A Software Insider's Point of View

Friday’s Features: Using Attensity Analyze 6.0 To Compare Customer Sentiment For @united @southwestair @virginamerica

R "Ray" Wang — Fri, 18 May 2012 22:25:14 +0000

A Travelers’ Tale of Two Airlines (@united vs @southwestair)

A hurried shower, followed by a hastily packed bag. Then, the race to the taxi stand (Figure 1). Should be easy to get a cab at 5:45 am in Las Vegas, right? Only the late night crew roll into a casino this late or early in the morning on a Tuesday. Who’d be flying out so early? So much for that theory. A line forms 50 deep outside. Eveyone is half asleep, and headed to McCarran – Las Vegas airport from Caesar’s Palace at 5:30 am. I figure Southwest 2286 takes off at 6:25 am, should be plenty of time. I keep consoling myself. At 5:50, I get into my cab. I instruct the driver not to take the freeway and to go local.

Figure 1. Just Another Day At The Las Vegas Taxi Stand

I get to the self-service kiosk to check in. I get the dreaded . I’m told my bag will be checked late and it could risk being sent on a later flight. At 6:00, I’ve missed all normal cut-off windows. Most airlines cut you off at 30 minutes prior and I am really late. I’m ready to accept my fate. I’m ready to be told to get on the next flight. Strangely enough, the gate agent notices that I’m late and does everything to hurry me on-board. She tells me that there is a chance my bag won’t make it but they’ll do their best. She kindly reminds me check-in is 30 minutes prior and suggests I take another security entrance to improve my odds of passing through TSA in time. She also lets me know that she’s told the gate agent I may be late. I finally get through TSA and get to the gate with 2 minutes to spare. The aircraft door isn’t closed. In fact, it’s open and waiting for me to board. I hop on, pass out, and arrive in San Jose. In some modern day miracle, the bag also has arrived with me. I thank the travel gods.

Flash back one week earlier, the same morning sequence occurs in Las Vegas. This time with rental car in tow, I head to the rental car return center at 4:00am for a 5:30 am flight. A staffing issue occurs with the “consolidated rental center transportation” and no buses arrive until 4:30 am. I think to myself, I still have time. I rush to catch United Airlines 479 to San Francisco. The bus arrives at 4:45 am. I rush to the kiosk and arrive for check-in at 4:47 am. The kiosk tells me to see an agent. I wait another 3 minutes in the uber premium line (a.k.a. Global Services). The agent looks at my ticket and tells me in a stern and disapproving voice, I have to wait for the next flight which is at 11:49 am.

I flash my Global Services card in a last ditch attempt for empathy. The agent tells me that policy is policy. United can’t check me in as I miss the cut-off. She tells me that I should know better and come to the airport earlier. The Las Vegas airport is so big, the bag would never get to the plane on time. They won’t let me take off without my bag. There’s no point in arguing at this point. I have a speech at 11:00 am to get to. I rush over to the Southwest counter to find the next flight. The agent asks me what’s wrong. I tell her I need to get on the 6:30 am. She says, no problem. I give her all the details and she issues me a ticket in 5 minutes. I make it to the keynote but I’m very bitter about United and how they have treated me. I was a happy Continental flyer before the merger, you can read all about it here.

Social Data Quantifies Qualitative Experiences – United Ranks Last Among The Three Carriers

By now, most folks have seen what happened when “United Breaks Guitars“, the tale of an awful customer experience for Dave Carroll who had his guitar broken. When the airline failed to take responsibility, he took to the web. With over 11.9M views as of this blog post, this social media epic fail epitomizes what happens when companies ignore their customers and shirk responsibility for resolving legitimate complaints. But what happens when an airline completely chooses to ignore social media as a channel? Do customers go away? Do they just jump to another channel? Are these social analytics tools reflective of the general customer base?

Using Attensity Analyze 6.0, a comparison was made among the three airlines. We selected two best in class low cost carriers (i.e. Southwest Airlines and Virgin America) and United Airlines to answer this question (Figure 1). Analyze 6.0 took 12,863 public comments from Facebook, Twitter, blogs, forums (user forums, discussion forums, LinkedIn Answers, etc) YouTube videos, mainstream news and more to gather this data (see Figure 2).

Figure 1. Twitter Accounts For The Three Airlines

Figure 2. Attensity’s Analyze 6.0 In Action With Feedback Analysis On Three Select Airlines

In the social media feedback analysis, the Attensity Analyze report measured 3 major performance indicators:

Share of voice. At about 40%, the bulk of the mentions come from Virgin America, with United at about 35%, and Southwest a bit over 20% in category share. Virgin’s share of voice is disproportionately higher than United’s who has a larger network more routes, more destinations, more planes (see Figure 3). Southwest Airlines has almost 11 times the followers of United. Both Southwest Airlines and Virgin America have put out 3 times more tweets than United.
Figure 3. Despite Size, Virgin Has Huge Share of Voice
Sentiment by airline. The low cost carriers appear to have cracked the customer service challenge in social media better than United and other legacy airlines. Virgin America’s positive sentiment hovers above 75% positive while Southwest Airlines held at slightly over 70% positive (see Figure 4). United’s sentiment shows an inverse with around 26% positive sentiment and 74% negative sentiment. The public tweets posted per follower (between .007 and .027) for United is comparable to Southwest Airlines. Ironically, Virgin America has a lower public tweets posted per follower count, but has higher positive sentiment than United.
Figure 4. Virgin and Southwest Have Overwhelmingly High Positive Sentiment While United’s Negative Sentiment Sets It Apart
Detailed sentiment (positive or negative). The solution automatically creates categories that users can modify or leave as-is for further analysis (see Figure 5). A text preview allows users to quickly scan the comments related to the twitter stress. In United’s case, poor sentiment translates into three major areas for massive improvement: customer treatment, flight schedules, and hate airline rounded up the Top 3 negative sentiments.
Figure 5. United’s Detailed Negative Sentiment

The Bottom Line: Companies Such As United Airlines Can’t Hide In A Transparent World

In this shift from transactions to engagement, social business and customer experience shifts the priorities of major organizations. Organizations must staff, train, and enhance how their front office employees work with prospects and customers in multiple channels. Social media makes everything transparent and any competitor can monitor your company’s social presence. Hoping that folks will ignore you if you ignore social media is a sure way to drive negative sentiment for your customer base. While United Airlines may feel insulated by its corporate contracts, expect many individuals to tell their procurement organizations to switch carriers this year as the negative sentiment for United grows. In fact, companies such as United Airlines better wake up to the reality of social media or face an eroding customer base.

Recommendations: Always Start With Listening Before Engagement

All social business projects should start with an analytics strategy. The following advice comes from client best practices in our client research panels:

Scan your base for correlations to the analog world. Make sure results in social tie have relevance to not only a segment, but also the rest of the customer and prospect base. A industrial ball bearing manufacturer for heavy machinery probably will not find strong correlations and adoption to their FaceBook page.
Identify new markets by listening in on your competitors’ customers. Understand thyself first but understand thy competitors and find out what product categories, vertical markets, geographies, and sentiments are hot.
Add dimensionality. Take analytics to the next level and aggregate inputs and signals from all source types. Tie back data to existing customer systems.
Move from insight to action. Determine the next steps once armed with insights. Improve the quality and timeliness of decisions.
Refine. Remix. Repeat. Identify points of failure. Improve on these areas. Test out new areas with new hypotheses.

Your POV.

Considering social analytics? Are you ready to take the plunge? Tell us how we can assist? Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
Developing your social business/ social CRM strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research:

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Copyright © 2001 – 2012 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience!

News Analysis: Informatica Launches MDM 9.5

R "Ray" Wang — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:44:54 +0000

New Product Addresses The Social, Mobile, Cloud, and Big Data World

The convergence of social, mobile, cloud, big data (analytics), and video/unified comms changes the playing field from transactional applications to engagement applications. The result – a sea change of new data types from structured and unstructured sources. With greater volumes of data, demand for information shifts from real time to right time inside and outside the enterprise. Context by process, by roles, by location, and by any other segmentation requires a robust MDM solution to improve the return on #bigdata. Unfortunately, many master data management solutions have not been designed to handle this new world of business led requirements.

Enter Informatica’s MDM 9.5 product launched May 15th, 2012 at Informatica World (#IW2012). Some key features in 9.5 highlight the move to social, mobile, cloud, and industries:

Versioning – effective dates deliver timelines. The new product delivers effective dating to define and manage past, current, and future versions of a record. Delivered at the base object level, relationships are automatically version-enabled.

Point of View (POV): Future analysis of social and mobile data will require the ability to segment and correlate by time. The solution can model hierarchies and entities by past, present and future. More importantly, versioning provides rich compliance information that will serve as a backbone for information governance of a wide variety of data types and sources..

Social MDM – Facebook apps connect to customer profiles. The new Facebook and MDM connectivity provides a social graph of the customer and friends of the customer. Users gain bi-directional connectivity.

Point of View (POV): Connection to Facebook not only brings rich profile information, but also delivers key multichannel connections. This linkage exposes and identifies common interests and relationships which build richer customer profiles. Customers should work hard to drive data out of Facebook and not into Facebook, reducing the trading of privacy for convenience.

Mobile MDM – iPad app changes the user experience. Informatica 9.5 MDM delivers mobile location based services with master data for location specific customer information. Solution accounts for social features including website access and Twitter.

Point of View (POV): Mobile has emerged as the predominant user interface of choice. Users expect to gain any time, anywhere access to key data. More importantly, MDM 9.5 prepares users for a world of social, mobile, and geo location convergence.

MDM Solutions For Industries. Informatica’s delivered updates to industry solutions in Counterparty (Financials), Pharma, and Reference Data Management. MDM 9.5 adds a new SFDC MDM gateway and Insurance 1.0 solution.

Point of View (POV): The move to industries makes sense for customers looking to jump start their implementations. Expect retail, CPG manufacturing, consumer electronic goods, oil & gas, healthcare, and public sector to show up next on the road map. Industry specific deployment models provide significant advantages for partners to build on top of Informatica MDM 9.5

The Bottom Line: Informatica’s Building MDM For The Next Generation Of Engagement

The road from transaction to engagement requires strong master data management to bring order and business value to the chaos of #bigdata. Constellation predicts that 87% of organizations will enter best of breed “cloud hell” by the end of 2013, the challenge of data integration must meet strong information governance. Master data management remains a critical skill set required for enterprises to deliver on business agility and provide the needed infrastructure for adopting disruptive technologies and new business models.

Your POV.

Have you deployed social, mobile, or cloud? Are you ready to take your master data management to the next level? Got a question? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Assessing social business/social CRM and master data management readiness
Developing your social business/ social CRM and MDM strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Event Report: Questions Every #SAPPHIRENOW Attendee Should Be Asking SAP

R "Ray" Wang — Sat, 12 May 2012 22:45:12 +0000

SAP’s In The Midst Of Massive Transformation

Just four years ago, nervous attendees dealt with a tumultuous global market entering financial crisis. SAP’s management team decided to raise maintenance fees to shore up its margins amidst a drought of innovation. Customers revolted en masse. Policies changed due to user group and global influencer pressure. Less than 18 months later, a defiant CEO resigned and a new management team resolved to improve relationships with key customers and address the lack of product innovation.

Fast forward to 2012, SAP’s acquired its way into innovation with BI/analytics (Business Objects), mobile (Sybase), cloud and HR (SuccessFactors), and a tiny bit of Social (SuccessFactors Cube Tree) (See Figure 1.). SAP HANA serves as the foundation for the future product line. SAP’s experimenting with consumer apps such as Recalls+. Innovation in R&D shifts from the star building fortresses of Walldorf to agile tech hubs in TelAviv, Palo Alto, Vancouver, Bangalore, and Shanghai. From the outside view, SAP’s placed long term bets in innovation on its road to 1B users. The growth in market cap from €30.9B in 2008 to €57.8B (as of 5/11/2012) reflects this perception by the financial community. Has SAP succeeded where other software vendors have failed during massive periods of transition?

Figure 1. SAP Covers Three Out Of Five Innovation Pillars In The Consumerization of IT

Customers Have Reason To Remain Cautious Of SAP’s Ability To Execute

From a customers point of view, the verdict remains mixed. Loyal customers have seen a series of failures from SAP over the past decade as it attempts to make the shift and claim innovation. Most industry observers would agree that SAP’s made significant investments in innovation. However, the results of organic innovation have mostly failed from products to services. A review of the past decade shows four proof points:

Delays in the next, next, next, no make that the next version of R/3. For those waiting for the latest version of ERP, the core product will probably show up late to mid decade. Maintenance plans call for end of support in 2020 which means SAP plans a product between now and 2018 at the latest. Customers seeking deeper industry functionality now turn to system integrators who build the user exits and customizations required to continue business. Meanwhile, the market for third party SAP products has never been stronger. A string of SaaS vendors have emerged to address the “edge applications” in incentive comp, talent management, pricing, travel and expense, collaboration, and marketing automation that SAP previously ignored. Some of these “edge vendors” such as Salesforce.com have emerged as billion dollar companies creating new markets. Yet, after several product chiefs and a decade of trying, SAP applications still lack common data models (e.g. there are at least 8 in use), common interfaces, and common process models. The much hailed enhancement packages delivering “timeless” software require slightly less work than previous upgrades but still require a lot of planning, testing, time, and money.
Clearly a confusing cloudy cloud strategy awaiting partly sunny skies. Business by design still has not achieved the tens of thousands of customers by 2010 when it was announced. At best, SAP has a bit over 1000 live customers. Customers who use the ByD product have mostly expressed positive comments and have seen the benefits of the OnDemand based approach. The distribution of the product to the masses and incentivization of sales execution remains challenging to a country club, shake-hands, relationship sales culture. Meanwhile, a series of well designed, and compelling products from the SAP OnDemand for Large Enterprise initiatives remain under marketed, and in some cases late to market. Timing could not have been worse as the SuccessFactors acquisition has clouded the cloud strategy. Customers seek cost effective, heterogeneous, integration options from their on-premises core to the cloud options. SAP still has to deliver on an integration framework customers find cost effective and can trust.
Never so easy, NetWeaver remains hard to use, rigid at best. Various attempts at an SAP middleware have finally made headway. The solutions now include an ABAP version and a Java version. Previous versions remained hard to use, complicated to maintain, and confusing for the developer ecosystem and the system integrators. Recent UI improvements help IT leaders convince business customers that they can ease back into SAP. Everything does look better in an iPad, including SAP. Sybase’s mobile platform replaces a failed and feeble attempt at NetWeaver mobile. Many customers begrudgingly use NetWeaver and something else. That something else – well, it’s typically 1/2 or 1/4 the cost.
Great new maintenance offerings, low user acceptance due to sales not service offering. SAP’s made considerable effort to improve its maintenance offerings with new programs and offers to lower the cost of ownership. Each offer considers the lifecycle of ownership and shows great care and craft in creation. While most customers show initial interest, the sales process attempts to tie maintenance offers into new professional service revenue instead of reducing the overall spend with SAP. Because customers mostly see ERP now as a legacy infrastructure, CIO’s intend to drive cost out not invest more in. Hence, many customers consider a move to third party maintenance options and SAP optimization solutions.

The track record remains mixed. Customers remain cautions.

What Clients Want From ERP Seems Confusing At First

Recent surveys among ERP clients indicate a bipolar prioritization of cost reduction and innovation (See Figure 2). While this may not make sense at first, clients have driven cost savings with the purpose of funding innovation. At the same time, survey respondents in IT seek cost savings while survey respondents on the business side demand and expect innovation. Consequently, the top 5 areas indicated by survey respondents highlight this emerging trend:

Improve mobile access (93.2%)
Reduce cost of ownership and complexity (88.8%)
Deliver self-service BI (83.7%)
Renew focus on innovation and disruptive tech (75.7%)
Address integration with existing investments (72.1%)

Figure 2. ERP Customers Now Seek Innovation

In Constellation’s latest survey on the 4 personas of the next generation CIO (to be published May 2012), 105 innovative CIOs indicate a shift away from cloud (56.4%-2012) and virtualization (29.6% – 2012) to mobile (60.2%-2012) and big data and analytics (48.7%-2012) (see Figure 2). Despite being the top projects in 2011, the drop in priority of virtualization (51.9%-2011) and cloud (69.6%-2011) doesn’t reflect the lack of interest. In fact, these projects have matured and innovative CIOs have now prioritized the next wave of innovation.

Figure 3. What Innovative CIO’s Expect Their Vendor To Deliver On Disruptive Technologies In 2013

Some key findings:

Mobile enablement shoots to the top (60.2%). Mobile is the primary interface. Anywhere, anytime computing is here to stay and these CIOs are working on the infrastructure required to support BYOD and CoIT. App stores and mobile device management play a key role.
Cloud deployment drops but is the predominant preference (56.4%). Cloud is assumed as the deployment option of choice. CIOs now looking at providing the platforms to support apps stores, and applications development in the cloud to spur innovation.
Big data and analytics rounds out the top 3 (48.7%). Big data is hot. Today innovative CIOs take the Lytro approach. As with a light field camera where you take the picture first and then focus, big data strategies start with capture the data and find the correlations later.
Unified communications and collaboration increases in priority (41.1%). Improvements in cost performance ratios now put UC at the reach for any sized company. These tools have gone from luxury to essential with home work forces and disparate teams.
Social software enablement grows slowly among CIOs (33.4%). CIOs focus less on external social software while CMO counterparts drive the purchase and adoption. On the internal side, the data shows collaboration tied back to unified communications.

As the adoption of these disruptive technologies take shape, early adopters will find the leverage and force multipliers in the convergence of these technologies.

Questions SAPPHIRE Attendees Seek Answers To

These latest findings reflect the buying sentiment of key IT decision makers. More and more, the business side of the house is asking questions and driving decision making. SAPPHIRE attendees will ask the same questions amidst the macro trends. Constellation’s Board of Advisor, Dennis Howlett recent post on “What should we expect at SAPPHIRE” provides a great start to questions that customers hope to have answers to. Here’s a few more from Constellation’s client research communities and questions from blog readers:

Apps

How do I plan for a future upgrade when the road map on apps remains murky?
What’s the best way to prioritize industry specific functionality and gain a commitment from SAP executives?
What steps in reducing maintenance costs will SAP deliver in the next 12 to 18 months without requiring my company to buy more services?
This is the year of HR and HCM for SAP, can you compete with the HCM innovators?
What’s the HCM road map?
When will you deliver a social CRM product?
Will you buy a marketing automation product to augment the marketing product?
Why is SAP legal holding up contracts and the buying process?

Mobile

Why does it cost more to use SAP’s mobility solutions than it does with third party solutions like Skytek?
How come as an SAP customer I pay twice and in some cases three times for mobile licenses to access the same system information?
What’s the future of the SAP mobile ecosystem? Which areas will SAP not compete in so partners can thrive?

