry-specific capabilities for vertical markets."

So I checked out the video where Rob Tarkoff, EVP Oracle CX Cloud and Oracle Data Cloud banters with Larry about the future of CX. From 22.06 to 29.55 they do talk about verticals, particularly around telecom. Larry adds "more to come" as he paints a vision of a "closed loop" enterprise connecting the front and back office and everything in-between.

Since the early 2000s, when Oracle went on its acquisition binge I have waited for them to start to dominate with industry applications. Retek, Portal, Primavera, I-Flex, Opower, ClearTrial, JD Edwards and many others gave Oracle a nice foothold in many large sectors of the economy.

At a personal level, Larry knows so much about oceanography, architecture, aviation and so much more - he is a Polymath. He helped Steve Jobs launch Apple's retail foray and look how well it has blossomed.

While they sell plenty of database and horizontal financial, hcm and CX applications to every sector, industry specific applications have been not been as prominent in Oracle marketing.

In April 2018, I wrote about Netsuite's industry approach

The reality is the verticals NetSuite and its cloud ERP and CRM peers have developed “books of record” for leave massive sectors such as utilities, insurance, hospitality and healthcare mostly untouched. That’s a lot of white space for new entrants to target. 

In March 2019 I wrote about Oracle verticals

I would love to see details - to me vertical applications do operational stuff - merchandising in retail, claims processing in insurance, net metering in utilities, support robotics and wearables on the shop floor etc. If it has those, why is Oracle not aggressively showcasing these capabilities?

I hope they are much more serious this time. During the pandemic, in all the C level interviews I have been conducting (see index here ), I have heard how vertical applications have helped some companies survive and others to thrive. They mention applications like:

• Telemedicine in healthcare
• PPP loan processing capabilities and mobile apps in banking
• Distance learning in higher education
• Drive-thru processing in food service and retail
• eCommerce and robotic warehousing in retail
• Last mile delivery in groceries, restaurants even car buying
• Remote home buying and digital mortgages in real estate

Should Vinnie Vertical (as some call me for constantly asking about industry functionality) be excited about Oracle Industries this time around? I would like to catalog their progress like I did with 3 posts on Salesforce Industries in the Analyst Cam series couple of weeks ago. 

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. 

 

New Normal: A repeat conversation with Daniel Pullin of TCU

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 a list of growing interviews in the series.

This time it is a revisit with Dean Daniel Pullin at the Neeley School of Business at TCU in Fort Worth, TX.

He describes acrobatics as they moved from on-campus to on-line classes in 10 days. I asked him to send me some photos of the "new normal". Those are at the front of the video - classrooms with masks, distancing and other protection, classrooms moved outdoors and Zoom classes.  

He also describes how they rapidly launched a new Master of Science in Business Analytics, how they scrambled to help students with alternatives to internships and job offers which disappeared in the weak economy, the protocols they have in place as students and athletics return to campus, the various verticals they keep launching to help business graduates get a nice grounding in supply chain, energy, healthcare and other industry nuances.

Higher education is deceptively calm looking from the outside. Dean Pullin, in his measured way, describes the intensity his team has shown in the last few months.

 

New Normal: A conversation with Jeremy Bloom of Integrate

I have been doing video interviews with a number of C-level executives 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 Jeremy Bloom, CEO of Integrate, a B2B marketing software company. Impressively, he is the only athlete in history to ski in the Olympics and be drafted into the NFL. He was also a founder of Wish of a Lifetime foundation, which recently joined forces with AARP.

It was good to get an elite athlete's point of view with so much chaos around us. "Focus on what you can control, attack that with gusto, everything else is noise". Having already accomplished so much at a young age he says he has become a "life experience" junkie. He has a curiosity and a sponge like quality we could all emulate.

Asked about heroics, I liked that he singled out ordinary workers working at grocery stores and in last mile delivery. He calls out a customer, Carbon 3D which repurposed its printing technology for face shields and other PPE. He talks about how their cloud solutions have allowed customers to easily scale with WFH formats.

He also talks about a series of town halls he has organized over the last few months. Athletes from his network, but also sleep scientists, economists, even a police sergeant from the town where George Floyd was killed. There is an authenticity to these sessions which is calming in these polarizing times.

Overall, very inspiring and amazing humble for all his accomplishments.

The Analyst Cam: Salesforce Industries Part 3

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. 

