diginomica: Recent Episodes
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We don't often hear SAP talking about big impact projects but it has its hands on many projects around the world that go well beyond the ERP for which they are so well known. Check out this conversation.
This is a fascinating conversation that runs a goo hour so buckle up and enjoy the ride as Rod explains the problem and how Santander has found a promising solution.
A wide-ranging conversation covering the difficulties surrounding enterprise software pricing
The three of us discuss what needs to happen within the SAP community of developers - starting with developer licensing for SAP Cloud Platform but inevitably so much more.
Den and Brian are joined by Michael Ouissi, chief customer officer at IFS for a live discussion about whether now is the time to be engaging in digital transformation projects and if so, where should the emphasis lay?
Rachel Happe has released the 11th edition of The State of Community Management. This gave us the opportunity to discuss a wide range of issues impacting community in a mid-COVID19 crisis
In this conversation, extracted from a much longer one between Andy Steer, CIO iTelligence UK, and John Appleby, CEO Avantra, the thorny topic of returning to a place of work is under debate. It provides valuable insights into the way some business leaders are thinking about a post-COVID-19 workplace.
There's been something of a sea change at SuccessFactors in recent times. Frequent critic Brandon Toombs is quietly optimistic,
Ben Haines has 'been there, done it' in companies as diverse as Pabst, Box, and Verizon. Here's his take on what we need to do right now to thrive in difficult times.
Francine McKenna is a long time friend who has been relentless in her holding the audit profession up to the spotlight, arguing that they often fail to do the job for which they were originally founded. In this recording, we talk about the differences between the US and UK healthcare systems, what's happening and what may happen as the COVID-19 pandemic plays out.
We discuss the HR impact of COVID-19 and expansion of Otter Advisory...just in time for smaller vendors
Den talks to one fo the greatest community engagement people in the enterprise market about both communities and learning in a post-Coronavirus world.
Phil and Tim discuss Xenzone and the work it is doing to help people access mental health support and treatment. Prescient at a time when many of us are facing lockdown.
Den and Vijay discuss the future of IT services delivery in the wake of COVID-19. This follows a story Vijay penned as he was considering how to mobilize his own team at IBM.
We talk to long time collaborator John Appleby in his new role as CEO Avantra, a firm providing tools for SAP customers that aims to make their day to day lives easier.
John is uniquely positioned to discuss SAP operations as one who grew up as a BASIS consultant, has worked in many areas of SAP apps and on the H|ANA system.
Chris Kernaghan and I discuss the merits of each of the hyperscalers in the context of heterogeneous landscapes and especially in situations where you are considering a significant transition. The obvious scenario is SAP ECC to S/4HANA but there will be others.
Den scored a conversation with Matt Steiner, newly minted head of product at Neptune (diginomica partner) for his take as a partner with SAP at TechEd 2019
Den listens to Brandon Toombs as he sets out his expectations and wishlist for the upcoming SAP SuccessConnect 2019 event.
There's a lot of talk about payroll.
In this entertaining conversation, Den and Jarret chew the fat about how the SuccessFactors implementation landscape remains something of a Wild West. Bonus points for listening all the way through - and we could have gone on a LOT longer. Extra bonus points for Jarret's tips on using LinkedIn to create a large network of interested practitioners in the field.
There is a change a-coming as more enterprises turn to a build rather than buy mode of operation - sometimes including back office functions for which you'd think there's plenty of COTS choice. We discuss this topic with Frank Scavo, CEO Strativa/Computer Economics.
In this candid conversation, Mike Fauscette, who heads G2's data analysis unit talks methodologies and what buyers are looking for in data-driven buying decisions.
My good friend Abesh Battacharjee talks about the genesis of a project designed to support Bloodmates, a non-profit in India that is trying to make access to blood much easier than it is today.
While working at Dell Boomi, Rick Nucci, co-founder Boomi and now CEO Guru found that internal sharing systems didn't work. Guru attempts to solve this problem.
Phil took the opportunity to record a conversation with Rick while at a Slack event so this one has the added bonus of being set to music.
