«We host and fully manage cloud data services, whether we store, the data, move the data, or run analytics on the data,» stated Kamal Shannak, Senior Development Manager, Cloud Data Services, IBM, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 18th Cloud Expo, held June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Archivo mensual: julio 2016
Securely deliver apps to a mobile workforce
A Technical White Paper on Empowering a Mobile Workforce The advent of smart-phones has put an end to many things: postal mail has been replaced with email, calendars and watches are becoming a thing of the past, and digital cameras have taken a hit. A major transformation in the IT segment is the evolution of […]
The post Securely deliver apps to a mobile workforce appeared first on Parallels Blog.
You Can Never Have Too Much Pi (π)
The earliest approximation of π (or: “Pi”) was discovered by ancient Babylonians nearly 4,000 years ago. Since then, π has been one of the most important and celebrated number in science and mathematics. Most of us can recite the approximate value of π from memory (hint: it’s 3.14), and many of our modern scientific and technological […]
The post You Can Never Have Too Much Pi (π) appeared first on Parallels Blog.
Next Gen IoT Platforms | @ThingsExpo #BigData #IoT #DigitalTransformation
The Internet of Things will challenge the status quo of how IT and development organizations operate. Or will it? Certainly the fog layer of IoT requires special insights about data ontology, security and transactional integrity. But the developmental challenges are the same: People, Process and Platform.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Craig Sproule, CEO of Metavine, demonstrated how to move beyond today’s coding paradigm and shared the must-have mindsets for removing complexity from the development process, accelerating application delivery times, and ensuring that developers will become heroes (not bottlenecks) in the IoT revolution.
[video] Content Marketing Strategies with @ContentMX | @CloudExpo #IoT #Cloud #Cybersecurity
«We’ve discovered that after shows 80% if leads that people get, 80% of the conversations end up on the show floor, meaning people forget about it, people forget who they talk to, people forget that there are actual business opportunities to be had here so we try to help out and keep the conversations going,» explained Jeff Mesnik, Founder and President of ContentMX, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 18th Cloud Expo, held June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Making SaaS sticky: Why customer success is the industry’s new linchpin
(c)iStock.com/shylendrahoode
Behind every great tech innovation is the need for effective tech implementation. But anyone who has ever been an early adopter of enterprise technology knows that no matter how remarkable the software is, integrating it into a business and its processes is rarely (read: never) an easy feat. Not only must customers understand how to use the new technology, they have to know how to maximise its use for their business.
In the software as a service (SaaS) industry, this gets more challenging still. Time is a luxury most providers don’t have.
When your business model relies exclusively on monthly or annual subscriptions—as most SaaS firms today do—the opportunity window for a customer to achieve maximum use is incredibly short. If the software isn’t achieving ROI after a few months at most, it’s easily dumped for something else. After all, the technology is rooted in the cloud, so there are no installation investments or long-term contracts to fall back on, as is typically the case with on-premise software or hardware.
Losing a customer because your cloud-based software did not meet expectations is very expensive. According to the Harvard Business Review, it is five to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new client than it is to keep an existing one. Moreover, research from Fred Reichheld of consulting firm Bain & Company shows that increasing customer retention rates by 5 percent increases profits by 25% to 95%. And Gartner has found that 80% of a company’s future revenue will come from just 20% of its existing customers.
Delivering on the promise of customer success and optimising technology for clients is the new linchpin of the SaaS industry—especially for B2B SaaS firms, where single customers equate to large-scale accounts, and it’s driving a new trend within the industry.
Bridging support to success
Customer success is not simply another form of customer support. They’re two entirely different facets of business strategy and should be treated as such.
Customer support is rooted in reactivity. If something breaks, the customer support team is there to fix it. If someone can’t get to the right portal, the customer support team is there for guidance. The calls are incoming.
Customer success, by contrast, is proactive. Rather than waiting for calls to come in, the customer success team seeks out customers to discover how they are using the technology to meet their business objectives. A customer success manager gets to know company projects, coordinates personalised training and planning and becomes the company’s internal advocate for successful adoption. Their goals? Customer satisfaction, the best solution to problem fit, and long-term client retention.
SaaS companies need both functions to excel. Still, customer support and customer success don’t typically operate under the same umbrella by design. Support teams have to be ready to put out fires, solve individual project issues and navigate specific technical questions, while customer success teams must be relentless in adding value to customers and helping them to understand and optimise software.
