New Florence. New Renaissance.

2021: A new world of enterprise software

Coming out of the pandemic I expected massive changes in software world and we started to see glimpses of that in 2021. Here are some standout examples:

I have been blown away at the speed at which IFS has re-branded, made several acquisitions and launched several new products. Before Dennis Howlett had retired in March, he told me "Darren Roos (the CEO of IFS) and his team have managed to take what was really quite a moribund company and turned it into something that’s relevant for the 21st Century,"

Their year end recap provides a high-energy summary in under 2 minutes. I talked to their CMO, Oliver Pilgerstrofer this week and the results are showing up very strongly in their leads pipeline and even more impressively, in a tight labor market, in their recruitment pipeline.

"Vinnie Vertical" has been screaming for years for vendors to develop and showcase operational, not just back office, functionality for various industries. I saw several vendors start to talk about “vertical clouds” and I was particularly impressed that SAP arranged this 8 episode line up for Analyst Cam. 

I saw new thinking around ecosystems. They are increasingly fragmented across ISV partners, SIs, resellers, App stores and developer networks. Tyler Prince  at Salesforce provided a perspective on the additional payback when you leverage cross-currents across all of them. Differently, I have been impressed with how Workday Ventures has ramped up investment in startups and beyond funding, opening up access to Workday customers. Watch Barbry McGann present on their philosophy.

Much of the media attention has gone to a tech vendor exodus from Silicon Valley. In reality, every vendor had to face up to office location challenges as we moved to hybrid work models. I was impressed with two conversations – one with Monty Hamilton of Rural Sourcing and Raju Vegesna of Zoho - both have been favoring secondary and tertiary towns and encouraging “rural revival”

More examples coming as I recap more from the over 100 episodes of Burning Platform and Analyst Cam during 2021. And I expect a torrential flow of changes coming in 2022.

It's not your Dad's software industry. 

Burning Platform Series on hot enterprise topics

Update - after Brian and I did the first 12 episodes, I have been inviting other market observers and practitioners to the series.

Brian Sommer and I go back nearly 30 years. We look at issues from very different perspectives but have a healthy respect for our differences. We have been called the "Penn and Teller" of Enterprise Technology because we tend to be both educational and entertaining about trends in software, outsourcing and many other issues that affect C level execs in enterprises.

We collaborate on a number of advisory projects and talk on a regular basis. During the COVID-19 pandemic, our conversations have moved to Zoom. We thought it would be fun to share some of our on-going conversations about enterprise technology. 

Notice on the cover of each episode how cool the man is, even in the face of the raging fire. That is a good metaphor for how we approach enterprise problems. We will share these on a regular basis, minus much of the snark, family talk and politics that creeps into our conversations. We expect to average 1-2 a week. It is a roughly 10-20 minute format. Below are links to each episode. 

Look forward to your feedback, and the opportunity to help you through complex enterprise issues. And do so with much needed humor in these crazy times!