Rachel Happe and Den get into a wide-ranging discussion covering the results of the 10th annual Community Roundtable and some of the big issues that community leaders are addressing. Everything from measurement difficulty through to holding raitonal business conversations and on to diversity and the problems of those who are disempowered feature in this near hour long conversation.
This week, Salesforce announced it is acquiring Tableau for an eye-popping $15bn. That was a 42% premium on the previous close. The deal is expected to close Q3 2019.
There's plenty to like about this deal but we don't ignore the larger market impact, what it means for SAP and BOBJ or Microsoft Power BI and Google.
The Coherence Economy is a new topic for me. Mulesoft has been talking about this for just over a year and in this recording, Phil Wainewright digs into the topic with Uri Sarid, CTO Mulesoft.
As a teaser, Sarid had this to say last year:
An economic revolution occurs not when an innovation becomes possible, but when it becomes practical. We’re on the verge of a new economy.
This week I met with Rose Hayes, VP at JLL. We had a wide-ranging conversation about the impact of change and how Workfront is facilitating fresh approaches to processes within the firm.
From today's smorgasbord:
A conversation with Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian – solving the enterprise multi-cloud problem.
ASOS profit collapse highlights the importance of animal print skirts as well as working tech.
Zoholics 2019 review – Zoho One customer Purolite shares lessons on cloud adoption and adapting to change.
Anyone who has created content knows its hard work so imagine our chagrin to find that DynamicsFocus is stealing our and other publishers' content. Here's the story and this is the site.
And here's Stuart's opinion about the person in question:
https://twitter.com/WhoStu/status/1116296826259476485
Better still:
Well, I got a reply from our content thief. It's not an apology, Opens with "Hey Jackass", goes on to complain about "badgering" about "the stupid articles". Not a shred of repentance, just that he'll take the"stupid articles" down. @alexscroxton @bryanglick @ldignan @bobevansIT
— Stuart Lauchlan (@WhoStu) April 11, 2019
Links to today's stories:
How MercadoLibre built a learning culture to keep up with its growth – an SAP SuccessFactors story.
Blue Prism shows its colours around the rise of the ‘Digital Worker’
NetSuite opens up its Brainyard to share the knowledge
...and of course, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is never far from our thoughts:
Facebook wins on BS points as TV interview with “very idealistic” Zuckerberg fails to land a blow
Phil Wainewright gets up close and personal with Tom Keiser, COO Zendesk in a wide-ranging discussion about the world of in-store retail technology, the challenges some firms experience and how this dovetails to XaaS.
Apologies for being so slow this week - it's been one of those weeks where project mayhem got in the way of just about everything else.
Anyhoo - better late than never and here's what we have for you today:
Vendors aren’t helping us to build agile HR, says Deutsche Telekom exec
Adobe Summit 2019 – how Avianca Airlines is facing the transformation challenge
Regulate me! Does Mark Zuckerberg really want government to stage an intervention?
Oracle CEO Mark Hurd on moving NetSuite to the Oracle Cloud
Build diverse teams and show the benefits for your organization
Oktane19 - Okta sets out its stall as an identity platform
Real-time for the win – how Donnelly Custom Manufacturing excels at short-run manufacturing with IQMS.
Phil and Jason shoot the breeze on all things digital, XaaS etc while puncturing myths about blockchain, chatbots and other esoteric technologies too numerous to mention.
It's been quite a while since I spoke with James Norwood, EVP episerver, a firm that has been quietly building a reputation as a CMS platform for building digital experiences. The company is doing well and is now under new ownership with growth as its mandate. In this conversation we talk omni-channel and personalization.
Links from the digest:
You want AI with that? McDonald’s latest tech gambit gets highly personal
‘Streaming data, but screaming staff!’ – Ciena turns to Graph to solve customer issues
Adobe Summit 2019 analysis – CX hype is countered by Chegg’s digital turnaround story
Here's the links for today's stories - enjoy:
Censorship or fair play? European Parliament takes step closer to controversial copyright regime, but will Big Tech fight back?
