About the Analyst
ISG Software Research
ISG Software Research, part of Information Services Group, provides authoritative market research and coverage on the business and IT aspects of the software industry. We distribute research and insights daily through the ISG Software Research community, and provide a portfolio of consulting, advisory, research and education services for enterprises, software and service providers, and investment firms.
Sign up for free community membership to receive email notifications on research and insights.
My research and experience show that contact center agents and others handling customer interactions face the continuing challenge of meeting customer expectations while keeping down the cost of handling interactions. Our benchmark research into the agent desktop and customer service finds that one obstacle to meeting these dual objectives is that users have to access multiple systems – typically four or five – to resolve a customer interaction. The research shows that this impacts efficiency...
Read More
Topics:
Customer Experience,
Customer Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
Our benchmark research on next-generation business planning finds that a large majority of companies rely on spreadsheets to manage planning processes. For example, four out of five use them for supply chain planning, and about two-thirds for budgeting and sales forecasting. Spreadsheets are the default choice for modeling and planning because they are flexible. They adapt to the needs of different parts of any type of business. Unfortunately, they have inherent defects that make them...
Read More
Topics:
Planning,
Predictive Analytics,
Marketing Planning,
Reporting,
Sales Forecasting,
Budgeting,
Customer Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance,
Business Planning,
Demand Planning,
Integrated Business Planning
Our benchmark research into next-generation customer engagement finds that the top priorities in customer service for companies are to improve the customer experience (said 74%) and their customer service performance (70%). To do this, the technological steps most companies expect to improve customer engagement are to deploy collaboration systems, redesign the customer portal, deploy internal mobile applications, deploy mobile customer service apps and use social media for customer service. All...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
Our benchmark research into big data analytics shows that marketing in the form of cross-selling and upselling (38%) and customer understanding (32%) are the top use cases for big data analytics. Related to these uses, organizations today spend billions of dollars on programs seeking customer loyalty and satisfaction. A powerful metric that impacts this spending is net promoter score (NPS), which attempts to connect brand promotion with revenue. NPS has proven to be a popular metric among major...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Performance,
Operational Intelligence,
Information Optimization
Unit4 is a global business software vendor focused on business and professional services, the public sector and higher education. Recently company executives met with industry analysts to provide an update of its strategic roadmap and to recap its accomplishments since being acquired by a private equity firm in 2014. Unit4 is the result of successive mergers of ERP and business software companies, notably CODA and Agresso. The company is also a part-owner (with salesforce.com and others) of...
Read More
Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Human Capital,
Office of Finance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Financial Performance
Envision is a vendor of workforce optimization software that I have been following for many years. It is rated a Hot vendor in our 2015 Workforce Optimization Value Index. It offers a full suite of products, including interaction capture, quality monitoring, workforce management, coaching and training, agent compensation management and workforce analytics. In an analysis last year I wrote about how, in an effort to make workforce optimization more accessible and affordable, it created an...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
OnviSource is a 10-year-old vendor of workforce optimization software whose core product, OnviCenter 7, includes interaction capture, quality monitoring, workforce management, coaching and training, and workforce analytics. The company is rated a Hot vendor in our 2015 Workforce Optimization Value Index. It scored highly in the Manageability, Usability and Reliability categories but was held back by lack of compensation management (for which it provides input to third-party products) and some...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Experience,
Customer Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
IBM’s Vision user conference brings together customers who use its software for financial and sales performance management (FPM and SPM, respectively) as well as governance, risk management and compliance (GRC). Analytics is a technology that can enhance each of these activities. The recent conference and many of its sessions highlighted IBM’s growing emphasis on making more sophisticated analytics easier to use by – and therefore more useful to – general business users and their organizations....
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Planning,
Predictive Analytics,
Governance,
Human Capital,
Budgeting,
Customer Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Financial Performance,
Visualization
Contact centers in the cloud are increasingly popular alternatives to managing them on a company’s own premises. Running many business applications on hardware owned and managed by a third party is relatively straightforward and requires less support internally. Also the payment model changes from a license to a recurring fee, and typically the vendor provides updates as part of the fee. The challenge with placing a contact center in the cloud is that it is not a single system or even a...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Feedback Management,
Customer Performance,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
In recent years I have tracked Salesforce, its product development and its announcements. Despite having grown into a giant corporation, it continues to introduce innovations. At a recent analyst day in the U.K., I followed up on the company’s overall direction, some key product developments and a new service to help drive adoption of innovative customer-related processes. Salesforce’s primary aim is to help organizations market and sell to, service, engage with and know their customers through...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Feedback Management,
Customer Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
Companies trust their tax departments with a highly sensitive and essential task. Direct (income) taxes usually are the second largest corporate expense, after salaries and wages. Failure to understand and manage this liability is expensive, whether because taxes are overpaid or because of fines and interest levied for underpayment. Moreover, taxes are a political issue, and corporations – especially larger ones – must be mindful of the reputational implications of their tax liabilities.
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Analytics,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance
Revenue recognition standards for companies that use contracts are in the process of changing, as I covered in an earlier perspective. As part of managing their transition to these standards, CFOs and controllers should initiate a full-scale review of their order-to-cash cycle. This should include examination of their company’s sales contracts and their contracting process. They also should examine how well their contracting processes are integrated with invoicing and billing and any other...
