The Big Themes: How silos impede product innovation: Ray describes "a chasm" that has traditionally existed between product teams and their counterparts working in sales and marketing. Given that every person in those departments has a hand in bringing a product to market, closing that gap is necessary to make better products, and make them faster. Industry-specific solutions are the future: Customers' expectations are higher than ever before, and they expect their vendors to understand their sp...
Apr 05, 2022•30 min•Ep. 293
The Big Themes: How Ulta grew 40% amid Covid-19 disruptions: Omar talks about the company's innovation department and the remarkable 4-week turnaround it achieved for introducing curbside pickup at all physical locations. Merging the physical and digital: Ulta aims to dazzle customers with a seamless experience, no matter where they're shopping. Omar describes what that would look like from the customer's perspective and what Ulta's doing in terms of increasing personalization. The power of data...
Mar 31, 2022•23 min•Ep. 289
The Big Themes: An update on the sale of Thomas to Xometry: Tony describes how the two companies are fitting together and creating a new kind of on-demand manufacturing marketplace. What's the true ROI of technology these days? Following the acquisition, Tony's been on a bit of a listening tour, having lots of conversations with other business leaders, and a theme that's emerged is uncertainty around the real impact that new technology can have on a business. Tony has some important ideas about ...
Mar 30, 2022•31 min•Ep. 292
The Big Themes: Data-first modernization: the return of the Chief Data Officer in many organizations goes hand-in-hand with an increasing effort to streamline data landscapes and eliminate technical debt. Opportunity at the edge: compute power at the edge has strengthened, allowing companies to push real-time analytics out of the edge with a relatively small footprint and transforming how businesses think about it. Industrialized data supply chains: like at a car plant, Matt says that end-to-end...
Mar 29, 2022•24 min•Ep. 291
The Big Themes: Modernizing without compromise: every customer is going to have vastly different needs and different use cases, but HPE is adamant about meeting the specific requirements of each one. Putting the platform next to the data: giving customers the ability to access their data in its native form helps them avoid running through hoops in terms of compliance, governance, operations, and more. What's next for HPE GreenLake: look for more in the realms of protected infrastructure, data se...
Mar 24, 2022•26 min•Ep. 290
The Big Themes: • President Zelensky of Ukraine's heroic example: Leaders are force multipliers for the people that they lead, and to do that, they have to communicate, compel, and inspire. Zelensky is doing all of those things, while refusing to flee his country in the midst of war. It's inspiring. • The sacrifices of leadership: Being a leader is an exhausting occupation. Because you are constantly having to put other considerations before you yourself. True leaders are always last in line, an...
Mar 23, 2022•33 min•Ep. 289
Watch "Sadin on Digital," a monthly series that explores the fast-changing and high-stakes world of digital business and what approaches CEOs and boards must take to lead their companies successfully into the Digital Age. A series by Cloud Wars Live. The Big Themes: • The new Future CXO and Board channel from Acceleration Economy: Wayne is helping to lead a new content stream, and his tagline is "two minutes of tech talk for top executives." See more here - https://accelerationeconomy.com/future...
Mar 17, 2022•40 min•Ep. 288
The Big Themes: Embracing opportunities created through change: The pandemic obviously disrupted how Sarah and her team collaborated with each other and with other parts of the business. Sarah says that it gave the finance team opportunities to think differently and learn new skills. The new role of a modern finance leader: rather than always responding to events, end-of-quarter requests, emails, etc. Sarah says that she is looking to unearth insights and action items in a proactive way, to help...
Mar 08, 2022•21 min•Ep. 282
The Big Themes: Acceleration as key to digital transformation: Ajay says acceleration is about getting rid of constraints, hurdles, and manual processes within the business. Data democratization is nuanced: before pursuing "democratization," companies must make sure they're generating the proper transactional data, that it's readily available for people to consume, and that there's a shared language. The modern CIO role: it's about so much more than technology. The new CIO has to drive strategic...
Feb 24, 2022•37 min•Ep. 286
The Big Themes: • Oracle runs its end-to-end business on Oracle Cloud, which Doug says enables them to deliver improved experiences to customers and its own employees. • The key outcome of the shift to a services-based business: As a cloud provider, Oracle’s culture has become one where everyone is expected to ask, ‘how can I help?’ • Doug is focused on removing friction points between the customer and achieving business value. For example, today, about 90% of Oracle’s customer contracts are exe...
