Digital Expert Interviews: VMware's CMO Robin Matlock

In this series we have spoken with a lot of different experts on the impact of digital transformation on enterprises and industries – usually from a  backend IT system perspective. In this episode, however, we dig deep into the impact of digital transformation on marketing with VMware’s Chief Marketing Officer, Robin Matlock.  She shares her insights on how VMware embraces digital transformation, how marketing in general is impacted and how she approaches her job as CMO.  Enjoy!
Kevin Benedict
Senior Vice President Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc.
Website Regalix Inc.
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Next Gen Digital Transformation Shakes Things Up Again!

What if you could closely measure your retail competitor’s in-store sales every day?  What if you could be alerted when competitors were increasing or decreasing production at different factories or ordering more materials?  Would that be valuable?  If it were possible, how would it change your strategies and the way you operated?

Intelligence capabilities that in the past were available only to nation-states are now available to commercial organizations through services provided by companies like Orbital Insight.  They partner with a wide range of satellite and other geospatial data collection companies to aggregate and analyze data, using artificial intelligence and data science to provide near-real-time insights. One of their products monitors over 260,000 retail parking lots from space. They use artificial intelligence to count and measure the number of cars in the lots and analyze time sequences to understand how the number of cars fluctuates over time.  This helps them understand if sales are increasing or decreasing in a particular location.  Isn’t that crazy to think about?  But think about it we should.  This is the next generation of business intelligence.  Put on your James Bond suit or dress, order a drink, and prepare for the next generation of digital transformation.

Satellite imagery can also help monitor fleets of trucks, warehouse activities, crops, plant health, highway traffic, construction projects and activities, oil field operations and oil storage levels, mines, logging, shipping and much more.  It’s important for business leaders to understand what is possible today, and what is being used by other digitally-mature competitors.  Intelligence gathering and analysis methodologies first developed by military and intelligence agencies, such as activity-based analysis and patterns of life analysis, will soon be critical skills for businesses.

All of these capabilities are being productized and/or offered as subscription services.  What makes it possible?  The commercialization of space as a result of massive numbers of new satellites being launched, producing massive volumes of new data, transmitted across incredibly fast wireless networks and then analyzed and interpreted by artificial intelligence.

It is also important to know that satellites support many different types of sensors.  They can include infrared thermal sensors to detect different heat signatures.  They may include hyperspectral sensors to detect different minerals, terrestrial vegetation and man-made materials.  Each new generation of satellite includes new types of sensors capable of collecting new forms of data.

The real insight here is the way combinations of newly-available data sources plus artificial intelligence will make possible new and additional waves of digital transformation.  Digital transformation is most certainly a journey not a destination.

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Kevin Benedict
Senior Vice President Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc.
Website Regalix Inc.
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

IT Leadership Series: SAP's Christine Ashton, Global CDO, Digital Office, Cloud ERP

I have the honor of hosting the CIOWaterCooler.com's IT Leadership Series, and this week I had the privilege of interviewing Christine Ashton, SAP's Global CDO, Digital Office, ERP Cloud.  In this interview, we dig deep into her insights on digital transformation, AI, automation and the economic case for running ERPs in the cloud, plus what it takes to win in a fast changing technology environment.  Enjoy!



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Kevin Benedict
Senior Vice President Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc.
Website Regalix Inc.
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Digitally Transforming the Customer Experience

We have been traveling a lot lately. Why? Here at Regalix, we help large global companies with their customer success and sales enablement initiatives, which include things like digital marketing, knowledge management, customer experiences, sales operations, customer service and support, rewards and loyalty programs, etc., all of which are critical to the business and are today being digitally transformed. While helping businesses transform themselves in these areas we have seen and learned a great deal. Let me share some of the lessons we have learned.

Is Silicon Valley Worth It?