Read More
Topics:
Planning,
Governance,
Office of Finance,
Recurring Revenue,
Reporting,
Revenue Performance,
Budgeting,
Tax,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance
I recently wrote about six technologies that can help companies deliver experiences that live up to their customers’ expectations: an integrated multichannel infrastructure, analytics, a smart agent desktop, business applications such as workforce management and knowledge management, collaboration and mobile apps. They should be closely integrated to simplify system administration, to support processes that have been disconnected because they required multiple systems and to be easy to use. In...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Feedback Management,
Customer Performance,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
Some new words can give the wrong impression. Take “gamification,” for example. It may sound as if employers are inviting their employees to play games just for fun, when actually this is a technique increasingly being used to recognize achievement and thus help improve performance. Several workforce management software vendors have introduced gamification systems that support setting targets, measuring achievement against those targets, rewarding players who meet their target and displaying...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Feedback Management,
Customer Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
NICE Systems is an established vendor of workforce optimization products that has long included analytics in its portfolio. Its latest release in this area, NICE Customer Experience Analytics, focuses on mapping, understanding and managing customer journeys and metrics. The product is built on NICE’s common technology platform, which consists of three functions: collect, understand and optimize. The Collect segment has tools to help manage customer-related data and ingest data from multiple...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Performance,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
For most of the past decade businesses that decided not to pay attention to proposed changes in revenue recognition rules have saved themselves time and frustration as the proponents’ timetables have slipped and roadmaps have changed. The new rules are the result of a convergence of US-GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles – the accounting standard used by U.S.-based companies) and IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards – the system used in much of the rest of the world)....
Read More
Topics:
Planning,
Customer Experience,
Governance,
Office of Finance,
Recurring Revenue,
Reporting,
Revenue Performance,
Budgeting,
Tax,
Customer Performance,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance
Recently, Infor held its second innovation conference with industry analysts at its New York City headquarters. Infor’s products include the major categories of ERP, human capital management and financial performance management applications. Behind the marketing aspects of its use of “innovation” is a business strategy for retaining existing customers, migrating a sizable percentage of those customers to the cloud and gaining new customers. (Because of the relative size of the installed base,...
Read More
Topics:
Human Capital,
Office of Finance,
UX,
Customer Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Financial Performance
Adaptive Insights held its annual user group meeting recently. A theme sounded in several keynote sessions was the importance of finance departments playing a more strategic role in their companies. Some participating customers described how they have evolved their planning process from being designed mainly to meet the needs of the finance department into a useful tool for managing the entire business. Their path took them from doing basic financial budgeting to planning focused on improving...
Read More
Topics:
Planning,
Predictive Analytics,
Human Capital,
Marketing,
Reporting,
Sales Forecasting,
Budgeting,
Customer Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance,
Business Planning,
Supply Chain,
Demand Planning,
Integrated Business Planning,
Project Planning
When I last wrote about Panviva I likened its product SupportPoint to a smart agent desktop – a system that helps contact center agents access the information they need to handle customer interactions, guides them through the process of handling interactions and offers advice on what to say next (for example, which product to upsell). Several trends have emerged since then. Two of our recent benchmark research projects, next-generation customer engagement and next-generation customer analytics,...
Read More
Topics:
Customer Experience,
Customer Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
Price and revenue optimization (PRO) software uses analytics to help companies maximize profitability for any targeted level of revenues. PRO utilizes data about buyer behavior to gauge individual customers’ price sensitivity and predict how they will react to prices. It enables users to charge buyers who appear to be less sensitive more than those who appear more price-sensitive. PRO is a significant departure from inward-focused, single-factor pricing strategies such as cost-plus pricing or,...
Read More
Topics:
Office of Finance,
Revenue Performance,
Nomis Solutions,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance,
Financial Services
There’s a long history of companies not paying close enough attention to the contractual elements of acquiring software. Today, this extends into the world of cloud computing. Many companies are choosing to acquire software services through cloud-based providers and increasingly rely on access to cloud-based data, as is shown by our forthcoming benchmark research, in which a large majority of participating companies said that having access to data in the cloud is important or very important. As...
Read More
Topics:
SaaS,
Sales,
Customer Experience,
Governance,
contract,
e-discovery,
Customer Performance,
Operational Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Financial Performance,
Business Performance Management (BPM)
Ventana Research recently completed the most comprehensive evaluation of analytics and business intelligence products and vendors available anywhere. As I discussed recently, such research is necessary and timely as analytics and business intelligence is now a fast-changing market. Our Value Index for Analytics and Business Intelligence in 2015 scrutinizes 15 top vendors and their product offerings in seven key categories: Usability, Manageability, Reliability, Capability, Adaptability, Vendor...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Data Quality,
Predictive Analytics,
Gartner,
Governance,
Customer Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Operational Intelligence,
Value Index,
Strata+Hadoop
Advertising and marketers tell us we now live in a “digital economy.” That implies the economy is based on and depends on digital technologies. It certainly is true that many consumers, especially younger ones, have changed the ways they interact with each other and businesses; they are now more likely to use digital channels of communication, particularly email, websites, text messaging, instant messaging and social media. In this digital world, where customers can search globally for products...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Feedback Management,
Customer Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
In 2013, Ventana Research carried out groundbreaking benchmark research into contact centers in the cloud. It revealed that customer pressures have forced companies to support an increasing variety of channels of interaction. This research investigated the systems companies were using then or were planning to use, particularly cloud computing, to manage these channels. The research uncovered three major challenges: integration of systems, channels of communication supported as silos and...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Feedback Management,
Customer Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
In covering Verint for several years I have watched it go from selling call recording systems to adding workforce optimization software, analytics, and support for multiple channels of interaction with customers. Its latest product, Customer Engagement Optimization, increases support for customer engagement and managing the customer experience. Verint has achieved this expansion through a combination of acquisitions and in-house development. Its acquisition of Kana enabled it to go from...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Feedback Management,
Customer Performance,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
Because my research practice is centered on important business issues where technology is a key part of a solution, my written perspectives tend to focus on technology. However, it’s almost never the case that a company can just implement some application and fully resolve a business issue. Some progress may be achieved by using more effective tools, but in most cases results will fall short of what’s possible unless people, process and information issues are addressed as well. This is...