Social

How will SAP integrate with Jive, Yammer, and Lithium?
What’s the Sharepoint to SAP social strategy?
What’s in CubeTree that I can use today in my SAP environment?
Should I go to a best of breed software company for internal and external social business or will SAP make an acquisition to beef up CubeTree?

Cloud

SAP has at least five cloud platforms. What’s the final cloud road map?
Can I expect a PaaS layer from SAP that supports open standards?
Who should I turn to for heterogeneous cloud integration?
When will SAP deliver a truly multi-tenant SaaS platform?
How do I ensure I keep to SOA principles in this new messy world of best of breed cloud apps?

Analytics

When will SAP rationalize its BI products to have a common meta data model and architecture such as IBM and Oracle?
Why do I pay three times for the same type of product functionality in BW, Business Objects, and now HANA?
When will SAP provide a business user level visualization tool for enterprise use that’s cost effective compared to QlikTech and Tableau?

Database

When can I get rid of my existing database and go straight to SAP HANA for my apps?
Will HANA be required in future releases?
When do I lose choice in database?
When will HANA be put in the Cloud?

What questions will you ask while you are at SAPPHIRE?

The Bottom Line: Ask Your Questions And Stay Tuned For Updates At SAPPHIRENOW

To date, SAP’s innovation efforts earn a B- for good acquisition strategy. However, execution challenges on organic innovation and overall business value of acquired solutions keep it from moving above a B-. Expect SAP customers, influencers, and prospects to seek answers to not only how SAP has innovated, but also how well have they executed on their plan and road map. Customers don’t care that SAP has 1B users, share holders do. Customers need to see how these acquisitions deliver overall business value and quick wins for the business. If SAP drops the ball on what customers want, share holder value will evaporate like alcohol in the desert. SAP’s done a better job than in the past, but customers need solutions faster than ever from traditionally legacy applications vendors.

Your POV.

Ready for SAPPHIRE? What questions will you be asking SAP executives? What do you hope to leave with? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Please let us know if you need help with your next gen apps strategy efforts. Here’s how we can help:

Mapping out the roadmap in the Future of Work
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support for SaaS, Cloud, and On-Premises software.
Evaluating SaaS/Cloud options
Assessing apps strategies (e.g. single instance, two-tier ERP, upgrade, custom dev, packaged deployments”
Designing end to end processes and systems
Comparing SaaS/Cloud integration strategies
Assisting with legacy ERP migration
Engaging in an SCRM, HR tech and strategy
Planning upgrades and migration
Performing vendor selection

Resources

SAP Conference Call Replay With Bill McDermott and Lars Dalgaard

Monday’s Musings: Balancing The Six S’s In Consumerization Of IT

Monday’s Musings: A Working Vendor Landscape For Social Business

Research Report: The Upcoming Battle For The Largest Share Of The Technology Budget Part 1

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Event Report: Lithium Network Conference 2012 #LiNC

R "Ray" Wang — Wed, 09 May 2012 23:54:56 +0000

Lithium Technologies Shows Continued Customer Momentum And Success In Social Marketing And Support

To the tune of over 500 customers and prospects, Lithium kicked off LiNC on May 2nd, 2012, at the always stunning Intercontinental Hotel in San Francisco. Compared to previous years, the audience was not only bigger, but also more experienced and energized. Rob Tarkoff (CEO) and Lyle Fong (Founder & Chief Strategist) kicked off the event with company updates, product road map highlights, and customer progress made over the past year.

Adding to the energy, four compelling case studies graced the morning and highlighted Lithium’s strengths in two distinct and advanced externally focused social CRM (SCRM) use cases: social customer support and marketing. The wide range of proud customers and brands included Chris Blandy, SVP of Digital Media, Fox; Mark Nichols, Director of Customer Support, Skype; Andrew Leary, EVP & GM, Ipsos; and Steve Young, Sr. Director of Technical Services, Cisco. During the event, several key announcements were made including:

Launch of a new product, Lithium Response™. In a top secret OEM partnership, the team unveiled Lithium Response™ a product that enables brands to increase customer satisfaction while reducing costs and improving efficiency in the call center. Key features include easier processes to turn community conversations from unstructured information to entries into the Lithium Tribal Knowledge Base (TKB), peer-to-peer support and gamification incentives to drive self-service customer resolution, cost effective social-web support, blended contact center capabilities, and mobile enablement. The product is generally available (GA) in Q3.

Point of View (POV): The OEM’d product comes from a little-known but powerful solution from a privately held, purpose-built social customer care platform. The product maximizes agent efficiency via categorization, prioritization and queuing, and routing. The system is smart enough to guide customers to self service by replying with relevant links to community content. This platform has been battled test with complicated communication service provider (CSP) environments. Adapted for the Lithium platform, customer can expect a rigorous enterprise class solution that lives up to Lithium’s standards. Lithium Response™ also takes advantage of Lithium’s access to the Twitter fire hose. The movement to address multi-channel customer support puts Lithium in unique league with vendors such as Genesys Labs, Kana, and Moxie Software, who can blend contact center and social support.

Delivers new release of social marketing. Building on customer feedback, the new Lithium Social Marketing Solution™ focuses on improving engagement. New features include support for rich media interactions, ad hoc groups, streaming conversations, and a new ratings and reviews module. A partnership with Shoutlet provides Facebook and Twitter campaign management. Social engagement is updated to include photo sharing, inline-conversations, groups spaces, and adoption of commons social logins. The new ratings and reviews module allows community driven content to be included via widgets. New development tools on iOS improve customer experience in the mobile interface of choice. The product is now generally available (GA).

Point of View (POV): Customers showed significant interest in the new social marketing solution features. The ability to improve ratings and reviews is much needed as this has become table steaks in communities and product catalogs. What’s impressive is the new line of partnerships that align with Lithium’s core strategy. Instead of building their own content publishing platform for campaigns, Lithium takes advantage of Shoutlet ability to place various types of content easily into the conversation. Partnerships with VMWare’s Socialcast unit allows Lithium’s Social Marketing Solution™ to integrate with internally focused collaboration tools to expedite the concept to product introduction process.

Begins concerted global expansion. Lithium announced new APAC headquarters in Singapore which add to its Sydney APAC presence. Lithium also has a strong presence in EMEA with operations in Paris, Zurich, and London.

Point of View (POV): As the market consolidates through attrition and acquisition, Lithium’s push to get more feet on the ground around the globe is much welcomed by customers. Lithium needs to expand fast and put its $53M in funding to work to acquire long-term customers in expansion markets.

Ups the ante in partnerships and alliances. New partnerships with Ipsos and Geoffrey Moore provide access to market research. Agency relationships include Sapient Nitro and Acquity group. Lithium adds software partners such as Shoutlet and VM Ware. Lithium’s approach is to find a small number but committed set of alliances and partnerships.

Point of View (POV): Lithium’s partnership and alliance program traditionally was the weakest among the major SCRM players. The addition of Ed Van Siclen, SVP of Global Alliances and BD, brings enterprise class partnerships to the Lithium’s arsenal. As SCRM matures, key partnerships with major system integrators must be prioritized as well as carefully crafted agency relationships. Software partnerships back to transactional systems such as ERP, CRM, and master data management will be key to long term success and enterprise adoption. More importantly, continued alliances with other engagement applications will keep the innovation engine alive for existing customers as they focus on improving engagement.

Figure 1. Scenes From #LiNC 2012

Source: R Wang

Recommendations

From several dozen conversations with customers and prospects at this year’s event, the following actions are suggested for prospects and customers:

Explore the new offerings for marketing and support use cases. Social Marketing shows great improvements in features and design while Response puts together a well crafted set of design points around multichannel customer support from a social point of view. As organizations move from hype to reality, a carefully crafted engagement strategy should consider these two tools. Keep in mind Lithium’s chosen to go deep and focused on two major social business use cases: support and marketing. The dedication to these use cases shows in rich offerings not only in the product, but also from the professional services team.
Consider integration options to larger use cases. As social moves from niche departmental solution to broader customer experience, customers and prospects should understand how Lithium’s partnership and alliance strategy will bring together the other pieces of customer engagement. For example, CRM or marketing automation integration is a logical next step.
Apply Constellation’s DEEPR framework in adoption of SCRM. DEEPR puts all the steps in the right sequence for successful adoption. Users can easily identify where they fit in the five levels of disruptive technology adoption. The framework applies to social business and provides the basis used in early adoption surveys such as Constellation latest report, “Lesson Learned From 100 Early Social Business Adopters

The Bottom Line: Lithium Technologies Remains On Short Lists As Organizations Make The Shift From Transactions To Engagement

Lithium’s success in the market builds on client success, one client at a time. While understated in its marketing and conservative in its approach to making bold statements, most customers rave about the ownership experience, the solution offering, and their success in achieving business value. The list of heroes and customer case studies tells the impact Lithium has had on their customers success based on improved engagement. Unlike many social vendors trading on hype and consumer fluffiness, Lithium’s set of solutions and technologies start with an enterprise class design point. The evolution to engagement systems from transactional systems will usher in an era of experiential systems which apply context to deliver agility and flexibility. Should Lithium innovate at the right pace of change, then the company will play a key role in this transition and move from engagement to experience.

Your POV.

Considering social CRM? Were you at LiNC? Not a Lithium customer? Tell us why? Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
Developing your social business/ social CRM strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research:

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Monday’s Musings: Why Are Innovative CIO’s Betting Less On Cloud And Virtualization?

R "Ray" Wang — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:05:37 +0000

Innovative CIO’s Betting On Disruptive Technologies That Impact Enterprise Business Value

In the Four Personas of the Next Gen CIO published March 3, 2012, four personas of the CIO were identified: Chief Infrastructure Officer, Chief Integration Officer, Chief Intelligence Officer, and Chief Innovation Officer (see Figure 1). This research of 79 progressive CIO’s identified the key projects for each of the personas. As part of the survey, respondents were asked what key disruptive technologies would make an impact in the enterprise in the next year.

Figure 1. The Four Personas Of The Next Generation CIO

Source: Constellation Research, Inc.

In Constellation’s latest update (to be published May 2012), 105 innovative CIOs participated in the survey. The results indicate a shift away from cloud (56.4%-2012) and virtualization (29.6% – 2012) to mobile (60.2%-2012) and big data and analytics (48.7%-2012) (see Figure 2). Despite being the top projects in 2011, the drop in priority of virtualization (51.9%-2011) and cloud (69.6%-2011) doesn’t reflect the lack of interest. In fact, these projects have matured and innovative CIOs have now prioritized the next wave of innovation.

Figure 2. Over 100 Innovative CIO’s Identify The Top 3 Disruptive Technologies for 2013

Source: Constellation Research, Inc.

Some key findings:

Mobile enablement shoots to the top (60.2%). Mobile is the primary interface. Anywhere, anytime computing is here to stay and these CIOs are working on the infrastructure required to support BYOD and CoIT. App stores and mobile device management play a key role.
Cloud deployment drops but is the predominant preference (56.4%). Cloud is assumed as the deployment option of choice. CIOs now looking at providing the platforms to support apps stores, and applications development in the cloud to spur innovation.
Big data and analytics rounds out the top 3 (48.7%). Big data is hot. Today innovative CIOs take the Lytro approach. As with a light field camera where you take the picture first and then focus, big data strategies start with capture the data and find the correlations later.
Unified communications and collaboration increases in priority (41.1%). Improvements in cost performance ratios now put UC at the reach for any sized company. These tools have gone from luxury to essential with home work forces and disparate teams.
Social software enablement grows slowly among CIOs (33.4%). CIOs focus less on external social software while CMO counterparts drive the purchase and adoption. On the internal side, the data shows collaboration tied back to unified communications.

As the adoption of these disruptive technologies take shape, early adopters will find the leverage and force multipliers in the convergence of these technologies.

The Bottom Line: The Disruptive Tech Divide Creates A Huge Gap Between Winners and Losers

The gap in profits, innovation, and market share will continue to widen between the companies who adopt disruptive and emergent technologies and those who choose to stay the course. In some sense, average is over and organizations who strive for average will fail to survive. Unlike the Occupy movement, organizations should strive to be in the 1%. Why? There’s only room for the top 3 to 5 in any market segment. Those in the 99% will crumble under market forces and cease to exist.

Your POV

Are you an innovative CIO? What ‘s your point of view on which disruptive technologies are key for your transformation? Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your innovation efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Kickstarting an innovation workshop
Starting a design thinking session
Selecting technologies that will drive disruptive business models
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen enterprise strategy

Mentions

20110303 Harvard Business Review – R “Ray” Wang “The Four Personas of the Next-Generation CIO”

20110302 CIO Magazine – Kristin Burnham “4 Personas of the Next-Generation CIO”

20110923 MidMarket CIO – R “Ray” Wang “VIDEO: The 4 Personas of the Next Generation CIO”

Related Research:

20110303 Constellation Research – R “Ray” Wang “The Four Personas of the Next-Generation CIO”

20110307 Software Insider – R “Ray” Wang “Monday’s Musings: The Race For Enterprise Class Consumer Tech”

20111226 Software Insider – R “Ray: Wang “Monday’s Musings: 10 Mega Business Trends To Watch for 2012″

20110621 Software Insider R “Ray” Wang “Research Report: How SaaS Adoption Trends Show New Shifts In Technology Purchasing Power”

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Quark Summary: What CFOs Need to Know About SaaS and Cloud Integration

R "Ray" Wang — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:37:54 +0000

Forward And Commentary

This document addresses many questions asked by CFO’s about cloud deployments and the top integration questions often asked by CFO’s responsible for key business initiatives that involve technology.

A. Executive Summary

Organizations have escalated their adoption of cloud computing and SaaS applications in the past 3 years. As part of the broader trend in consumerization of IT (CoIT), business leaders have slowly tipped the balance of power in determining technology acquisition. However, the proliferation of adoption has led to organizational chaos in data, process and meta data integration as users adopt and deploy the cloud in silos without considering the implications of organizational silos and services oriented architecture (SOA). As cloud integration emerges as an enterprise-wide issue, CFOs must get acquainted with the cost-value equation of cloud and SaaS applications. Why? Cloud integration emerges as a key competency for successful organizations seeking to innovate while maximizing returns on investment. Consequently, CFOs should understand ten key points on why they must master cloud integration.

B. Research Findings

The rapid adoption of cloud computing by business leaders unfortunately creates a bespoke environment technically known as “best of breed cloud hell.” With so many disparate systems in a loosely federated model, data rapidly becomes siloed, business processes easily become fragmented, and coordination across functional fiefdoms quickly becomes difficult. Consequently, cloud integration emerges as a key enabler in reducing the costs and improving the benefits of cloud computing. Recent conversations with 22 CFOs addressed these ten key questions:

What is cloud integration?
Why is cloud integration a growing competency for the CFO?
Is cloud integration more or less expensive?
Which integration approach is best in the long run?
How does cloud integration mitigate project risk?
What’s the business value for cloud integration?
Will bring your own device (BYOD) policies require cloud integration?
How can I support social media?
Do big data and cloud integration go hand in hand?
What kind of projects make sense for cloud integration?

The Bottom Line: Mastering Cloud Integration Is an Entry Point to Mastering Consumerization of IT
CFOs have a unique position to shape the future of their organizations as the decision-making power has shifted from the IT side to the business. IT budgets remain down 5 percent year-over-year, while tech spending by business units has increased 18-20 percent. The result – businesses have increased their influence in technology buying. By providing guidance during the strategy and budgeting process, CFOs have an effective tool to balance the needs of
business and IT. Cloud integration enables CFOs to deftly apply the “six s’s of consumerization of IT”

C. Report Links

The report is part of Constellation’s Unlimited Quark library and the individual report is available for purchase.

Your POV

Are you contemplating a shift in your integration strategy? Suffering from best of breed SaaS hell? Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your enterprise apps strategy efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Reviewing your Apps Strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research:

Wang, R “Ray” – “Monday’s Musings: The Race For Enterprise Class Consumer Tech”, Software Insider, March 7, 2011

Wang, R “Ray”- “Research Report: How SaaS Adoption Trends Show New Shifts In Technology Purchasing Power”, Software Insider June 21, 2011.

Mentions

Data Integration Blog – Pervasive Software “Ray Wang discusses integrating SaaS Best of Breed Hell”

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

News Analysis: KANA Enters MidMarket With Trinicom Acquisition

R "Ray" Wang — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 23:43:16 +0000

Acquisition Brings A Proven Multi-Channel Cloud Based Service Offering To The Growing Mid-market

Sunnyvale, CA based KANA announced on April 24, 2012 it’s acquisition of Netherlands based Trinicom, a multichannel, customer contact software provider serving over 200 companies in the BeNeLux market. Trinicom’s flagship T5 all-in solutions addresses multichannel customer service through email response management, web self-service, call management, live chat, “letter, fax, and desk contact”, chat bot, and knowledge base. The acquisition marks KANA’s entry and commitment to:

Addressing the under served mid-market. Trinicom brings enterprise class customer service and engagement tools to mid-sized businesses. KANA states in its press release that “mid-sized organizations in both public and private sectors are increasingly seeking enabling technology to support emerging customer experience needs and to build, enhance, and extend relationships with customers.” Why? Mid-market companies seek enterprise class solutions that don’t require the enterprise levels of staffing, support, and infrastructure. Trinicom brings the expertise in sales, marketing, and support for the mid-market to the traditionally enterprise focused KANA management team.

Point of View (POV): Trinicom suite of products for key service industries succeeds given its mid-market focus. In general, these organizations have 20 to 200 customer service professionals. Referenceable and successful customers come from banking, education, internet, insurers, non-profit, publishing and media, retail & eCommerce, telecom, travel & transport, and utilities (see Figure 1). In fact, Trinicom delivers an end to end offering across social, web, and agent desktops. Past clients expressed general satisfaction with go live times less than three months and on average within six to eight weeks. Most clients praise the rich configuration tools which allow clients easy adaptation without expensive customization.

Gaining a SaaS based deployment option. KANA today offers on-premises and hosted deployment models for its enterprise customers. Trinicom brings its SaaS based technology and Cloud business model to KANA’s existing deployment options. Trinicom’s SaaS operations in Northern Europe complement Kana’s global data center reach.

Point of View (POV): KANA’s lack of a SaaS offering has led to some loss in deals as the market shifts to SaaS as the defacto standard. The good news – the Trinicom acquisition gives KANA customers and prospects more choice in immediate deployment options. Subsequently, KANA gains a SaaS foundation for future offerings in both the mid-market and enterprise.

Expanding customer and revenue base. KANA currently serves 600 commercial and 250 public sector organizations. Trinicom adds key global capabilities and European market expertise. For instance, Trinicom will expand KANA’s presence in the local public sector market in EMEA.

Point of View (POV): The acquisition expands KANA’s customer and revenue base into the growing and profitable mid-market. KANA gains an immediate opportunity to service the mid-market and effectively compete with eGain, Eptica, Moxie, and Parature. More importantly, Trinicom opens up a lucrative mid-market public sector opportunity.