Feb 23, 2022•35 min•Ep. 287
The Big Themes: The lessons of the pandemic response - Stacy says she and her colleagues discovered that WSU as an institution could be much more nimble and fast-moving than they might have thought before Change management when moving to the cloud - Workday's systems revolutionized the employee experience at WSU, which involved some challenges but mostly major benefits Evolution in the CFO role and in higher ed in general - a need for flexibility and the breaking down of silos are key themes pro...
Feb 09, 2022•35 min•Ep. 284
The Big Themes: • The Web3 breakthrough: basically anything that is built on the blockchain is considered Web3, and Chris believes that it represents a bit of a return to idealism in tech. • Data is under hyped: it might sound crazy, but Chris says that the vast potential of data is still expanding and being discovered. • Native Digitals vs. Native Analogs: the fact that people under 35 grew up with technology represents perhaps the largest change in the definition of what it means to be human, ...
Feb 02, 2022•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 283
The Big Themes: • What is talent intelligence? The application of data relating to people, skills, jobs, functions, competitors, geographies, to drive business decisions. • What are the core data sets used for TI? The bread and butter data sets are demand, supply, and cost. • Beyond the job title: TI can be used to source candidates based on skillsets that a company is looking for, not just specific titles. The Big Quote: "If you ask any CEO, what's their biggest asset? It's their people. What's...
Jan 31, 2022•29 min•Ep. 279
The Big Themes: CFOs looking beyond financial data - interconnected parts of the business like HR are equally important to understanding performance Data access is a game-changer for quick decision-making - the disruptions caused by Covid-19 forced WestMed to make huge calls about the business without delay Taking your time when setting up cloud-based systems - Anthony explains why he was so hands-on and methodical when implementing Workday systems The Big Quote: "Workday was really the first bi...
Jan 28, 2022•26 min•Ep. 285
The Big Themes: • Three tenets of data: (1) data volumes keep growing in size and complexity, (2) business leaders are always looking for new ways to extract value from data, and (3) it's all about data security and governance. • John's predictions fall into two buckets: (1) the competitive landscape, and (2) the technology innovation and architecture • Overall, customers are becoming a top priority when it comes to data, both in terms of understanding customers thru data and empowering customer...
Jan 27, 2022•30 min•Ep. 281
The Big Themes: • The power of relationships: The deal between Thomas and Xometry probably wouldn’t have happened without a trusting relationship. • Helping small and medium-sized companies grow: Xometry developed a way for smaller manufacturers to be able to take on bigger projects and grow their businesses. • Digital transformation inevitably leads to business model transformation: For business leaders it's an important time to find ways to look at your business differently. The Big Quotes: • ...
Dec 15, 2021•30 min•Ep. 280
The Big Themes: • Vendors did a great job: But played to type. • Work From Home/Work From Anywhere culture: Omicron delaying return to the office again. Employment market and stock market point at even more. • Workplace culture evolves: The ‘Screen-ish generation’ (Millennials) doesn’t see f2f as the ideal. The ‘Screen Generation’ (GenZ) lives on screens/games/async comm. • Reminiscent of RPA market: Start with workflow, BPM, doc management. Add scripting and interfaces and templates. Voila! Hug...
Dec 14, 2021•34 min•Ep. 278
The Big Themes: • Good scope = good outcome. And the opposite is almost always true! • Massive personnel turnover. Services firms and their clients need to find new ways to minimize disruptions caused by job changes. • A very clear timeline: Those simple sort of project hygiene type of things really make a big difference in the success of the project. • Software vendors have their own issues: Partners and customers are changing rapidly, and those changes are not limited to personnel. The Big Quo...
Dec 08, 2021•25 min•Ep. 274
The Big Themes: • Well-represented by this flag: We hope other countries have organizations that feel that way about their flags. • Someone's putting on space helmet: They're talking about the paradigm shift from big conventional wars and theaters. • A winning mindset: There is a standard of behavior that says we are going to act this way, and we are going to behave within structure within this mindset. • Not about the money: There's lots of job opportunities – and going to go where they can be ...
Dec 07, 2021•36 min•Ep. 272
The Big Themes: • The ability to tailor applications: A top CFO concern is tax management, and must be addressed on an end-to-end basis. • The right foundation: It's been a big change from when we relied on it to give us reports and manage the data model. • Transforming and enriching data: How a single, unified data model can turn operational data into accounting entries posted into the general ledger. • CEOs are demanding cloud-based ERP: An end-to-end solution breaks down silos, accelerates in...