Read More
Topics:
Office of Finance,
Reconciliation,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance,
Data,
Document Management
Just a few years ago, the prevailing view in the software industry was that the category of business intelligence (BI) was mature and without room for innovation. Vendors competed in terms of feature parity and incremental advancements of their platforms. But since then business intelligence has grown to include analytics, data discovery tools and big data capabilities to process huge volumes and new types of data much faster. As is often the case with change, though, this one has created...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Data Quality,
Predictive Analytics,
Gartner,
Customer Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Value Index,
Strata+Hadoop
Managing prices has always been an activity of keen interest to businesses, but it has become even more critical to do it well. Over the past decade many companies have found their ability to raise prices has been constrained by intense competition resulting from Internet commerce, global competition and other factors. One tool for dealing with this pressure is price and revenue optimization (PRO), an analytic methodology that calculates how demand varies at different price levels and then uses...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Performance Management,
Sales,
Office of Finance,
Operational Performance Management (OPM),
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Performance Management (BPM),
Financial Performance Management (FPM),
Sales Performance Management (SPM),
analytical application,
Price Optimization
Nexidia is a leading vendor of speech analytics vendor. I recently wrote about how it has enhanced its architecture to include text analytics and improve overall system performance. Version 11 of its Neural Phonetic Speech Analytics continues these enhancements to make the product faster and more accurate in its results.
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Performance,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
It’s stating the obvious to say that how well executives manage planning processes has a big impact on how well a business unit or company plans. However, one significant source of the value of our benchmark research is that it establishes hard evidence – the numbers – that transforms mere assertions into proof points. This is particularly important when people within an organization want to improve a process. Change management is facilitated by providing senior executives with facts to back up...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Predictive Analytics,
Sales,
Sales Performance,
Supply Chain Performance,
Marketing,
Customer Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Financial Performance,
Supply Chain,
S&OP
VPI is a well-established vendor of workforce optimization systems and rated a Hot Vendor in our 2015 Workforce Optimization Value Index. It offers a full suite of products for this market. Notable among them is Performance Reporting, which produces reports and dashboards showing a range of analysis and metrics about telephony, agent performance, coaching and customer success, along with alerts to inform employees of required actions. It combines data from a range of sources, both structured...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Performance,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Call Center
Enghouse Interactive is one of three divisions of Enghouse Systems, a publicly traded Canadian company founded in 1984. The other two divisions provide network technology to telecommunications providers and applications for public and private transportation companies; Enghouse Interactive owns the company’s three contact center systems. The corporate group has a history of growth – it now has a market capitalization of more than US$1 billion - achieved both organically and through an aggressive...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Customer Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Read More
Topics:
SaaS,
Customer Experience,
NetSuite,
Office of Finance,
Recurring Revenue,
Zuora,
Customer Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer Service,
Financial Performance,
billing software,
Intacct
Competition for customers is more intense today than ever before, and companies struggle to differentiate themselves from the competition. Our research repeatedly finds that customer experience is a key differentiator. Our research into next-generation customer engagement said the impetus for improving engagement is to improve the customer experience in almost three quarters (74%) of participants. One increasingly popular way to do this is to use customer journey maps, which show how companies...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Customer Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
In many organizations, advanced analytics groups and IT are separate, and there often is a chasm of understanding between them, as I have noted. A key finding in our benchmark research on big data analytics is that communication and knowledge sharing is a top benefit of big data analytics initiatives, but often it is a latent benefit. That is, prior to deployment, communication and knowledge sharing is deemed a marginal benefit, but once the program is deployed it is deemed a top benefit. From...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
Supply Chain Performance,
alpine data labs,
Customer Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance,
Strata+Hadoop
In our benchmark research at least half of participants that use spreadsheets to support a business process routinely say that these tools make it difficult for them to do their job. Yet spreadsheets continue to dominate in a range of business functions and processes. For example, our recent next-generation business planning research finds that this is the most common software used for performing 11 of the most common types of planning. At the heart of the problem is a disconnect between what...
Read More
Topics:
Planning,
Sales Performance,
ERP,
Forecast,
GRC,
Office of Finance,
Reporting,
closing,
dashboard,
enterprise spreadsheet,
Excel,
Customer Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance,
Information Management,
Data,
Risk,
application,
benchmark,
Financial Performance Management
Verint entered the enterprise market for customer feedback management when it acquired Vovici in August 2011. Since then the Vovici products have been integrated into Verint’s Customer Engagement Optimization suite, which includes products originally developed by Verint and Kana, which it also acquired. The current suite supports a range of capabilities that Verint groups into three categories: customer analytics (various types of analytics and Enterprise Feedback Management), customer...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Customer Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
Text Analytics
All lines of business are under pressure to meet targets and deliver expected results, but none is under more pressure than Sales. Like other organizations it must use information to derive insights about progress and problems and to decide what changes to make. Today businesses collect and analyze data from more data sources in more forms than ever before. To understand it they need effective analytics, and again none need it more than Sales.
