Dreamforecast
For many years I have written a piece that attempts to forecast the major themes of Dreamforce. I believe I am not always right but the exercise is fun and helps me orient toward what should be happening industry-wide even if it’s not. This year is no exception. With no briefing yet from the company, […]
Re-imagining Business Processes Drives First Mover Advantage
It’s easy to be blinded by the obvious. It happens in business all the time, something is right in front of you but you attribute its effect to a different cause. I see this most typically when observing a paradigm shift — the reason for the shift is not always the obvious causative agent. For […]
The Subscription Culture
I have been writing about the subscription economy for five years and I have enjoyed my ringside seat following this latest and most important disruption of our time. The subscription business model, and not CRM per se, is the disruption that got Salesforce going and changed the front office software industry entirely. Today we’re well […]
News Analysis: Zuora Raises $50M Series E Round, Rides #MatrixCommerce Wave
Zuora Rides The Wave In The Subscription Economy On September 5th, 2013, Foster City, CA based Zuora, announced $50 million in Series E capital. The announcement has significant ramifications not only for Zuora’s self proclaimed subscription economy category, but also the broader business theme of matrix commerce because Zuora: Expanded the investor pool. Zuora successfully […]
A Question of Granularity
There is a long simmering issue coming back to the front burner these days. It’s the question of best of breed software vs. a single system. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and realized something. The old discussion says that best of breed opens up application areas to greater competition from more vendors. […]
SAP Buys Hybris
‘Tis the Season, I guess The press release said all the right things. SAP was acquiring hybris, a Swiss ERP company that will help SAP get over into the online world that was started by the company’s acquisition of SuccessFactors, a human capital resources management company. This is largely good stuff as the company has […]
Two Questions and Some Answers
There are two questions that emerging companies in the CRM space field when they face the analysts — when are you going public and why don’t you build out a full CRM capability? The first question is easily and deftly handled by most executives and it must be. An IPO has its own cadence and […]
Wall St. Leaves Money on Table for Subscription Companies
Look, we know the old truism that if you don’t have customers and profits you don’t have a business, you have a hobby. But could we please get a little balance on the profit idea? Emerging companies typically don’t declare profits because they use excess cash to fuel growth. Anything left over is plowed back […]
Moving to the Front Office
Moving to the Front Office For a long time many people have been predicting the demise of ERP and while I share those sentiments, demise takes many forms. The one we all understand well is the crash and burn variety but that’s not the only and perhaps not even the predominant approach. The crash is […]
ERP, RIP? Cloud financials and revenue management in 2013
What’s the future for ERP in the cloud, if it has one at all? I heard a disarming admission last summer from the CEO of a company that aggressively markets itself as “the #1 cloud ERP software suite.” NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson told a gathering of industry analysts at the company’s SuiteWorld 2012 conference that […]