Salesforce recently had a Industries Summit where they showcased 12 "industry cloud" tracks. Each track had 8 to 10 customer, partner and product episodes. I attended sessions across most of  the tracks.

I am showcasing lightly edited episodes in each of the Cam entries this week. Here are Tuesday's  and Wednesday's  Each of my videos is about half an hour in length. I have tried to balance industries and geographies across my entries. I gave preference to those which highlighted their handling of the pandemic. Fair warning - what I present is my small sample from a very broad Salesforce portfolio on display during the Summit

Today, it starts with Utilities and Rory Briggs of Centrica Business Solutions. They provide services to utilities across the UK and Ireland, Europe and North America and he discusses complex quotes and proposals to customers

At 10.06, the focus shifts to Insurance and executives from Generali Group in Switzerland. They discuss marketing through a network of agents and related customer data management complexities.

At 22.29, it is Life Sciences. Theresa Zataveski of Merck discusses how they digitally engage through multiple channels with health care providers. I was particularly interested in her comments about digital experiences in Japan and how content in a highly regulated industry has becoming increasingly customized to channels and personalized.

The Analyst Cam: Salesforce Industries Part 2

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. 

Salesforce recently had a Industries Summit where they showcased 12 "industry cloud" tracks. Each track had 8 to 10 customer, partner and product episodes. I attended sessions across most of  the tracks.

I am showcasing lightly edited episodes in each of the Cam entries this week. I posted one yesterday. Each of my videos is about half an hour in length. I have tried to balance industries and geographies across my entries. I gave preference to those which highlighted their handling of the pandemic. Fair warning - what I present is my small sample from a very broad Salesforce portfolio on display during the Summit.

Today, it starts with the Healthcare sector. Dr. "Romi" Chopra at MIMIT Health describes how the Salesforce platform helps with what he calls the Amazonification of healthcare. Most doctors tell the same story - they have invested lots in Electronic Health Records (EHR) but that has not helped the patient experience much. He also describes how they were able to move to Telehealth in a mere 3 days at the start of the pandemic.

Next at 16.40, we move to Financial Services. Mark Murphy, CEO of Salesforce partner, Fenergo describes their Client Lifecycle Management solution for banks. I especially liked the discussion on the on-boarding experience that banks can improve for customers.

At 25.17 we feature a very different partner, Amazon Web Services. Mary Wilson, lead for the Power and Utilities sector, does not just talk about hyperscaler "speeds and feeds". AWS brings much more strategic value to their utilities as they prioritize de-carbonization, predictive maintenance and digital transformations. It's not just bookish knowledge - AWS and Amazon broadly are innovating around energy efficiency, renewables etc.

Another episode tomorrow

The Analyst Cam: Salesforce Industries Part 1

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. 

Salesforce recently had a Industries Summit where they showcased 12 "industry cloud" tracks. Each track had 8 to 10 customer, partner and product episodes. I attended sessions across most of the tracks.

I am highlighting lightly edited episodes in each of the Cam entries over the next 3 days. Each of my videos is about half an hour in length. I have tried to balance industries and geographies across my entries. I gave preference to those which highlighted their handling of the pandemic. Fair warning - what I present is my small sample from a very broad Salesforce portfolio on display during the Summit.

Today, it starts with the CPG sector and Dan Moisan, Chief Commercial Officer of PepsiCo, Latin America. It is a $ 7.6 billion unit. In addition to discussing the challenges of homogenizing and scaling operations across 40 countries, he tells a great story about how 25,000 route sales reps who are used to weekly visits to 3 million customers (most of them small stores) have coped with COVID-19 travel and other restrictions.

At 15.21, the focus shifts to the public sector and a discussion of  the recently launched Salesforce offering, Work.com for Vaccines. It is designed to help governments and healthcare organizations manage vaccine programs at scale, from patient registration and appointment scheduling to inventory management, outcome monitoring and public health notifications. Obviously, the immediate opportunity with be around vaccines being developed for COVID-19, but the applications should be broader

At 22.28, we move to Renee Newman, Chief Strategy Officer at a community bank, First Interstate Bank. At the start of the pandemic, the US initiated the emergency PPP (Payroll Protection Program) loan program. The SBA approved over 5 million PPP loans over a couple of months. Many community banks handled these much better than larger banks in this intense phase, and Renee discusses the program among other operational topics.

More episodes coming later this week.

The exponential growth in Salesforce Industries coverage

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings and events, I have increasingly been excerpting short segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. You are about to see a wave of industry specific episodes. 