How Graph offered a Eureka! moment for a UK SMB
Open source is free – yeah, right!
On today's show Oracle Cloud, Subscription Economics and Internet Regulation.
Burgers, toothbrushes and flatpack furniture – Zuora CEO points to Subscription Economy transformation boom
Regulation or hesitation – how to manage the internet? The story so far…
Regulation or hesitation – how to manage the internet? Where we go next…
Why Sportable Scoreboards moved to cloud ERP, and what they’ve learned about change – Oracle MBX ’19.
After 2 days of intense sessions, Jon and Brian get into the issues that bother them about software-driven CX. Top of mind? Creepiness.
Apologies to those who like to think we're regular. It's a taxing time at the moment but the upside is that you get a two-fer and a turkey. What's that turkey thing about? Here's the link. It's priceless.
When I interviewed Alex Shootman, CEO Done Right I had some open questions, based on my review from the beginning of the year. This was my opportunity to get answers. There are useful insights and an update that will prove invaluable for people trying to discover what 'modern work' means and how leaders can make work a rewarding experience.
Vinnie Mirchandani and I discuss the big themes that came out of his new book SAP Nation 3.0 (pre-order here.) There's plenty to enjoy and unpack in what I think is his best book of recent times.
Derek's wondermissive includes Thinking about the social impact - a report on how the UK government is contemplating the inclusion of social metrics in deals. If this is an area you care about then you can provide your feedback here.
the shocking state of Bank of England procurement in The Bank of England needs to modernise ASAP while we also have the UK Government gets tough on digital competition
Quite the selection today with more retail roundup stories around omnichannel, manufacturing ERP and video marketing advice.
Apologies for missing yesterday's show. I have a good reason - and it was not 'the dog ate my homework' - tune in to find out what happened.
On today's show, we have ECM revista, two important pieces about International Women's Day, apprenticeships, spend management and taxis.
My favorite quote from one of the stories:
I hate the dogma behind modern methodologies. Of course we use Agile but we also use Waterfall. We are “experience led and product centric” with rapid feature iteration, but we also run traditional projects. The question is always, are we improving the customer (passenger and driver) experience and can we do it better and faster? And, by the way, Agile is not always about fast.
Amen brother, amen!
Phil Wainewright, who coined the term XaaS for 'everything-as-a-service' sits down with Tod Nielsen, CEO FinancialForce to discuss the topic. Nielsen provides three examples of customers who are building out their service economies.
It is early days and the vendors are ahead of customers in understanding how XaaS works and what needs to be put in place but this conversation provides a good start to the topic.
Derek duPreez provides the words for this show. Links to appropriate content:
How do you solve a problem like identity?
Government-as-a-Platform agenda
Going global with G-Cloud
We still don’t know how to effectively manage a contract and the Public Accounts Committee released a damning report
Elsewhere, Derek says: If you’re going to read a blog this week, read Richard Pope and James Darling’s Medium post about where we are at in terms of progressing digital government.
This is a shortened and slightly nuanced version of the 2,500 word opus I penned yesterday on the topic - SAP’s restructuring – Hunger Games, Game of Thrones or both? - there's a lot to digest.
Target goes to prove that its omnichannel strategy is working - and that Stuart was right. Bonus points for this additional story:
Delivering digital growth – how Target’s store-as-hub strategy paid off
Plus an upbeat Salesforce as it targets (sic) $28 billion in revenue.
Then we have the idea of 'gated offerings' as a way of personalizing for customers. Hmmm...I'm a tad skeptical as personalization is very tough to get right.
As an added extra, I talk about this week's reorganization at SAP. The company seems to have taken a strange position on those who stay and those who leave. There is confusion and the picture is not entirely clear. However, I think SAP is making a mistake in some cases. Check my Tweetstream to find out more.
We've had a lot of retail coverage recently. Much of it has been unfortunate.