Figure 1. Trinicom Spans A Range Of Service Verticals In The Mid-Market

Source: KANA

Recommendations

As with major acquisitions, the following recommendations apply to existing customers:

Review existing contracts. Existing Trinicom customers should negotiate longer term contracts at current rates. Communicate areas for improvement in the contract and relationship.
Engage with the new management team. Document and push for prioritization of future feature requirements. Identify service and support transitions.

Prospects should consider the following:

Include in short lists. Mid-market prospects should add KANA into the short lists for multichannel customer service.
Evaluate KANA’s full set of offerings. Consider what aspects of KANA match to the organization’s requirements.

The Bottom Line: KANA’s Positioned As A Key Player In Emerging CRM Consolidation

Backed by Accel-KKR, KANA is the centerpiece of the private equity’s firm’s investment in enterprise software. As the CRM market enters into another round of consolidation amidst disruptive trends in social, mobile, cloud, big data, and unified communications, customers and partners can expect KANA to acquire and expand its reach in customer service, CRM, and customer experience software.

Your POV.

KANA and Trinicom customers how do you feel about the acquisition? Do you expect KANA to expand its SaaS offerings? What areas do you think KANA should invest in? Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
Developing your social business/ social CRM strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research:

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Quark Summary: Does SAP HANA Change Your Database Strategy for SAP Apps?

R "Ray" Wang — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 07:25:36 +0000

Forward And Commentary

SAP’s made big claims about HANA and its capabilities today and into the future. This Quark goes into the details and Constellation’s point of view.

A. Executive Summary

Both HANA as an architecture and database alternative indicate SAP’s future direction and next-generation approach. Consequently, numerous clients and SAP customers have inquired on whether or not they can replace their underlying Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) in their SAP Business Suite with HANA. Constellation believes SAP HANA is a critical technology that SAP customers should evaluate and understand as the roadmap reveals itself. This report primarily describes the role HANA will play for use with SAP Business Suite and in future SAP applications.

B. Research Findings

Since 2008, SAP has hinted at a real-time data platform approach to its middleware and application infrastructure based on the power of in-memory database (IMDB) technologies. IMDBs are a database management system that stores data directly onto the main memory of a computer. In an IMDB, the memory resident data has one minimum backup copy on disk, but the primary copy lives permanently in memory. Traditional on-disk databases cache data into main memory for access but the primary copy permanently lives in storage.

Thus, IMDBs have faster access times than disk-optimized systems that rely on cumbersome and slower input/output (I/O) calls. The result – the ability to provide real-time information in nanoseconds instead of milliseconds to the user or a downstream consumption feed. IMDBs play a key role as big data requires faster processing times and real-time streaming. More importantly, social, mobile, and machine-to-machine requirements require real-time and contextual right-time delivery of information.

The research shows four main themes:

In-Memory Computing Is at the Heart of SAP’s HANA Roadmap and Architectural Vision
HANA Puts SAP in Conflict with Key DB Partners but Is the Right Strategy for Next Gen Apps and Independence
Currently HANA Is Not Available for Immediate RDBMS Replacement for SAP Business Suite
However, HANA Is Already Playing a Growing Role in Non- SAP Business Suite Scenarios

Recommendations: Explore HANA for Analytics, BW Replacement but Not Yet for Database Replacement

The HANA vision represents SAP’s future platform. Constellation makes three recommendations in the report as SAP unfolds its mid-term and long-term strategy.

C. Report Links

The report is part of Constellation’s Unlimited Quark library and the individual report is available for purchase.

Your POV

Will you replace your database with SAP? What’s the compelling business case and when would you do it? Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your enterprise apps strategy efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Reviewing your Apps Strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research:

Wang, R “Ray.” “News Analysis: The Implications of Oracle’s Taleo Acquisition.” Software Insider. February 9th, 2012.

Wang, R “Ray.” “News Analysis: SAP Buys SuccessFactors for $3.4B Signals SAP’s Commitment To Cloud, HCM, and Social.” Software Insider. December 3rd, 2011.

Wang, R “Ray.” “Monday’s Musings: Balancing The Six S’s In Consumerization Of IT.” Software Insider. December 3rd, 2011.

Wang, R “Ray.” “Research Report: How The Five Pillars Of Consumer Tech Influence Enterprise Innovation.” Software Insider. October 4, 2010.

Wang, R “Ray.” “Research Report: The Upcoming Battle For The Largest Share Of The Technology Budget Part 1.” Software Insider. July 27, 2010.

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Research Summary: Why the Move from Transaction to Experience Requires Better Analytics

R "Ray" Wang — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:45:35 +0000

Forward And Commentary

This trends report examines how changing expectations among business leaders and the consumerization of IT will shape the future of insights and decision-making. As organizations make the move from transactions to engagement to experience, a new type of analytics will be required.

A. Introduction

Business leaders seek better insights for smarter decision-making. Unfortunately, today’s traditional intelligence tools were designed for two-dimensional transactional systems. As data from consumer trends such as mobile, social, cloud, big data, and video make their way into the enterprise, organizations seek new tools to discern insight from these new engagement and experiential systems.

The shift from transaction to engagement to experience depends on better business analytics. Success requires that new business analytical tools support the information supply chain as data moves from a cacophony of upstream data sources to new and innovative downstream modes of consumption.

B. Research Findings – Why the Move from Transaction to Experience Requires Better Analytics

Leaders seek more than just reporting and dashboards, they expect to make real decisions. A recent Constellation Research survey identified key expectations from business analytics to include: supporting business strategy and planning; optimizing costs across the value chain; identifying hidden patterns and relationships in big data; providing context for relevant engagement; and predicting demand in networks. Along with these key trends, the report discusses the:

Five Consumer Forces Influence the Future of Analytics
How Business Leaders Move Beyond Simple Reporting and Dashboards in Their Expectations of Business Analytics
Why Organizations Seek Insight to Make Better Decisions in the Shift from Transaction to Experience
How Big Data Provides the Key Element in Moving from Real- Time to Right-Time

Figure 1. Moving From Transaction To Experience

(Right-click to see full image)

The Bottom Line: Business Analytics Must Support Decision-Making Across the Information Supply Chain

The shift from transaction to engagement to experience depends on better business analytics. Success for business leaders requires that new business analytical tools support the information supply chain as data moves from a cacophony of upstream data sources to new and innovative downstream modes of consumption (see Figure 7).

Classify. Incoming information must be tagged and associated with relevant metadata and context.
Transform. Information must be converted to standard and conventions that can be consumed by all sources.
Augment. Related information must be attached to the data.
Secure. Access to, securing of, and masking of information must be applied.
Deliver. Information and insights should be delivered to the relevant input nodes.
Refresh. Periodic updates to information must be performed to keep data relevant.

C. Report Links

See how analytics play a major role in the shift from transaction to experience. Buy the full research report on the Constellation Research website.

Your POV.

How are you using analytics to improve engagement and experience? Let us know your experiences. Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

Vendor Event: Why Does Everyone Need Analytics?

R "Ray" Wang — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 18:26:30 +0000

Wednesday, April 25, 2012
10:00 am Pacific
1:00 pm Eastern

Presenters
Ray Wang
Principal Analyst and Chief Executive Officer
Constellation Research, Inc.

Patrick Morrissey
Vice President
Tidemark

Jennifer Maddox
Director of Product Marketing
Tidemark

Why the Move from Transaction to Experience Requires Better Analytics

In fact, leaders seek more than just reporting and dashboards, they expect to make real decisions. A recent Constellation Research survey identified key expectations from business analytics to include: supporting business strategy and planning; optimizing costs across the value chain; identifying hidden patterns and relationships in big data; providing context for relevant engagement; and predicting demand in networks.

Why Does Everyone Need Analytics? Because work—as we know it—soon won’t be as we know it.

Think real time. Connect finance and operations together with plans, forecasts, budgets, and a global view of the business so that everyone can see what they need, the way they need it.

Think mobile. Manage your business anywhere with a swipe of your finger from an iPad or mobile device by updating plans, doing real-time analysis, and collaboration.

Excel who? Think analytics for all.

Come join us for an interactive discussion and webinar! Register today!

Event Report: Clarabridge Customer Connections 2012 #cbc312

R "Ray" Wang — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 06:09:24 +0000

Clarabridge “Turns Up The Heat” On Delivering Context For Customer Experience

CEO, Sid Banderjee, opened up Clarabridge‘s 4th annual user conference to 350 customers at the Doral Golf & Spa in Miami, FL on March 5th, 2012. Clarabridge, a sentiment and text analytics software provider helps companies discern insight from their text based customer feedback and the growing plethora of social and mobile data points. The goal – aggregation of insights from qualitative analytics that transform key organizational processes in customer experience, new product development, and employee satisfaction.

Clarabridge has shown success with a Global 1000 customer list that spans key verticals in technology/telco, retail/CPG, manufacturing, travel/hospitality, financial services/insurance. Major clients include Bank of America, Best Buy, Cisco, Dell, Disney, Fidelity, General Mills, Hilton, IHG Hotels, Kaiser Permanente, Marriott, Siemens Sony, T-Mobile, United Airlines, Verizon, Visa, Walgreen’s, Walmart, and Zynga.

Some highlights from the event include:

Keynote from customer experience transformist Bruce Temkin. Bruce’s keynote discussed how organizations apply Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs to augment customer experience. Temkin highlighted his VoC Maturity assessment methodology that drills in on six key areas – detection, dissemination, diagnosis, discussion, designing, and deploying. The key quote from Bruce was “Customer feedback is cheap, actionable insight may be valuable, but taking action on insight is precious. VoC programs are useless unless you act on what you find”
Best practices discussions from Global 1000 companies.Leading brands such as Acer, Best Buy, B/E Aerospace, Charming Shoppes, Choice Hotels International, Inc., Dell Inc, Expedia, Estée Lauder, Fidelity Investments, GE Appliances, United Airlines, Sage, Verizon, Vodaphone, Wendy’s, Walmart, and Zynga shared best practices. Experiences from Wynn Parrish, VP Product Support of B/E Aerospace showd how customer management and warranty liability could be minimized. Michael Silverman at Silverman research highlighted how Unilver uses VOC for internal employee programs. One of the highlights was Jared Anderson (Best Buy) and Jonathan Sunberg’s (Confirmit) panel on voice of the customer at the leading edge/
Official details on the Clarabridge 5.0 launch. The launch of Clarabridge 5.0 provides the foundation for a customer insight data analytics hub (See Figure 1). As part of the launch, Clarabridge Collaborate adds integrated notifications and alerts. A new satisfaction scoring and sentiment transparency capability brings customer satisfaction scores into the equation to determine customer loyalty and retention programs. Many attendees expressed interest in the new theme and event detection capabilities which provide custom categorization models to quickly surface new trends. Last but not least, the natural language processing engine now supports Italian, Dutch, and Japanese.

Figure 1. Transforming Feedback Into Insight

Figure 2. Scenes From Clarabridge C3

Source: R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC. All rights reserved.
The Bottom Line: Voice of Customer Programs Key to Improving Customer Engagement

VOC’s provide a time honored tradition in capturing a customer’s expectations, preferences and aversions. As the first step to any social business program, listening is critical to success. Without understanding the customer or competitive landscape, organizations lack the insight required to address the root causes behind customer satisfaction and experience. Customer service professionals can expect these techniques to extend beyond text based systems. Early adopters to social business know they must build competencies in social media monitoring, text analytics, and social analytics. In fact, organizations will see a digital divide grow in customer experience between those who use VOC techniques beyond social and those who fail to fast follow early adopters. Why? Because customer experience is the only defensible position in today’s market.

Your POV

What strategies and tactics are you using to drive engagement? How do you measure success. Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
Developing your social business/ social CRM strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research:

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Event Report: IIAR UK Forum – The Future Of The Industry Analyst, Legacy Vs Disruptive

R "Ray" Wang — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:58:14 +0000

Legacy Analyst Firms Vs Disruptive Influencer Firms

On March 14th, 2012 Constellation had the privilege and pleasure of presenting at the IIAR UK Chapter’s monthly meeting moderated by Simon Levin (see Figure 1). For those who don’t know, the IIAR is a “not-for-profit organisation established to raise awareness of analyst relations and the value of industry analysts, promote best practice amongst analyst relations professionals, enhance communication between analyst firms and vendors, and offer opportunities for AR practitioners to network with their industry peers.” IIAR has been responsible for raising both the visibility and standards of analyst relations and influence relations professionals.

Figure 1. IIAR UK Forum – March Meeting

(Source: R Wang)

The topic of the March monthly meeting – the changing nature of analyst firms. Constellation’s EMEA team of Alea Fairchild – Brussels (@afairch), Charles Brett – Madrid and Tel Aviv (@charlesbrett) and Paul Papadimitriou – London (@papadimitriou) presented their points of view as IIAR members asked tough and insightful questions about the new model and provided candid feedback. During the discussion, we also had the opportunity to describe the new analyst firm model and how we have designed our offerings for both the existing and new research firm service buyers. After the meeting, we put together some notes and came up with a summary between the legacy analyst firms and new and emerging disruptive firms (see Figure 2). Here’s a quick summary of five major areas:

Client types. Legacy analyst firms support the established buyers – IT. By nature, a disruptive firm thrive on innovation and attracts innovators in an organization from both IT and business.
Design point. Legacy analyst firms bind analysts with non-competes and treat employees as cogs in the wheel. Disruptive firms build the firm around the sum of personal brands and embrace principles that support the future of work.
Analyst access. Legacy analyst firms block analyst access through expensive pay walls and contracts. Disruptive firms break down barriers to access and provide research as a service models of access.
Research approach. Legacy analyst firms work in ivory towers and take a conservative outlook. Disruptive firms embrace the community for input, feedback, and co-creation to deliver pragmatic innovation.
Sales. Legacy analyst firms apply a transactional model to sales. Disruptive firms build relationships with stakeholders and sales professionals serve as advisors into the research firm’s capabilities.

Figure 2. Comparing the Legacy Analyst Firm With Today’s Disruptive Firms

The Bottom Line – Technology Buyers Have Shifted To The Business Side And Market Disruption Is Imminent

With IT spending down 5% year over year and tech spending up 18 to 20%, disruptive firms emerge to support a growing and influential buyer type – the business. As business examines new approaches, they seek a second opinion to the traditional IT point of view from legacy analyst firms. The market exists for new firms to support the new buyers and guide them through the growing and dizzying array of disruptive technologies not just for technologies sake. The goal – apply emerging technologies to create differentiated and disruptive business models. That’s the objective for Constellation and a number of new disruptive firms. That being said, we encourage the legacy analyst firms to stay the course and play their key role in supporting IT. There’s room for both!

Your POV.

We’d love to hear your point of view on how analyst firms can do a better job, including ours! We’re hoping to incorporate your feedback into our 2H 2012 planning meeting July 2012. Let us know your experiences. Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Related Resources And Links

20120315 IIAR – Duncan Chapple “More stars move into the Constellation”

20110202 R Wang “Trends: Influencers Aspire For Market Maker Status”

20111109 Technobabble 2.0 – Jonny Bentwood “Introducing Constellation Research”

20100724 R Wang “Personal Log: The 7 Tenets Of Building A “Star Analyst” Firm”

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

News Analysis: Spinnaker Expands JD Edwards Support With Versytec Acquisition

R "Ray" Wang — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 16:52:35 +0000

Versytec Acquisition Addresses Growing Demand For JD Edwards Support

Denver, Colorado based Spinnaker Management announced on March 6th, 2012 its acquisition of competitor Versytec. For those who remember their third party maintenance (3PM) history, Versytec was among the first firms to announce third-party maintenance services within a year after PeopleSoft acquired JD Edwards in July 18, 2003. Constellation estimates that Nashua, New Hampshire based Versytec had between 35 to 40 active 3PM customers.

Third-party maintenance describes support and maintenance offerings delivered by non-OEM providers. These vendors can provide a range of options from basic break/fix to bug fixes, performance optimization, tax and regulatory updates, and customization support. Keep in mind, 3PM does not provide access to upgrades and future versions of the OEM’s product. One big driver is the lower cost of delivery, as much as half the cost of the original vendor’s pricing. Today most customers pay in maintenance and support the equivalent of a new license every 5 years without achieving the value. For an average JD Edwards customer that upgrades every 15 years, that’s three times the cost of the original license cost. In the latest Constellation research report, third party maintenance is one of many strategies to free up millions for customers to fund innovation.

The Spinnaker-Versytec deal is important for a few reasons:

Many JD Edwards customers seek alternatives to Oracle’s pricey maintenance fees. Software ownership costs continue to escalate as vendors accelerate their efforts to capture support and maintenance revenues. From inquiries, surveys, and conversations on the ground, many Oracle JD Edwards World and EnterpriseOne ERP customers seek options to buy-time as they consider whether they upgrade or migrate from their current version. Why? Most JD Edwards customers run stable environments and do not gain any value from the Oracle one-size fits all 22% support policy. Most customers seek phone support and tax and regulatory updates.
The market needs more options and choices in the third party maintenance market. Many OEM vendors have gone to the extreme to eliminate third-party options for their customers. This anti-competitive behavior takes away choice for the customer. A bulked up Spinnaker creates a viable organization that has the critical mass to compete with Oracle. The combined entity provides third party support services to an estimated ~~100~~ 160 JD Edwards customers across the globe.
Spinnaker Support offers a different approach to third party maintenance. Spinnaker couples its third party maintenance options with consulting services providing a one-stop shop for JD Edwards customers. Spinnaker also differentiates in its download methodology of customer entitled IP from Oracle. Spinnaker provides customers with a checklist of what to download prior to migration off Oracle support.

The Bottom Line: Users Must Advocate for Third-Party Maintenance Rights Across the Technology Stack

Vendors continue to conspire to remove third-party maintenance as an option for their customers. What’s extremely disturbing is how vendors are working hard to prevent customers from having third-party maintenance options. The notion of perpetual software license rights should include the right to self-support software or engage in a third party to provide tax, regulatory, and additional updates. As many vendors try to close up these loopholes, customers are left in a no-man’s land position of being forced into de-facto maintenance contracts with only the vendor.

End users need to band together and collectively demand clear rights to third-party support options. Based on survey data, most already believe or feel that 3PM should be a right. Otherwise, users will face a situation similar to automakers forcing drivers to only go to them for maintenance. If some of the industry’s largest systems integrators actively entered the third-party support market, it would effectively disrupt the balance of power and put more money into the hands of the end-users and the system integrators.

Figure 1. Visualizing the High Costs of Support And Maintenance

(Right-click to see full image)

Your POV.

Need help with your software contract or working out the rationale for third party maintenance? Contact us throughout the vendor selection or negotiation process. We can help with a quick contract review or even the complete vendor selection. We provide fix-fee and gain sharing arrangements.

Let us know your experiences. Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

How can we assist?

Buyers, do you need help with your apps strategy and vendor management strategy? Trying to figure out how to infuse innovation into your tech strategy? Ready to put the expertise of over 1500 software contract negotiations to work? Give us a call!

