The Big Themes: An issue of legacy: Related to the concept of "legacy" tech companies, huge companies are often held back by what Christian calls "the mindset legacy," that narrowly defines what the business does and how it does it, with no room for evolution. The importance of culture: Christian says that a company's culture can't just be part of its overall strategy, an intellectual and emotionally agile culture needs to be the core strategy itself. Walking the walk when it comes to people: Th...
Nov 16, 2022•31 min•Ep. 336
The Big Themes: Data modernization: Wayne says that a "modern data strategy" completely changes a company's ability to compete, by helping C-suite executives make better decisions and avoid very expensive mistakes. Wayne's 5 rules of data modernization: Collect more data and do it earlier, clean and validate the data, store it securely but accessibly, make it widely available, and provide employees with powerful analytics capabilities. Oracle CloudWorld 2022: Wayne observes that of the 1,200 ses...
Oct 26, 2022•27 min•Ep. 335
The Big Themes: The Task Force Tribute journey: In September, the group arrived in Washington, D.C., having traveled 8,500 miles in 23 days, with dozens of stops to connect with veterans and family members, including many Gold Star families. TFT is collecting stories for a virtual memorial: Next up for the group is to help create an unprecedented, high-tech virtual memorial composed of the hundreds of stories shared by military members and their families. To contribute a story, please visit the ...
Oct 26, 2022•43 min•Ep. 334
The Big Themes: Employee experience and Skills Academies: The concept of employee experience has been buzzy for many years, but the focus is shifting from perks to career advancement, reskilling, and equitable pay. Tech as an enabler for change, not a leader of change: Transforming businesses, business models, and employee experiences should be driven by process and change management, with tech playing a supporting role. Big fish want to swim in small HR ponds: Leading HR vendors like Oracle, Wo...
Oct 20, 2022•28 min•Ep. 333
The Big Themes: The need for speed: scaling a business is more difficult than ever, because the rapid pace of change across industries requires leaders to make big decisions more quickly than ever before—and still get the decisions right. The primacy of customers: Tony channels Walter White of Breaking Bad, and says that today, customers are "the ones who knock," meaning they're dictating the terms of deals and services to vendors, not the other way around. The upside of friction: Generally, fri...
Oct 18, 2022•24 min•Ep. 332
The Big Themes: Balancing partnerships and full-service: Mike says that Oracle is thrilled to work with partners to fill "last-mile solutions" and regulatory-specific needs, but also that Oracle is looking to fill vertical edge cases with its own solutions. HCM in healthcare shows Oracle's differentiation: The gig economy is impacting hospitals and other care settings, so Oracle is stepping up with a suite of tools including HCM and more to help business leaders in a holistic way. The cloud shif...
Oct 12, 2022•11 min•Ep. 331
The Big Themes: Customer demand for multi-cloud: Oracle has been focused recently on partnerships with Microsoft and Amazon that allow mutual customers to pick and choose the cloud services they get from each vendor, and Jae says that big-name brands are very hot on this idea. Cloud @ Customer offers even more flexibility: For customers in highly regulated industries or that prefer more control and security, Oracle's Cloud @ Customer offering provides all the benefits of a fully managed cloud re...
Oct 06, 2022•13 min•Ep. 330
The Big Themes: Tech's "cancel first" policy: From Amazon to Twitter and beyond, tech platforms seem to be far too quick to remove accounts, content, and products without asking any questions about the rule that's allegedly been broken. Brands are abandoning customer service: Trying to reach a human to discuss a customer question is nearly impossible these days. Christopher points to Southwest as a remarkable exception to this rule, and encourages companies to get humans involved again. The limi...
Oct 05, 2022•55 min•Ep. 329
The Big Themes: The "fourth phase" of Match Group's business: Following the launch of Match.com in the 90's and the breakaway of Tinder in the 2010's, a new phase is coming that's heavily focused on video, AI, augmented reality, language translation, and more. Eliminating manual work and "cycles of death": Trey shares some of the struggles his team had before installing Workday Financials, and the impact that those challenges had on employee morale. Helping the accounting teams demonstrate value...
Oct 04, 2022•18 min•Ep. 328
The Big Themes: Enhancing the developer experience: This is a major focus for Oracle, and many CloudWorld sessions will focus on work that's been done to help developers use Oracle DBs, including Autonomous Database. Oracle Exadata: Along with database and cloud, Juan says that Exadata is one of three core initiatives for the event. Oracle Database 23c release: CloudWorld will feature the very first preview and discussion of Oracle's next major DB release, called 23c. The Big Quote: "We're also ...
Oct 03, 2022•11 min•Ep. 327
Road to Oracle CloudWorld 2022 Oracle Cloud Analytics EVP T.K. Anand The Big Themes: Fusion Analytics showcases what makes Oracle Cloud unique: T.K. argues that Oracle stands out among the competition as the only full-stack enterprise cloud vendor, since Oracle is both a cloud platform and application provider. The next wave of analytics transformation: Following the self-service and the SaaS revolutions in analytics, now the industry is moving exploring AI and machine learning and natural langu...
Sep 29, 2022•11 min•Ep. 326
The Big Themes: Looking beyond the walls of IT: As the CIO and VP of IT, Samantha obviously fills a specialized role at Smith, but she says that her "team" is everyone at the college, and that achieving the IT department's goals requires input from many other departments. Continuous iteration as a North Star: Samantha shares a favorite quote of hers, which comes from the center for teaching and learning on campus but that she applies to IT: "There are many ways to teach well, and all teaching is...
Sep 28, 2022•21 min•Ep. 325
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
