ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Why Customer Journeys Matter to Enterprise CX

Posted by Keith Dawson on 30 September 2025

The idea of customer experience (CX) as a business practice relies heavily on being able to understand and track customer journeys. And that can be tricky because there isn’t a standard definition as to what a journey consists of. For example, inside a contact center the journey is perceived in terms of the steps a customer takes to achieve a particular result. Sometimes that is broadened out to... Read More

Topics: Contact Center, Field Service, CXM, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Customer Journey, Journey Management

Zendesk Illustrates How CCaaS Becomes CX

Posted by Keith Dawson on 24 September 2025

When building or outfitting a contact center, the core question that must be answered is: what software provider or system is foundational? For decades, the fundamental element was the routing engine, but as technology moved to the cloud, the primacy of the voice ACD receded. As it did, it became possible to conceive of a tech stack that’s not organized around routing but instead is focused on... Read More

Topics: Contact Center, Customer Experience Management, CCaaS, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence, Zendesk

The Evolving Data Product Platform Landscape

Posted by Matt Aslett on 23 September 2025

The emergence of natural language analytics interfaces driven by generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) models has accelerated enterprise initiatives to enable data democratization—making data available to business decision-makers without the need to train them to use business intelligence (BI) tools. It has also heightened the need for agreed semantic models and business metrics, as well as... Read More

Topics: Operations, Data Intelligence, AI & Technologies

Collaborative Supply Chain Forecasting Faces Serious Challenges

Posted by Robert Kugel on 16 September 2025

Collaborative Supply Chain Forecasting (CSCF) is a business discipline involving multiple supply chain stakeholders, including suppliers, distributors and sellers, that is aimed at producing a more accurate forecast of future demand and supply. Participants share supply and demand data, forecasts, assumptions and insights to improve visibility, reduce inefficiencies and attenuate supply-demand... Read More

Topics: Supply Chain Planning, Business Planning, Enterprise Resource Planning, supply chain management, Business & Technologies, Supply Chain and Operations

Nextdata Provides a Platform for Distributed Data

Posted by Matt Aslett on 11 September 2025

I previously described data mesh as a cultural and organizational approach to distributed data ownership, access and governance, rather than a product that could be acquired or even a technical architecture that could be built. While that remains true, many data management software providers have adapted their products in recent years to address the four key principles of data mesh:... Read More

Topics: Operations, Data Intelligence, AI & Technologies

Planning for Uncertainty with AI

Posted by Robert Kugel on 10 September 2025

We live in a time of uncertainty, not unpredictability. Planning charts the course of an enterprise through a sea of uncertainties, making fact-based predictions of potential outcomes to inform decision-making by executives and managers. Companies do a lot of planning—some formal but much of it informal. People in companies plan sales, they plan how to produce products and deliver services. They... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, digital finance, Generative AI, AI and Machine Learning, Business & Technologies

Use AI and Technology to Optimize Working Capital

Posted by Robert Kugel on 03 September 2025

Working capital includes current assets (short-term items such as cash, money due from customers and inventory) and current liabilities (typically payments due to suppliers and loan amounts that must be repaid within one year). Working capital management is a prime function of the finance organization, designed to balance often-conflicting objectives related to revenue, liquidity, risk and... Read More

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

IBM Enhances Data Intelligence and Data Integration

Posted by Matt Aslett on 02 September 2025

I previously wrote about IBM’s strategy of consolidating analytics, data and artificial intelligence (AI) functionality from various products under its watsonx brand, which was launched in 2023 to address the AI development life cycle, as well as data storage processing and AI governance. The company has added two more offerings to its watsonx portfolio in recent months, combining established... Read More

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