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Sales,
Sales Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Cloud Computing,
Financial Performance,
Information Applications,
Sales Performance Management,
SFA
Ventana Research recently released the results of our Next-Generation Business Planning benchmark research. Business planning encompasses all of the forward-looking activities in which companies routinely engage. The research examined 11 of the most common types of enterprise planning: capital, demand, marketing, project, sales and operations, strategic, supply chain and workforce planning, as well as sales forecasting and corporate and IT budgeting. We also aggregated the results to draw...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Planning,
Predictive Analytics,
Sales,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Human Capital Management,
Marketing,
Office of Finance,
Reporting,
Budgeting,
Controller,
Customer Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Financial Performance,
In-memory,
Workforce Performance,
CFO,
Supply Chain,
capital spending,
demand management,
Financial Performance Management,
financial reporting,
FPM,
Integrated Business Planning,
S&OP
Maximizing the performance and value of people in the workforce should be a primary focus for any business these days. It is a complex task, especially for larger organizations, and chances for success can be increased by investment in human capital management (HCM) applications. In this competitive software market SAP is making a strong push, aided by acquisitions in the last three years of SuccessFactors for talent management and more recently Fieldglass for contingent labor management....
Read More
Topics:
SAP,
HCM,
Human Capital Management,
Learning,
Performance,
Recruiting,
SuccessFactors,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Financial Performance,
Compensation,
HRMS,
Vendor Management Systems,
Workforce Analytics,
Workforce Management,
Workforce Planning
Data is an essential ingredient for every aspect of business, and those that use it well are likely to gain advantages over competitors that do not. Our benchmark research on information optimization reveals a variety of drivers for deploying information, most commonly analytics, information access, decision-making, process improvements and customer experience and satisfaction. To accomplish any of these purposes requires that data be prepared through a sequence of steps: accessing, searching,...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Sales Performance,
Supply Chain Performance,
Customer Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Mobility,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Data Preparation,
Financial Performance,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
Information Optimization
The idea of not focusing on innovation is heretical in today’s business culture and media. Yet a recent article in The New Yorker suggests that today’s society and organizations focus too much on innovation and technology. The same may be true for technology in business organizations. Our research provides evidence for my claim.
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Sales,
Customer Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance,
Information Management
Recurring revenue is a term applied to business models that involve three types of selling and billing structures: a one-time transaction plus a periodic service charge; subscription-based services involving periodic charges; or a contractual relationship that charges periodically for goods and services. Telecommunications was the first major industry to use it, but recently the model has gained popularity in others. It is a major trend in information technology as an increasing number of...
Read More
Topics:
SaaS,
Customer Experience,
NetSuite,
Office of Finance,
Recurring Revenue,
Zuora,
Customer Performance,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer Service,
Financial Performance,
billing software,
Intacct
At its annual MicroStrategy World conference, this provider of analytics and business intelligence systems for business and IT introduced a new version of its flagship product, MicroStrategy 9s. Among many advances it adds enterprise grade security with MicroStrategy Usher as part of the maintenance update to its 9.4.1 release. Security is increasingly critical for analytics and BI. Technologies that work intensively with data, including reporting, business intelligence, analytics and data...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Mobile,
Sales Performance,
Governance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Mobility,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Security
Most people in business management admit that sales is more an art than a science. Organizations have long struggled to find the right mix to improve its effectiveness, and few get the most out of available technology. For many the default is still to use sales force automation (SFA) and spreadsheets to manage processes and try to increase the productivity of sales staff. In our view they should take a holistic approach to sales processes from contact to close and support everything from sales...
Read More
Topics:
Sales,
Recurring Revenue,
Sales Compensation,
Sales Forecasting,
Customer Performance,
Business Collaboration,
Business Mobility,
Cloud Computing,
CRM,
SFA
One of the issues in handling the tax function in business, especially where it involves direct (income) taxes, is the technical expertise required. At the more senior levels, practitioners must be knowledgeable about accounting and tax law. In multinational corporations, understanding differences between accounting and legal structures in various localities and their effects on tax liabilities requires more knowledge. Yet when I began to study the structures of corporate tax departments, I was...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
ERP,
Governance,
GRC,
Office of Finance,
audit,
finance transformation,
LongView,
Tax,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance,
Information Management,
Oracle,
CFO,
Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Vertex,
FPM,
Innovation Awards,
Thomson-Reuters multinational
Oracle is one of the world's largest business intelligence and analytics software companies. Its products range from middleware, back-end databases and ETL tools to business intelligence applications and cloud platforms, and it is well established in many corporate and government accounts. A key to Oracle's ongoing success is in transitioning its business intelligence and analytics portfolio to self-service, big data and cloud deployments. To that end, three areas in which the company has...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Performance,
endeca,
OBIEE,
OBIFS,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Oracle
I recently attended a Cisco Collaboration analyst day in the U.K. and was impressed by what I heard and saw.Cisco of course is known as a supplier of network equipment and software, and it has long provided these through a global network of partners. But Cisco also has been in the contact center market for several years and has had success with its small and enterprise contact center systems, having more than 20,000 on-premises customers and revenue in excess of US $1.5 billion. Cisco markets...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
Text Analytics
Our recently published Office of Finance benchmark research assesses a broad set of functions and capabilities of finance organizations. We asked research participants to identify the most important issues for a finance department to address in a dozen functional areas: accounting, budgeting, cost accounting, customer profitability management, external financial reporting, financial analysis, financial governance and internal audit, management accounting, product profitability management,...
