ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Accelerating ZTNA Goals with PAM

Posted by Jeff Orr on 31 July 2025

The shift toward a Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) framework is a strategic move for enterprises aiming for an enhanced security posture. ZTNA operates on the principle of "never trust, always verify," ensuring that every user and device is authenticated and authorized before accessing resources. In this context, Privileged Access Management (PAM) emerges as a critical enabler for an effective... Read More

Topics: Cybersecurity, IT & Technologies, Identity and Access Management, PAM, IAM, ZTNA, Privileged Access, Zero Trust

The Tricky Relationship Between Personalization and Customer Loyalty

Posted by Keith Dawson on 30 July 2025

There is an industry assumption, call it a consensus, that increasing the degree of personalization in customer interactions is beneficial: it improves loyalty, lifetime value, CSAT and other key metrics. Core to this assumption is that it benefits both the customer and the business. Whether or not that’s actually true is somewhat beside the point. The fact is that the industry has identified a... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, NPS, Personalization, Customer Experience Management, Orchestration, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence, Customer Journey, Loyalty, CSAT

Sustainability: Global Complexity Requires Software for Compliance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 30 July 2025

ISG Software Research is expanding our ISG Buyers Guide™ coverage to include the topic of sustainability. Our buyers guide will focus on sustainability exclusively rather than the full spectrum of environmental, social and governance topics. One reason is that gathering, managing, analyzing and reporting environmental data under the various frameworks and statutes presents enterprises with... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Operations & Supply Chain, ERP and Continuous Accounting, supply chain management, digital finance, Sustainability Management, Business & Technologies

Oracle Addresses Agentic AI for Fusion and Beyond

Posted by Matt Aslett on 29 July 2025

ISG Software Research’s expertise examines the software provider landscape through two lenses: business applications (including office of finance, human capital management (HCM) and customer experience) and IT and technology (including digital business, digital technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics and data). Most software providers fall into one of these two high-level expertise... Read More

Topics: Analytics, AI, Data Platforms, IT & Technologies, AI & Technologies, AI and Machine Learning, Cloud Infrastructure

Databricks Data+AI Summit

Posted by David Menninger on 24 July 2025

Databricks recently hosted its Data+AI Summit in San Francisco, an event that attracted 22,000 attendees. That’s a far cry from the Spark Summit I attended in 2016. As pointed out in my coverage of Databricks massive funding round earlier this year, the company was originally founded as a provider of cloud-based Apache Spark services. Since its inception, Spark has been associated with processing... Read More

Topics: Governance, Analytics, AI, Data Platforms, Generative AI, Data Intelligence, AI & Technologies, AI and Machine Learning

Sage Defines its Future in AI for ERP

Posted by Robert Kugel on 24 July 2025

Sage recently held its Future user conference in Atlanta. Our ISG Buyers Guide for Midsize ERP Financial Management (2024) rated Sage Intacct as one of the top three providers, reflecting its strong performance in both product capabilities and customer experience. The event showcased its advances and roadmap aimed at embedding artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI in... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting, digital finance, Procure-to-Pay, Order-to-Cash, Business & Technologies

Why Cybersecurity Maturity is Critical After RSAC 2025 Conference

Posted by Jeff Orr on 23 July 2025

The annual RSAC Conference took place in late April in San Francisco, where over 40,000 professionals from the cybersecurity industry converged at the Moscone Center to discuss the latest trends, products and services aimed at threat identification and organizational security. I last attended the RSAC Conference in 2020, just weeks before the world was instructed to stay home in response to the... Read More

Topics: Cybersecurity, GenAI, IT & Technologies, Agentic AI, EDR, XDR, PAM, SIEM, IAM, Quantum, Threat Intelligence, SOAR, Data Recovery, Data Resilience, ZTNA

Confluent Address Unified Stream and Batch Processing with AI

Posted by Matt Aslett on 22 July 2025

I have been saying for several years that success with streaming data requires enterprises to manage data in motion alongside data at rest, rather than treating streaming as a niche activity. Software providers have also been moving in this direction. Many established data management providers have added the ability to manage, store and process streaming data alongside their existing batch data... Read More

Topics: Governance, AI, Data Platforms, AI & Technologies, AI and Machine Learning, Streaming & Events

Money Talks – Is Compensation Software Speaking the Right Language?

Posted by Matthew Brown on 16 July 2025

Compensation data is everywhere. Internal equity metrics, market benchmarks, performance history, pay transparency requirements—there’s no shortage of data coming in from every direction. But volume does not always guarantee clarity. It is not about the data your system can collect, it is about whether that system—and the people behind it—can turn the data into decisions that actually make sense.... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Total Compensation Management, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies

Shift Happens: How Smart Scheduling and AI Are Reshaping Frontline Work

Posted by Matthew Brown on 08 July 2025

Frontline work is being reshaped from every direction: tighter labor pools, unpredictable demand and a workforce that expects more than just a paycheck. Yet too many organizations are still treating workforce scheduling like a game of Tetris—moving blocks around and hoping they fit. It’s time to admit that smart scheduling isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a frontline imperative. And if the... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Employee Engagement, Workforce Management, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies

Boomi Enables Data Management and Agentic AI

Posted by Matt Aslett on 03 July 2025

One of the key questions that will need to be solved if agentic artificial intelligence is to fulfill its potential is which technologies and providers will serve the role of orchestrating communication and integration between the various models, applications and data repositories involved. ISG Research defines agentic AI as software designed to execute business processes through autonomous... Read More

Topics: Governance, Operations, AI, Generative AI, Data Intelligence, AI & Technologies, AI and Machine Learning

Learning That Learns: How AI is Changing the LMS Game

Posted by Matthew Brown on 02 July 2025

The learning management system (LMS) market is evolving, with the lines that once rigidly defined categories becoming increasingly blurred. Today, an LMS that lacks Learning Experience Platform (LXP) capabilities risks becoming obsolete in an environment where user expectations are shifting rapidly. In a similar vein, an LMS and LXP that fail to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI)... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Employee Engagement, Learning Management, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data Management

Posted by Matt Aslett on 01 July 2025

If a single phrase could sum up the big data craze of a dozen or so years ago, it would be “more data beats better algorithms.” Attributed to Google research director Peter Norvig, the quote effectively summarized a research paper Norvig jointly authored called The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data and was embraced by big data enthusiasts as articulating the prevalent thinking that enterprises... Read More

Topics: Operations, AI, Data Intelligence, AI & Technologies, AI and Machine Learning