Analyst Perspectives

It is a mark of the rapid, current pace of development in artificial intelligence (AI) that machine learning (ML) models, until recently considered state of the art, are now routinely being referred to by developers and vendors as “traditional.” Generative AI, and large language models (LLMs) in particular, have taken the AI world by storm in the past year, automating and accelerating the...

Having just completed the 2023 Ventana Research Buyers Guide for Revenue Performance Management, I want to share some of my observations about how the market has advanced since our assessment one year ago. 

As I have previously explained, we expect an increased demand for intelligent operational applications infused with the results of analytic processes, such as personalization and artificial intelligence-driven recommendations. These systems rely on the analysis of data in the operational data platform to accelerate worker decision-making or improve customer experience.

We added purchasing, sourcing and payments to our core Office of Finance focus areas this year to reflect new and important opportunities to use technology to gain effectiveness through greater efficiency. Technology continues to lubricate the wheels of commerce, aided by a financial services sector that is constantly innovating, responding to market-driven opportunities to reduce costs, increase...

The role of the chief information officer has evolved from managing IT to maximizing technology for business value. Many organizations launch digital transformation programs to identify and deliver the desired value but discover that digital transformation is a complex, lengthy process. Budgets and resources can be quickly exhausted with little to show for the investment. Yet business objectives...

In a relatively short time, customer data platforms (CDPs) have become default components of the contact center tech stack. This is an important development for contact center practitioners because it reflects the fact that customer data is essential to maintaining productive customer relationships. It also provides an on-ramp for organizations to establish a sensible data strategy if they have...

The six costliest words in managing a finance department are, “we’ve always done it this way.” Closing the books is the process of finalizing and summarizing the financial activities of a business for a specific accounting period (typically a month, quarter, or fiscal year). It involves completing various tasks to ensure that all revenue, expense, and other financial transactions are properly...

While I do not have an MBA, I have a very academic degree in economics and three decades of experience in different facets of business. Why is this important or relevant? Well, an entire industry has sprung up to promote the latest business ideas, the adoption of which will, supposedly, if not guarantee success, improve the probability of success in any endeavor. And while some of these ideas...

For decades, most organizations thought of onboarding as a basic housekeeping item, akin to filling out tax withholding paperwork, having a picture taken for a badge, getting a uniform or signing for a handbook. In reality, true onboarding encompasses much more. It’s considerably more strategic than tactical, including all processes required to successfully integrate a new employee into an...

I have previously written about the functional evolution and emerging use cases for NoSQL databases, a category of non-relational databases that first emerged 15 or so years ago and are now well established as potential alternatives to relational databases. NoSQL is a term used to describe a variety of databases that fall into four primary functional categories: key-value stores, wide-column...

Intelligent automation is a powerful tool that can help the CIO and IT leaders optimize business processes and outcomes while reducing costs, risks and errors. Automation takes many forms, each with its own applications, benefits and limitations. In a previous perspective, I shared how technology helps organizations automate processes and enhance workflow efficiency. This perspective explains the...

As we celebrate the first half of what seems to be the year of generative artificial intelligence, with an apparently unlimited discussion of use cases and bogeymen, my attention is turning to the very mundane question of costs. Specifically, how costs incurred – through investment and operation – will be distributed along the value chain and how this will affect the demand for AI ‒ by whom and...

Automation uses technology to perform tasks or functions that would otherwise require human intervention or effort. Automation has existed for decades, and it takes many forms. It handles routine tasks, freeing time for knowledge workers to perform other activities that require creativity, subjectivity or empathy. Automation can also improve the quality, efficiency and consistency of business...

The publication of Ventana Research’s 2023 Operational Data Platforms Value Index earlier this year highlighted the importance of incorporating analytic processing into operational applications to deliver personalization and recommendations for workers, partners and customers. This importance is being accelerated by interest in generative AI, especially large language models. The emergence of...

Increasing threats and challenges from cyberattacks, data breaches and other incidents have made digital security a critical concern for organizations. These dangers have devastating consequences, including financial loss, reputational damage, legal liabilities and operational disruption. Adopting effective and efficient digital security strategies is key to protecting data, assets and customers...

I recently attended Sage Software’s Partner Summit. Implementation partners account for most of the sales and implementation of finance and accounting applications designed for small and midsize businesses, so they are important to the success of the software vendor. These events are designed to inform partners of product enhancements and the product and technology roadmap as well as provide a...

Perhaps no human capital management-related topic has been more widely examined in recent years than the struggle to find and retain top talent. Software has flooded the market to address the challenge from every angle — automated sourcing and stack ranking of candidates; artificial intelligence-powered employee sentiment analysis for identifying and reducing the risk of attrition; and internal...

Verint came to its Engage customer conference in June with the goal of changing the industry’s conversation around Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS). The industry commonly considers CCaaS to be equivalent to cloud-based voice routing, an old and perhaps outdated way of thinking about provisioning contact centers. Verint wants to flip the narrative: voice routing is not special enough anymore to...

Despite best intentions, many organizations still struggle with some fundamental aspects of data processing and analytics. Taking data from operational applications and making it available for analysis is a first step, but data management remains a perennial challenge. Data movement and transformation difficulties can lead to delays and data quality problems that prevent organizations from...

Since acquiring InContact in 2016, NICE has moved far from its roots in call recording and contact center quality optimization. That acquisition birthed what was effectively a hybrid that married cloud contact center operations (CCaaS) with a focus on advanced customer experience (CX) analytics. NICE held its annual customer event, Interactions 2023, in June in New York, gathering end users to...