Have you ever wondered why technology start-ups aggregate in Silicon Valley like moths to a flame?  Office space is expensive.  Hiring employees in the valley is costly.  Competition for talent is fierce.  Buying a home is cost prohibitive and traffic is horrible.  Yet start-ups continue to locate here.  What are the attractants?  Let's consider the following:

Traditional consulting practices promote the fact they have decades worth of accumulated business processes, system designs, economic models, methodologies and experiences from years of providing IT and business strategy consulting to large multinational companies. The problem is the large legacy S&P 500 companies are not the models for agility and digital acumen today - think about the trouble GE is in.  Today the average number of years a company can stay in the S&P 500 is predicted to be only 14 years.  Today, agile Silicon Valley companies are the ones commanding the most attention.

Having Silicon Valley DNA today is more important than archives full of historic processes and decades of experience deploying legacy systems.  Silicon Valley is the very epicenter of digital transformation and the companies here think and act differently.  Silicon Valley DNA is a digital mindset, a paradigm, a culture, a perspective and an operational strategy.  It assumes there are competitive advantages to be found in change and innovation - just waiting to be exploited.  It aggressively pursues new business models and innovations based on the belief there is value in learning, whether the experiment is a success or a failure.  It seeks examples of successful proof of concepts across all industries, and then seeks ways to apply those findings to other business problems and situations.

Consulting companies with Silicon Valley DNA are not attracted to projects involving the implementation or deployment of legacy technologies and business models.  They may do them, but only as a means to an end, which is to get more challenging and transformative projects and business. They seek opportunities to help companies advance, in leaps and bounds, rather than in small risk-free iterations.  

Businesses with real Silicon Valley DNA are located in the Silicon Valley.  It means they are surrounded by innovative people both inside and outside the company that are working with and learning about emerging technologies and business and economic models every day.  It means they are collecting and working with new ideas every day - assembling and reassembling them to form new products, services and businesses.  It means they have unleashed their employees’ creativity to integrate and test unique combinations of technologies in search of additional value. 

Being located in the Silicon Valley and having Silicon Valley relationships also benefits new start-ups seeking to fund interesting ideas and new ventures.  In addition, start-up teams benefit from being in close proximity to experienced technology leaders, investors and advisors. 

Consulting companies with Silicon Valley DNA, are made up with people that think differently.  They thrive in an environment and culture that attracts ambitious, competitive and driven innovators and entrepreneurs.  They are not seeking status quo, but rather they are trying to make a positive impact through change.

Where many traditional businesses struggle with change and experience a deep-set institutional and leadership resistance to it, businesses with Silicon Valley DNA recognize change as an opportunity to capture additional competitive advantages and deliver more value.

Businesses with Silicon Valley DNA also look at risk differently.  Where traditional businesses might fear risk and see it as something to avoid, Silicon Valley companies are willing to work with it.  They see risk as a gateway to potential opportunities and competitive advantages that are worth exploring.

Silicon Valley consulting companies often have an abundance of knowledge and experience on how to take an idea from a concept to a new business ventures.  Often within leadership teams they have the accumulated experience of having worked in dozens of different start-ups.  This experience has shaped them into entrepreneurs.  Their natural approach to any project is from a business start-up perspective.  This mindset is missing from many consulting companies that focus primarily on staffing and long-term ERP implementations and deployments.

Another Silicon Valley DNA character trait is a healthy disrespect for how things have been done in the past.  Traditional market rules and behaviors, business model norms, institutional and industry practices are often not respected.  In fact, they are often viewed as mere artificial limitations created by incumbents for the purpose of protecting their own status quo and limiting customer choices and options.  In the Silicon Valley rewards are given most often to those that think out-of-the-box, not to those trying to fit in it.

Silicon Valley consulting companies and entrepreneurs often believe in fuzzy math.  They believe that 2 + 2 does equal 5.  They have witnessed firsthand entrepreneurs networking independent car drivers together with ubiquitous wireless broadband, maps, mobile apps, mobile payments and a demand for transportation into – Uber!  They have experienced the value of collecting concepts, ideas, technologies and best practices from many different industries and combining them into new business models that thrives and add exponential business value!

