Focus On Humanizing AI As organizations begin their journey into artificial intelligence (AI), ethics often enter the design process.  While achieving a uniform set of ethics may seem insurmountable, some design points will help facilitate the humanization of artificial intelligence and provide appropriate checks and balances.  Constellation has identified design pillars for Level 1 AI.  […]

The Convergence of Technology, Society, And AI Ethics Is Already Among Us Over the past year, almost every conversation on artificial intelligence involved a discussion on ethics, humanity, and policy.  Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.  In this case, one can look to Hollywood for a few good suggestions to ponder.  Four AI […]

Everything You Wanted To Know About AI But Were Afraid To Ask Executive Summary The rush to exponential technologies in new business models has placed artificial intelligence (AI) in the forefront of boardroom priorities for 2018. As leaders move beyond the AI hype, the journey toward AI requires both a business mindset and the institutional […]

Inside the Design Point For All Future AI Driven Apps The quest for mass personalization at scale in an era of artificial intelligence (AI) has led to new models of design for the future of applications.  One design point for these new AI driven smart apps is a concept called Infinite Ambient Orchestration.  The three […]

Six Factors For Powering AI Driven Smart Services Recent client conversations indicate a desire for designing new AI Driven Smart Services.   The rush to incorporate artificial intelligence into processes often requires a deeper examination of which services should be AI enabled.  Constellation’s latest framework for augmenting humanity encompasses six factors (see Figure 1): Repetitiveness.  The […]

Why Mass Personalization Efforts Fail and Ten Simple Steps to Fix Them Over the past four decades, valiant attempts at personalization have failed due to the lack of relevant and intelligent automation.  Moreover, expectations of consumers and prospects have only grown.  The result – an expectations gap in personalization that manifests itself in fickler consumers […]

Salesforce Announces Intent To Acquire Demandware For $2.8B On June 1st, 2016, Salesforce signed a definitive agreement to acquire Burlington, Massachusetts based Demandware for $75.00 per share or around $2.8 billion in cash.  Constellation predicts a $10.01B market for matrix commerce solutions by 2020 as new digital platforms and network economies emerge.  Constellation’s  merger analysis […]

Stop Thinking In Channels And Start Thinking In Settings and Scenes As organizations realize they are no longer selling products and services but delivering on experiences and outcomes, the shift to delivering on a brand promise requires the ability to deliver mass personalization at scale. This is the heart of delivering digital business value.  However, […]

DELIVERING IN-STORE EXPERIENCES TO DIGITAL CUSTOMERS Join me Thursday, October 8th, 2015 from 12 to 1 pm PT for a webinar on customer experience in a mobile world. Only 37% of US brands rate their ability to achieve their eCommerce goals as very effective. As a result, most brands lack the ability to convert a […]

Subscribed15 Brings Together The Market Leaders and Fast Followers Of Digital Transformation Over 2,000 attendees convened May 20th – 21st, 2015 at the Hilton Union Square in San Francisco for the 5th annual Subscribed Conference.   The early adopters in the subscription economy and those seeking to build for a post-sale, on-demand, attention economy were treated […]

SuiteWorld Comes Of Disruptive Age Over 7,500 attendees convened at the San Jose McEnery Convention center for the 5th annual NetSuite SuiteWorld.   The four day event brought together customers, partners, and influencers among the ecosystem.  As one of the original cloud pioneers, the appropriate event theme focused on the impact of disruption.   Taking its own […]

Attendees Buoyed By Economic Recovery Optimism At This Year’s Big Show The 2015 annual big show brought 33,000+ attendees to New York to explore the future of retail.   From the movers and shakers in the brand world to the hot retail technology vendors, the mood was buoyant and the outlook more positive than in year’s […]

Digital Strategy From The Analysts At Constellation Research Constellation’s year end checklist offers suggestions designed to enable you to take control of your digital strategy in 2015. Consider these actions to ensure you dominate digital disruption in the new year. 1. Matrix Commerce: Scrub your data By Guy Courtin When it comes to Matrix Commerce, […]

Frictionless Signatures Key To Matrix Commerce Success On September 16th, 2014, Adobe EchoSign announced native mobile e-signature capability for Android devices.  While EchoSign has been in the cloud for some time, and the iOS app has been out since December 2011,  the native capability in mobile allows over 37 million users to send documents for […]

Commerce Server Finds Its Logical Home On Wednesday November 20th, 2013, Copenhagen, Denmark based Sitecore acquired Ottawa, Canada based commerceserver.net for an undisclosed price.  Originally known as the Microsoft Siteserver and Commerce Server 2000, the product was orphaned by Microsoft,  then Ascentium, the key development partner were given the rights to further develop and market […]

Digital Distribution Leader Gains West Coast VC Backing On October 7th, 2013, private equity firm, Francisco Partners acquired Avangate, a leader in digital commerce and subscription billing.  Avangate serves over 3,000 customers across more than 100 countries.  Avangate has experienced 70% year over year growth over the past six years.  The deal terms were not […]

Zuora Rides The Wave In The Subscription Economy On September 5th, 2013, Foster City, CA based Zuora, announced $50 million in Series E capital.  The announcement has significant ramifications not only for Zuora’s self proclaimed subscription economy category, but also the broader business theme of matrix commerce because Zuora: Expanded the investor pool. Zuora successfully […]

Forward And Commentary Constellation Research keynoted at Ping Identity’s Cloud Identity Summit 2013 in July.  Gathered in front of the Identerati,  an Identity Manifesto was presented.  The research behind that manifesto has been summarized here in this summary.  The final big idea research report will offer insight into four of Constellation’s primary research themes, the […]

Mergers Continue In The Enterprise Software Space On August 7th, 2012, CDC Software and Consona Corporation merged to form Aptean.  Over the past six months, Monte Ford, the president of Aptean has made key executive hires, committed to new product investments, and rationalized overhead.  Key points in the acquisition include: Merger creates economies of scale. […]

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 […]

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.  […]

Merchants Must Break Free From Daily Deal Site Hysteria Following up on the April 4th post about the damage caused by daily deal sites such as Groupon, merchants continued to send feedback about the challenges they face.  Those who use daily deal sites express the following: Peer pressure to participate. Customers and prospects flooded by […]

Recessionary Forces Challenge Organizations To Not Only Right Channel, But Also Personalize Organizations with e-commerce initiatives face a flurry of competitive forces that challenge existing assumptions put in place a decade ago.  On the operational efficiency front, organizations must battle reduced product margins, shorter product life cycles, greater pricing transparency, and increased friction in multi-channel […]