- Old Navy widens the gap between its omni-channel future and The GAP’s legacy retail present
- Lowe’s and Home Depot – home improvement retailers in search of digital fixing up
- JC Penney CEO – we need to re-establish “the foundations of retail” despite years of digital transformation
- Macy’s – another year, another restructuring, but there are omni-channel retail successes
and our Breaking Bad just has to be seen to be believed
Phil Wainewright's XaaS positioning has gained considerable attention in the last year. Here is a precis of his first update to our d·book The XaaS Effect.
Included links are:
XaaS virtuous cycle of engage-monitor-improve.
How Bosch has replaced its old 7-layer hierarchy with a matrix of 54 separate teams of less than a dozen people each and fintech startup Monzo is a showcase for rapid decision-making enabled by its use of Slack. Here too, cross-functional teams have become the norm.
It may be fashionable to demolish hierarchies, but the trend toward flat organizations already faces an academic backlash
Writing in Forbes, Unit4’s Claus Jepsen says Service organizations need to put their XaaS hats on and engage with their customer ecosystem.
If you’re attending UNLEASH19 in London later this month, catch Phil's session at 11:45am on the 20th, when I’ll be speaking on Frictionless Enterprise, Digital Teamwork and the Future of Work. It’s a perfect opportunity to talk XaaS in person!
This is a podcast that talks to the newsletter that Derek duPreez curates. It includes stories about data sharing in the context of the NHS, an interview with Karl Hoods CDIO at the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and some thoughts about Matt Hancock's recent bans on pagers and fax machines.
Derek also shares a few tweets that come from alternative voices. Check this status update.
On today's agenda - construction, media streaming and open source. Includes a hard-hitting customer story.
And...such important news...
In this 26 minute conversation, Den speaks with Robert Townley, a deeply experienced ERP consultant who, in the last 5 years has turned his attention to cloud deployments. Why? They deliver value and that is something that is seen as important from, of all places, the PE market.
Robert is a firm believer in what BYD offers but like others he wishes SAP did a better job of helping the partner ecosystem.
Much of what is discussed here is about the change in training needed to help IT people better understand the business. Lo-code and No code may be fashion mots du jour but they count for little if the developer doesn't have a good sense of what business problem is at stake. Simply asking to help with digital transformation doesn't cut it.
On today's agenda, Marks & Spencer's tilt at Ocado, manufacturing excellence (aka dumping the spreadsheet), motoring mayhem in the modern city and a ministerial meerkat. You have to be British to get this last one but trust me, it's worth it.
On today's agenda, digital burgers, ethical crises and cloudy success - and a sad dose of Breaking Bad bigotry.
Each customer story provides a different angle on the work companies are undertaking to further their digital transformation journeys.
Accuride is especially interesting as it plays off a podcast I recorded with CIO Paul Wright. We've been following this firm for 4 years and the story keeps improving, despite multiple technology providers plus M&A in the mix.
It's the use case edition folks with awesome success stories that feed directly into topics that matter in the 21st century.
I have a fascinating conversation with Jonathan Phillips who leads the SAP Business ByDesign implementations at Aspen Pumps, a mid-sized UK based manufacturer of condensate pumps.
There are tremendous lessons to be learned about how to establish a successful, mission-driven culture.
I kid you not - this is indeed the pants off edition.
Before we get to that though we're talking Avon, reproductive rights and a thumbs down for financial wellness in the context of HR issues.
Pants off? Check this:
Accuride, a supplier of wheels for the trucking industry is on an implementation journey that includes Plex, Workday and SAP.
The story has important implications for those faced with disparate landscapes and where the prospect of getting to a 'one-size fits all' doesn't fit.
In this story, Paul Wright, Accuride's CIO explains what is happening and why.
For example, we easily forget that different geographies have different laws concerning the export of data, which, in turn, changes the technology decision dynamic. Similarly, some countries have poor internet connectivity making the choice of moving to the cloud much more complex, if not impossible.
Then there's the question of reporting across multiple geos. Here, Paul has an interesting take on how Workday Prism is helping.
Finally, we talk about IoT and other advanced technologies. You'll be in for a surprise if you think that this industry is going full speed on these topics.