1. Eulogy for On-Premise Apps 
2. Bumper Quarter 
3. School buses or RVs 
4. The WTF about WFH 
5. Analytics, new management science
6. The Post-Pandemic world of the CFO
7. The Post-Pandemic world of the CHRO
8. The Post-Pandemic world of the CIO
9. Software - Feast or Famine
10. Why does my software not have its own passport?
11. COVID morphing of digital transformations
12. Career advice for new tech world
13. Wall Street and Enterprise Software with guest Rob Kugel
14. Mediocre, Myopic or Merry? with guest Josh Greenbaum
15. Project Management in the age of COVID with guest Bonnie Tinder of Raven Intel
16. A Curmudgeon Christmas Greeting Card with guests Frank Scavo of Avasant and Dennis Howlett of Diginomica
17. Diversity Trends in Tech with guest Cindy Jutras of Mint Jutras
18. Services and other Industry solutions with guest Dave Hofferberth of SPI Research
19. Architectural Trends in Enterprise Software with guest Holger Mueller of Constellation Research 
20. Digital Acceleration with guest Tamas Hevizi of Automation Anywhere
21. Supply chain resilience and renewal with Bob Ferrari of Supply Chain Matters
22. Pandemic and Tech AR/PR with Sabrina Horn of Horn Strategy Consulting
23. A Christmas Carol with Sandy Lo of Zoho
24. Cloud Wars! with Bob Evans of Evans Strategic Communications
25. SAP Projects in Asia Pac with Paul Coetser of Big Blue Ventures
26. Business Continuity with Mark Smith of Ventana Research 
27. A review of RISE with SAP with Dennis Howlett of Diginomica
28. Exciting world of Citizen IT with Amit Zavery of Google Cloud
29. More on RISE with SAP with Geoff Scott of ASUG
30. Evolving expectations of CX with Mark Taylor of Cognizant Digital Experience
31. Developers, developers...with James Governor of Redmonk
32. Modern Decisioning with Bret Greenstein of Cognizant
33. Global Grand Challenges with Jyoti Banerjee of North Star Transition
34. Startup Communities with Brad Feld of Foundry Group and Ian Hathaway of Techstars
35. Entrepreneurial Trends with Brad Feld of Foundry Group and Ian Hathaway of Techstars
36. Relentless Amazon with Simon Gaster, author Behemoth, Amazon Rising
37. Amazon, automation and society with Simon Gaster, author Behemoth, Amazon Rising
38. Digital Nomads with Mark Brooks of Courtland Brooks
39. 25 years of "As a service" with Phil Wainewright of Diginomica and Jeff Kaplan of THINKstrategies
40. The future of "As a service" with Phil Wainewright of Diginomica and Jeff Kaplan of THINKstrategies
41. More work from Anywhere with Tammie Hilend of Maxar Technologies
42. Work anywhere: Tertiary Towns and Rural Revival with Raju Vegesna of Zoho Software
43. Industry Clouds with Jujhar Singh of Salesforce
44. Workday Nation with Webb Armentrout of Workday
45. Data-infused apps with Pete Schlampp of Workday
46. More work anywhere with Monty Hamilton of Rural Sourcing
47. The end of ERP? with Patricia Harris of Workday
48. Not your grandpa's service economy with Peter Bendor-Samuel of Everest Group
49. Leading with authenticity with Sabrina Horn of Horn Strategy
50. Ecosystems Galore with Tyler Prince of Salesforce
51. Labor Shortages, Mindsets and other Talent Trends with Fred Goff of Jobcase
52. Customer Service as Competitive Advantage with Sarah Nicastro of IFS
53. AI in the Enterprise with Roy Altman of Peopleserv
54. Servitization Trends - Part 1 with Marne Martin and Mark Brewer of IFS
55. Servitization Trends - Part 2 with Marne Martin and Mark Brewer of IFS
56. Acronyms, Buzzwords and Customer Realities with Jon Reed of Diginomica
57. Flashing Red Lights around Green Policy with Kurt Marko of MarkoVision
58. HR: what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger with Stacey Harris of Sapient Insights
59. Supply Chains: the good, the bad and the ugly with Bob Ferrari of Supply Chain Matters
60. Generational shift in Content creation, distribution and consumption - Part 1 with Paul Greenberg of The 56 Group
61. Generational shift in Content creation, distribution and consumption - Part 2 with Paul Greenberg of The 56 Group
62. Curmudgeon Christmas - Part 1 with Dennis Howlett
63. Curmudgeon Christmas - Part 2 with Dennis Howlett
64. Innovations and Verticals Trends in ERP for SMEs with Rainer Zinow of SAP and Jory Lamb of VistaVu solutions
65. Analyzing the Analysts with Duncan Chapple of Analyst Observatory, U of Edinburgh
66. Christmas Musical Card with Bonnie Tinder of Raven Intel

 

AppExchange turns 10

“Ten years ago, Salesforce had a vision that customers and developers could package and sell apps on top of the Salesforce platform. The vision was huge — and the task immense. And what’s emerged 10 years later is a first-of-its-kind marketplace geared to help companies find everything they need to run their businesses in the cloud. A marketplace of apps that helps companies focus on their customers so they can grow faster and be successful. Today, 85% of Fortune 100 companies are using at least once AppExchange app to connect with their customers in entirely new ways.”

Photo Credit: Salesforce

Infor Innovation Summit: Celebrating Diversity

Infor hosted its annual innovation summit at its HQ in New York, and while there were plenty of Powerpoint slides across the day and a half (and I will post my thoughts on Deal Architect) that accented Infor’s wide portfolio of industry solutions and customers, I allowed my mind to drift every so often and enjoy the diverse aesthetics of the event

Celebration of Design and Color

It helps to have a captive design agency, and it shows in the stunning interior of the HQ as I have blogged here before. SL Green Realty Corp is making significant improvements to the outside -  to restore the façade of the historic building and to build a bocce court on the rooftop.

The breakfast bar the in-house chef served led me to text my wife photos – she would have devoured the fruit selection. I took time to enjoy the burst of colors.

Celebration of Music

From the antique cello in the executive area and the breakout sessions in the huddle rooms named after music greats, to the jazz music (with pianist Eric Lewis) the guests enjoyed over dessert and coffee at the Southgate at the Marriott Essex House, music always seemed to be in the air

Celebration of People

Charles Phillips (CEO), Duncan Angove (co-President), Pam Murphy (COO) and Riaz Raihan (Chief Solutions Officer) were a small subset of the execs who presented and their early education at USAF Academy, U. of London (UK), U of Cork (Ireland) and S.P. Jain (Mumbai, India) reflects the diversity of talent Charles has pulled together.

Ziad Neimeldeen, Chief Scientist shared a slide on the types of skills at Infor's Dynamic Science Labs near MIT in Cambridge, MA. 

