Busting the omnichannel - enterprise hacks and chats

Bring your snarkiest snark, enterprise wit, and burning questions for one more enterprise month in review for 2023. Join Jon Reed, Brian "Brain" Sommer and special guest Meg Bear for our picks of enterprise highs and lows. Note: if you believe in the mission of this show: free/uncensored independent enterprise content with no commercial model, then consider giving me a good rating and review. It's...

Sometimes, discussions go off the rails - in the best way possible. Earlier this fall, independent analyst Josh Greenbaum and ASUG CEO Geoff Scott joined Jon Reed to try to make sense of shift's in SAP's innovation/AI strategy - and the messaging around it. In this in-depth return, things get a bit heated.  We start off with a catch up from the last talk - and what we learned from events such as A...

On the last day of the first ASUG Tech Connect in New Orleans, Jon sat down with Josh Greenbaum to make sense of what just happened. What was on the agenda of the SAP tech leaders present? Was the show a success? If so - why? How did the interest in AI compare to the interest in S/4HANA? We discuss our own session with customers, what we learned in our pursuits - including Greenbaum's six week SAP...

Join Jon Reed and Brian "Brain" Sommer for this special fall event review, featuring guest star Laurie McCabe from the SMB Group. As usual, your snarky comments and smart ideas are expected. We'll pick the most notable content of the month, and try to make sense of a hype-laden AI event season. Note: if you like uncensored, unsponsored enterprise content like this, help me surface it with a good r...

"We need a language on what's going wrong with work" - fantastic lead quote from my guest on Friday the 18, Melissa Swift. Bring your sharpest commentary on the problems of work, and what better work futures look like, with and without AI. Swift, the author of "Work Here Now: Think Like a Human and Build a Powerhouse Workplace," will count down the top reasons why work is broken, and skewer a few...

On the final day of SuccessConnect 2023, Jon sat down with Luke Marson for a wide ranging discussion on what he learned from his customer discussions at SuccessConnect, and how that matches up with what he heard from the keynote stage. Luke shares the questions about onboarding that were one big theme in his customer talks. He also details what the most successful SuccessFactors projects looks lik...

Jon reignites his old school SuccessConnect podcast troublemaker series with SuccessFactors community leader and partner Chris Paine. Chris wrote a post prior to SuccessConnect about his predictions and expectations - did the show deliver? What did he learn as of the end of day one? The guys also get into the AI topic, reviewing how SAP can succeed in AI, what customers think, and how AI might imp...

On diginomica, I've been pushing back on the generative AI hype machine with vigor, but also digging into its enterprise possibilities. Who better for an enterprise AI gut check than Vijay Vijayasankar? Vijayasankar has a deep interest/passion for AI but also has a reputation for debunking its misconceptions. In his role at IBM managing financial services clients, he can also speak to project real...

In this spontaneous podcast review on the final afternoon of Oracle CloudWorld 2023, Jon Reed and Brian Sommer compare what they learned, culminating in Sommer's quip, "You may have to partner with your enemy, because that's what your customer wants." Customers definitely want more vendor options in their strategic mix - did CloudWorld support that premise? Is Oracle's generative AI messaging diff...

On July 20, 2023, during SAP's Q2 earnings call , SAP CEO Christian Klein made bold statements regarding the future of SAP innovation - in particular RISE, AI, and why SAP's close relationship with customers, including opt-in customer data, give SAP an AI advantage (and premium AI pricing). It is our view that these statements constitute a notable change/evolution in innovation strategy that warra...

Okay, bring your popcorn and saltiest commentary - it's the debut of the enterprise month in review with Brian Sommer and yours truly. In this edition, we are joined by Hyoun Park of Amalgam Research to discuss his important post on Zoom's terms of service issues, and the implications for customers considering AI moves in the enterprise. In each edition of this show, we'll each pick our top storie...

Companies are whiffing on ESG - but why? Regulatory requirements bring added pressure, but the incentive to change goes well beyond that - as a new wave of ESG vendors demonstrate. This is now well beyond reporting. It's tracking/managing ESG in real-time across supply chains. Join Brian Sommer for his ESG research preview/reveal session - and bring your best/toughest questions. Bonus: for the fin...

Returning champ Maureen Blandford is back, but much has changed. Now she's a founder of Serendipitus - and she's got some tough love talk (and data insights) into why digital transformations fail. Join our interactive, no filter discussion as Maureen takes us through the top digital transformation botches, and what we're gonna do about it. No buzzword (or tech event) is safe, as life as a female f...

