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September 2015 capioIT Newsletter
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Our 5th Birthday!
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What's News....

Dreamforce, The Future of GIS, Non-Digital Travel and capioIT turns Five

As you may have guessed, September marks the 5th birthday of capioIT. To put this in practical terms, we have outlasted the past four Australian Prime Ministers. Of course we are very proud of this milestone. Anyone in small business knows how difficult it is, and statistics show that the majority doesn’t get to blow five candles out. We want to display our sincere gratitude to everyone that has supported capioIT over the past five years. We cannot wait for the next five. 
 
The 2015 Salesforce customer event Dreamforce was as big and bold as ever, with 170,000 attendees, 1,600 sessions and 400 partners. Despite some odd moments, especially around the surprisingly flat and badly scripted keynotes the energy and innovation was clear.
 
The strongest takeaway for me was the depth of engagement that Salesforce has created with Microsoft. Satya Nadella had a well received keynote where he showed Microsoft to be a platform agnostic software vendor. Alongside Salesforce CEO and founder, Mark Benioff, the depth to which Salesforce is embedded in Microsoft O365, particularly Outlook was made particularly clear. This is a very significant step forward for both vendors, and their customers.


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The real loser out of this is the Microsoft Dynamics platform. Whilst some may disagree, I believe that this was almost sacrificed for the tie-up with Salesforce. Casting aside Dynamics rather than risk the bigger picture around O365 is the strategy I believe has been followed. Of course, there will be some level of co-opetition, but for mine, the big picture is clear Microsoft and Salesforce are happy to be cosy, and may get cosier.  Other highlights included the still developing IOT offerings and analytics capabilities.
I had the “thrill” of using Geographic Information Systems, or GIS as an undergrad student and then as I entered the workforce. As a result it has been close to my heart for a long time. In 2015 it is now a very frustrating and difficult market to get excited about. As I explained in a research note, it has basically stood still for the past 20 years. IT still boasts about trade areas and route optimization.
 
When I published the note, I was overwhelmed by the response; not only is it the most read research note published this year, I was given great public and private feedback on it. There is a lot of passion and frustration in the sector. Google Maps are of course fulfilling a need for some users, but there is been a big push towards open source provision of GIS, particularly for the significant public and not for profit sectors.
 
Regular travellers realise that so many of the steps in travel are much more complicated than they need to be, and usually lack customer experience and digital awareness.
 
The kudos can go to the airline sector of the industry. It has made some substantial gains in industrializing the digital experience for clients, but the hotel and car rental experience leaves one frustrated and wasting precious time.
 
Car rental locations are the last hold out of the dot matrix printer. Whilst a few providers have digital kiosks, they rarely work with International travellers, or have other fatal flaws. Hotels are just as bad.
 
I recently stayed in a hotel in Melbourne Australia that boasted loud and proud about its multi-billion dollar investment in training, food and the “overall experience”. All talk no action. To “Express Checkout” I needed to go to a table fill out a form with a pencil and drop it in a box. Shock, horror when the Crowning outcome (yes, you can guess where I stayed) when there was an error with my bill. If the experience is to be digital, the hotels need to allow for widespread and fuss free mobile check-in and out, keyless entry etc. to enable the experience to be considered digital.
 
This experience is highlighted by capioIT research that will be released shortly. It looks at the digital experience of multiple industries. One of the key outcomes is that Mining, Government, Transportation and Travel, all lack in mobility outcomes for customers. Significant investment is required to ensure that they can lead in the mobility aspects of digital engagement and customer experiences.
 
Finally this month, Google recently restructured to a holding company called Alphabet. If Google needs to restructure to drive innovation and speed to market, where does this leave the real legacy vendors?

As ever, thank you for your support. I look forward to your feedback.

 
Capture Snapshots....