Businesses with Silicon Valley DNA by their very nature also look beyond technologies.  With an entrepreneurial mind they consider competition, markets, regulatory environments, industry trends and much more.  This is a requirement for start-ups and these considerations are embedded in their approach to consulting.

We have of course generalized in this article.  Not every business with Silicon Valley DNA is geographically located in Silicon Valley, but having this DNA is a huge advantage.  


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Kevin Benedict
Senior Vice President, Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc.
Website Regalix Inc.
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

IT Leaders Series: Nigel Willson, Microsoft's Global Strategist

In this episode of the IT Leader Series, Microsoft's digital expert and guru Nigel Willson and I discuss IT trends, business strategies, emerging technologies and the future.   I learned a great deal and hope you will to.


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Kevin Benedict
Senior Vice President Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc.
Website Regalix Inc.
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Digital Expert Interviews: Oracle's Chatbot, AI and Mobility Expert Suhas Uliyar

I am excited to share an interview I recorded with Oracle’s digital, AI, chatbot and mobility expert Suhas Uliyar. In this interview we discuss the meaning of ambient human interfaces, the technology stack that enables chatbots, the power of interfaces that you don’t have to learn, and we learn that algorithms haven’t change that much in 25 years. I learned a lot and hope you will to! Enjoy!



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Kevin Benedict
Senior Vice President Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc.
Website Regalix Inc.
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Leadership: The Plan for Winning in Digital Transformation

Last year the World Economic Forum labeled 2017 as the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. What value do we gain from defining industrial revolutions? I believe it is to define new sets of rules for winning in business. Let’s review the three previous industrial revolutions.

  • Industrial Revolution #1. We move from reliance on animals, human muscles and biomass to the use of fossil fuels and mechanical power. A caveman/businessman wishing for a competitive advantage might be the first to use mechanical power fueled by fossil fuels to build cave-condos faster and cheaper than other Neanderthals.
  • Industrial Revolution #2. Electricity is harnessed and distributed, both wireless and wired communication is developed, the synthesis of ammonia provides new fertilizers and harvests increase, and new forms of power generation are developed. A farmer wishing for competitive advantages could adopt mobile phones to communicate wirelessly with their workers, use lights around the farm to extend hours of operation, fertilizers could increase their production.
  • Industrial Revolution #3. Digital systems are developed, communication and rapid advances in computing power achieved, which enable new ways of generating, processing and sharing information. A businessman operating a disco and seeking competitive advantages installs a digital cash register for more accurate cash management, buys an Apple Computer with the VisiCalc spreadsheet to better manage the business, and installs a heavy printer to print disco-oriented newsletters and other business documents from the office.
  • Industrial Revolution #4. Billions of humans are connected by mobile devices and networks, surrounded by sensors, wearing wearables, supported by unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, which serves as the springboard for developments in artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing. A business woman seeking a competitive advantage decides to develop and rent out genetically-altered and custom-designed farm animals with embedded GPS sensors to urban dwellers by developing a mobile app connected to the internet where chatbots take your reservation and deliver the beasts in autonomous self-driving trucks pulling cattle trailers.

An Executive's 2018 Checklist for Digital Transformation

“The size of competitors and the longevity of their brands, are less predictive of future success than the importance they give to data, the quality and speed of their information logistics systems, and the operational tempo of their business.” ~Kevin Benedict
More data is being generated today than ever before, and in 2018 leaders should be laser focused on investing in and implementing the following digital systems/solutions:
  • Data collection
  • Big data analytics
  • AI/Machine learning
  • Automation (RPA)
  • Security
  • Real-time contextually relevant personalized experiences
There is a new sense of urgency today as businesses realize data is the blood that runs through the veins of a successful business in this digital era, and that data has a shelf life, and the value of it diminishes rapidly over time.  In an always-connected world where consumers and their needs are transient, timing is everything and a special type of data is needed – real-time data. In order to capture competitive advantages and contextual relevance before data expires, enterprises must deploy optimized information logistics systems (OILS) that deliver on the potential fast enough to exploit it.

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