Enterprise video can be effective - or a true yawner. Join special guest Brent Leary as we discuss the highs and lows of enterprise video, and the secrets of his portable video gear and Playaz Production Network adventures with Paul Greenberg. We're also going to hash out the AI for video editing use case, share recent experiments - and the best options out there. As always bring your questions an...

Enterprise spring events were a generative AI carnival - but did we learn anything customers can use now? Forget keynote reviews - what did customers learn that can actually help them compete in a spank tunnel economy? Let's have an informal rehash shall we? There was enough generative AI hype to create a circus, but did we actually learn anything customers can use? Let's hash this out. Jon also h...

We're back, and about to go live - What is MACH-washing? Why is it worse than cloud-washing? No one better than Phil Wainwright to discuss, fresh off a deep dive into headless architectures and the MACH Alliance show. We discuss the hype around the micrservices enterprises, including Amazon's recent decision to retreat from microservices for a Prime Video use case. As part one ends, Brian Sommer c...

Brian Sommer crashes the show to exhibit his wardrobe versatility and a fresh tie. We dive back into microsservices, this time from an ESG data perspective. Then the audience moves us into a debate/discussion on generative AI for the enterprise. We discuss viable use cases, as well as the limits and shortfalls. Jon shares what he learned when pressing vendors on issues like 1:1 personalization wit...

To make sense of the barrage of news stories, keynotes and meetings, Jon gets Josh Greenbaum in the podcast chair. Josh hit on a few key storylines he was pursuing at the show: the state of SAP Business Networks, partner ecosystem issues, and whether SAP's sustainability push has progressed. The guys also talk about their discussion with ASUG members at the ASUG Executive Exchange program on the M...

I haven't caught up with Brian Dennett in a few years. After honing his tech chops in AI startups, Dennett is back in SAP land as an SAP Mentor. I was pleased to learn, during our conversation, he is keeping the tradition of the outspoken/critical/a little grouchy SAP Mentor alive. Dennett has strong views on the SAP Datasphere news, SAP's cloud business model transition challenges, and the future...

In this online podcast taping, Jon talks with Tim Rodman, creator of the first independent Acumatica cloud ERP user group, AUGforums.com. We talk about the importance of community and user group voices in the enterprise, and Tim shares what he's learned over the years by starting his own independent user group. He also shares how he has produced so much Acumatica-related content, and how he sustai...

Time to hash out what HR tech is getting right - and where it's falling short. Join us for an interactive discussion and research reveal. Bonnie Duncan Tinder, Stacey Harris and Brian Sommer will surely bring their A game, so bring your smartest questions. We'll also blow off steam via the most hated buzzwords in HR tech. You can bet ChatGPT is going to come up. Before we wrap, we'll have advice f...

In this on-site podcast from Acumatica Summit 2023, Jon Reed talks with Joni Girardi of DataSelf . ERP as a data platform? Extracting more value out of ERP was a big topic at the show. Acumatica customers - like all ERP customers - are looking to get more out of their ERP investment with analytics, planning, and improved reporting. Girardi has spent 20 years on this topic - he shares the pitfalls...

Jon didn't think SAP TechEd put enough emphasis on DevOps and AIOps, so he set about to correct that, via a roundtable with John  Appleby and Brenton O'Callahan of Avantra, and Martin Fischer of Neptune Software (Fischer is also the lead for DSAG's DevOps interest group). But is DevOps even relevant in an ERP context? And what about AIOps? How do we move beyond dashboards and observability? What d...

Jon is back on the CRMKonvos show to make his case for why hybrid events matter - and to issue a scorching grade to vendors (and yet, the grade is an improvement over the spring). The CRMKonvos gang, Thomas Wieberneit, Ralf Korb and Marshall Lager once again keep the hot seat hot, but making sure that Jon is forced to comment on how the metaverse might play a role in hybrid events (the metaverse i...

In this special appearance, Jon joins the CRMKonvos gang in the hot seat, to help sort industry cloud BS from reality. Industry clouds matter - but customers should evaluate carefully. What are the true criteria? Jon shares his views, while the smart CRMKonvos gang of Thomas Wieberneit, Ralf Korb and Marshall Lager keep the hot seat hot. This replay is issued with the express permission of the CRM...