Jon and Den get together to talk about some of the things we're thinking about as diginomica moves into its 7th year. We also talk about some of the things we didn't get to during the week and how the independent analysts are firing up a new type of conversation that focuses on what customers want in the 21st century.
Check out diginomica.com for a write up that includes a bunch of links on the topics we discuss.
DJ Adams is one of my all-time heroes as both a proponent of open source and teacher/mentor to children who he encourages to learn coding skills in his home town of Manchester.
He's coming up to a year as an 'evangelist' in the developer relations team at SAP. It's been a year of experimentation including the recent launch of his own live streaming show where he talks and writes code in real time.
We talk about these issues and the many challenges involved in creating a podcast or live stream that people want to listen/view.
We also talk (briefly) about beer, an understanding of which is a pre-requisite for being a modern-day coder.
Enjoy.
Lora Cecere has spent her entire career working in the supply chain arena as both practitioner and analyst. Most recently, she delivered a message to practitioners that says we're looking at supply chains from the wrong end of the proverbial telescope. Instead of looking inside out we should be looking outside in, focusing on value-based outcomes driven by market signals and not, as is currently the case, based on the primacy of orders as the lead indicator for what should be planned for in the supply chain. It's a wakeup call for a world where healthcare is moving to wellness and where some forecasts say that the world will not be able to feed itself by 2050.
In this discussion, Lora recaps the main points of her current thinking and offers a framework for the future that includes the use of advanced technologies including machine learning for essential tasks like data cleansing.
She also has a warning for the usual suspects - the startup world is coming to get you.
On today's agenda, New Relic's smart acquisition, gig economics that don't make sense and non-integrating integrators who drive Brian mad.
And because you can't make this stuff up - check out the image below:
If you don't know Francine McKenna then you should. I first fell across Francine many moons ago when she was putting out re: the auditors, an in-depth look at the audit profession and how it fails investors. Today, Francine has a regular beat on Marketwatch that again talks of the issues behind corporate reporting.
In today's call we discussed the problems around non-GAAP reporting and how it is out of control yet no-one wants to address the fundamental issue of companies reporting whatever the heck they like ahead of filing the 10-K.
There's a timebomb ticking here folks.
During our call she talked about a small number of companies that file and report at the same time. One of which is Amazon. That company doesn't always get the love it earns but it is doing the right thing.
There will be a written version of this story in the next day that includes links to her latest story about the GAAP and non-GAAP issue. Enjoy.
On today's agenda, a great conversation about Dreams and Details as authored by Jim Snabe, chairman of Siemens, a Googley cloudy newspaper courtesy of The Telegraph and 'street' retail via Ralph Lauren...and something for Brexit fans.
Plus the added bonus of a smidgeon of British humor. If it flummoxes you then check out what Americans thought of our erstwhile comedians Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer.
Excuse the banging sounds at the beginning. The mice upstairs are dancing while wearing hobnail boots.
We're late I know but then there's a good reason. I was on a 3-day death march to move and set up a new office. It's all done now but boy was it a PITA - literally, as I discovered muscles I'd forgotten about, in my rear end no less.
I scored a scratchy call with Bonnie and Michelle of Raven Intel, a new HR analyst firm that hosts peer-reviewed implementation stories and assessments. It makes for an interesting conversation.
A fun packed show that covers a red-headed bastard child, digital tax services and an updated users story. Where does the man bun fit in? There's a cracking joke at the end.
It's all happening today folks with SAP shocking some with news of an €800-950 million significant restructuring plan, Starbucks putting your coffee on a bike (?!) and Marc Benioff, CEO Salesforce announcing the 5th Industrial Revolution.
Community has been something of a Cinderella but Rachel Happe believes that 2019 will be a breakthrough year. Hear how she parses this long running story out. You might be surprised at some of the benefits.
On today's agenda, the digital skills crisis at Davos and leadership from Infor and Zoho.
And for those who like a little imagery? We have Writer's Clock. Check it out - I am so getting one of these.