If success and support are merged into a single silo, you’re more likely to compromise important elements of both, or one will simply dominate the other. When they remain separate departments that work alongside each other—keeping a well-oiled dialogue of pain-points and resolutions—you open the door to long-term customer retention that results in coveted revenue predictability.
Building the customer success experience
Because of its bottom-line significance, customer success is just as important to business as sales, marketing, operations or finance. For this reason, we’re beginning to see cloud-based software companies start to build distinct functions for customer success management—and put real resources behind it. Those that haven’t yet are sure to move in this direction to stay relevant.
As SaaS companies build and enhance their customer success strategy, here are a few key tips to consider:
- Weave customer success into company philosophy. Though a customer success department will have dedicated staff to drive customer success initiatives day-to-day, customer success is as much a company philosophy as it is a function. When customers realise that customer success is foundational to every part of your business (that is, you have metrics behind it, and it’s discussed daily by marketers, developers, assistants and leadership), they will come to appreciate that they’re not just investing in software, they have a tech partner.
- Rekindle legacy relationships. Don’t wait for new customers to come in the door before making customer success a priority. Re-energise your relationships with existing clients by performing a success triage—get an in-depth look at how they’re using your technology and why—and then work with them to outline a roadmap for optimization.
- Bring clients to you. Small-group training sessions are among the most effective ways to initiate customer success. There is no better way to ensure customers have the technical skills needed to properly use your software than to have an in-house expert sit down with a customer and work through it together. When groups are small, typically no more than 10 customers in one session, you’re able to have essential face-to-face interaction. The group is also small enough to take out to dinner or to a local sporting event. That social element can go a long way in building trust, and again, reaffirming your company is a business partner, not just a vendor.
- Leverage customer success technology. As more SaaS firms lean in to customer success, we’ll see more resources designed specifically to support it. And there are already some great technologies out there to help build a strong customer success program, such as Gainsight and Totango.
As SaaS companies continue to flood the market and compete for business, it won’t be the technology that defines success. It will be how well companies think like their customers think and guide their customers through the optimal customer journey. Those that ignore customer success do so at their own peril.
After all, without its linchpin, the wheels of an organisation are sure to fall off.
Smart Watch market enters into decline for first time
Research firm IDC says shipments of the Apple Watch have dropped by 55% resulting in the first year-on-year quarterly shipment decline for the smart watch sector, reports Telecoms.com.
Preliminary data from IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker estimates vendors shipped 3.5 million units, down from 5.1 million in the same period 2015. Apple, which dominates the smart watch market share, saw its shipments decrease from 3.6 million in Q2 2015 to 1.6 million this year. While it is a substantial drop, it does also demonstrate Apple’s strangle hold on the market. All other vendors in the top five increased shipments, however Apple still controls 47% market share.
“Consumers have held off on smart watch purchases since early 2016 in anticipation of a hardware refresh, and improvements in WatchOS are not expected until later this year, effectively stalling existing Apple Watch sales,” said Jitesh Ubrani, Senior Research Analyst for IDC Mobile Device Trackers. “Apple still maintains a significant lead in the market and unfortunately a decline for Apple leads to a decline in the entire market. Every vendor faces similar challenges related to fashion and functionality, and though we expect improvements next year, growth in the remainder of 2016 will likely be muted.”
A recent report from Ericsson indicating the wearables market is not performing in-line with consumer expectations, as general consensus is the technology is not advanced enough to date. A common cause of dissatisfaction is customers feel tethered to their smartphone, as the wearable device does not have standalone features. Respondents of the survey also highlighted the price was a barrier to entry, though this may be down to the fact smart watches cannot currently be used as a standalone device. Currently, it is an add-on.
“What will bear close observation is how the smart watch market evolves from here,” said Llamas. “Continued platform development, cellular connectivity, and an increasing number of applications all point to a smartwatch market that will be constantly changing. These will appeal to a broader market, ultimately leading to a growing market.”
This is not the first warning sign for the smart watch subsector, as Strategy Analytics recently released a forecast which estimated shipments would decline by 12% over the course of 2016. There has been a growing consensus shipments of the Apple Watch may have peaked following a blockbuster launch in Q2 last year, though the research from IDC could imply the decline is moving faster than previously anticipated. IDC also stated it does not expect the market return to growth in 2017.