Please let us know if you need help with your next gen apps strategy efforts. Here’s how we can help:

Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Evaluating SaaS/Cloud options
Assessing apps strategies (e.g. single instance, two-tier ERP, upgrade, custom dev, packaged deployments”
Designing innovation into end to end processes and systems
Comparing SaaS/Cloud integration strategies
Assisting with legacy ERP migration
Engaging in an SCRM strategy
Planning upgrades and migration
Performing vendor selection

Related Constellation Research

Scavo, Frank & Wang, R. “Big Idea: Constellation’s Business Value Framework.” Constellation Research, Inc. January 31, 2012.

Wang, R. “Best Practices – Three Simple Software Maintenance Strategies That Can Save You Millions” Constellation Research, Inc. March 7, 2012

Wang, R. “Best Practices: Why Every CIO Should Consider Third-Party Maintenance.” Constellation Research, Inc. August 7, 2012.

Wang, R. “Market Overview: The Market For SAP Optimization Options.” Constellation Research, Inc. May 11, 2011.

Wang, R. “Best Practices: The Case for Two-Tier ERP Deployments.” Constellation Research, Inc. February 28, 2011.

Related Resources And Links

20120318 Research Summary: Best Practices – Three Simple Software Maintenance Strategies That Can Save You Millions

20100419 Tuesday’s Tip: Dealing With Pesky Software Licensing Audits

20090714 Research Summary: An Enterprise Software Licensee’s Bill of Rights, V2

20101214 Tuesday’s Tip: Dealing With Vendor Offers To Cancel Shelfware And Replace With New Licenses

20100308 Monday’s Musings: Decoupling Support From Maintenance – What Apps Vendors Can Learn From Microsoft Dynamics

20100222 Monday’s Musings: Why Users Should Preserve Their Third Party Maintenance Rights

20100104 News Analysis: SAP Revives Two-Tier Maintenance Options

20090210 Tuesday’s Tip: Software Licensing and Pricing – Do Not Give Away Your Third Party Maintenance And Access Rights

20090709 Tuesday’s Tip: Do Not Bundle Your Support and Maintenance Contracts!

20091222 Tuesday’s Tip: 10 Cloud And SaaS Apps Strategies For 2010

20091208 Tuesday’s Tip: 2010 Apps Strategies Should Start With Business Value

20091102 Best Practices: Lessons Learned In What SMB’s Want From Their ERP Provider

20091006 Tuesday’s Tip: Why Free Software Ain’t Really Free

20090504 News Analysis: Oracle Waives Fees On Extended Support Offerings

20080909 Trends: What Customers Want From Maintenance And Support

20080215 Software Licensing and Pricing: Stop the Anti-Competitive Maintenance Fee Madness

20090405 Monday’s Musings: Total Account Value, True Cost of Ownership, And Software Vendor Business Models

20090324 Tuesday’s Tips: Five Simple Steps To Reduce Your Software Maintenance Costs

20090223 Monday’s Musings: Five Programs Some Vendors Have Implemented To Help Clients In An Economic Recession

20091012 Research Report: Customer Bill of Rights – Software-as-a Service

20090910 Tuesday’s Tip: Note To Self – Start Renegotiating Your Q4 Software Maintenance Contracts Now!

20090721 Tuesday’s Tip: 3 Approaches To Return Shelfware

20090127 Tuesday’s Tip: Software Licensing and Pricing – Now’s The Time To Remove “Gag Rule” Clauses In Your Software Contracts

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

Research Summary: Best Practices – Three Simple Software Maintenance Strategies That Can Save You Millions

R "Ray" Wang — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 09:49:16 +0000

Forward And Commentary

Software ownership costs continue to escalate as vendors accelerate their efforts to capture support and maintenance revenues. Some vendors have gone to the extreme to eliminate third-party options for their customers. This best practices report examines three strategies to free up unnecessary costs to fund innovation and new projects.

A. Introduction

On average, IT budgets are down from 1-5 percent year-over-year, yet software support and maintenance costs continue to escalate ahead of inflation. Hence, continued pressure on IT budgets and a growing need for innovation projects have top business and technology leaders reexamining their software support and maintenance contracts for cost efficiencies.

Based on experience from over 1500 software contract negotiations, Constellation suggests three approaches to reduce the cost of software support and maintenance. Key strategies include third-party maintenance, shelfware reductions and unbundling maintenance contracts as part of every organization’s tech optimization strategy. Successful implementation can lead to savings from 10-25 percent of the IT budget, freeing up cash to fund innovation initiatives.

B. Research Findings – Why Every Organization Should Consider Third-Party Maintenance, Shelfware Reductions and Unbundling Maintenance Contracts

Most organizations suffocate from the high and hidden cost of support and maintenance. On average, Constellation’s surveys reveal global IT budgets trending down from 1-5 percent year-over-year since 2008. Consumerization of IT, rapidly changing business models, and aging infrastructure have exposed the high cost of software support and maintenance. Because most organizations allocate from 60-85 percent of their budget to keeping the lights on, very little of the budget is left to spend on new projects (see Figure 1).

Organizations can unlock millions by considering third-party maintenance (3PM), reducing shelfware, and keeping support and maintenance contracts unbundled. Each strategy on its own creates opportunities to drive cost savings. All three strategies combined, provide a roadmap for funding innovation.

Third-party maintenance (3PM) delivers the most immediate cost savings and opportunity for innovation. Third-party maintenance describes support and maintenance offerings delivered by non-OEM providers. These vendors can provide a range of options from basic break/fix to bug fixes, performance optimization, tax and regulatory updates, and customization support. Keep in mind, 3PM does not provide access to upgrades and future versions of the OEM’s product. One big driver is the lower cost of delivery, as much as half the cost of the original vendor’s pricing. The report shows a survey of 268 respondents and why organizations choose 3PM and who the key vendors are.
Reduction of shelfware remains a key pillar in legacy optimization strategies. Shelfware (i.e. purchased software, not deployed, but incurring annual maintenance fees) is one of the biggest drains on operational expenses for enterprises. The simple definition of shelfware is software you buy and don’t use. For example, an organization that buys 1000 licenses of Vendor X’s latest ERP software and uses 905 licenses, becomes the proud owner of 95 licenses not being utilized. That’s 95 licenses of shelfware because the user will pay support and maintenance on the license whether or not they use the software or not. The report details 4 successful and proven approaches.
Unbundling maintenance contracts prevents future vendor mischief. About a decade back, vendors would offer support and maintenance as two separate line items on their contracts. Support would run about 5-10 percent of the license fee and so would maintenance. Keep in mind, average support and maintenance fees were under 15 percent back then. Unfortunately, many users have expressed a growing and concerning trend with support and maintenance contracts. Vendors concerns about support and maintenance contract retentions have led to new initiatives to consolidate contracts. At first glance, this may appear to be proactive and beneficial to customers, but the report details three rationales vendors provide and three strategies how to avoid bundling.

Figure 1. Visualizing the High Costs of Support And Maintenance

(Right-click to see full image)

The Bottom Line: Users Must Advocate for Third-Party Maintenance Rights Across the Technology Stack

End users need to band together and collectively demand clear rights to third-party support options. Based on survey data, most already believe or feel that 3PM should be a right (see Figure 5.) Otherwise, users will face a situation similar to automakers forcing drivers to only go to them for maintenance. If some of the industry’s largest systems integrators actively entered the third-party support market, it would effectively disrupt the balance of power and put more money into the hands of the end-users and the system integrators.

C. Report Links

Learn the secrets to saving millions. Find out how to win against any software vendor including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Infor, Lawson, Epicor, Exact, Salesforce.com, etc.. Buy the full research report on the Constellation Research website.

Your POV.

Need help with your software contract? Contact us throughout the vendor selection process. We can help with a quick contract review or even the complete vendor selection. We provide fix-fee and gain sharing arrangements.

Let us know your experiences. Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

How can we assist?

Buyers, do you need help with your apps strategy and vendor management strategy? Trying to figure out how to infuse innovation into your tech strategy? Ready to put the expertise of over 1200 software contract negotiations to work? Give us a call!

Please let us know if you need help with your next gen apps strategy efforts. Here’s how we can help:

Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Evaluating SaaS/Cloud options
Assessing apps strategies (e.g. single instance, two-tier ERP, upgrade, custom dev, packaged deployments”
Designing innovation into end to end processes and systems
Comparing SaaS/Cloud integration strategies
Assisting with legacy ERP migration
Engaging in an SCRM strategy
Planning upgrades and migration
Performing vendor selection

Related Constellation Research

Scavo, Frank & Wang, R. “Big Idea: Constellation’s Business Value Framework.” Constellation Research, Inc. January 31, 2012.

Wang, R. “Best Practices: Why Every CIO Should Consider Third-Party Maintenance.” Constellation Research, Inc. August 7, 2012.

Wang, R. “Market Overview: The Market For SAP Optimization Options.” Constellation Research, Inc. May 11, 2011.

Wang, R. “Best Practices: The Case for Two-Tier ERP Deployments.” Constellation Research, Inc. February 28, 2011.

Related Resources And Links

20100419 Tuesday’s Tip: Dealing With Pesky Software Licensing Audits

20090714 Research Summary: An Enterprise Software Licensee’s Bill of Rights, V2

20101214 Tuesday’s Tip: Dealing With Vendor Offers To Cancel Shelfware And Replace With New Licenses

20100308 Monday’s Musings: Decoupling Support From Maintenance – What Apps Vendors Can Learn From Microsoft Dynamics

20100222 Monday’s Musings: Why Users Should Preserve Their Third Party Maintenance Rights

20100104 News Analysis: SAP Revives Two-Tier Maintenance Options

20090210 Tuesday’s Tip: Software Licensing and Pricing – Do Not Give Away Your Third Party Maintenance And Access Rights

20090709 Tuesday’s Tip: Do Not Bundle Your Support and Maintenance Contracts!

20091222 Tuesday’s Tip: 10 Cloud And SaaS Apps Strategies For 2010

20091208 Tuesday’s Tip: 2010 Apps Strategies Should Start With Business Value

20091102 Best Practices: Lessons Learned In What SMB’s Want From Their ERP Provider

20091006 Tuesday’s Tip: Why Free Software Ain’t Really Free

20090504 News Analysis: Oracle Waives Fees On Extended Support Offerings

20080909 Trends: What Customers Want From Maintenance And Support

20080215 Software Licensing and Pricing: Stop the Anti-Competitive Maintenance Fee Madness

20090405 Monday’s Musings: Total Account Value, True Cost of Ownership, And Software Vendor Business Models

20090324 Tuesday’s Tips: Five Simple Steps To Reduce Your Software Maintenance Costs

20090223 Monday’s Musings: Five Programs Some Vendors Have Implemented To Help Clients In An Economic Recession

20091012 Research Report: Customer Bill of Rights – Software-as-a Service

20090910 Tuesday’s Tip: Note To Self – Start Renegotiating Your Q4 Software Maintenance Contracts Now!

20090721 Tuesday’s Tip: 3 Approaches To Return Shelfware

20090127 Tuesday’s Tip: Software Licensing and Pricing – Now’s The Time To Remove “Gag Rule” Clauses In Your Software Contracts

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

Executive Profiles: From Transaction To Engagement – Michael Park, Microsoft Business Solutions

R "Ray" Wang — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:05:52 +0000

Welcome to a new series of interviews for 2012 with business leaders making the move from transaction to engagement. The interviews provide insightful points of view from a customer, industry, and vendor perspective. We’ll be taking limited interviews throughout the year for publication as we also try to catch up on the Disruptive Tech Leaders series.

Michael Park, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions

Biography

Michael Park is the corporate vice president of Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) sales, marketing and operations at Microsoft Corp. MBS develops and markets Microsoft Dynamics, a line of simple to learn and use enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) applications which bring together a broad array of Microsoft software and online services to deliver end-to-end business solutions for customers. Microsoft Dynamics is designed to work the way people and organizations work, enable them to make more informed decisions, and is delivered through a global network of partners with deep industry expertise.

Park is a software industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in key leadership roles, most recently as head of Microsoft’s U.S. Small and Midmarket Solutions & Partners (SMS&P) Group leading sales, marketing and partner professionals, including U.S.-based Microsoft Dynamics partners, serving more than 6 million business customers.

Prior to joining Microsoft in October 2005, Park held key leadership positions with major companies such as SAP where he defined the market strategy for the company’s service-enabled business applications platform and built the infrastructure of people, processes and systems for small and mid-sized businesses. He also defined product strategy and pioneered Siebel Systems Inc.’s first vertical CRM solution for consumer products and life sciences. Park began his career in sales and brand management at Procter & Gamble.

Park has an MBA from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Rochester.

The Interview

1. Consumerization of IT (CoIT) is playing larger role in the daily lives of workers and the workforce. How do you see this shift playing out?

Michael Park (MP): Ray, it comes down to people. In our case, it’s making business applications easier for people to consume. If people can’t do their jobs better, then the technology isn’t delivering on its promise. Why? People are the heart of every business and you have to empower them for success. What’s happening on the consumer side is that people are getting their hands on some really exciting technology that is easy for them to use and this is getting those in the enterprise thinking. People want to work with anyone, anywhere, on any device; they want to be connected. And even though running an enterprise requires complex technology, this trend is forcing us to address the customer experience. It is where the rubber hits the road– the power button is the training manual. It has to be that easy for everyone.

2. In this new shift from transaction to engagement, what changes within organizations from culture, to process, to technology do you anticipate happening in the next three to five years?

(MP): I think this shift will put enormous pressure on IT to deliver effective technology and flexibility at low cost to the end users. Business apps will need to enable the connected state; anytime, anywhere, through any device. These new apps must support how people work and the fact that they want to work collaboratively and communicate with other people, systems and data both internally and externally. Simply rendering forms and lists doesn’t cut it anymore. Apps of the future are connecting people across organizational boundaries, across the business ecosystem and across cultures, time zones, and languages. Culturally it means that employees will be impactful if they can actually use the applications they implement the way they expect them to work. This leads to better context upstream and downstream which helps you not only make better decisions but have better ideas about how you can move the business forward. And that is also where flexibility comes into play. Business applications will need to be flexible enough to change, create, and refine themselves on a different order of magnitude than what’s previously been possible and this needs to go hand in hand with ease of use.

So in the next three to five years, if we give the software the ability to do this, employees will be in a good position to make decisions and deliver impact. When an employee or employer is making a difference, it’s the highest level of impact and accomplishment. If all your apps can help that happen then you are on your way to becoming a dynamic business and leveraging the full power of what your people can do.

3. How are your customers and partners addressing this larger trend in the market?

(MP): I’m seeing a fundamental shift in how people think about IT as a strategic asset. I’ve been in the business for the better part of 20 years. When I spoke to CFOs, our conversations used to be about business process connection and control. Now, CFOs would rather know if this solution can deliver immediate value and if end users will adopt it. At the end of the day, the system has no value if no one uses it. Our customers are moving more and more in this direction. We support our customers to – consume as they need it, justify the value along each step of the way, rapidly iterate, drive for end user adoption and satisfaction; this is fundamentally different from the way enterprise software was sold ten years ago. Sadly there are still players out there trying to do it the old way but I think they will have to adapt or die.

Seriously, why should we lock our customers in, forcing them to have shelf ware that they can’t possibly take advantage of over the next 5 years? We’re training our partners to make this shift as well. We’ve been on the journey to transform our channel for the past couple years; focusing them on repeatable IP, vertical differentiation, incredible customer service, and focus on speed and agility to generate profitability. The future of business applications is less about writing code and more about declarative modeling to close the last mile of the business requirements. As you know, a lot of people talk about this but few understand how big this transformation is.

4. How is your company designing and building services or creating policies to address this?

(MP): Business applications of the past have been wrought with dismal end user satisfaction, high expense and low adoption. In the past, it was about company control. Today’s business applications have to empower and inspire individuals. Studies show that engaged employees stay for what they give, not for what they get. When you make impact, that’s how you get the best satisfaction, which improves your overall culture, and the energy within your company.

Microsoft starts by helping individuals make that impact through pervasive connections and the power to drive the business. In the history of business applications, this is the challenge between line of business and IT’s ability to respond. This gap is a high point of friction. How can IT support the needs of business in this environment? We are in a new economic reality and businesses need to be more agile than ever before. This puts a lot of tension on the friction line. To ease this tension, we focus our design on delivering business applications along 3 unique dimensions:

Make people more proactive through business applications which are more proactive. Think about where we’ve come from – transactions. Engagement only happens when the apps are smart enough to help users have insights they didn’t have before. Or when we automate the mundane tasks so that end users have the power and insight to see where they can go or what they can do. Our approach is moving beyond the transaction to insight and corresponding action as well, all within the application. Most systems today are still largely transactional with another BI system that you need to punch out to in order to get the insights and then there is really no path to action.
Support connected organizations. People need to be connected internally and externally—we are just at the cusp of what is possible in this realm. We need to look at connecting the right people, with the right systems, and the most telling data. Take all the data that exists. The Big Data strategy needs to help our customers reach new insights, while staying connected with consistency across devices and platforms.
Instant on workloads and suites. Let’s free people from the grip of legacy business applications. Cloud is important but it’s more than just the cloud that gets us there. Let’s give people the power of choice for public cloud, private cloud and\or on-premises based on how they need to consume software. Let’s give customers the option to deploy specific business workloads (sales productivity, expense reporting, treasury management, etc.) incrementally or deploy a comprehensive suite with unprecedented speed and value. In large enterprises, let’s allow customers to use operational workloads such as two-tier ERP to surround an existing legacy ERP system in HQ. This is a more effective way to dealing with globalization and serial expansion. Delivery by the workload level provides an incredible amount of agility. Once you put the first workload in, you simply turn on the next one and guess what? It just works! This is a profoundly different approach from today’s choices of keeping the spaghetti bowl of point solutions tied together or consuming the elephant of an enterprise suite to only use 5% of the functionality.

These are 3 areas that Microsoft is uniquely suited to deliver due to our explicit commitment to simplicity and agility in all things we do, our cloud innovation which gives customers the power of choice in terms of how to utilize cloud, and leveraging the consumerization of IT through our assets like Bing, Kinect, Office, Windows etc. combined with the power of Microsoft Dynamics to create truly compelling experiences that drive end user adoption and lowers training costs.

5. A lot is happening in disruptive technologies and business models. If you weren’t doing what you were doing today, what would you pursue next?

(MP): There are two things that I have a deep passion for. One is being able to make a material impact in helping others achieve their success. The second is redefining the status quo through creativity and innovation to find a better way. Education is an area that still begs for more and being able to empower and equip students with the knowledge and leadership skills by which to succeed would be a dream.