Read More
Topics:
Mobile,
Planning,
Predictive Analytics,
ERP,
FP&A,
Office of Finance,
Reporting,
Self-service,
Budgeting,
close,
closing,
computing,
Controller,
dashboard,
Tax,
Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Financial Performance,
CFO,
Data,
finance,
Financial Performance Management,
FPM,
Microsoft Excel,
Spreadsheets
This year presents much opportunity for organizations to use a new generation of technology to compete better, be more efficient in their business operations and engage their workforces to their full potential. We have identified and begun to track the following next-generation technologies: analytics, big data, collaboration, cloud computing, mobile technology and social media, and in 2014 we added wearable computing to the list. In 2015 we will intensify our focus on all of them specifically ...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Governance,
Mobile Technology,
Wearable Computing,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Technology Innovation
Our benchmark research into business technology innovation shows that analytics ranks first or second as a business technology innovation priority in 59 percent of organizations. Businesses are moving budgets and responsibilities for analytics closer to the sales operations, often in the form of so-called shadow IT organizations that report into decentralized and autonomous business units rather than a central IT organization. New technologies such as in-memory systems (50%), Hadoop (42%) and...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Data Preparation,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Operational Intelligence,
analytical application,
analytics in the cloud
Genesys is best known as a provider of contact center management systems and has long provided computer/telephony integration (CTI) and single-queue call routing systems. Over the past few years it has had changes of ownership and now is a stand-alone company focused on providing systems to improve the customer experience. To do this its combines contact center infrastructure systems and a suite of workforce optimization applications. We included the suite in our 2015 Workforce Optimization...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Our recent Office of Finance benchmark research demonstrates the importance of using automation to execute finance department functions. Information technology systems do at least two things very well that make better use of people’s time, and both of them can substantially improve organizational performance. First, they eliminate the need for people to do repetitive tasks, which frees them to spend time on more valuable work that requires judgment and skill. IT systems also can be programmed...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Mobile,
Planning,
ERP,
FP&A,
Office of Finance,
Reporting,
Self-service,
Budgeting,
close,
closing,
computing,
Controller,
dashboard,
Tax,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Financial Performance,
CFO,
Data,
finance,
Financial Performance Management,
FPM,
Microsoft Excel,
Spreadsheets
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Actuate, a company known for powering BIRT, the open source business intelligence technology, has been delivering large-scale consumer and industrial applications for more than 20 years. In December the company announced it would be acquired by OpenText of Ontario, Canada. OpenText is Canada’s largest software vendor with more than 8,000 employees and a portfolio of enterprise information management products. It serves primarily large companies. The attraction of Actuate for such a company can...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
F-Type,
OpenText,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Information Applications,
Operational Intelligence,
Digital Technology
Sales organizations are under constant pressure to maximize their potential. To accomplish this they need to integrate their people and processes with those of the finance and operations groups and have access to all available information and useful technology. This is particularly true in the area of sales compensation, which when managed properly recognizes accomplishments, rewards success and motivates people. However, we find that few sales organizations take a comprehensive approach to...
Read More
Topics:
Sales,
Sales Performance,
Sales Compensation,
Sales Operations,
Operational Performance,
Financial Performance,
commission
Customer Experience was one of the subjects most talked and written about during 2014, and I expect this to continue in 2015. Many observers and analysts, including me, believe it can be the difference between companies succeeding or going out of business. Yet debate continues to define what customer experience is and how to manage it. Some think the best tools are “voice of the customer” information and systems that enable companies to track and understand customer sentiments and likely...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
It is more important than ever for businesses to attract and retain the best talent, and managing compensation effectively is an essential tool for doing so. Obviously companies must pay well to compete, but managing salary, merit pay, variable pay and incentives for employees, tracking their hiring anniversaries and conducting accurate performance appraisals make total compensation management a complex process. All of this must be managed within budget and policy guidelines. As organizations...
Read More
Topics:
HCM,
Human Capital Management,
Sales Compensation,
Operational Performance,
Business Performance,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Workforce Performance,
CFO,
Compensation,
finance,
HR,
Talent Management,
TCM
As with many other research topics, Ventana Research investigates workforce optimization in two ways. Our benchmark research into next-generation workforce optimization assesses how companies use workforce optimization systems now and intend to in the future, while our Workforce Optimization Value Index evaluates how well workforce optimization products and vendors match buyers’ needs. In our newly released 2015 Workforce Optimization Value Index the top vendors are Verint and VPI, both rated...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
In 2014, IBM announced Watson Analytics, which uses machine learning and natural language processing to unify and simplify the user experience in each step of the analytic processing: data acquisition, data preparation, analysis, dashboarding and storytelling. After a relatively short beta testing period involving more than 22,000 users, IBM released Watson Analytics for general availability in December. There are two editions: the “freemium” trial version allows 500MB of data storage and...
Read More
Topics:
Data Visualization,
Predictive Analytics,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Data Discovery,
Watson
ManyWho was launched in May 2013 by two former Salesforce.com executives, Dave Norris and Steve Wood. They branded it the Cloud Workflow Company, It offers an innovative approach that allows organizations to create workflows, automatically convert them into business applications and run the apps on multiple types of devices. The key to its success lies in the second and third steps, which differentiate ManyWho from most other business process optimization vendors; the process maps that users...
Read More
Topics:
Customer Experience,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
CRM
Verint is a well-established vendor of workforce optimization systems. It recently acquired KANA Software, as I discussed, which enabled Verint to move further into the customer engagement market. Now Verint has combined the two companies’ range of analytics products to create Verint Engagement Analytics.