Dec 01, 2021•36 min•Ep. 276
The Big Themes: • It’s important to pick the right horse: In terms of transformation, in terms of collaboration, communication culture, in terms of DevOps and engineering culture, in the spirit of becoming a digital company. • Can do a lift and shift: Choosing a path now with our entire executive team and over 500 people and 3,000 – 4,000 customers. • The model would guide us eventually: To land in a place where we can definitively prove that we continue to deliver value because if we don't they...
Nov 30, 2021•22 min•Ep. 275
The Big Themes: • Every industry has gone through some profound changes: But when you shift online, there are significant challenges in understanding where do you position inventory? • There are breaches all the time: Because almost every cyber breach is like a black swan event. Before the breach, the organization thought it was secure. • Building large scale consumer services: We now want all our clients to be able to stand on our shoulders as we support them on what they're trying to do. • Loo...
Nov 29, 2021•27 min•Ep. 277
The Big Themes: • Now you can put your own paint on it: That's going to be a terrific thing for the clients, the buyers into next year and the year after. • It's a mindset change: Message for the board and for the CEO is to think about whether you're really changing the nature of the business. • The secret sauce for the vertical: We have to work in the wider ecosystem of that industry, whether it's healthcare, retail, manufacturing, or financial services. The Big Quotes: “I've got an article com...
Nov 23, 2021•31 min•Ep. 273
The Big Themes: • Hyper focused on the four markets in regulated industries: Healthcare, telecommunications, financial services and government. • IBM's heritage is in the mid office and the back office: Our mainframe runs the systems of records in the back office. That essentially is the sun in our solar system. • We're an open company that provides choice: As we go through the next transformation of which IBM's been through many in its hundred plus years. • Working within the wisdom of clouds: ...
Nov 22, 2021•21 min•Ep. 271
The Big Themes: Public cloud operating model: Maybe there was more governance requirements, more security. We are seeing now customers becoming more thoughtful. Endless pots of gold: The one big thing on their mind is, “How can I do more with less money.” First-party data, on-premises data: But at the same time having the same self-service model, the speed, the agility, the security, the performance that you need via applications and the access. That technology is a means to an end: It’s really ...
Nov 17, 2021•23 min•Ep. 270
The Big Themes: • The Baby Boomers are retiring: Further accelerating the need to deal with mainframes. • FinTech as an example: Old brick and mortar banks and investment firms have had mainframes for 40 years, but those workhorses can’t handle fast-changing world of digital finance. • You’d better get that project right: We always tell our CIOs, "When you successfully move your mainframe to the cloud, you're going to end up in the CEO's office." Unfortunately, the opposite is also true! The Big...
Nov 16, 2021•24 min•Ep. 269
The Big Themes: • The great resignation is effecting projects: What are some of the key findings or trends about these transformations? What was different in Q3? • What are the biggest reasons projects fail to deliver results? So many companies in the middle of digital transformation. • What are some of the pain points: That's actually a little bit higher than we've seen in the past. • What should customers be prepared for: Our survey results point the way forward for businesses. The Big Quotes:...
Nov 09, 2021•26 min•Ep. 268
The Big Themes: • Facebook is evil: It’s a lot like going to work for Philip Morris 30 years ago. We should continue to invest in solving the world’s problems. • Tesla is undervalued: Tesla is a software company. Tesla is an automaker – and in five years we’ll see who’s right. • An interesting and kind of fun way: How can you make these companies more software companies over the next few years? • The faster we can get there: When we’re taking shots at social media – there’s big problems that nee...
Nov 04, 2021•22 min•Ep. 267
The Big Themes: • We just launched a new channel: Reflecting this global business phenomenon, it’s called the data revolution—and it’s turning the business world upside-down. • Mining for gold: Gathering as much customer data as possible and then using mining algorithms to gain insights and opportunities. • Aggregated, integrated, and transformed: Data transformation is the term that is used rou describes the modern digital recipe for turning to turn raw data into business data. • What can and s...
Oct 28, 2021•38 min•Ep. 266
The Big Themes: • The real story behind the supply chain: There are not enough skilled workers in manufacturing, logistics, distribution, and trucking. • Combination of technology and innovative programs: Like apprenticeships, primary school education programs, and recruiting people from other industries. • Geo-political dynamics: LinkedIn pulling out of China, recent investments by the US government to stimulate American ships manufacturing, and 5G development. • Google is an example of a broad...
Oct 26, 2021•42 min•Ep. 265