6. What’s your favorite innovation of all time or what’s been most inspirational to you?

(MP): Ray, it was 1980 and it was called the TRS80. Remember that one? It was a real beauty. The spreadsheet is a close second; I’ve been happily creating concept to reality in them ever since…

Your POV

What do you think? Got a question for Michael? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

To be considered for From Transaction To Engagement Innovators series, please reach out to Elaine (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, see the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

Quark Summary: What Every CMO Needs To Know About The Six C’s Of Customer Engagement

R "Ray" Wang — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 11:01:45 +0000

Forward And Commentary

CMO’s seeking to avoid the desensitization that comes with the adoption of new media will want to quickly deploy the Six C’s of Customer Engagement.

A. Introduction

Social media effectiveness for brands and enterprises will rapidly mirror the trends that email and web sites experienced during the late 1990′s to early 2000′s. In fact, social media adoption has passed ubiquitous usage and has mostly begun the process of relevant deployment. Avoidance of Phase 4 Desensitization can be avoided by applying the Six C’s of Engagement (Figure 1.)

B. Research Findings

Recent early adopter surveys identify five key phases of social media adoption:

Phase 1: Eager early adopters. Users eagerly experimented in the newness of the medium. Early adopters attempt to apply the medium to everything.
Phase 2: Ubiquitous usage. Rapid adoption put the medium in the hands of the masses. Adoption exceeds 50 million users.
Phase 3: Relevant deployment. Brands and enterprises apply the medium to the right business use cases and processes.
Phase 4: Desensitization and fatigue. Inundated with marketing, bombarded with irrelevant content, and tired of the newness of the medium, customers begin tuning out.
Phase 5: Rejuvenation. Maturation of the medium ushers an improved era of engagement apply the Six C’s of Engagement.

The Six C’s Of Customer Engagement provide strategies to overcome desensitization and fatigue

Community. Location for engagement.
Content. Topics that drive engagement.
Context. Relevance that create engagement.
Catalysts. Events or actions that facilitate engagement.
Currencies. Monetary and non-monetary exchange of value behind engagement.
Cadence. The frequency of interaction

Figure 1. The Six C’s of Customer Engagement Overcomes Desensitization And Fatigue

The Bottom Line: Apply the 6 C’s of Engagement Or Be Left Behind

The brands and enterprises who apply the Six C’s of engagement in the next 6 to 12 months will avoid mass alienation among existing customers and potential prospects. Application of the 6′s should align with existing business processes and lead to quantifiable outcomes.

C. Report Links

The report is part of Constellation’s Unlimited Quark library and will be made available for purchase after March 23rd, 2012.

Your POV

Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
Developing your social business/ social CRM strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research:

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Best Practices: From First To Worst – Continental In A Post United World, Lessons In Next Gen Customer Experience

R "Ray" Wang — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 08:16:46 +0000

Multiple Respected Research Survey Results Confirm Frequent Flyer Observations

It’s official. In multiple respected customer experience research reports that cover the airline industry, the results are in. Despite the numerous attempts by CEO Jeff Smisek to gloss over the issue with increasingly slicked up, feel good, on board welcome ads, Continental’s customer satisfaction numbers have reached the abyss of United’s. While United Holdings may tout their most admired status in the airline industry by Fortune, the award is measured by corporate executives, airline executives, boards of directors and industry analysts – basically not the customers and passengers who fly United Holdings. On multiple flights this year, I’ve personally heard Continental flyers groan and boo out loud every time they see the welcome aboard video where Jeff Smisek touts how he’s out to help customers, tells them why they are going to like this merger, and brags about how many planes he’s painted in the new livery. Flight attendants and pilots roll their eyes as well.

What was pure emotional speculation and conjecture can now be quantified. A quick glance at the latest Temkin Group: Temkin Experience Ratings shows Continental scores as bad as United – basically smack in the poor category (see Figure 1.)Travel Industry benchmark, Atmosphere Research’s US Airline sentiment shows United at the bottom with US Airways. Even legacy analyst firm, Forrester’s 2012 Customer Experience Index shows a 5% drop for United and a 11% drop for Continental (you’ll need to pay for a subscription to read the results.) Asked about Continental and United’s customer experience performance, CX Transformist & Managing Partner, Bruce Temkin (@btemkin) pointed out that, “The overall industry actually had a modest improvement between 2011 and 2012 and only two carriers had significant drops: American and Continental. As these economically challenged big airlines focus on wringing out costs, they also squeeze the soul out of their brand, their employees, and the experiences they provide to customers.

Figure 1.Temkin Experience Ratings Shows Continental Falling to United Levels of Poor Customer Experience

Source: Temkin Group

Many Continental employees agree. In a conversation with a Houston senior Flight Attendant who chose to withhold her name for fear of retribution, she stated, “It’s all ‘Jeff’ed’ up! All the goodness of Continental is going away. Since Jeff took over, they no longer care what we think and sadly, we think they no longer care what customers think.” A conversation with a few Newark Red Coats in January revealed similar sentiment as they mustered up, “It’s the worst since Lorenzo. The management team is disconnected with the staff. We’re reverting back to pre-Gordon as Jeff destroys our morale.” One of then pulled me aside and said, “We’re still Continental at heart and I’ll do the best I can while we can. Please stay with us!”

Figure 2. Atmosphere Research’s U.S. Airline Sentiment Scores From August-December 2011 Show United Near Bottom

Source: Atmosphere Research

Gordon’s Magic Fades Away With Smisek’s Ascent

In 1994, Continental was the most hated airline in the industry. The airline was in the pits after one of the worst airline managers, Frank Lorenzo had destroyed the airline and left it for dead. Amidst the ashes, former Boeing executive, Gordon Bethume took over the reigns and created a new culture. In fact, his bold leadership launched a new era that would create a 15 year run of loyal and satisfied customers. It started with the simple programs from reducing employee absenteeism with Ford Explorer giveaways for perfect attendance, to suing Delta at the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport for limiting carry on sizes with the X-Ray machine grates after Continental worked to put in bigger bins. Continental emerged as a favorite among loyal travelers for its service and was seen as the customer’s airline. With a deluge customer satisfaction awards, Gordon had moved the airline from “Worst to First”.

Gordon’s successor, Larry Kellner, continued the tradition with the introduction of DirecTV, lie flat seats, and even improved service qualities amidst 9/11 and the economic downturn. When he stepped down, it wasn’t clear why, other than that Continental was considering a merger with United. Inside sources later revealed that Larry opposed the merger and Jeff was ready for the opportunity to be CEO at the world’s “largest airline”.

Since the merger, customers have sensed that the customer goodness of Continental has been taken away. To be fair, loyal Global Services United customers also feel disgruntled but their numbers do not show as much change as the Continental flyers. Why? Well, most folks who flew Continental either went out of the way to fly them or truly felt the difference from great customer service. The consensus among most travelers, United was already at its bottom. “You couldn’t get any lower” said May L. a Global Services flyer out of San Francisco.

Cumulative Reduction In Service Levels Start To Take Its Toll

In fact, many loyal customers find the upgrade percentage dropping, new boarding process to be hideous, baggage handling performance down from the first bag out by 11 and last by 22 minutes policy, and small items in international and domestic first continue to be whittled away. Prior to the merger, Continental proudly declared pillows and blankets on all domestic flights as an affront to the airlines that didn’t care about customer service. Dave L, a fellow million miler from New Jersey puts it this way, “In Business First, Gordon Bethume always believed that a business person should have a great breakfast while on the flight. It could be their only meal of the day! So, you’d always get a fresh juice, yogurt, fresh fruit, eggs, mushrooms, half a baked tomato, a slice of canadian ham, a slice of turkey sausage, and some potato au gratin contraption (See Figure 3). Then the best part came with the hot breads which included a croissant, biscuit, or those awesome cinnamon rolls.

Figure 3. Gordon’s Breakfast Circa 2011 (note the salt and pepper shakers)

Now I get on a flight and they’ve gotten rid of the salt and pepper shakers – we get those cheap United paper packets. They took away one meat and we lost the mushrooms and tomatoes. Sometimes we get yogurt, but most times we don’t. In another case, they didn’t have enough meals for everyone and a few people got stuck with the cheerios and bananas. Even the basic coffee has been atrocious. We should have gotten the Starbucks stuff from United! Come on’ it’s business first, not cattle class”

On my recent trip back from India, my fellow seat mate in Business First, Deepak Sukh, Managing Director of Luminent, Inc, a leadership coaching firm that brings Indian and US companies together noted, “Even Air India is better and cheaper than this. If I had known it’d be this bad, I’d have taken Jet Airways back. Everything is wrong with this flight. From the food choices and variety, loss of hot appetizers, the entertainment is limited, what do you do on 16 hours? I’m so disappointed with this flight. This is not the typical Continental experience. I’m worried if this is what’s happening post-merger. I’ve been a Continental frequent flyer for ages. I won’t be taking this flight again.”

United Management Frankly Fails To Listen To Its Employees

In fairness to the crew on my recent journey to and from India, they were awesome. They did their best with the utmost experience and professionalism. However, it was obvious the airline had taken away the tools to empower employees to deliver an awesome customer experience. Comparing service levels from 2010 to 2012, here’s a list of items passengers noted and I have personally confirmed on the February 29th, 2012 flight from BOM to EWR (CO 49):

Not enough food for folks in coach
Loss of cheese cart in first
No more hot appetizers on selected night flights
1/3 the movies of a normal flight (37 vs 80+)
Deferred maintenance – taped up floor in the galley (see Figure 4.)
Low quality of meals
A dirtier plane than normal
Priority bags put out last on the arrival belt in EWR

Figure 4. United Quality Maintenance Now On Continental Planes

Customers Willing To Help But Is United Willing To Listen And Take Action?

And here’s more, over the past 3 months, in interviews with over 50 Platinum Elites, the results show the same level of unhappiness from the most loyal flyers. Sadly, even the tools of communication have also been taken away or ignored. In fact, the in flight comment cards were taken away by Jeff Smisek’s management. So how does a customer respond? Email they say. Well, insiders note that Smisek likes to say he personally responds to every email. Many million milers have written several times and not gotten a response until they escalated through back channels. In the past, the CEO would personally call or email back to frequent flyers. As one of Continental’s top flyers, I was a CO-Star, and I could attest that both former CEO’s Larry Kellner and Gordon Bethume always responded. In fact, this will be a case study in my upcoming book on the New Laws of Business.

Social Media Exacerbates Transparency

Unfortunately, what’s made the situation worse, the advent of social media. A quick scan on Twitter for #united lands a slew of complaints, mostly unanswered (see Figure 5). What kind of customer experience do you create when you fail to respond to legitimate customer complaints and allow the public to so publicly express their outrage. What kind of customer service on twitter is 9 to 5? You’d think the experience from David Caroll’s “United Breaks Guitars” video would have taught them a lesson. Sadly, it hasn’t. In fact, insiders tell me that the management team believes that their lock on the routes and command of corporate accounts gives them the leeway to treat customers poorly. Others tell me that since the customer backlash from United customers on the potential removal of Economy+, they’ve been afraid to engage in social.

Figure 5. The Twitterverse Lashes Out And Not A Single United Response

Industry Analysts Speak Out On Continental United

Asked about what an airline can do to improve customer experience in a down market, I turned to leading travel analyst, Henry Harteveldt (@hharteveldt), co-founder of travel industry research firm Atmosphere Research Group — and a former Continental marketing executive. “The United teams need to be careful — this merger is an exciting opportunity that had best not be squandered through arrogance or failing to correctly judge the market.

Though the airline will be the largest after its merger, within the US it will be only the third largest, after Delta and Southwest. Our research shows just three in 10 travelers view themselves as brand loyal — so even though there are more than 70 million members in the Mileage Plus program, United can’t take their loyalty or business for granted. United lags American, Delta, and Virgin America in offering amenities like in-flight Wi-Fi and in-seat power that business travelers, its bread-and-butter, value. Though United is adding Economy Plus to the former Continental fleet, they won’t have it on the entire Continental fleet for a while – another missed opportunity. Worse, Delta is adding a similar product to its domestic fleet (it has premium economy on its international aircraft) and, on March 1, American announced that it too would add premium economy seating. These moves weaken United’s lead.

United has announced plans to improve its long-haul premium cabin meal service, and it’s bringing the Continental in-flight entertainment content to the long-haul United fleet that have in-seat entertainment systems. It’s announced plans to add in-flight Wi-Fi to its entire fleet (only the 757s dedicated to the JFK-LAX/SFO premium service flights now have Wi-Fi ), though only a handful of aircraft will have that by the end of 2012. My advice to travelers: Borrow a page from Cold War geopolitics, and trust but verify that United is living up to its promises and your expectations. Other airlines are keenly watching to see how United handles the final elements of the merger. By all means, if you’re a loyal United or Continental traveler, stick with the airline. But if the new United doesn’t meet your expectations, let your wallet do the talking, and take your business to other airlines. If you’re an “elite” United Mileage Plus member, some other airlines may offer you a one-time match of your United Mileage Plus status in their loyalty program. Check the various airline forums on Milepoint.com and FlyerTalk.com, the two leading online communities for frequent fliers, for more information on this.

For the folks at United, don’t think March 3, “merger day,” is the end. It’s just the beginning. United must beat the basics — that is, offers superior on-time performance, that passegers’ checked bags arrive with them, that front-line staff remain consistently professional and courteous, the planes are clean, and that key consumer-facing technology channels like the website, mobile apps, online check-in, and kiosks all work reliably. As I learned when I worked in the airline business, the measure of a good airline isn’t how it operates when the weather is clear and sunny, it’s how the airline handles things when it’s snowing, you’re overbooked, and half your flights are cancelled. United must now focus to deliver a more consistent customer experience. They’ll have, at best, six months, before travelers lose patience — and before negotiations start with major corporations’ for their 2013 airline contracts. As the saying goes, you never have a second chance to make a first impression. Let’s hope United lives up to the challenge.”

Meanwhile, Bruce Temkin noted that customers should, “Choose the carriers that care whenever they can. The more that the economics favor the carriers that do a good job with the CX, the more that others will need to put CX on their executive agenda. From an airline’s point of view executives should not, “Consider this a problem with customer interactions and recognize that its a fundamental problem in how their organizations operate. Once they understand that, they need to focus on what Temkin Group calls the four customer experience core competencies: Purposeful leadership, compelling brand value, employee engagement, and customer connectedness.

The GodFather of CRM, Paul Greenberg, devoted a post on customer experience calling United out and comparing the difference in service levels with Marriott Hotels. The airline ignored him and never got back to him. That utter lack of response pretty much explained how much the airline cared.

Customers “Just Want Their Airline Back”

The general verdict from frequent flyers, employees, and partners of Continental/United- “we want our airline back!” Sadly, the last Continental flight is Saturday March 3rd ( see Figure 6.)

Figure 6. March 3rd Put An End To the Continental Legacy

Basic Customer Experience Principles Lacking At The Management Level Since Jeff Smisek’s Leadership

So what’s the lesson learned here in delivering top-notch customer experience? United and other customer service facing industries can improve with just these 5 strategies.

Revisit listening to your customers. This doesn’t mean you respond to every complaint or comment. It means you understand what the root cause of the problem is and seek to address that cause.
Understand that everything is public. In an age of social media it’s all public. You have to engage your customers. This means taking your understanding and involving them in the process. Show customers you are addressing the issue and also helping them understand your side of the story
Stop resting on your laurels. Even the most loyal customers will bolt. Taking a customer for granted can be costly in not only money, time, but also publicity
Listen to your employees. In 8 out of 10 cases, the employees know what’s going on and can provide the best feedback. In United and Continental’s case here, the failure to listen to employees is breaking the culture of the airline.
Build an active community. An active and engaged community can provide United with the force multipliers to not only improve customer service, but also reduce costs. Giff Gaff in the UK has shown this with the mobile phone business. It’s a great example of getting the best of both worlds in Social Business.

Your POV

Do you want your airline back? Have you learned from this case study? Are you a customer facing organization looking to win by improving customer experience? Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
Developing your social business/ social CRM strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research:

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Monday’s Musings: Beyond The Three V’s of Big Data – Viscosity and Virality

R "Ray" Wang — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:28:36 +0000

Revisiting the Three V’s of Big Data

It’s time to revisit that original post from July 4th, 2011 post on the the Three V’s of big data. Here’s the recap:

Traditionally, big data describes data that’s too large for existing systems to process. Over the past three years, experts and gurus in the space have added additional characteristics to define big data. As big data enters the mainstream language, it’s time to revisit the definition (see Figure 1.)

Volume. This original characteristic describes the relative size of data to the processing capability. Today a large number may be 10 terabytes. In 12 months 50 terabytes may constitute big data if we follow Moore’s Law. Overcoming the volume issue requires technologies that store vast amounts of data in a scalable fashion and provide distributed approaches to querying or finding that data. Two options exist today: Apache Hadoop based solutions and massively parallel processing databases such as CalPont, EMC GreenPlum, EXASOL, HP Vertica, IBM Netezza, Kognitio, ParAccel, and Teradata Kickfire

Velocity. Velocity describes the frequency at which data is generated, captured, and shared. The growth in sensor data from devices, and web based click stream analysis now create requirements for greater real-time use cases. The velocity of large data streams power the ability to parse text, detect sentiment, and identify new patterns. Real-time offers in a world of engagement, require fast matching and immediate feedback loops so promotions align with geo location data, customer purchase history, and current sentiment. Key technologies that address velocity include streaming processing and complex event processing. NoSQL databases are used when relational approaches no longer make sense. In addition, the use of in-memory data bases (IMDB), columnar databases, and key value stores help improve retrieval of pre-calculated data.

Variety. A proliferation of data types from social, machine to machine, and mobile sources add new data types to traditional transactional data. Data no longer fits into neat, easy to consume structures. New types include content, geo-spatial, hardware data points, location based, log data, machine data, metrics, mobile, physical data points, process, RFID’s, search, sentiment, streaming data, social, text, and web. The addition of unstructured data such as speech, text, and language increasingly complicate the ability to categorize data. Some technologies that deal with unstructured data include data mining, text analytics, and noisy text analytics.

Figure 1. The Three V’s of Big Data

Contextual Scenarios Require Two More V’s

In an age where we shift from transactions to engagement and then to experience, the forces of social, mobile, cloud, and unified communications add two more big data characteristics that should be considered when seeking insights. These characteristics highlight the importance and complexity required to solve context in big data.

Viscosity – Viscosity measures the resistance to flow in the volume of data. This resistance can come from different data sources, friction from integration flow rates, and processing required to turn the data into insight. Technologies to deal with viscosity include improved streaming, agile integration bus’, and complex event processing.
Virality – Virality describes how quickly information gets dispersed across people to people (P2P) networks. Virality measures how quickly data is spread and shared to each unique node. Time is a determinant factor along with rate of spread.

Figure 2. The Five V’s of Big Data

The Bottom Line: Big Data Provides The Key Element In Moving From Real Time To Right Time

Context represents the next frontier as we move to intelligent systems. Big data systems and techniques will provide the key infrastructure in delivering context within business processes, across relationships, by geo spatial position, and within a time spectrum. As engagement systems make the shift to experiential systems, expect context to provide the key filter in improving signal to noise ratios. Big data provides the context required to move from real time to right time.