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Organizations today create and collect data at ever faster rates, and this introduces challenges in ensuring that data is not just managed but used in a consistent manner for a range of operational and analytic tasks. This is made more difficult by new data sources whose definitions vary from standard and widely used formats. Making all information available and consistent is essential to support business processes and decision-making. A key technology tool for this effort is master data...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Data Quality,
Master Data Management,
Sales,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Golden Records.,
MDM,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Data Management,
Financial Performance,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Workforce Performance
When Salesforce.com began in 1999 its stated intent was “to reinvent CRM in the cloud.” In 15 years, the company has achieved much more than that, having a major impact on the way IT systems are delivered: Large numbers of vendors have followed its example to provide cloud-based systems. It added a platform as a cloud – a software development environment in the cloud – to its portfolio, introduced an apps store where many vendors sell their products and services, moved into social and mobile...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Big data has great promise for many organizations today, but they also need technology to facilitate integration of various data stores, as I recently pointed out. Our big data integration benchmark research makes it clear that organizations are aware of the need to integrate big data, but most have yet to address it: In this area our Performance Index analysis, which assesses competency and maturity of organizations, concludes that only 13 percent reach the highest of four levels, Innovative....
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Cloud Computing,
Data Integration,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Strata+Hadoop
During this year talk has been widespread about the customer experience, which is good. What is not so good is that, according to my benchmark research into next-generation customer engagement, most companies still struggle to deliver satisfying experiences. However, the research and my discussions with users and vendors lead to some clear conclusions:
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
To help companies improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their payroll management processes, we have assembled our 2015 Value Index for Payroll Management. It evaluates vendors of payroll management software to provide a guide for selecting the right application to suit specific needs. The executive summary is available for download, and this analysis provides a snapshot of the findings. Ventana Research defines payroll management as all activities associated with paying employees...
Read More
Topics:
Human Capital Management,
Office of Finance,
Uncategorized,
HR,
HRMS,
Talent Management
The Ventana Research Value Index for Workforce Optimization in 2015 is now released. Workforce optimization covers all aspects of managing everyone who handles customer interactions and is thus vital to improve operational efficiency, and customer and employee satisfaction. It includes the following applications: interaction capture, quality monitoring and assurance, workforce management, coaching and learning management, variable compensation management, and interaction and agent analytics....
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
Text Analytics
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Those of us who have been in the technology industry for many years remember the phrase “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.” Then IBM was both a hardware and a system software vendor, and most IT managers new that hardly anyone would question a decision to go with IBM. These days IBM has done extensive marketing to make itself known for everything “smart” – planets, cities, commerce and of course technology. While its website suggests it offers a limited number of software products, in fact...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
A company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is one of the pillars of its record-keeping and process management architecture and is central to many of its critical functions. It is the heart of its accounting and financial record-keeping processes. In manufacturing and distribution, ERP manages inventory and some elements of logistics. Companies also may use it to handle core human resources record-keeping and to store product and customer master data. Often, companies bolt other...
Read More
Topics:
Sales Performance,
Supply Chain Performance,
ERP,
Office of Finance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Workforce Performance,
CFO,
Data,
HR
SYSPRO is a 35-year-old ERP vendor that focuses on products for midsize companies, particularly those in manufacturing and distribution. In manufacturing, SYSPRO supports make, configure and assemble, engineer to order, make to stock and job shop environments. The company attempts to differentiate itself through vertical specialization and its years of ongoing development, which can reduce the need for customization and cut the cost of initial and ongoing configuration to suit the needs of...
Read More
Topics:
Performance Management,
Supply Chain Performance,
ERP,
Human Capital Management,
Office of Finance,
Reporting,
cloud ERP,
container,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Dashboards,
Financial Performance,
Supply Chain,
SCM,
S&OP,
Digital Technology
PentahoWorld, the first user conference for this 10-year-old supplier of data integration and business intelligence that provides business analytics, attracted more than 400 customers in roles ranging from IT and database professionals to business analysts and end users. The diversity of the crowd reflects Pentaho’s broad portfolio of products. It covers the integration aspects of big data analytics with the Pentaho Data Integration tools and the front-end tools and visualization with the ...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Pentaho,
Governance,
IT Research,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Customer & Contact Center,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Operational Intelligence,
Risk & Compliance (GRC),
PDI
Financial management software provider Intacct recently held its seventh annual user conference. In addition to a long list of enhancements in current and upcoming product releases, the company used the occasion to announce Intacct Collaborate, a capability built into its software that enables finance and accounting organizations to work together to answer questions or resolve issues while performing a process. Our benchmark research shows that collaboration ranks second in importance behind...
Read More
Topics:
Performance Management,
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
ERP,
Human Capital Management,
NetSuite,
Office of Finance,
Reporting,
cloud ERP,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Chatter,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Dashboards,
Financial Performance,
FinancialForce,
Intacct
The market for big data continues to grow as organizations try to extract business value from their own masses of data and other sources. Earlier this year I outlined the dynamics of the business opportunity for big data and information optimization. We continue to see advances as big data and associated information technologies deliver more value, but the range of innovation also has created fragmentation among existing systems including databases that are managed onpremises or in cloud...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Business Analytics,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Information Optimization
At this year's Dreamforce more than 140,000 people gathered in San Francisco to share the excitement about the use of technology for business. Salesforce.com’s annual conference has reached megashow status, which is a mixed blessing: Dreamforce remains social in its design, but it has become impersonal due to its size. In any case Salesforce had plenty to show off. The company has continued to enhance its cloud-based business applications for sales and customer service, and in the last year it...
Read More
Topics:
Sales,
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Customer & Contact Center
At a conference of more than 3,500 users, Splunk executives showed off their company’s latest tools. Splunk makes software for discovering, monitoring and analyzing machine data, which is often considered data exhaust since it is a by-product of computing processes and applications. But machine data is essential to a smoothly running technology infrastructure that supports business process. One advantage is that because machine data not recorded by end users, it is less subject to input error....