I have been called "Vinnie Vertical"  because I am always haranguing vendors to develop industry-specific operational functionality - shop floor related in manufacturing, field service management for asset intensive industries, core banking functionality, claims processing in insurance, retail merchandising, student administration in higher ed  etc. etc. Not for the fun of it - legacy vertical apps are old in the tooth. Most are on-premise and caused enterprises lots of heart burn as they moved to WFH formats, as they looked to quickly scale up or down.

Unfortunately, few vendors have developed deep industry functionality in the cloud. Those that have made investments often do a poor job showcasing their industry strengths or expect their SI partners to speak for their credentials

The pandemic has opened up even more vertical opportunities as enterprises have scampered to new markets, new business models including

• Telemedicine in healthcare
• PPP loan processing capabilities and mobile apps in banking
• Distance learning in higher education
• Drive-thru processing in food service and retail
• eCommerce and robotic warehousing in retail
• Last mile delivery in groceries, restaurants even car buying
• Remote home buying and digital mortgages in real estate

Given all that, I was pleased that Salesforce showcased 12 "industry cloud" tracks this month, and invited me to basically "walk around". Each track had 8 to 10 customer, partner and product 30 minute episodes. I watched 2-3 sessions in each, and selected 10 sessions to profile in my Analyst Cam. I made my selections prioritizing contemporary, pandemic-influenced functionality. I looked for global diversity. I was attracted to unique partners.

Salesforce has sent me video files totaling over 2.2 gigabytes (yes!). I am in the process of narrowing them even more - excerpting about 10 to 20% from each session. I will run them over the next week.  

So, fair warning - it's my "small" sample from the Salesforce portfolio.

Salesforce is obviously focused more on the revenue side of the house. I would have liked to also see vertical operational functionality, especially developed by its partners. After watching the Apple iPhone 12 launch last week (I wrote about the gorgeous production nuances here), I would have liked to have seen fewer interviews, and more customer location settings, especially outdoors.   

But I nitpick. I was actually blown away by the breadth of what Salesforce showcased. The Vlocity acquisition has accented their focus.  I have been impressed with their executives who are leading the industries coverage especially David Schmaier, Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh and Jujhar Singh.

Salesforce is well on its next wave of evolution. The competition will have to get serious about at least a couple of industries each going forward.

On a personal note, I hope this also sends a message to vendors that I will invest plenty of time and energy if you make an effort to showcase your industry operational capabilities. Vinnie Vertical is ready to listen when you are!

New Normal: A repeat conversation with Bill Berutti and Jerry Foster of Plex

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 the growing list of interviews.

This time it is Bill Berutti, CEO and Jerry Foster, CTO of Plex Systems. I had interviewed them in this series way back in April and invited them back to hear about how they have seen manufacturers have navigated the crisis. 

It is a very positive conversation. Bill talks about customers and recovery scenarios across several sectors - automotive, food and beverage and aerospace. Jerry talks about augmented reality, cobots, sensors and how automation is gathering momentum on the shop floor. They both talk about how Plex has continued to sell and implement remotely - Jerry describes an innovative GoPro example as his salespeople collected information from a prospect and Bill talks about several projects delivered with minimal customer site presence.

In addition, Jerry spent another 20 minutes going through anonymized customer manufacturing data from March to September. The Plex cloud collects data from 8 billion transactions a day across customers in 29 countries. That segment is in the Analyst Cam post here 

Both sessions left me feeling upbeat. They show a pretty sharp, V-shaped recovery in N. America. It also shows the manufacturing sector been highly efficient in labor utilization and about to become much more so as we increase automation on the shop floor. Very different from what we are hearing in the press.

The Analyst Cam: Plex Systems Dataset - COVID-19 impact on Global Manufacturing

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.

Jerry Foster, CTO at Plex Systems walked me through anonymized customer manufacturing data from March to September. The Plex cloud collects data from 8 billion transactions a day across customers in 29 countries. The dataset he presents covers major industries such as auto components, metal stamping, chemicals, aerospace and food & beverage.

It is a fascinating presentation. The data actually shows a pretty sharp, V-shaped recovery in N. America, and it has been highly efficient in labor utilization. Very different from what we are hearing in the press.

Bill Berutti, CEO joined Jerry for a longer interview to talk about other trends and heroics they are seeing in manufacturing. I will run that interview later this week.