Catch Constellation’s Big Data Coverage From VP and Principal Analyst – Neil Raden

Upcoming Report: Analytics in the Organization: Types, Roles and Skills

“Analytics” is a critical component of enterprise architecture capabilities, though most organizations have only recently begun to develop experience using quantitative methods. This report discusses the role of analytics, why it is a difficult topic for many, and what actions you should take. It lays out the various meanings of analytics, provide a framework for aligning various types of analytics with associated roles and skill sets needed.

Blog Post: What Is a Data Scientist (and What Isn’t)

Big Data doesn’t happen by itself. Because the tools and techniques are different from traditional Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence approaches, big Data requires different skills. This role has become known as the Data Scientist. Have a look at analyst Neil Raden’s take on the data scientist.

Watch for the following:

Here is all my stuff: Select what you like:

Understanding Data: Mechanical MDM, Ontology, Machine Learing

Future of IBM’s Watson

Tainted Truth: How to Read Statistical Research

noSql: The End of the Relational Database

Analytical Platforms: Revenge of the Relatioal Database

Next Wave of BI

The Data Scientist

Planning and Performance Management Supercharged with ANalytics

Hadoop vs. ETL vs. ELT

CEP: From Product Class to Wider Application

Real-Time Decision-Making: Where It Fits

Are Rules-Based Management Systems Dead?

Skills Checklist for Big Data

Skills Checklist for Business Analytics

Interactive Data Visualization

Let the Gorillas Write the Script: Forget Requirements

Data Warehouse Rescue: What to Do with your Legacy Warehouse

BI Rescue: What to Do with your Legacy BI

Your POV

What business problem will require you to start with Big Data? What are the key outcomes? Where do you expect to move the needle? Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Resources

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Copyright © 2001 -2012 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience!

Monday’s Musings: Why Customers And Prospects Expect Clearer Rules About Content Marketing

R "Ray" Wang — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:01:48 +0000

Original Mission Improves Engagement Through Relevancy

Content marketing re-emerges as a hot topic and trend in improving engagement with existing customers and prospects. Marketers can improve the likelihood of engagement through the creation and sharing of relevant information. Typical delivery formats include advertorials, emails, branded websites, white papers, webinars, podcasts, and field marketing events. Content marketers believe that educating a customers with high quality information will improve the likelihood of a sale due to brand association with expertise and thought leadership. Content marketing is a powerful and effective approach when done well.

Many Marketers Will Abuse The Model As Marketer Objectivity Standards Go By The Way Side

As with all techniques, content marketing has the potential to improve brand relevancy and conversion. However, when applied to social media, there is greater room for abuse. Why? The speed of social media and the lack of rules creates a confluence of forces leading many content marketers to quickly blur the limits of objectivity. How? By placing biased marketing content and associating with a known, objective, and trusted brand. It’s happening with paid blogs, paid tweets, purchasing Facebook likes, thinly veiled advertorials in trusted magazine brands, and biased white papers disguised as objective research.

Though many will claim that a new generation could care less about objectivity, selling out on standards will create short term gain at a more punishing long term loss of trust. In today’s social businesses, trust is the new social currency. Without trust based on our actions, we destroy the basis for engagement and relationships. In fact the newness and pureness of social media is what draws users to engage. If marketers deafen the channel with the equivalent of ‘junk mail”, spam, and telemarketing in the guise of content marketing, the recipients will hit another level of social overload and disengagement.

The Bottom Line: Three Simple Disclosure Rules Can Improve Content Marketing In A Social World

As expected, a high level of ethics and self-policing is required to prevent abuse. To keep content marketing as an effective tool, a few ground rules should be put in place to ensure that trust is not broken:

Sponsored content should be clearly stated upfront. Recipients should know that the material is sponsored. If embedded within the broader content of a trusted source, marketers should call out what’s sponsored. Placing the words “Advertorial” in small font is misleading. Not noting that content is sponsored in a webinar is misleading.
Sponsor affiliations should be easily identifiable. The company sponsoring content should prominently display or verbally indicate their name. Hiding the company name until the last page of a document is misleading. Stating the sponsor name in a rapid voice in a podcast as part of the “small” text is misleading.
Paid relationships should be openly noted. Recipients have a right to know the paid relationship status between the marketer and the channel. This level of disclosure is key to ensuring trust.

Your POV

Agree or disagree with the disclosure rules? Got one to add to the mix? Are you trying out content marketing? Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
Developing your social business/ social CRM strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research:

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Product Review: SAP’s Recalls Plus App – The Crossover From Enterprise To Consumer Begins

R "Ray" Wang — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:35:20 +0000

SAP’s First Consumer App Addresses A Key Consumer Concern

At midnight pacific time, February 15th, SAP launched its first ever consumer app – Recalls Plus. This consumer app, downloadable for free on Apple’s app store, was developed from one of the world’s leading enterprise software companies (see Figure 1.) SAP’s first foray into the consumer world will surprise many customers, influencers, and observers. In fact, in an exclusive conversation with Rishi Diwan, who’s the product owner for the new consumer apps team, he reinforced SAP’s seriousness to enter the market, apply lessons learned, and reiterate.

The basic concept of Recalls Plus is elegant and brings the age old, manual and cumbersome process of tracking consumer recalls to today’s world of engagement systems (see Figure 2.) With a rich and elegant user experience, consumers can quickly see the latest recalls and share details within social networks (see Figures 3).

In addition, the solution allows consumers to track recalls on individual products, categories of products, and food allergens on their iPhone (today) and other mobile devices (tomorrow) (see Figures 4, 5, and 6.) More importantly, this consumer app touches the customers of SAP’s customers and provides a missing piece in the customer loyalty angle by providing real-time alerts (see Figure 7.). By proactively outreaching with end consumers, SAP can help its direct customers build long term loyalty and improve customer engagement.

Figure 1. Sign In Screen Easily Works Like Any Other Consumer Mobile App

Figure 2. Tracked Recalls Show Up On The Initial Home Screen

Figure 3. Recall Details Provide Key Information And Allow For Collaboration

Figure 4. Users Can Easily Create Their Own Watch Lists

Figure 5. Watch Lists Can Be Created By Product And Allergen Categories

Figure 6. Watch Lists Can Be Created By Age Groupings

Figure 7. Recalls Keeps Consumers Updated With Alerts

Enterprise Class SAP Technology Powers Recalls Plus

Underneath the hood of Recalls Plus is a front end created in Objective C in a native iOS environment and a persistence layer powered by HANA. SAP uses HANA here to track the analytics and big data required for modern engagement systems. Key questions such as how users share, when are peak usage times, what events trigger virality, what types of patterns can be determined from recall categories, and detailed segmentation analysis require the power of an in memory database. On the privacy front, SAP’s applied enterprise class privacy and security requirements. SAP does not store personal information. Users can deactivate at anytime and all data is removed. As expected, SAP’s compliant with European data privacy requirements.

The Bottom Line For Consumers (Buyers): Expect More Enterprise Vendors To Provide Enterprise Class Consumer Apps

Instead of waiting for the consumer grade apps to invade the enterprise, Salesforce.com’s Chatter product and their Social Enterprise launch kicked off the first shot by an enterprise software vendor to go after the consumer space. SAP’s Travel On Demand offering and SAP’s new Consumer Apps offering Recalls Plus also shows the same innovative spirit to capture consumers. As Consumerization of IT creates a convergence in the market place, expect more enterprise vendors to go after consumers and grow new markets. The importance of enterprise class and professional grade applications will provide these vendors an advantage, so long they understand the key elements of design thinking and consumer user experience requirements.

The Bottom Line For Vendors (Sellers): The Land Grab For Active Users Accelerates

For some time, SAP’s management team has publicly stated that it was on track to achieve a goal of 1B customers by 2015. Most observers felt that this was a big, hairy, and audacious goal (BHAG), probably not achievable and designed to rally the troops and maybe the stock price. Why? Up until now, SAP’s strategy included traditional acquisitions such as Business Objects for big data and analytics and Sybase for mobility platforms. These large acquisitions brought in new users but not at a pace that would achieve the magic goal of 1B. Meanwhile, the efforts to grow out the edge applications in the OnDemand Large Enterprise proved to be slow to market.

However, it wasn’t until the Travel On Demand product launch and the move to acquire the largest base of users through Success Factors that SAP finally had the ingredients to achieve the 1B users goal. Now as SAP applies a design thinking approach to product strategy, the development teams can build applications that have consumer appeal. More importantly, if SAP continues to address four of the five major trends in consumer tech – big data, social, mobile, and cloud, SAP has the tools to enter the consumer market and achieve the 1B user target.

Your POV

Are you ready to try Recalls Plus? Will you buy consumer apps from SAP? Expecting more vendors to jump in? Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Resources

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Copyright © 2001 -2012 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved.
Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience!

Research Summary: Best Practices: Consolidated CRM Deployments Drive Paths to Modernization And Social CRM (SCRM)

R "Ray" Wang — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:10:10 +0000

Forward And Commentary

As with any maturing product category, CRM applications have evolved over time from point applications to best of breed solutions to end-to-end suites. This report examines some common styles of modernization as CRM emerges from the systems of transaction era to the systems of engagement era and beyond.

A. Introduction

With the average CRM deployment nearing the end of their useful life, over 85 percent of line of business executives and CIOs intend to upgrade their CRM systems in the next 24 months. Why? Customer expectations and a slew of innovative solutions have changed the delivery of customer centricity. Key factors include the need to adopt disruptive technologies, complete the customer view, and achieve business value.

Constellation’s latest survey of over 200 CRM decision makers highlights a trend to consolidate the CRM core as organizations chart four paths to CRM modernization. The four paths – stay with status quo, move to shiny new CRM, consolidate and augment, and modernize and surround with best-of-breed – represent pragmatic approaches to achieve customer centricity.

Regardless of approach, Constellation recommends that executives approach CRM modernization with a lens that accounts for including tangibles, intangibles and contingencies in the calculations of business value. Using the Constellation Business Value Framework, organizations can quickly compare the four paths of CRM modernization and determine the most appropriate path.

B. Research Findings – Best Practices Indicate That a Consolidated Core Is the First Step to Modernization

Among 203 respondents, the majority (85.7 percent) intends to make significant efforts to modernize their CRM efforts in the next 24 months (see Figure 1.). The four paths to modernization include:

Stay with status quo (14.3 percent). Organizations may choose to continue business as usual. The catalysts for change include major events such as new business models, merger and acquisition, or regulatory requirements. Status quo includes keeping the system as is. Most organizations in this category have either really good adoption or overbought and barely take advantage of existing capabilities. Backers of the status quo scenario find little business value justification and line of business support in making any changes. Many line of business executives and CIOs gain peace of mind knowing that their CRM landscape remains consolidated on one or two platforms and can deliver the power of an integrated core.
Move to shiny new CRM (21.2 percent). Organizations may choose to stay with their existing vendor to avoid any mass changes in training, adoption and implementation costs. Another popular option will be to do a full out rip and replace. The financial wonks will weigh the cost of a reimplementation against the cost of doing nothing – status quo and making an upgrade with an existing vendor. CIO-led organizations will want the power of an integrated core and minimize point solutions.
Consolidate CRM and augment with best-of-breed (37.9 percent). Organizations may choose to consolidate their CRM environment and surround with best-of-breed applications. SaaS applications and CRM point solutions now play a key role in enabling extensibility to CRM customers. Augmentation with third-party solutions with an integrated core not only ensures that business users gain critical functionality, but also provides users with leverage in future contract negotiations. With CMOs and line of business executives in the front office taking back IT budgets, expect CIOs to argue for consolidation of the core as a call for sanity in overall IT strategy.
Upgrade CRM and surround with best-of-breed (26.6 percent). CRM deployments typically run a five to seven-year life cycle. With the last big set of implementations in the 2004 to 2005 era, almost 50 percent of organizations plan an upgrade. Many line of business executives want to upgrade their core CRM system and then modernize their integrated core by adding best-of-breed apps on top of CRM. This option resonates best with line-of-business-led organizations and those with rapidly changing business models and dynamic businesses.

Figure 1. Get To SCRM By Taking The Four Paths To CRM Optimization

The Bottom Line: Plan For Apps Ownership Maturity

As CRM technologies mature and fall in line with existing well-defined business processes, expect the five stages of apps ownership maturity to take place.

Point solutions. These offerings represent specific features and solutions to address significant problems.
Applications. These offerings bring together feature sets and point solutions together to address specific work loads and use cases for departments.
Best-of-breed suites. These offerings solve larger sets of business problems across different departments.
Consolidated end-to-end solutions. These offerings address workloads and business problems across the enterprise.
Verticalized offerings. These offerings solve broad end-to-end workloads for specific industry vertical-use cases across the enterprise.

C. Report Links

See what the top challenges CRM buyers face. Understand how to apply Constellation’s Business Value Framework to CRM consolidation. Find out what Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Oracle Siebel, Salesforce.com, and SAP customers should do as they modernize to support SCRM. Buy the full research report on the Constellation Research website.

Your POV

Are you moving to Social CRM? Ready to upgrade your current CRM system and need help. Want to design your next generation customer experience. Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com

Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
Developing your social business/ social CRM strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Related Research:

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact Sales .

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

News Analysis: The Implications Of Oracle’s Acquisition Of Taleo

R "Ray" Wang — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:24:36 +0000

Catch my colleague Yvette Cameron’s point of view here. She covers Future of Work for Constellation Research, Inc.

Oracle Plays Catch Up With Public Cloud Ambitions

On February 9th, Oracle announced its intention to acquire Dublin, CA based Taleo for $1.9B. Taleo is a cloud based talent management software provider with 5000 customers and 1400 employees. Key take aways to consider:

Moves by SAP and Oracle intend to compete with next generation cloud HCM companies. Taleo provides recruiting and on boarding, performance management and goal setting, compensation, succession, and learning and development. This complete suite tied to reporting and analytics is designed to streamline human resource operations and employee career management across retail and hospitality, travel, healthcare, media and entertainment, financial services, technology, and energy and mining. Marquee customers include Starbucks, Starwood, Hyatt, JP Morgan Chase, HP, Dell, Conde’Nast, United, American Airlines, Tesora, Blue Cross blue Shield, and Sutter Health.to customers.

Point of View (POV): Oracle sees advantages in acquiring a leading player in the talent management space . For years, both Taleo and SuccessFactors ate into Oracle’s existing customer base for talent management. Consequently, other cloud based HCM and HR Tech vendors such as Ceridian, CornerStone OnDemand, FairSail, Kinexa, UltimateSoftware, and Workday continue to attract line of business customers looking for innovations not being delivered by their core HCM providers (i.e. Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP). More importantly, cloud computing if properly designed can improve the pace of innovation delivered to customers.

Oracle continues to buy its way into a public cloud. Oracle continues to react to buyer sentiment and preference for cloud based solutions with this second major acquisition in what they term the “public cloud” space. Oracle purchased RightNow for $1.43B on October 24th to address its gaps in customer service solutions. The Taleo purchase addresses a gap in Talent Management solutions that rival SAP plugged with its recent acquisition of Success Factors for $3.4B .

Point of View (POV): These defensive plays indicate a realization that Cloud delivery emerges as the predominant option for applications. Based on Oracle’s current road map, one can expects Oracle to acquire its way into many other edge applications not listed on its Public Cloud road map (see Figure 1). Some other applications could include social business solutions, expense management, learning solutions, pricing management, identity management, and mobile device management. However, Oracle’s public cloud acquisition strategy so far lacks a key requirement – a choice for multi-tenant architected solutions. While both RightNow and Taleo have some modules that are multi-tenant, in most instances, these applications have been delivered in single tenancy or in multi-instance. Multi-tenant solutions will provide clients with the most efficient upgrade path and lowest long-term cost structure. The lack of a public strategy to address this issue remains a significant concern for customers and industry observers.

Figure 1. Oracle’s Vision For A Public Cloud

Source: Oracle Corporation

Seats matter most in a world of CoIT. Oracle hopes to gain massive cloud scale through Taleo’s 74 million transactions per day and 240 million candidates on Taleo Talent Exchange. The sheer number of users is massive.

POV: Unlike CRM or ERP, the play for HR is all about acquiring the biggest base of users – employees. With consumerization of IT (CoIT) in full swing, the goal is to grab as many users upfront and then over time cross-sell them into other edge applications which converge between enterprise and consumer. Why? The new strategy among the enterprise apps vendors is land and expand. The largest active user bases will win the war of attrition.

The Bottom Line for Customers: Goodbye On-Premises, Hello Cloud World!

The large legacy transactional application vendors see the future and they realize they must play ball in the world of cloud, innovation, and engagement. Customers can expect more acquisitions in edge applications as these large vendors determine what the right mix between on-premises solution, multi-instance solutions, and true multi-tenant applications. While this war wages on, expect the cloud wars to extend out into other legacy areas that impact platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) layers. These categories include database, security, storage, identity, and application management. Advice to customers and prospects:

For Taleo customers who have Oracle products. Stay calm. Oracle has acquired another one of your favorite best of breed companies. As with the past 50 acquisitions, Oracle has a plan and has successfully proven its integration strategy. However, this time make sure you get all the concessions you need from Taleo before the close of the deal. This means new licenses, product feature requests, and a reduced maintenance and support fee. Make sure you do not bundle your contract this time. You regretted it last time and you will again this time.
For Taleo customers who have SAP products. You have a choice now. You can go to SAP or you can stay with Oracle. Make sure you get all the concessions you need from Taleo before the close of the deal. This means new licenses, product feature requests, and a reduced maintenance and support fee instead of Oracle’s usually higher fee.
For prospects. See how the market plays out. Start by considering your enterprise apps strategy and determine who’s on your consolidated list of vendors. Build your plan against a consolidated core in ERP, CRM, etc. Then figure out where Taleo fits in your surround with best of breed or augment with best of breed strategy. If you buy, do it before Oracle closes the deal.

Related Resources

20120209 Bersin Associates – Josh Bersin “Oracle buys Taleo”

20120209 BusinessWeek – Aaron Ricadella “Oracle Buys Taleo for $1.9 Billion, Adds Human-Resource Tool”

20120209 IDG News Service – Chris Kanaracus “Oracle Buying Taleo for $1.9 Billion in Direct Hit at SAP”

Related Research

Understand The Many Flavors Of Cloud Computing

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

Executive Profiles: Disruptive Tech Leaders In Cloud Computing – Brad Smith, Intuit

R "Ray" Wang — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:25:42 +0000

Welcome to an on-going series of interviews with the people behind the technologies in Cloud Computing. The interviews provide insightful points of view from a customer, industry, and vendor perspective. A full list of interviewees can be found here.

Brad Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer of Intuit

Biography

Brad Smith became Intuit’s president and chief executive officer in January 2008, culminating a five-year rise through the company where he successfully led several of its major businesses. Intuit is a leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses, financial institutions, consumers and accounting professionals, and is consistently ranked as one of the most-admired software companies and best places to work.