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Operational Intelligence
Most HR technology practitioners and vendors attend the annual HR Technology Conference and Exposition. One of the largest industry gatherings, it provides an indicator of their levels of investment and the hottest trends. This year’s event revealed new technologies and approaches to two key human resources processes – recruitment and retention. They included predictive analytics and big data as well mobile delivery to allow employees easier access to applications. Regarding the first two,...
Read More
Topics:
Social Media,
Kronos,
Peoplefluent,
Recruiting,
Wearable Computing,
Fuel50,
Operational Performance,
Smart Watches,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Financial Performance,
IBM,
Oracle,
Workforce Performance,
Ceridian,
HireVue,
Saba,
HR Tech,
HR Technology Conference,
Qualtrics,
Tanner Labs
Finance transformation” refers to a longstanding objective: shifting the focus of CFOs and finance departments from transaction processing to more strategic, higher-value functions. Our upcoming Office of Finance benchmark research confirms that most of organizations want their finance department to take a more strategic role in management of the company: nine in 10 participants said that it’s important or very important. (We are using “finance” in its broadest sense, including, for example,...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Mobile,
Performance Management,
Predictive Analytics,
Social Media,
ERP,
FP&A,
Office of Finance,
Reporting,
Management,
close,
closing,
computing,
Controller,
Tax,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Financial Performance,
CFO,
finance,
Tagetik,
FPM
When applying information technology to drive better business performance, companies and the systems integrators that assist them often underestimate the importance of organizing data management around processes. For example, companies that do not execute their quote-to-cash cycle as an end-to-end process often experience a related set of issues in their sales, marketing, operations, accounting and finance functions that stem from entering the same data into multiple systems. The inability to...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Mobile,
Sales Performance,
Supply Chain Performance,
ERP,
Office of Finance,
Operations,
Management,
close,
closing,
computing,
end-to-end,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Data Management,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
CRM,
Data,
finance,
FPM
Qlik was an early pioneer in developing a substantial market for a visual discovery tool that enables end users to easily access and manipulate analytics and data. Its QlikView application uses an associative experience that takes an in-memory, correlation-based approach to present a simpler design and user experience for analytics than previous tools. Driven by sales of QlikView, the company’s revenue has grown to more than $.5 billion, and originating in Sweden it has a global presence.
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Data Visualization,
QlikView,
Sales Performance,
Supply Chain Performance,
Tableau,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Customer & Contact Center,
Information Applications,
Data Discovery,
Lumira,
Qlik,
Qlik Qlik Sense
Finance and accounting departments are staffed with numbers-oriented, naturally analytical people. Strong analytic skills are essential if a finance department is to deliver deep insights into performance and visibility into emerging opportunities and challenges. The conclusions of analyses enable fast, fully informed business decisions by executives and managers. Conversely, flawed analyses undermine the performance of a company. So it was good news that in our Office of Finance benchmark...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Mobile,
Planning,
Predictive Analytics,
ERP,
FP&A,
Office of Finance,
Reporting,
Self-service,
Budgeting,
close,
closing,
computing,
Controller,
dashboard,
Tax,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Financial Performance,
CFO,
Data,
finance,
Tagetik,
Financial Performance Management,
FPM,
Microsoft Excel,
Spreadsheets
This year Oracle OpenWorld conference opened with a fiery speech by Larry Ellison, who has stepped down from his role as CEO to become Executive Chairman and CTO. Filling his rhetoric with claims of market leadership and attacks on competitors SAP and Workday, Ellison set an aggressive tone for those who followed him. In a talk relevant to my research practice, Chris Leone, senior vice president of applications development, asserted that Oracle is making progress in human capital management...
Read More
Topics:
Mobile,
Social Media,
HCM,
Human Capital Analytics,
Human Capital Management,
Core HR,
Employee Engagement,
Platform as a service,
TM,
Wellness,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Mobility,
Oracle,
HRMS,
Talent Management,
Social,
PaaS
Tableau Software introduced its latest advancements in analytics and business intelligence software along with its future plan to more than 5,000 attendees at its annual user conference in its home town of Seattle. The enthusiasm of the primarily millennial-age crowd reflected not only the success of the young company but also its aspirations. The market for what Ventana Research calls visual and data discovery and Tableau have experienced rapid growth that is likely to continue.
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Data Visualization,
Sales Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Customer & Contact Center,
Operational Intelligence,
Data Discovery,
Tableau Software
Read More
Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Read More
Topics:
Microsoft,
Mobile,
SaaS,
Sales,
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
Supply Chain Performance,
ERP,
HCM,
Human Capital,
Office of Finance,
Dynamics AX,
Dynamics GP,
Dynamics NAV Dynamics SL,
Kenandy,
PSA,
Sage Software,
Unit4,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Workforce Performance,
CFO,
FinancialForce,
HR,
Infor,
Workday,
HANA,
Plex,
Professional Services Automation
ADP recently held its annual analyst day in the company’s new innovation center in the Chelsea district of Manhattan. The location emphasized what ADP wanted to get across to the analyst community at the event: that it intends to become a significant vendor of human capital management (HCM) software based in the cloud. ADP hopes to broaden its business from being largely an outsourcing vendor of payroll and related services (such as for auto dealers) to one that provides software for a range of...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Mobile,
Social Media,
HCM,
Human Capital Management,
Office of Finance,
Predictive,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Cloud Computing,
Mobility,
Workforce Performance,
compliance,
HR,
HRMS,
Healthcare Compliance
Like most vendors of on-premises ERP and financial management software, in moving to the cloud Oracle has focused on developing for existing and potential customers the option of multitenant software as a service (SaaS). (I’m using the term “ERP” in its most expansive sense, to include such systems employed by all types of companies for accounting and financial management rather than only systems that are used by manufacturing and distribution companies.) Oracle’s ERP Cloud Service includes ...
