The Big Themes: Retail supply chains and OODA loops: Fighter pilots are trained to Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act when engaged in fast-moving environments. Retail business leaders should adopt the OODA approach for supply chain planning. Sustainability is key to supply & demand chains: We should not be looking at sustainability in a vacuum, but rather as integral to the efficient production of goods. Invest in connecting IT and OT: Let's talk less about carbon-neutral data centers and more...
Jun 15, 2022•30 min•Ep. 306
The Big Themes: Differentiate in the market: Reflect on business operations. Make decisive moves and decisions, and act in an agile fashion for the future. Supply chain transparency is essential to stay ahead of the curve: Integrated processes from the quotation down to cash management to facilitate those processes are crucial. Companies need to be able to explain the delay and provide alternative solutions to deliver quality outcomes to customers. Sustainability and getting to a circular econom...
Jun 10, 2022•23 min•Ep. 305
The Big Themes: The Yext promise: Josh describes the platform as a place for "ingesting data, structuring it, and then delivering it as in the form of answers everywhere that it's needed." Keeping public data in sync: Yext customers want to help their consumers easily find information like hours of operation, product availability, and more, wherever they're searching. Yext helps structure that data, then automatically syncs it across various websites. Working across multiple clouds: Part of the ...
Jun 08, 2022•12 min•Ep. 304
The Big Themes: The stats, yet with so little scrutiny: Machine, also referred to as bot-related ad revenue, was $81 billion in 2022 with projections to increase to 100 billion in 2023. Machine or bot accounts inflate financials: If Twitter or Facebook decided to take down all of the fake accounts, they would have to restate their earnings. Dealing with a completely different mindset: Companies and executives realize they will be judged by their ability to harness technology to transform their b...
Jun 01, 2022•33 min•Ep. 303
The Big Themes: Three tips for the precarious present: As the coronavirus continues to evolve and spread, Wayne says that business leaders need to be realistic about people returning to work (or not) and think creatively about how best to move forward. The CXO Lounge at Cloud Wars Expo: Wayne previews this unique feature of next month's conference, a dedicated space for conversations, debates, and jam sessions between and among C-level execs and Acceleration Economy Analysts. Looking beyond a po...
May 25, 2022•32 min•Ep. 301
The Big Themes: Balancing conflicting responsibilities: Christian's first story takes place during an operation by the Marine Corps when he was a young platoon commander. Reflecting and preparing for big life changes: The second lesson Christian learned came to him after he left active duty, and was struggling with the loss of community and camaraderie. Staying vulnerable and open to input: Lastly, Christian recounts a period in his business career when he got himself trapped in tunnel-vision on...
May 24, 2022•41 min•Ep. 300
The Big Themes: ERP as a Service: In the past, business transformations and ERP transformations took years to complete. Today, customers need to get up and running on new platforms much more quickly—so Infosys developed an ERP as a Service offering, a bundle that simplifies and accelerates the process. Industry cloud solutions: Part of how Infosys guides clients through business transformation is through industry-specific "templates" that help customers envision what their new processes will loo...
May 24, 2022•22 min•Ep. 299
The Big Themes: The trap of vanity metrics: certain statistics you hear all the time, like "we have 96% customer satisfaction," are not telling the full story. These metrics are easy to come by and make us feel good, but in the end they do not really help us. Metrics that actually matter: in a digital transformation, the stats that you need are those that tie back to business objectives. This means revenue improvements, cost reductions, and working capital improvements. Trust but verify: Raven I...
May 11, 2022•24 min•Ep. 298
The Big Themes: Massive changes to cloud marketplaces: Amazon and Google Cloud are transforming the ways that companies buy software through their cloud MPs, and DoiT is helping customers respond to those changes Growth requires agility: the standard locked-in discounts of the past aren't working for software companies anymore, so DoiT is taking on the lock-ins with cloud partners and delivering flexible, growth-oriented benefits to ISV customers Trusting customers to know what they need: DoiT’s...
May 10, 2022•27 min•Ep. 297
The Big Themes: The "cradle to grave" approach: Pat and Pam worked together for many years to develop creative, advanced programs for talent acquisition and retention. One of their initiatives was to increase the collaboration between talent acquisition and talent management teams. Planning a culture vs. letting one happen: Companies should be in the driver's seat when it comes to HR and company culture. This requires focused, pointed culture development. Assessments and candidate data: The info...
May 05, 2022•40 min•Ep. 296
The Big Themes: Netflix's disruptive start: Tony had an "inside baseball view" of the early disruptions Netflix made to the entertainment industry in the early 2000s, and he reminds us of just how innovative the company was A myopic focus on customers matters more than ever: when companies start to "over manage the equity markets" and fail to put the customer at the center of everything they do, that's when things go south Let's talk about business growth at Cloud Wars Expo : join us in San Fran...
May 03, 2022•34 min•Ep. 295
Episode 20 The Big Themes: Change management and change agility are often overlooked: Raven Intelligence research shows that customers' most frequent regret after completing digital transformation projects is that they didn't dedicate enough time and resources to change management processes. The Six Es of Operationalizing Change: From a presentation by Josh Bersin, these six steps are absolutely essential to change management, Bonnie says. Change agility: With how fast technology evolves, change...
Apr 06, 2022•23 min•Ep. 294
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