As the company marked its 25th anniversary in 2008, Smith celebrated the past while creating a strategic vision that recognizes important market shifts that will serve as growth catalysts for Intuit’s future. Among the most significant trends is the accelerating shift to a “connected services” world, where people and businesses increasingly go online to manage their lives, and abandon the traditional paper-based, human-produced, brick-and-mortar bound services of the past. Intuit is uniquely positioned to take advantage of these trends and help drive the shift to a connected services economy.

In the midst of this change, Intuit’s mission remains enduring: To be a premier innovative growth company that improves its customers’ financial lives so profoundly that they can’t imagine going back to the old way. The company’s strategy builds on this sense of purpose and foundation of success, while capitalizing on the current market shifts to accelerate Intuit’s business performance.

Before being named CEO, Smith was senior vice president and general manager of Intuit’s Small Business Division. Appointed to this position in May 2006, Smith was responsible for the company’s small business division which included the portfolio of QuickBooks, Quicken and Payroll products, serving 7 million small businesses. Before moving to the small business division, he led the company’s Consumer Tax Group in San Diego from March 2004 through May 2005. The group produces TurboTax, the nation’s leading consumer tax preparation software.

Smith joined the company in February 2003 as the vice president and general manager of Intuit’s Accountant Central and Developer Network in Plano, Texas. Previously, he was senior vice president of marketing and business development at ADP. Smith also held various sales, marketing and general management positions with Pepsi, Seven-Up and Advo, Inc.

Smith earned his master’s degree in management from Aquinas College in Michigan and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Marshall University in West Virginia.

The Interview

1. Tell me in 2 minutes or less why Cloud Computing is changing the world for your customers

Brad Smith (BS):

Ray this plays in our favor. We see the old paper-based, human produced bricks and mortar economy quickly shifting to connected services. As you get more devices in people’s hand and the digital generation coming of age growing up with PlayStations, iPods, and iPads, the shift is inevitable. People are going online to manage their lives. Here are some interesting anecdotes:

Historically our challenge with small businesses was getting them out of a shoe box. Now you have more and more of small businesses starting up. They see opportunities to save time and money. We have one million customers on SaaS solutions in small business. Customers gain a tremendous win. They get better value in terms of the ability to discover additional products and services, and they get anytime access online or with a mobile device. Overall, they gain a higher lifetime value for their customers.

Take the tax business, 75% of the filings are online. The fastest growing product for us is Intuit Online Payroll. Everything is happening in the mobile phone. Our customers preference is that they want data in the cloud, and they want to have proof that it’s secure. They want to, and can get access to multiple devices, anytime and anywhere. This is transforming our customers and their lives.

2. What makes cloud computing disruptive?

(BS): This is where I’ll give you 3 anchor points:

1. From a social perspective cloud allows a massive base of users and employees to get involved to create the value. I’ll talk about Brainstorm. Two of our newer employees, Tad and Vlad, identified that we had a problem. Employees had lots of great ideas but they didn’t necessarily go anywhere because people didn’t know about them. So they invented a tool called Brainstorm. It’s a tool for employees to log ideas, comment on ideas, find ideas to work on, and mobilize teams to implement. We now can answer each other’s questions. Brainstorm allows us to collaborate in 60 cities. This used to happen only in a conference room. Since its launch, employee contribution has fueled more than 5,500 ideas which have materialized into nearly 250 new products or features that have been launched in the commercial market.

2. From a mobility point of view, here’s what’s opening up our eyes. Six billion people in the world and two billion have access on the PC but guess what? Five billion are walking around with a phone. This is crossing the digital divide. We’ve got a whole new set of services for people who didn’t have access. For years we’ve had a vision since Scott bought TurboTax – the 10 minute tax return. Now, 60% of Americans can use their iPhone, take a picture of their W-2, and in the 1040 EZ we can pull the info off the picture and pull it into the return. This is SnapTax. Isn’t that amazing? Mobile also allows us to use sensory capability and GPS for helping someone find the right deal. Take a picture of a receipt and it’s loaded in QuickBooks. We now redefine how data is entered for the customer.

3. From a global view, it’s so much easier to take a service to multiple countries and localize the offering to meet a customer’s needs. Cloud enables both social contribution and user contribution. Cloud makes it easier for us to provide services a customer wants. Mobile, tablet, and iPad can easily access the data in the cloud.

Cloud is changing business models, reaching a broader array of customers and enabling them to participate in the process.

3. What is the next big thing in Cloud Computing?

(BS): Ray, cloud computing is about putting the power of data at the center. Two key components drive the next big thing – privacy and security of that data. You have to trust and earn the trust of the customer to do things that benefit them. Companies like LinkedIn and Facebook are trying to learn how and what the right way to use this kind of information. The first point is ensuring the stewardship of the data.

The second point is how do you use this data to create more customer value? One example is what we’ve done for the QuickBooks franchise- in particular; QuickBooks Online trends for small businesses. A four person florist in Boston can now compare their cost of goods and see whether or not they have a better or worse performance with a similar business in another city. It can be lonely as a small business owner without having someone to talk to. One powerful way to improve customer value is to take the data, aggregate it, and anonymize it. One of the big things we’re focusing on right now is, can we get to a unique and common identity so that we can find all this information for you and we can know who you are and all the different pieces of your life and treat it with the right privacy.

4. What are you doing that’s disruptive for Cloud Computing?

(BS): First and foremost cloud is helping us change how we serve our customers and how we create value. Imagine completing a tax return with minimal data entry. Think of a product like the one we have India called Fasal, where 70% of Indian small businesses are farmers. We took the text capability on the phone and help farmer’s to see what wholesalers are paying at farmer’s markets. Armed with that data, they can figure out which farmer’s market to go to sell produce and gain a 20% yield.

We are creating platforms for innovation. Just before I took this call, Scott Cook, our CTO Tayloe Stansbury, and a few entrepreneurs, were talking about how we extend our Intuit Partner Platform so we can maximize the value for our customers. Our goal is to bring it together to do what customers want. This includes features such as single sign on, common billing, and seamless integration. Delivering this type of capability in a platform is highly disruptive. Why platforms? It’s the top developer want – access to millions of customers.

5. Where do you see technology convergence with Cloud?

(BS): We’re starting to see, lots of debates. Is it private cloud, public cloud? Often we talk about this, but it really isn’t an “or.” In fact, we see it as an “and.” Corporate clouds will converge. For example, we have a strategic alliance with Microsoft. We’re taking the Windows Azure platform for the SMB for cloud apps and combining their assets with ours to create 750,000 development firms to go after a common set of problems. Our two companies have agreed to partner even though we compete. But now we can go after common opportunities.

In another case, we have a partnership with Salesforce.com. Marc and the team have built further up-market. However, as we started to see more overlap, we took a look at how best to serve these customers. QuickBooks is where I spend my time. Salesforce agreed to port over to the Intuit Partner Platform. The end result is an easier way for users to manage Salesforce customer information alongside their QuickBooks data.

We also see convergence of the mobile device and the physical wallet. NFC and the ability to exchange information with mobile phones for P2P payments. This is all happening before our eyes. We have an interesting angle as we move from the leather wallet to the mobile wallet. Smart wallet is at the heart of transactions. Do they have money? Can we track limits? Is there a saving opportunity with a different brand?

What’s funny is we are headed down a path we couldn’t get to if the cloud hadn’t come. In the early days of Quicken, Scott was trying to avoid entering data twice. You keyed it into software. We tried to key things in Quicken and then synced to your bank account. Then we said wow, what about the shift from never entering data twice to never entering data at all? Mint.com changed things for us– they had a never enter data model. Now the shift is from do it yourself, to do it for me. Can you imagine technology doing it for us? We are headed down this path and things like artificial intelligence are much more real now.

6. If you weren’t focused on Cloud Computing what other disruptive technology would you have pursued?

(BS): Two thoughts immediately come to mind. First, I have a tremendous passion for education. Take the success of Kahn Academy and the TED conference, which is transforming our educational system. Emerging economies are become developing economies and it tracks with how well their education systems are performing. This is ripe for opportunity.

The second one is around energy. I don’t think it’s as simple as green or clean. It’s a fundamental issue facing the globe. We can get there with education.

7. What’s your favorite science fiction gadget of all time?

(BS): My all time favorite is the StarTrek Transporter. I wish I could get to West Virginia and see a Marshall University football game and then have it bring me back to the Bay Area. I need a beam me up app. The newer one is funky. Imagine if you had a midlife surrogate to pick the body you want, the look you want, and be in perfect shape and have your surrogate do what you wanted. Beats the p90X. Right now the surrogate is my favorite!

Your POV

What do you think? Got a question for Brad? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

The Tech Vendor series is closed. To be considered for the Business and Tech Innovators series, please reach out to Elaine (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, see the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

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Vendor Events: Webinar – Putting Big Data Streaming and Analytics to Work

R "Ray" Wang — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:26:14 +0000

Big Data Tuesday Webinar

Date:

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Time:

9:00am PT / 12:00pm ET

Real-time analytics on big data is one of the hot topics for many organizations. Given that the traditional information infrastructure for analytics has evolved from a batch-oriented approach, it is challenging for IT to augment the existing environment to meet the low latency and reliability requirements. It demands a new approach: highly scalable, real-time data acquisition and availability with a publish/subscribe messaging infrastructure and solution accelerators.

Your business can gain faster insight against petabytes of data at lower cost, risk and complexity across diverse initiatives including compliance, risk management, trade analytics, and real-time monitoring.

Join Ray Wang & Neil Raden of Constellation Research and Big Data analytics experts from Greenplum – A Division of EMC and Informatica for the kick-off session of the Big Data Tuesdays Webinar Series to learn:

What big data streaming is and why your business would care
Analytics requirements you need to consider to tackle big data
How to evolve your current architecture
Benefits to expect with low latency, high volume big data analytics

Executive Profiles: Disruptive Tech Leaders In Social Business – Randy Guard, SAS Institute

R "Ray" Wang — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:08:25 +0000

Welcome to an on-going series of interviews with the people behind the technologies in Social Business. The interviews provide insightful points of view from a customer, industry, and vendor perspective. A full list of interviewees can be found here.

Randy Guard – Vice President of Sales Development and Product Management, SAS Institute

Biography

As Vice President of Sales Development and Product Management, Randy Guard leads the product strategy and business development efforts across SAS. Randy and his Product Management teams work closely with SAS’ Research and Development organization to define and manage product road maps based on market needs and customer input. Randy’s Global Practice teams drive revenue growth by delivering market-driven offerings and supporting strategic customer engagements. These teams of product and industry domain experts help customers and partners apply SAS software to solve their critical business problems.

Before joining SAS in 2000, Randy served as Manager of e-Business Solutions for BuildNet, a provider of builder management solutions to the residential and commercial building industry. He also served as Regional Director for Spectrum Technology Group, specializing in building e-business and data warehousing solutions. Randy began his career with Andersen Consulting (Accenture), where he led systems development and implementation efforts for clients across financial services, retail and consumer packaged goods, utilities and public sector industries.

Randy holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Duke University.

The Interview

1. Tell me in 2 minutes or less why Social Computing is changing the world for your customers.

Randy Guard (RG): From our standpoint, social computing and social media present a completely new set of interactions. These interactions range from direct to indirect and include customers, prospects, and even competitors. Social computing is more than just a set of new data or just another channel. Our early customers and prospects are truly dealing with an exposure dilemma and figuring out how to best engage in this new social world, and integrate social computing in many aspects of their business.

Valued customers/prospects are talking online about the companies and products they like or dislike. In many cases, the company is not present in the dialog and definitely not leading the conversation. Consequently, a brand’s reputation is out there in the open and vulnerable. Everything that they have spent years and years building now has a different level of exposure. More importantly, a company has less control over the brand reputation now. They have to develop a good listening habit and build an environment where they can influence and support. Companies need to be able to answer new questions like … How do they understand what’s going on in the social world? Whats’ the volume of activity? And who are the influencers? At SAS there is heavy emphasis on the analytics component to understanding social media – more than just volume, we like to understand influence and the dynamics of the social network itself.

So, organizations now have to figure out how to more effectively engage their customers immediately given the accelerated maturity cycle that exists in a social computing world. Engagement must account for a diverse set of sources such as social media blogs, forums , and company hosted environments … and all of this across the broad spectrum of computing devices.

The social view is not 2 to 3 or 4 years out. These fundamental shifts are underway now. Organizations can expect very rapid change amidst a new set of interactions and increased level of exposure. As we talk to customers about social computing and social media analysis they can all rapidly comprehend the impact, and the value of being present and engaged in this new set of interactions.

2. What makes social computing disruptive?

(RG): Ray, as you know, the content in social is all about you or your product or service, and it is not owned by the company. It truly comes from the marketplace. Everyone wants feedback, and in some cases companies can’t deal with the deluge. Two things drive the disruptive nature. One is the speed in which you get feedback. This is achieved when people talk about your product or service, and quickly build momentum (both positive and negative). The other dimension is the pervasiveness of the information and how it travels through the network. Pre-social computing, you might have a bad experience at a retail store. You might have told your friends and family. Now that same feedback and negative experience not only can be commented on to thousands, but it can also be shared in audio and video. Suddenly, a whole new form of influence emerges and propagates very quickly. Now, an individual store issue with a single customer can quickly evolve into a corporate or a brand issue. Again, it works on the positive side too. The potential customer can see how an average person is passionate about a company’s product, and that can make a huge impact in sales. Customer testimonials are often more genuine and impactful than those from a corporate spokesperson or ad.

3. What is the next big thing in Social Business software?

(RG): Integrating social content with enterprise data is critical to go to the next level. Right now many of the initial gains are isolated successes to “listening” and some are focused 2-way engagement. We’ll continue to evolve with integrated social content and analysis that ties back to even more enterprise systems. Our first level of this integration has already driven value to our customers plus added new features to coming releases. Listening in the social world is obviously important, but then you need the right engagement plan to address the situation. For example, we have seen issues in a company’s supply chain (e.g. an increase in backorders) drive a rapid spike in negative sentiment in the social world. The product was positive in the eyes of the customer, but the availability issue was getting massive negative attention. They quickly needed to put out a message to the customers plus added some promotions on shipping, and alternative products, etc. They also needed to fix the backorder issue asap.

4. What are you doing that’s disruptive for Social Computing?

(RG): From a SAS point of view, we have done several things. We start by leveraging our analytic capabilities. This spans from managing the massive amounts of data and categorizing it, determining sentiment, and even visually associating it with social networks and the key influencers. This wasn’t around a few years ago. Just getting the data is one thing. Analyzing and understanding it is another aspect and this is what really drives the value. The goal is to distill massive amounts of data for the business user – we call it putting the data into business context. Success requires good analytical processes, like sentiment analysis, influence scoring, and content categorization. The bottom line is that we make it approachable for the business users to better accomplish their goals of product delivery, customer service, competitive analysis, etc.

We leverage our world class analytics and embed them into the applications. You don’t have to be a programmer to analyze and act on social media data. You can point to data sources like blogs and forums and company web sites and a variety of data streams, and we can put all this information into context. Another key is that we provide a highly interactive visual interface for the users. Both on the web and on mobile devices. We have apps built for tablet devices that are part of our overall social media offering set.

5. Where do you see technology convergence with Social?

(RG): We definitely see convergence with mobile, big data, and cloud. While users do expect valid and cleansed data, more importantly, users want to get the data (and analysis) in front of them at the right time (i.e. whether they are in the office or on the go) and be able to take action. Social sets a new bar of user experience. We’ve moved beyond the expectation of building large user manuals for this kind of business application. The applications are intuitive and ready to “walk up and use”. In addition, big data plays a role as we capture information that is persistence or in a stream and in many forms (structured, semi-structured, text, video, etc). The data volumes are enormous and continue to grow, therefore the analytical loads are getting bigger as well.

6. If you weren’t focused on Social Computing what other disruptive technology would you have pursued?

(RG): I’m sure that I would be working in the area of renewable energy. A combination of strong personal interest and a background in electrical engineering, I try to keep up with the innovation in this space … from wind, to solar and fuel cell technologies. From a business aspect, there is a pretty impressive start up community in this area and some very cool technologies out there and under research.

7. What’s your favorite science fiction gadget of all time?

(RG): Ray, that’s easy the Star Trek transporter, though I’m sure that’s a popular one. I’m also quite fond of the neuralizer from Men In Black, used appropriately for meetings of course!

(Photo courtesy: Men In Black)

Your POV

What do you think? Got a question for Randy? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

The Tech Vendor series is closed. To be considered for the Business and Tech Innovators series, please reach out to Elaine (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, see the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

News Analysis: Tidemark Gains $24M in Series C Funding, Redpoint Ventures Leads Round

R "Ray" Wang — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:35:36 +0000

Big Data, Cloud Based Performance Apps, Drive Interest In Additional Investment

Redwood City, California based Tidemark announced that it raised $24 M in Series C funding from Redpoint Ventures, Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, and Dave Duffield. Key points include:

Redpoint Ventures leads the round and Geoff Yang joins the board. To date Tidemark has raised $35M with $6.3M in its Series A and approximately $5M in its Series B. Tidemark will add Geoff Yang, a founding partner of Redpoint Ventures to the company’s board of directors.

Point of View (POV): Redpoint Ventures has had a great history with investments in enterprise software and cloud computing. Success stories include Concur, Documentum, Fanfare, FileNet, Heroku, Metreo, Polycom, Responsys, Sybase, and Zimbra. More importantly, current board of director Phil Wilmington, the former CEO of OutlookSoft and co-CEO of PeopleSoft, has been named Executive Chairman of the company.

Funding will enable Tidemark to expand both sales efforts and expand initial EPM use cases. Today Tidemark offers a suite of EPM applications that include metrics management; strategic, financial, and operational planning, budgeting, and forecasting; and profitability modeling. With additional funding, Tidemark plans to build out its enterprise sales force and target the growing market for business intelligence systems that address both big data and real-time data driven decision management.

Point of View (POV): Tidemark’s solution provides forward looking analysis and real-time performance management. While the first set of use cases address the cloud based enterprise performance management market, the core software provides a key foundation in bringing applications away from transactional systems and into a new world of engagement and experience systems. Key features include parallelized in memory analytics, native cloud data integration, native HTML 5 interface, mobile first UI, and real-time collaboration.

The Bottom Line For Customers: Tidemark Brings Real-Time Data Driven Decisions To The Cloud

The rise of big data, aging BI systems, and the need for cloud based approaches lead many organizations to rethink their business intelligence (BI) and business analytics strategies. As BI continues to evolve from fragmented and historical reporting to pervasive, predictive, and real-time decision support, an organization’s success increasingly depends on the support for an expanding information matrix. Tidemark represents the next class of solutions that can address the big data challenge in the cloud, while delivering real-time and actionalbe solutions that are easy for line of business users to consume in a social, mobile, and collaborative fashion. Consequently, organizations such as Acosta and US Sugar are already moving in this direction.