Read More
Topics:
Microsoft,
Mobile,
SaaS,
Sales,
Salesforce.com,
ERP,
HCM,
Human Capital,
Office of Finance,
Dynamics AX,
Dynamics GP,
Dynamics NAV Dynamics SL,
Kenandy,
PSA,
Sage Software,
Unit4,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
CFO,
FinancialForce,
HR,
Infor,
Workday,
HANA,
Plex,
Professional Services Automation
FinancialForce’s 2014 summer release incorporates improvements in mobile and collaboration features and provides enhancements to the planning dimension of its professional services automation (PSA) suite. In the last couple of releases the company emphasized expansion in the functional capabilities of its ERP suite, as I noted, focusing on human capital management and professional services automation as well as some supply chain automation capabilities.
Read More
Topics:
SaaS,
Sales,
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
ERP,
HCM,
Human Capital,
Office of Finance,
Consulting,
distribution,
PSA,
Unit4,
Analytics,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Financial Performance,
FinancialForce,
HR,
Professional Services Automation,
SCM
“What’s next?” is the perennially insistent question in information technology. One common observation about the industry holds that cycles of innovation alternate between hardware and software. New types and forms of hardware enable innovations in software that utilize the power of that hardware. These innovations create new markets, alter consumer behavior and change how work is performed. This, in turn, sets the stage for new types and forms of hardware that complement these emerging product...
Read More
Topics:
Mobile,
Performance Management,
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
Supply Chain Performance,
ERP,
Office of Finance,
Reporting,
Wearable Computing,
Management,
close,
closing,
computing,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Financial Performance,
Workforce Performance,
finance,
FPM
Read More
Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM
I’ve written before about the increasing importance of having a solid technology base for a company’s tax function, and it’s important enough for me to revisit the topic. Tax departments are entrusted with a highly sensitive and essential task in their companies. Taxes usually are the second largest corporate expense, after salaries and wages. Failure to understand this liability is expensive – either because taxes are overpaid or because of fines and interest levied for underpayment. Moreover,...
Read More
Topics:
ERP,
Governance,
GRC,
Office of Finance,
audit,
finance transformation,
LongView,
Tax,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance,
Information Management,
Oracle,
CFO,
Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Vertex,
FPM,
Innovation Awards,
Thomson-Reuters multinational
It’s widely agreed that cloud computing is a major technology innovation. Many companies use cloud-based systems for specific business functions such as customer service, sales, marketing, finance and human resources. More generally, however, analytics and business intelligence (BI) have not migrated to the cloud as quickly. But now cloud-based data and analytics products are becoming more common. This trend is most popular among technology companies, small and midsize businesses, and...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
SaaS,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Governance,
Statistics,
cloud analytics,
IT Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Data Integration,
Financial Performance,
Internet of Things,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
Risk & Compliance (GRC),
cloud business intelligence
The human resources management system (HRMS) have been a central part of human resources departments for decades. Though useful to HR, these systems have also been static. Speaking generally, their functionality has not advanced greatly while other technologies have made great strides, and the information in them has been restricted to mostly use by HR professionals. However, along with growth in distinct and integrated talent management systems and in workforce management systems, this has...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Mobile,
Social Media,
HCM,
TM,
WFM,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Cloud Computing,
Information Applications,
Workforce Performance,
HRMS,
Talent Management,
Workforce Management,
HR Management,
HRIS
Recently NewVoiceMedia announced that it has raised $50 million to fund its growth. The company was founded in 2000 in the U.K., initially offering call management and routing as cloud-based systems. Until then, most companies built their contact centers using on-premises private branch exchange (PBX) or automated call distributor (ACD) call management systems, with on-premises call routing and business applications such as customer relationship management (CRM). Some companies offered...
Read More
Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Voice of the Customer,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM
Now available from Ventana Research is our Value Index on Total Compensation Management for 2014. Total compensation management directly addresses one of an organization’s largest investments – employee pay. As such it is a critical activity for supporting other human capital management and talent management processes.
Read More
Topics:
SAP,
Human Capital Management,
Kenexa,
Peoplefluent,
SuccessFactors,
Decusoft,
Towers Watson,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Financial Performance,
IBM,
Mobility,
Oracle,
Workforce Performance,
Compensation,
SumTotal Systems,
TCM,
Value Index,
beqom,
Pay for Performance
Oracle has a large and diverse set of products and now has most of its business applications operating in the private and public cloud. However, some recent acquisitions have enabled it to focus on cloud-based-products for managing the customer experience. Our next generation customer engagement research has found that customer experience is the top impetus for improving customer engagement as found by almost three quarters (74%) of organizations. Oracle has created a customer experience suite...
Read More
Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Mobile Apps,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM
In the past year Workday has been making efforts to improve its human capital management (HCM) suite focused directly on the core human resources management systems and talent management software. In my previous analyst perspective about Workday I looked at its mobile capabilities for HCM. These additions, in concert with the enhancements discussed here, offer useful improvements. I have also noticed changes in the HCM market that impact all large competitors in it, including Workday. Before...
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Mobile,
Social Media,
HCM,
Recruiting,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Workforce Performance,
Workday,
HR/Payroll
Our benchmark research consistently shows that business analytics is the most significant technology trend in business today and acquiring effective predictive analytics is organizations’ top priority for analytics. It enables them to look forward rather than backward and, participate organizations reported, leads to competitive advantage and operational efficiencies.
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
Statistics,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Data Integration,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance