The Big Themes: The biggest enterprise tech M&A in history: The planned $61-billion acquisition of VMWare by Broadcom has implications for Goya Foods, says CIO Suvajit Basu, and many other large global firms, because of VMWare's omnipresence in data centers. The cybersecurity side of the deal: When a company that powers data centers is taken over, questions must be raised about access to the data centers and the data within them. The "risk profile" of VMWare is raised by this acquisition. Th...
Sep 27, 2022•24 min•Ep. 324
The Big Themes: Investing in vertical solutions: Oracle's deep engagement in healthcare through the acquisition of Cerner has provided a strategic framework for how the company will invest and expand into other industries, including with new HCM solutions. New platforms and tools: Chris previews the award-winning employee-experience platform Oracle ME, the evolved Oracle Recruiting Cloud, and new offerings that power upskilling and reskilling demands. CHRO priorities in 2022 and beyond: Based on...
Sep 26, 2022•10 min•Ep. 323
The Big Themes: Cloud technology supercharges startups: New companies must focus on scalability, by bringing on new customers, building new features, hitting new markets, and more. The cloud is a game-changing tool in how it helps CXOs scale up and scale down as needed for certain things. The "aha" moment: Each panelist shared stories about how and when they realized that the idea behind their company had legs and could truly address an unmet need or longstanding challenge for customers. The ben...
Sep 22, 2022•31 min•Ep. 322
The Big Themes: Summit NA: Community Summit North America, the largest independent gathering of the Microsoft business applications ecosystem, is taking place October 10 through 13th in Orlando, Florida, featuring 500+ sessions and 300+ speakers. How to compare cloud vendors: They have different revenue streams, distinct customer bases, and come in a wide range of sizes, but cloud vendors can best be understood in three dimensions, Wayne says: their layers, their origins, and their coverage. Adv...
Sep 21, 2022•44 min•Ep. 321
The Big Themes: "The moment of truth" in retail execution: Wisy is not focused on inventory management issues, but rather on helping brands and retailers optimize the display and pricing of products through AI-powered computer vision analysis and predictive analytics. Reaching a tipping point: Tech solutions that leverage AI for retail execution have existed for a while, but have been overly clunky and thus under-utilized. The Wisy platform, by contrast, is optimized for use by human beings in a...
Sep 20, 2022•19 min•Ep. 320
The Big Themes: Big announcements at recent flagship event in Amsterdam: Toni and Mitch talk about the new "vertical product strategy" SAP Fioneer unveiled at its Financial Services Forum, including three new platforms for banking and insurance customers. Trends in the larger insurance industry: At their recent mega-event, the SAP and SAP Fioneer teams gained a ton of insight into what is top-of-mind for banking and insurance customers in this time of massive change. What's next: With recent tec...
Sep 08, 2022•33 min•Ep. 319
The Big Themes: Speaking the Same Language: Decision-makers accelerate change by embracing industry and vertical cloud with vendors who can understand the transformation of their industries to co-create to grow the business. Buyer Motivations Are Shifting: Vendors need to understand the expectations of today's companies to fulfill promises to ensure they can deliver on the benefits to customers. Features and Function, Not Pricing: Not a new concept. However, decision-makers in the marketplace ar...
Sep 01, 2022•34 min•Ep. 317
The Big Themes: Events evolved: As attendees adapt to hybrid shows, understanding what changed enables people to leverage both in-person and online benefits of industry shows. Get creative, opt for flexibility : Hospitality resources may be short-staffed, travel could be affected, or speakers might not be able to attend in person. Event organizers can help vendors increase visibility by going online, conference speakers into the event, and holding virtual meetings. Do your homework to lay the pr...
Aug 31, 2022•26 min•Ep. 318
The Big Themes: Three priorities for hiring: Pat says that the best hires (1) are able to do the job well, (2) help diversify the organization in terms of background, ethnicity, etc., and (3) are a good fit culturally for the company and the role. Recruiting today is too passive and too focused on ops: To find the right person for the role you need to fill, companies need to embrace active recruitment done by a talent attraction leader. The most successful companies combine recruiting ops with t...