The Bottom Line For Technology Vendors: Expect Investors To Increase Funding For Enterprise Class Solutions

The buzz and rage over the past three years has focused on consumer plays in the valley. However, activity in the past six months suggest that investors are making the shift to enterprise focused start-ups. Why? With 1 out of every 1000 consumer plays making a successful exit, the pivot to enterprise appears to be a safer and less crowded bet. Investors and enterprise class technology companies can expect 2012 to be an exciting year of mergers, acquisitions, investments, and IPO’s.

Your POV.

Are you ready for next gen analytical apps? If you are an existing EPM user, what will make you make the switch? Are your current applications cutting it? Got a question? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Related Research:

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, see the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

Quips: The Slide Some Vendors Won’t Let Me Show On Social Media Tools

R "Ray" Wang — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:05:52 +0000

Social Media Explained In 140 Characters (More or Less)

Some time back a tweet went out describing what all the tools were (Figure 1). I modified this a bit and now use it in alot of presentations to audiences around the world. More than 80% of the conference organizers usually are fine with this slide. Take a look and tell me what you think.

Figure 1. Social Media Overview

Your POV

So here’s the deal, some conference organizers won’t let me use this slide because they are worried about being politically correct or appropriate. I’m curious to see what you think as I crowd source an answer for a current client? Is this appropriate or not?

Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
Developing your social business/ social CRM strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

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Monday’s Musings: Seven Basic Privacy Rights Users Should Demand For Social Business

R "Ray" Wang — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:06:56 +0000

Public Outrage Grows Over Lax Privacy Polices At Popular Social Networking Sites

Recent actions by social networking leaders in the market place have brought new attention to a user’s privacy rights. Despite the fact that these sites provide a freemium service to users, abuse and arrogance of a user’s privacy rights combined with user ignorance has led to not only a public outrage, but also increasing action from privacy advocacy groups to petition government agencies. Three public examples include:

Google+ Search Plus Your World controversy. The recent decision by Google to feature personalized search results from one’s contacts has generated an uproar. While users may opt out of receiving search results based on personal data, users can’t block information found by their Google+ contacts including those that are +1 pages, messages, contacts, and videos. Despite the personalization benefits to users and the fact Twitter and Google could not agree on terms on real-time search, the forced march and prioritization raises concerns over a user’s rights. Consequently, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has asked the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate Google’s practices.
Facebook Timeline uproar. When Facebook recently rolled out their new Timeline feature, users expressed outrage. Though Timeline simplified access to a user’s profile, the lack of time to make changes, suddenness of announcement, and confusion over public versus private data furthered complaints. The constant stream of privacy changes without user control led to EPIC’s petition to the FTC and Facebook’s settlement. Facebook’s market dominance (see Figure 1.) and public proclamation that “The Age of Privacy Is Over” should lead to greater scrutiny by privacy advocates.
LinkedIn Ads backlash. Rolled out in June 2011, LinkedIn exposed the products and services of interest to members for use with advertising. Advertisers could then display which members “endorsed” products and services from an advertiser. The lack of solicitation from an opt-in process led to a backlash from users and LinkedIn backing down to consumer pressure.

Figure 1. US Social Networking Sites Market Share By Page Views

Consumers and Businesses Should Expect and Demand Seven Basic Privacy Rights

As adoption grows, the potential for abuse exponentially increases. Exposure of location based services (LBS) can lead to safety concerns from a stalking and burglary perspective. Ignorance on how user generated content is used can lead to the unwanted public sharing of private information such as pictures, conversations, and relationships.

To protect a user’s right as well as create a trust environment required for success in social business, business and consumer users should demand that vendors deliver seven key rights:

Default opt-out on sharing private information. Basic profile information not limited to name, gender, email address, birthday, address, contact information, contacts, and relationships should be defaulted to opt out. Default opt out should apply to user generated information such as messages, photos, audio, and video.
Transparency in how personal information is used. Social networking sites and other social business concerns should detail what information will be shared. Users should know if their information will be sold and if so to whom.
Advanced notice on new changes to privacy options. Social networking sites should provide adequate warning when new features impact a user’s privacy preference. The duration for advanced warning should be commensurate to the amount of time required for a user to opt out or make changes to avoid involuntary exposure.
Affirmative consent for overriding privacy preferences. Users must opt-in to changes in privacy. The default option should be opt-out. the recent EPIC Facebook Privacy Complaint FTC Complaint and settlement reinforces the requirement for affirmative consent and provides good guidance on privacy rules.
Access prevention to user’s data upon account deletion. Information about a user should be locked down when an account is deleted. This information should not be used in aggregate statistics or data. Only the user should be allowed to resurrect an account.
Export provision for user generated data. Customers should own their data and take it with them as needed. A mechanism to export user created information should be provided to the user. Doc Searls and the Project VRM community has been advocating Personal Data Stores for quite some time and this will be the necessary requirement for social business to make it to the next level.
Deletion of all data upon user’s request. Should a user request a hard delete, users should be granted this option for a permanent delete with all information removed from all files.

The Bottom Line: Will Users Trade Privacy For Convenience In An Era of Social Business?

Convenient features based on personalization provide a rich opportunity for both consumers, brands, and enterprises to take advantage of social media and social networking tools. Despite Mark Zuckerburg’s foolish cry that the “Age of Privacy is Over” and the ongoing confusion between what information is public or private, Social Business can not succeed unless trust is ensured. Trust is the key platform as we shift from transaction to engagement and ultimately personal fulfillment systems.

Consequently, users must remain vigilant in protecting their privacy and not take a fatalistic attitude that privacy is over. In fact, users should push hard to take a stance to preserve their rights to be offline as a counter measure. Vendors, social networking sites, and enterprises must do their part and ensure trust among their stakeholders (e.g. employees, customers, partners, suppliers, etc.) or expect more public backlash. Privacy is not over. The fight has just begun and ultimately users will win.

Your POV

Are you ready to defend your privacy rights? Got a story where your privacy rights have been trampled? Need help reviewing your privacy policy against the Seven Basic Privacy Rights? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
Developing your social business/ social CRM strategy
Vendor selection
Implementation partner selection
Connecting with other pioneers
Sharing best practices
Designing a next gen apps strategy
Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Demystifying software licensing

Resources

20120113 Information Week – Thomas Claburn “Google+ Search Controversy Grows”

20120112 ZDNet: Identity – John Fontana “FTC Asked To Probe Google+, search Integration”

20111219 ZDNet: Social Business – Rich Harris and Eileen Brown “Facebook Timeline privacy concerns deepen as rollout begins”

20111215 PC World – Jill Duffy “10 Things You Should Know About Facebook Timeline”

20110812 ComputerWeekly – Warwick Ashford “LinkedIn Bows To Pressure Over ‘Social Ads’ Privacy Concerns”

20110623 Mashable – Todd Wasserman “New LinkedIn Ads Leverage Recommendations And Follows”

20110109 ReadWriteWeb – Marshall Kirkpatrick “Facebook’s Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over”

Related Research

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Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, see the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

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Tuesday’s Tip: Five Cloud/SaaS Contract Negotiation Tips For 2012

R "Ray" Wang — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:39:10 +0000

Business Leaders Often Poorly Prepared For Cloud/SaaS Contract Negotiations

Business leaders often take great care in building their Cloud and SaaS strategy, only to have many of the benefits of flexibility and agility hampered by overlooking details in their cloud contracts. In conversations with over 200 cloud customers in 2011, key reasons include:

A common belief that SaaS and Cloud contracts are simple
Lack of software contract negotiations and procurement experience
Failure to review previous departmental contracts now in renewal mode
Limited access to SaaS and Cloud contract expertise

Avoid These Common Mistakes In Cloud Contracts

While SaaS/Cloud contracts are considerably less complicated, buyers should remember that even Cloud/SaaS software contracts still require some careful planning. Lessons learned from over 1200 software contract negotiations highlight five common mistakes made in cloud contracts.

Blindly including support costs with the contract. While Cloud/SaaS contracts automatically bundle maintenance and updates into the subscriptions, customers often do not realize that they do not have to buy support. In fact, vendors are not allowed to require customers to buy support with subscription. Avoid going for the highest level support upon initial contract signing. This option can always be added at a later date.
Failure to negotiate flex up provisions. Most contracts begin with a small number of users in a departmental setting. However as usage grow, most enterprises just add additional users without securing upfront discounts potentially leaving 1000′s of dollars on the table. In contracts, remember to secure discounts for 2x, 3x, and 4x, your initial usage.
Forgetting to negotiate flex down. As with securing discounts for adding usage, the true test of elasticity occurs when companies flex down usage. Negotiate the ability to reduce usage by 10%, 20%, and 30% without incurring penalties.
Paying upfront without a discount. While many Cloud/SaaS vendors prefer annual agreements and annual payment upfront, savvy Cloud/SaaS buyers prefer to pay in more frequent cycles such as monthly and quarterly. Should a Cloud/SaaS provider seek upfront payment, negotiate a discount commensurate to your hurdle rate.
Not trading refrenceability for success. Customers often jump at the ability to serve as a referenceable client without ensuring that the software has been deployed. Agree to serve as a reference only after the software has been deployed. One common strategy, trade referenceability for prioritization of key features into the next release.

As Cloud/SaaS contracts emerge as the norm, buyers should keep abreast of other changes. Stay tuned for the 2012 Cloud/SaaS Customer Bill of Rights to be published Q1 2012.

Your POV.

Need help with your software contract? Contact us throughout the vendor selection process. We can help with a quick contract review or even the complete vendor selection. Let us know your experiences. Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

How can we assist?

Buyers, do you need help with your apps strategy and vendor management strategy? Trying to figure out how to infuse innovation into your tech strategy? Ready to put the expertise of over 1200 software contract negotiations to work? Give us a call!

Please let us know if you need help with your next gen apps strategy efforts. Here’s how we can help:

Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
Evaluating SaaS/Cloud options
Assessing apps strategies (e.g. single instance, two-tier ERP, upgrade, custom dev, packaged deployments”
Designing innovation into end to end processes and systems
Comparing SaaS/Cloud integration strategies
Assisting with legacy ERP migration
Engaging in an SCRM strategy
Planning upgrades and migration
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Related Resources And Links

20100419 Tuesday’s Tip: Dealing With Pesky Software Licensing Audits

20090714 Research Summary: An Enterprise Software Licensee’s Bill of Rights, V2

20101214 Tuesday’s Tip: Dealing With Vendor Offers To Cancel Shelfware And Replace With New Licenses

20100308 Monday’s Musings: Decoupling Support From Maintenance – What Apps Vendors Can Learn From Microsoft Dynamics

20100222 Monday’s Musings: Why Users Should Preserve Their Third Party Maintenance Rights

20100104 News Analysis: SAP Revives Two-Tier Maintenance Options

20090210 Tuesday’s Tip: Software Licensing and Pricing – Do Not Give Away Your Third Party Maintenance And Access Rights

20090709 Tuesday’s Tip: Do Not Bundle Your Support and Maintenance Contracts!

20091222 Tuesday’s Tip: 10 Cloud And SaaS Apps Strategies For 2010

20091208 Tuesday’s Tip: 2010 Apps Strategies Should Start With Business Value

20091102 Best Practices: Lessons Learned In What SMB’s Want From Their ERP Provider

20091006 Tuesday’s Tip: Why Free Software Ain’t Really Free

20090504 News Analysis: Oracle Waives Fees On Extended Support Offerings

20080909 Trends: What Customers Want From Maintenance And Support

20080215 Software Licensing and Pricing: Stop the Anti-Competitive Maintenance Fee Madness

20090405 Monday’s Musings: Total Account Value, True Cost of Ownership, And Software Vendor Business Models

20090324 Tuesday’s Tips: Five Simple Steps To Reduce Your Software Maintenance Costs

20090223 Monday’s Musings: Five Programs Some Vendors Have Implemented To Help Clients In An Economic Recession

20091012 Research Report: Customer Bill of Rights – Software-as-a Service

20090910 Tuesday’s Tip: Note To Self – Start Renegotiating Your Q4 Software Maintenance Contracts Now!

20090721 Tuesday’s Tip: 3 Approaches To Return Shelfware

20090127 Tuesday’s Tip: Software Licensing and Pricing – Now’s The Time To Remove “Gag Rule” Clauses In Your Software Contracts

Reprints

Reprints can be purchased through Constellation Research, Inc. To request official reprints in PDF format, please contact sales (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

Executive Profiles: Disruptive Tech Leaders In Cloud Computing – Adam Rogers, Ultimate Software

R "Ray" Wang — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:11:48 +0000

Adam Rogers – Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Ultimate Software

1. Tell me in 2 minutes or less why Cloud Computing is changing the world for your customers

Adam Rogers (AR): Ray, let’s call it like it is. Cloud isn’t really disruptive – it’s already disrupted – and we’ve made that transition over the past 10 years. The new frontier for enterprise software is building systems that conform and cater to the user and how they want to work. Let’s use Amazon as an analogy. A core difference between Amazon and the dozens of other e-commerce sites that competed for mind share in the 2000′s is that they realized early on that doing great work on behalf of the PERSON was more important than the URL or the consumer product segment.

Our customers benefit from cloud computing by taking advantage of business solutions for managing their people, instead of dealing with the cost and expense of IT. Second, because we handle all upgrades, they gain access to the latest functionality and don’t get trapped in a legacy on-premise solution that is outdated. There’s no barrier to upgrading. However, you’ve heard this all before. Honestly, these are really table stakes in business software today.

What Cloud is transforming for our customers is their ability to tailor the solution to their specific needs. For example, Google wanted us to handle the administration of payroll and the system-of-record, but they wanted to maintain the user experience of their internally developed GHR system. By connecting Ultimate to GHR through the Cloud, they can deliver a familiar user experience for their people while taking advantage of our backbone.

Importantly, small businesses gain access to enterprise systems at an affordable price point because:

1. If done right, it allows smaller businesses access (via affordability) to what used to be very expensive enterprise applications.

⁃ up front through the economies of scale well-architected systems create, enterprise class software can be sold at much less expensive price points than previously.

⁃ ongoing costs are contained.. and running in world-class data centers that only fortune 1000 companies could previously afford.

2. It brings the benefits of consumer software (constantly improved, modern user interfaces and simple) to enterprise customers who demand secure, stable and reliable applications.

We moved to cloud computing and SaaS 10 years ago because we felt it was good for our customers but in the end it also opened up the market to smaller customers with much smaller IT budgets. This is obviously great for our business model but very rewarding to know we can offer a world-class solution to what used to be out of reach to many companies.

2. What makes cloud computing disruptive?

(AR): Disruption typically has two major components. The first is cost and the second is making products available to a new class of customers.

Cloud computing has not only reduced the cost of business software, it has also made sophisticated systems available to organizations that previously wouldn’t have been able to afford to purchase and maintain those products. I think that’s a fairly obvious outcome at this point as discussed already.

What is less obvious, but more important in the long term, is that Cloud computing means we can — for the first time, really — combine applications that are tailored to the person and the device (an iPad, for example) with a robust administrative system on the back end. Those applications can be really small, and highly tailored, while still connecting to the core. That means users don’t have to deal with a lot of complexity, they can just focus on the work at hand — while still participating in the company’s core system.

This is disruptive because as the end of the day, this is great for consumers and customers but to execute, it really flips all accepted thinking on it’s side.

- Now we have to update our software early and often – the consumers demand this kind of cadence to realize the value. Consumers are using consumer applications and consumer devices and demanding that same elegant experience from their Ent Apps. GenX/Y’s are taking over the executive offices and making decisions on business software.

- Think about what it takes to do that… it’s an agile/iterative development process with continuous integration and deployment. That’s a simple sentence that is a multi million dollar investment for development teams. It took us years to make this turn.

- Finally it’s disruptive because you have to be comfortable in the state of “blowing in the wind”. Typical enterprise companies built loyalty through ridiculously expensive upgrades and data that was so locked down you had to syphon your data out discretely if you were thinking about switching vendors. Now you MUST, absolutely MUST deliver a steady flow of functionality and make your data available and accessible via standard web protocols. That’s a scary situation for many established vendors. It’s disruptive because that’s what our customers want. That’s what we are giving them. But many won’t.

3. What is the next big thing in Cloud Computing?

(AR): The intersection of consumer applications (more than just social) into Enterprise data. SaaS and cloud moved your data to the [potentially] accessible cloud. Soon it will be about making sense of all that data in the cloud. So Enterprise SaaS vendors will be forced to make their data accessible. That’s uncomfortable position for many traditional enterprise software companies who always felt the “hoarding” of their data is what kept customers paying their maintenance bills. So now the data must be “freed” and accessible through standard formats. And not only that, just like Gen X/Yers started bringing iPhones and Skype into the Enterprise without “permission”, we will need to be able to mash our Enterprise data up with consumer applications (especially social). Why not allow identity management via Facebook?

For example, take Apple with iOS5 is delivering their notification center — one place for the person to direct all their important action items. It is our job to plug into that if the user wants us too. Same with social streams. People don’t want 10 different streams, they might want a couple… so how do we publish and subscribe into those places where a user already works. Instead of taking an application-centered view, it is time to take a person-centered view. Cloud lets us do that.

4. What are you doing that’s disruptive for Cloud Computing?

(AR): Ultimate has grown to 2200 customers because of the inherent disruptive power of Cloud computing and SaaS. And we’re just at the start of this transition as an industry. But we have to keep looking forward. I’m not ready to share details yet, but let’s just say that business applications–even Cloud applications–have really been all about interrogating the user in order to capture data that matters for administering the company. We believe that era is over.

5. Where do you see technology convergence with Cloud?

(AR): Connections between applications and information is happening at the device and person level. The iOS5/iPad example is a great one. I want to create my own work environment, bringing together the information I need in the context that makes sense to me. With powerful devices and hyper-connective cloud-based applications, we can really make that happen which is exciting. And when you get the itch to start talking about technology, you really have to be careful.

In Silicon Valley, there is a never-ending focus on architecture, technology and administration. So much in industry is in discussion about why Cloud, SaaS, Mobile is great.

- These are means to an end. That end is great solutions for people. Apple gets this. They invent experiences instead of marketing processor speeds and USB ports.

6. if you weren’t focused on Cloud Computing what other disruptive technology would you have pursued?

(AR): - Definetely something in the field of medicine. I was studying biomedical engineering before switching to electrical and going down the computer/software path. As much as modern medicine has progressed there seems to be so much more room for massive technology advances.. Both in administering how we traverse through the hospitals/doctor’s offices and when we are in surgery.

7. What’s your favorite science fiction gadget of all time?

(AR): Dr. Who’s Tardis. What could be better than seeing how awesome the technology will be 1000 years from now?

Source: BBC

Your POV

What do you think? Got a question for Aaron? Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

The Tech Vendor series is closed. To be considered for the Business and Tech Innovators series, please reach out to Elaine (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com.

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Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy, see the full client list on the Constellation Research website.