diginomica

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. 

How is Accuride managing in the wake of COVID-19? Find out in this podcast.

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

Our personal take on the show

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