Although smart watches have not penetrated the mainstream market currently, what could give the devices a lift is the entry of traditional watch brands. Casio, Fossil, and Tag Heuer have launched their own models, though the brand credibility associated with these brands could give the segment a much needed boost.
| Top Five Smartwatch Vendors, Shipments, Market Share and Year-Over-Year Growth, 2Q 2016 (Units in Millions) | |||||
| Vendor | 2Q16 Unit
Shipments |
2Q16 Market
Share |
2Q15 Unit
Shipments |
2Q15 Market
Share |
Year-Over-
Year Growth |
|
1.6 | 47% | 3.6 | 72% | -55% |
|
0.6 | 16% | 0.4 | 7% | 51% |
|
0.3 | 9% | 0.2 | 3% | 75% |
|
0.3 | 8% | 0.2 | 4% | 26% |
|
0.1 | 4% | 0.1 | 2% | 25% |
| Others | 0.6 | 16% | 0.6 | 11% | -1% |
| Total | 3.5 | 100% | 5.1 | 100% | -32% |
| Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker, July 21, 2016 | |||||
Cloud Computing Security Tips and Advice | @CloudExpo #API #Cloud #Security
Are you still pondering whether to integrate cloud computing services into the structure of your IT network? You are not the only one. Most IT professionals are very concerned about data security, so they aren’t that willing to switch to cloud computing solutions that easily. It’s a fact that even advanced services like Amazon’s EC2 aren’t ready to cater to all privacy needs of data-sensitive companies.
[session] The Democratization of IT By @MThiele10 | @CloudExpo @Apcera #IoT #API #Cloud
The Jevons Paradox suggests that when technological advances increase efficiency of a resource, it results in an overall increase in consumption. Writing on the increased use of coal as a result of technological improvements, 19th-century economist William Stanley Jevons found that these improvements led to the development of new ways to utilize coal.
In his session at 19th Cloud Expo, Mark Thiele, Chief Strategy Officer for Apcera, will compare the Jevons Paradox to modern-day enterprise IT, examining how the Internet and the cloud has allowed for the democratization of IT, resulting in an increased demand for the cloud and the drive to develop new ways to utilize it.
The ‘cloud shift’ grows: Gartner predicts more than $1tn IT spend affected by 2020
(c)iStock.com/RyanKing999
IT spending has long since been shifting from traditional IT offerings to cloud services – and according to the latest prognostication from Gartner, more than $1 trillion (£759bn) of IT spending will be directly or indirectly affected by the shift to cloud in the coming five years.
The aggregate amount of ‘cloud shift’ in 2016 is estimated by Gartner to hit $111 billion, going up to $216bn by 2020. Business process outsourcing – with the cloud segment of course being business process as a service (BPaaS) – has a cloud shift rate of 43%, with a cloud shift of $42bn out of a $119bn overall market size. Application software (SaaS), comparatively, has a cloud shift of 37%, compared with system infrastructure (IaaS, 17%), and application infrastructure software (PaaS, 10%).
“Cloud-first strategies are the foundation for staying relevant in a fast-paced world,” said Ed Anderson, research vice president at Gartner. “The market for cloud services has grown to such an extent that it is now a notable percentage of total IT spending, helping to create a new generation of startups and ‘born in the cloud’ providers.
“As organisations pursue a new IT architecture and operating philosophy, they become prepared for new opportunities in digital business, including next-generation IT solutions such as the Internet of Things,” added Anderson. “Furthermore, organisations embracing dynamic, cloud-based operating models position themselves better for cost optimisation and increased competitiveness.”
Angelo Di Ventura, a director at IT services provider Trustmarque, argues there is ultimately no one-size-fits-all model for making cloud work for a business. “A combination of dated licensing models not designed for cloud, a lack of compatibility of existing business applications and the intricacies of cloud integration all pose questions for today’s organisations,” he said. “The transition from an internet-enabled business to a digital business running in the cloud represents a huge jump for the majority of IT departments, whose existing infrastructure is designed for ‘business as usual’ operations.”
Back in 2013, Gartner argued that service led solutions – SaaS, IaaS, PaaS – will begin to displace more traditional sourcing methods by 2015. Among more recent research, Gartner assessed that the global CRM software market totalled $26.3bn in 2015, up 12.3% from the year before.