Short insights from September
  • If nothing else, the stark difference in dress sense between EMCWorld and Dreamforce attendees showcases the impact of Business Technology and Shadow IT.
  • The misuse of LinkedIn has been a slow steady but undeniable slope –  with people getting dating requests, it needs to have a major strategic realignment of its purpose or decline rapidly.
  • Saudi Arabia is re-entering the bond market for capital. This is an impact of the strain that lower oil prices are having on their business model. Clearly the difficulty of single issue economies can be to single issue vendors.
  • Whilst the investment by IBM Watson, Salesforce and others in Machine Learning to solve major medical issues such as cancer is inspiring and positive, from an outsiders positioning, if the programs were integrated the chances for an improved and accelerated outcome would be greatly improved. Unfortunately corporate and competitive environments will not allow this to happen, but one can idealise.
  • Big data blending vendor Alteryx is talking about the limitations of the Data Science gun for a while. This aligns with capioIT’s view that the need for a Data Scientist role is a failure for simple technology.
  • I have long admired the work of leadership and management sage, Tom Peters. The pursuit of WOW was the first leadership book I bought over 20 years ago. He has updated a lot of his thinking in his own style. It can be found here, it is definitely worth a look - http://tompeters.com/2015/09/the-leadership-43/
  • Whilst Apple  has reimagined customer experience, the pricing of the latest release of the iPhone clearly indicates that profit is the number one corporate outcome. It does not lose sight of this requirement, and nor should it
  • ANZ signed a $450m contract with IBM that provides access to all IBM software, the Bluemix PaaS offering and developing cloud capabilities. This integrated deal is reflective of what IBM needs to do more of to reinvent itself to corporate clients. 
  • I have said it a lot lately, but along with Estonia, for a small country, New Zealand plays above its weight in terms of innovation and digital investments in both the public and private sector.
  • In the most recent quarterly numbers, HP SaaS revenue was down 4%. This highlights that SaaS is not a path to growth or riches. You need to have great product and great distribution and client engagement.
  • Kodak had the chance to dominate the digital photo market and failed to have the culture to capitalize on it. It looks like there are too many Kodak clones across many sectors, e.g. in legacy retail, education and financial services
  • News from wired came out that hackers can now gain control of electronic skateboards and throw the rider. Clearly, if it sends a signal it can be hacked. That is also why I prefer a pushbike and drive an old car. I hope I am safe from bored teenagers !!!!!
  • I have had the fortune to interview several early adopters of cognitive computing this week. They have a simple attribute, the desire to be a global leader in their field, and the CEO mandate to achieve this. It is not a simple plug and play, but it is the future to fully leverage the data available.

Our Latest....

Accenture Acquires Cloud Sherpas – Cloud Services Provider Consolidation reaches new heights

 

It was no accident timing wise that the first major news of Dreamforce, particularly from a partner point of view, was that Accenture had acquired Cloud Sherpas. Accenture is of course the leading integrated SI in the world. Cloud Sherpas is a 1,100 person strong cloud services integrator focusing on Salesforce, ServiceNow and Google applications. The acquisition will spearhead the announced Accenture Cloud First Applications group.

This is a big deal in the cloud and SaaS services space. When capioIT ranked the leading Salesforce SI’s last year, Accenture was ranked first in terms of capability. Alongside two other cloud specialist SI firms, Bluewolf and Appirio, Cloud Sherpas was ranked in the Top 5 vendors, so Accenture has bought quality. Read More

 

Why is GIS still stuck in the 1990’s


When I was doing my undergraduate degree and started working as a (Geographic Information Systems) GIS professional over 20 years ago GIS was considered cutting edge across a range of industries from retail, to environmental management and defence. It drove so many issues from store location, weed management and mining analysis.

At Lend Lease back in the late 1990’s we were able to differentiate ourselves as leaders in the retail property sector because of the GIS investments and prowess particularly around trade area analysis and competitive modelling. It enabled us to have a point of difference against the larger Westfield group for leasing managers and fund managers alike. Read More
 
 
'Thank you' for all your continued support and for sharing in our 5th birthday

We look forward to working with you over the next five years and beyond
For more information about our services or to discuss your research needs, please contact:

Phil Hassey CEO

+61 (0) 422 231 793
e: info@capioIT.com
t:  PHassey
s. phil.hassey
about.me/phassey

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Copyright © 2015 capioIT, All rights reserved.

NOTE: This is general information only and does not constitute advice nor take into account any individual’s or company’s specific requirements, and should not be relied upon as such. Readers are advised to seek specific advice from capioIT. capioIT makes no representation nor gives any warranty as to the accuracy of future forecasts. To the fullest extent permitted by law, any conditions, warranties or liabilities implied by law into these conditions are hereby excluded.

 
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