Den and Chris provide different angles to the GDPR story both in the context of Brexit and data privacy. In other news, Phil explores the new wave of enterprise apps that are coming down the pipe, enabled by technologies like Workata, Mulesfot and Dell Boomi.
BTW - this is called the Dyson sucks edition but you'll have to listen through to the end to get the context.
On today's agenda, Davos opens with some downbeat assessments, GDPR's impact is positive and a powerful HCM use case. Oh - and a new diginomica partner to welcome onboard - Neptune Software.
Last weekend I caught up with my old buddy Vijay Vijayasankar who is building a practice within IBM that serves the market for change. While we didn't talk about his role in the company I wanted to get his thoughts around the question of leadership and how that works in the modern enterprise.
Vijay provides us with plenty of examples around how things work, how he learns and what he sees going o win the marketplace.
Towards the end we get into a discussion about the lessons that can be drawn from the world of Test Cricket, which is a passion for both of us.
And right at the end, I get a couple of free minutes of consulting advice that will help me going forward.
A great conversation from someone I've admired for many years.
During this week's hectic NRF show, Jon Reed recorded a podcast with ThreeKit. The background noise is a bit distracting but the content is up there as interesting on innovation for a show that attracts thousands of participants.
He mentions getting his face into a VR thing. Sheesh - the things we do for the benefit of those who consume our stuff.
This conversation with the co-founders of Ockam is interesting at multiple levels. We discuss the value of open source, scratching an itch as a motivator and why securing IoT matters.
On today's agenda, Jon gobbles up some fast food thinking at NRF Live, driverless cars are on the road(map) and the data warehouse ain't dead yet.
Welcome to the latest Future Enterprise podcast where we showcase the best content from diginomica.
In this special episode, we talk to Sunil Pande, CEO VersAccounts. We first came across the company two years ago, covering a couple of customers. Today, we wanted to talk to the issues of trust and pricing enterprise software for SMBs and the challenge that represents. It's a frank discussion.
On today's agenda, SaaS, CRM, non-profits, digital skills and going beyond on omni-channel retail transformation, and, of course, that slight inconvenience of divorce for Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon.
On today's agenda, we're off to Wales and India as well as checking in on Jobvite. contributions come from Stuart, Martin and Jon.
On today's agenda, a couple of strong use cases from Guardian Life (AWS) and AB InBev (customer knowledge) along with some Trumpian-economics related to the manufacturing sector - (yeah, they don't compute too well either.)
Enjoy...
Tom Raftery is a long time advocate for clean energy and while that has sometimes been a frustrating path to tread in the past, the last couple of years have seen enormous strides.
In this episode, Tom talks to the excitement around energy generation innovation and especially storage, along with the place that IoT and the blockchain might take as we move forward.
There are plenty of facts to draw upon with eye-popping numbers to keep you interested.
Welcome to Episode #2 of diginomica's Future Talk.
Episode #1 didn't suck to badly so suck on this folks and LMK what you think.
Today's episode focuses on culture issues along with getting off to a flying retail - or rather failing retail - start.
Introducing a revitalized podcast series for 2019 starting at Episode #1.
As a guide, we'll be publishing the digiDaily in an MP3 format and distributing far and wide along with adding diginomica as an Alexa skill. The idea is to provide listeners with a hint at a selection of the things we are publishing on a day to day basis.
We anticipate that each episode will be no longer than 4 minutes so readily digestible over breakfast or during a coffee/tea break.
We won't get it right early on but we will try to suck less each time.
Let's see how it works.
Abdul Razack, EVP Platforms Infosys discusses the role of open source in his business and the impact on customer outcomes.
Cindy Jutras talks about the role of women, diversity more generally and how Plex is encouraging women to participate in leadership.
Fisher and Company has been using wearable technology for some years. Here's what they're doing, including some talk around Google Glass
Three customers provide insights into their Plex implementations while Cindy Jutras talks about progress on the software side.
Rod Drury talks to Den about the early findings from analysis emerging from Xero's business intelligence efforts.