Aug 25, 2022•24 min•Ep. 316
The Big Themes: A new POV on recent Microsoft announcements: Wayne talks us through his understanding of some key points made by CEO Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood on the company's latest earnings call, and how CIOs and CTOs should interpret them. Microsoft's full-stack offering is key competitive advantage: Purportedly lowering costs for customers is part of how MSFT is working to stay ahead of AWS and others, and the gamut of services they offer is essential to their efforts. The win-win-win o...
Aug 24, 2022•39 min•Ep. 315
The Big Themes: Some background on SAP Fioneer: Falk and Mitch explain how the partnership came to be and offer details about how the two organizations work together while maintaining independence. What makes SAP Fioneer unique in the market: by building the backbone for "the end-to-end business process," SAP Fioneer is more than a point solution or even a vendor, it sees itself as a partner to customers. Looking to the future of financial services: Falk and Mitch each share what they expect to ...
Aug 18, 2022•41 min•Ep. 314
The Big Themes: Introducing Task Force Tribute (TFT): Inspired by a group of military veterans in Chicago who walked 13 miles to honor 13 service members who died during the withdrawal from Afghanistan, TFT comprises a small group of people who are traveling 7,054 miles together, to all corners of the country, one mile for every service member lost during the Global War on Terror. Creating a virtual memorial to those we've lost: During the cross-country trip, TFT will be raising awareness around...
Aug 11, 2022•36 min•Ep. 313
The Big Themes: Project success depends on preparation: About half of enterprise software and digital transformation initiatives fail, and Raven Intelligence data points to the fact that many companies simply don't have their ducks in a row before getting started. Inside the Readiness Tool: Bonnie explains that the tool is both free and easy to use. Anyone on the project team can complete it by answering 14 questions about stakeholder support, team leadership and roles, change management, and pl...
Aug 10, 2022•26 min•Ep. 312
The Big Themes: The buyer-seller relationship has changed: Customers are claiming more power than ever before, and Jonathan says that companies need to earn the title of "strategic partner," not just throw it around. Telco is transforming around 5G: While recent years have left many telcos in turmoil, the advent of 5G technology is getting the industry its "mojo" back, according to Jonathan. Banks are moving to the cloud: Recent geopolitical upheaval has raised a ton of questions for the banking...
Aug 09, 2022•18 min•Ep. 302
The Big Themes: The embrace of vertical approaches is bigger than go-to-market: companies are looking to software not just to address functional problems, but to solve business challenges and transform business models Massive internal reorganizations are coming: in addition to new and surprising partnerships like Microsoft and Oracle on multi-cloud, Tony expects both customer and vendors to deeply evolve their structures and operations Merger of supply and demand chains is a key example: Profess...
Aug 03, 2022•30 min•Ep. 310
The Big Themes: What CXOs need to know about hybrid cloud: Wayne walks us through a number different, equally valid hybrid cloud models and explains key security implications when moving to hybrid cloud Look out for "fake cloud" models: CXOs need to be on guard against terms like "virtualization" and "hyper-converged," tactics that might make sense for their company but which are definitely not cloud The pros and cons of becoming a software creator: amid all the talk about co-creation models bet...
Jul 27, 2022•34 min•Ep. 309
The Big Themes: Great software alone isn't enough: For success in a digital transformation project, choosing the right partner to help implement software is just as important as choosing the right software itself. Partner-project fit: The most important factor to consider in picking an implementation partner is project fit, and making sure that the team members assigned to work with you are well versed in the software, in your industry, etc. Why being a "preferred partner" matters: Bonnie estima...
Jul 20, 2022•23 min•Ep. 308
The Big Themes: Innovation inspired by disruption: From early 2020 today, the world looks completely different. Boards of directors and other leaders are responding by interrogating the way they've always done things and looking for new, more agile systems. RISE gives customers a team behind them: One of the biggest things SAP has heard is that customers love that the RISE program makes clear what everyone on the team's responsibilities are, including SAP, its hyperscaler partners, and the custo...
Jun 22, 2022•18 min•Ep. 307
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