I was impressed at the wide range of analysts, bloggers and journalists Infor invited to the event - below is a quarter of the list on the stunning two story digital display that dominates the lobby.

Thanks to the analyst relations team at Infor for a thoughtful agenda that allowed us to enjoy a feast for many of our senses. 

Not your Dad’s ERP skillsets

I have written a longer blog post about Inforum last week here. But in the days since, I have been thinking about the skillsets Dr. Ziad Nejmeldeen, Chief Scientist at Infor, talked about at the Dynamic Science Lab he leads with several MIT alum. The graph below describes some of the science they bring in their backgrounds.

Infor's captive design agency, Hook + Loop on the other hand now has over a hundred “creative” staff with credentials such as Pulitzer Prize winner for Infographics, Digital Effects Editor of the movie The Avenger and fashion designer for Kenneth Cole.

Charles Phillips CEO, spent a significant portion of his talk on Amazon Web Services, the “super computer” they leverage for scaling cloud computing. Another different set of infrastructure skills.

It’s a long way from the engineering, sales and support staff that most ERP vendors have traditionally recruited.

It truly is a very different world.

Making enterprise software much more intuitive

The holy grail in enterprise software is to make functionality as intuitive as that a new user finds when they go to a site like Amazon. There is no help desk, no consultant to help you navigate that site.

We are still a long ways from that but a couple of weeks ago, SYSPRO showed me a series of short, online tutorials which get us closer to that reality. Here is one on a feature in the upcoming version 7 – starts around 0.27 and lasts only 2 minutes.

The CERN asset management challenge

I have written before about the massive Hadron Collider at CERN and more recently about the Higgs Particle excitement there.  So, when my friends at Infor told me their Asset Management software helps with that complex, I had all kinds of questions.

Works Management describes the scope of the challenge below. Complex is the appropriate word.

“With more than one million pieces of equipment to manage, in addition to its internal personnel, CERN uses about 50 external service providers, with a range of service agreements, including fixed-fee contracts, performance-based contracts, task and component based agreements etc. Hence, says Martel, the requirement for a flexible management system, so that every equipment item and maintenance task can be traced – so helping to anticipate malfunctions and maintain uptime for CERN's scientific research programmes.

Today, a large part of CERN's infrastructure maintenance activities, such as caretaking, roads, heating and cooling, security etc, as well as part of its scientific instrumentation activity, are managed using Infor10 EAM, he says. The system generates more than 180,000 work orders per year, schedules preventative maintenance tasks, provides stock control functionality and organises maintenance and inspection programmes.
For the scientific instruments, a manufacturing control system has also been set up. With about 200,000 in-scope equipment items identified, Infor10 EAM has become the heart of this system. “

Photo Credit: Boston.com

SAP in the YouTube era

Not quite an elevator pitch, but an attempt to explain all of SAP in less than 10 minutes (wow) by Sanjay Poonen, President Global Solutions and Go-to-Market, SAP. It is inspired as he says by the videos that the Khan Academy has pioneered. The Academy has a library of over 2,400 videos covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history.

 

 

"Digital Body Language"

"Digital body language is an art and science that revolves around detecting and understanding prospective buyers' signals and intentions to better communicate with them. The transition that began a decade ago with the arrival of the Internet and its many new sources of information, will require a significant rethinking on the part of marketers, sales professionals, and the organizations they serve."

Steve Woods of eloqua summarizing themese from his recent book on sandhill.com

If I was 25 again...

...I would join a SAP customer and lobby to become part of the SAP Imagineering Fellowship program. SAP experimented with the program last year with Colgate-Palmolive and is in the process of expanding to a handful of newer customers. 

I say that after I spent another hour with Denis Browne heads that group for SAP. I had lunch with him a few weeks before. This time we appropriately in a "virtual meeting" (using Adobe's Connect) and he gave me a 50,000 foot view on some of the projects his group is working on:

• Widgets which allow for much more graphical presentation of enterprise CRM and other data
• Presentation of external RSS and other feeds alongside internal enterprise data
• "Mirror worlds" which link virtual and physical models via SAP's configurator and other functionality
• Enterprise Knowledge Networking - "Facebook" in a corporate setting
• "The Business Internet" - leveraging RFID and other sensors in the enterprise 
•  A crowd-sourced "Idea marketplace" to allow for prioritization of ideas for the Group

As Dan Farber wrote last year, none of this is really that revolutionary and I have been impatient with SAP's rate of innovation - but as Denis likes to frequently point out, SAP is the custodian in which thousands of customers put faith, so any innovation has to be filtered with that caution. Which brings us back to the Fellowship program. One way to make customers more comfortable is to have them second employees.

Denis invited me to come to his his lab at Palo Alto for a hands-on visit . When I go, I will try and sneak around to see if they have "Back to the Future" technology there which can turn my age back to 25:)