ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Resilient Supply Chains and AI to Manage Costs

Posted by Robert Kugel on 23 May 2024

Rebalancing supply chains to improve resiliency has been a focus of enterprises with even moderately complex and long supply chains for the past four years. One aspect of this rebalancing is that it almost always involves higher costs. Volume discounts and bargaining power are reduced when more suppliers are used, or an alternate supplier may have higher factor costs and therefore must charge... Read More

Topics: Continuous Planning, Business Planning, Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Continuous Supply Chain & ERP

Data Observability Improves Trust in Data for Decision-Making

Posted by Matt Aslett on 22 May 2024

I recently wrote about the development, testing and deployment of data pipelines as a fundamental accelerator of data-driven strategies as well as the importance of data orchestration to accelerate analytics and artificial intelligence. As I explained in the recent Data Observability Buyers Guide, data observability software is also a critical aspect of data-driven decision-making. Data... Read More

Topics: Analytics, data operations, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning

The Decomplexification of IT: Simplifying Enterprise Technology

Posted by Jeff Orr on 21 May 2024

The technology landscape for enterprise IT faces a daunting challenge: complexity. As systems grow more intricate, organizations must actively seek ways to simplify the technology stack. This process, known as decomplexification, is crucial for enhancing efficiency, security and collaboration within an enterprise. Decomplexification—a term that encapsulates the act of simplifying—has become a... Read More

Topics: Cloud Computing, IT Service Management, Digital Technology, DevOps and Platforms

Oracle Demonstrates Embedded AI for Productivity Gains

Posted by Robert Kugel on 21 May 2024

Oracle held an industry analyst summit recently where the focus was on artificial intelligence (AI) and embedded AI. At the event, Oracle demonstrated progress in adding useful AI-enabled capabilities to its business applications, especially in finance and accounting, supply chain, HR and revenue management. To put this into context, across the software industry, AI is already at work in many... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Analytics, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, AI and Machine Learning, Order-to-Cash

The Path to Equitable Compensation

Posted by Matthew Brown on 16 May 2024

Today’s workforce places a high expectation on an enterprise’s commitment to fostering a fair and inclusive workplace. Numerous advances have been made in technology and employment regulations in the past few years, elevating the need and urgency for equitable and transparent operations relative to employee compensation. Technology plays a critical role in unlocking an enterprise’s ability to... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience

Automation Addresses VAT Tax Challenges

Posted by Robert Kugel on 16 May 2024

Value-added tax is a consumption tax levied at every point in a supply chain—from production to final sale. It’s based on the difference between the cost of production and the selling price of a product or service, or the value added. Sales taxes are different in that they are generally collected only at the final point of sale to the ultimate consumer. Enterprises collect the value-added tax... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Tax, tax compliance, VAT, Order-to-Cash, Value-Added Tax, Sales Tax

Dremio Enables Self-Service Analytics for the Data Lakehouse

Posted by Matt Aslett on 15 May 2024

I previously wrote about the potential for rapid adoption of the data lakehouse concept as enterprises combined the benefits of data lakes based on low-cost cloud object storage with the structured data processing functionality normally associated with data warehousing. By layering support for table formats, metadata management and transactional updates and deletes as well as query engine and... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Analytics and Data

AI Can Boost CX Outcomes in Field Service

Posted by Keith Dawson on 14 May 2024

Field service operations are not often discussed as part of enterprise customer experience planning, but there is a strong argument that they should be seen as an important factor driving how customers perceive brands. Like contact centers, field service teams are dealing with the advance of startling new technologies that can be expensive and disruptive. The flip side of disruption, though, is... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center

The CFO AI Trilemma: Cut Costs, Accomplish More or Both

Posted by Robert Kugel on 13 May 2024

We’re quickly approaching the moment when it becomes clear that artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) will not be free. As that happens, we will discover who’s willing to pay how much and for what. After nearly 18 months of unlimited use-case fantasizing, it should be obvious that not all the potential applications of AI can be realized over the next three to five years because... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Analytics, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Order-to-Cash

Google Expands AI Capabilities at Cloud Next ’24

Posted by David Menninger on 09 May 2024

The artificial intelligence (AI) market is exploding with activity, which is part of the reason we recently announced that we have dedicated an entire practice at Ventana Research to the topic. Large language models (LLMs) and generative AI (GenAI) have taken the AI world by storm. In fact, we assert that through 2026, one-half of all AI investments will be based on generative rather than... Read More

Topics: AI, natural language processing, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning

Digitizing Tax Provision to Streamline the Close, Reduce Risk

Posted by Robert Kugel on 09 May 2024

The tax provision process is an essential part of the close process and a core responsibility of tax departments. This process estimates the amount of income tax an enterprise will have to pay tax authorities in the jurisdictions in which it operates. Tax accountants derive the number by adjusting the reported net income with a variety of permanent differences, such as expenses that are not... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Wiiisdom Improves Trust in Data With Analytics Testing and Governance

Posted by Matt Aslett on 08 May 2024

Many organizations have adopted DataOps to apply agile development, DevOps and lean manufacturing processes to the development, testing, deployment and orchestration of data integration and processing pipelines. The most likely ultimate outcome of these pipelines is the analytics reports and dashboards enterprises rely on to make business decisions. However, as my colleague David Menninger... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Analytics and Data

AI Increases the Value of Order-to-Cash Automation

Posted by Robert Kugel on 07 May 2024

If you search “for want of a nail” on your browser, you’ll discover the age-old wisdom that seemingly trivial things can have a far-reaching impact. It’s a parable for artificial intelligence used in business. Deconstruct the imagined big-picture impact of AI and there are thousands of minor tasks that soon will require little or no human involvement in the interstices of an end-to-end process.... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Order-to-Cash

The Buyers Guides for Digital Comms Classifies and Rates Software Providers

Posted by Mark Smith on 03 May 2024

I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Buyers Guide, an assessment of how well software providers’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Digital Communications Ventana Research Buyers Guide is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research. The necessity of enterprise communications internally and to external constituents like customers, partners... Read More

Topics: Digital Communications

Making Purchasing Departments AI-Ready

Posted by Robert Kugel on 01 May 2024

There have been a multitude of potential use cases for artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) dreamed up over the past 18 months. ISG-Ventana Research describes AI as the development of systems and software capable of automating tasks that have previously required human intelligence. It encompasses machine learning (ML), deep learning and GenAI to deliver capabilities including... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance

AI and Learning: A Tech Evolution

Posted by Matthew Brown on 01 May 2024

It has been a predominant buzzword for several years across all areas of human resources (HR), but artificial intelligence (AI) and learning and development (L&D) are finally beginning to integrate at scale, and it is one of the most transformative evolutions for the function of learning and development in the last 15 years. For a few years, we have been learning more about how AI will impact our... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, employee experience