Cloud Wars Live with Bob Evans

The Big Themes:The Colonial Pipleline hack: Wake-up call for boards and C-Suites. I’ve worked in utilities industry several times, and a hack in your OT system can kill people.Industry networks are not new: Banks have been ‘clearing’ checks and ‘settling’ securities trades for hundreds of years. Remember “Bank Americard.” But these new industry clouds take industry networks to completely new levels.Sadin’s Law of industry differentiation (80-10-10 Rule): It’s about process, not system application. 80% horizontal process, 10% industry jargon, 10% organizational culture and practice.Channel conflict looming: For every dollar spent on software you spend three dollars implementing it. VARs/ISVs have been valuable channel partners for decades. The Big Quotes:“It’s been a great time to be in this business. And it’s a wonderful time to be a consumer of all this stuff.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:A lot of exciting things happening: Gartner is estimating that 75% of databases will be migrated to the cloud or be launched in the cloud by the end of next year.Big Data startup Ocient: Just raised $40 million in Series B to fund work on ingesting data on exabyte scale.IDC forecast: What they call the “Enterprise Datasphere” is growing 2X faster than the “Consumer Datasphere.”Putting databases into outer space: If you’re storing your digital assets in satellites, maybe then physical space for storage units becomes less of an issue here on planet Earth.The Big Quotes:“So we went from terabytes, petabytes, exabytes, and now when you look at it globally, you're talking yottabytes?”“So you can see that just tremendous amount of data being created but much of it is ephemeral, and short lived, it's cached and it's gone.”This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:· I’m in the midst of writing a book: Everybody does it, but what’s exciting are the insights I’ll get to share from some remarkable people I’ve talked to.· Purpose and culture often go hand-in-hand: We have to be students. We have to constantly study. We have to constantly come up with those new thoughts.· “Customer-obsessed”? Most of us are not. What percentage of your meetings are directly focused specifically on a customer’s need, versus meandering discussions about internal issues? · Pet peeve for the week: Are you marking time? And candidly, most meetings are marking time. The Big Quotes:“The role of the leader is to force-multiply the organization that they lead. That is our job.”“That's my opportunity. That's my opportunity to learn.”This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Old-school/new school: The big search firms have some really good assessment programs, but tie a formalized assessment program into succession planning.The CEO sets the tenor of the company: I think a lot of times these CEOs don’t fully appreciate the components that they’re asking for.The recruiter’s role: Knowing the company culture, management style, succession planning, and weaknesses for the future market intelligence, that recruiter becomes a more qualified candidate to get to final interview.We both love this marketplace: We are consulting with a lot of clients on this exact topic, and we’re certainly seeing a lot more interest. The Big Quotes:“Now's the time to really go out and become a brand, a Glassdoor premiere company that really allows for talent to continue to develop that.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Servicing large enterprises for 100 years: So it’s just a natural motion to actually have this form factor there.Reimagining what you do: Everything has entropy, and they calcify and atrophy, so you forever have got to refresh this. But to do that, you’ve actually got to then deconstruct it.De-risking digital supply chains: Don’t just think about the cloud capabilities. Think about the compliance controls that we have built over the past two and half years.Living in the future: I was going through our quantum computing capability with them, because we’re going to put that onto our cloud at the end of the year. The Big Quotes:“You're liberating my ability to get to all of my data, irrespective as to where it may be, whether it's on premise in the IBM Cloud or in another cloud as well – which again is unique to us.” “And I guess imitation is the best form of flattery, but the ability to actually write once and run anywhere, again, is uniquely differentiated to us.” “If you're a technologist, it's kind of like a candy store with the best assets you could ever imagine.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Digital transformation is off the charts: But is the customer experience any better as a result of all this digital transformation?Poll this week with my inner circle: Over half said customer service in the past year since COVID-19 is worse – with 14% saying much worse.Starbucks experience used to be a place of relaxation: Now you’re greeted with 15 rules before you walk in the door. You get your overpriced coffee, and you waited in line for 10 minutes and you can’t even sit there to drink it.B2B Services are improved – particularly with IT consulting services: This reflects better customer experiences where so much is delivered remotely. The Big Quotes:“It's that final mile that you go, that they truly are going to remember and create that loyalty that, that in the end, it's going to truly benefit your company.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:It’s all about orchestrating the work: If you really step back and start with our customer’s customer, you need to do different things from different industries.How businesses are redefining themselves: Wayne Gretzky says, “Skate where the puck is going.” The puck is coming directly at us.Still on this new journey: Really excited about where this is going – especially the way we are building the solutions and taking them to market.We’re very passionate about this: If you really want to be able to change the way our customers are interacting with their customers, you really have to get in their shoes. The Big Quotes:“So with our solution, they went live in eight weeks and they achieved a 70% reduction in cost and a 1,500 times faster processing time.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:We’ve been having multi-cloud and hybrid cloud for quite some time: Without a lot of churn or having to rip out some core solutions that they’ve been using.Our unique AI, ML capabilities: Ranked highest in the market by lots of outside sources, and really help us to respond to our customers very, very quickly.At Google Cloud we can build from the ground up: We’re looking at an industry transformation, but what our customers really want is to understand and transform their business.We’re really doing the hard research and the hard heavy lifting: We don’t believe that anybody else can solve it as well as we can. The Big Quotes:“The whole way we build solutions from start to finish is involving customers at every step of the journey.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Extremely unique in the industry: It’s not just about verticalizing one aspect of the cloud service – it’s bringing verticalization across the cloud services in a unified and seamless way.Tech intensity: That is about having the tools at hand to build a strong digital foundation, to allow you to be resilient and future-proof.The digital factory of the future: How do you have a rapid response for the supply chain – bringing together Azure HoloLens, as well as Dynamics 365.The end game: What you want to provide for your customers, and then what are the set of processes that you need to develop for that outcome. The Big Quotes:“This is a multi-year strategy, because we've heard from our customers that they need us to be a digital transformation partner and to help them continue to rapidly evolve and be future-proofed.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Heading back to the office: The pendulum is swinging back in the other direction, and B2B or B2C becoming artificial boundaries.That’s part of our DNA: We’re a company that’s built around the notion of flexibility – and we can talk about it from a fan’s perspective.The CIO’s role has changed: My role is a leader first, and a businessman second, and a technologist third.Maintaining a culture of care: People really want to be here and they deliver excellence. This is not soft and fluffy – this is really the hard stuff. The Big Quotes:“And if you want to talk about culture and relationships and partnerships, this'll be a 14 hour podcast.” “We call them QuickFlex Walls and they can be assembled and disassembled in minutes, literally, with no tools, literally, and you can move them.” “We essentially took about 70% of the people in this building and moved them to a different part of the building, and we do that a few times a year.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Turnover in a post-pandemic world. It appears that we’re going to see a higher level of turnover in companies as we come out of the pandemic. A year of forced locked down, a strong economy emerging and a sense of “a need for change” is driving this increase turn over. This is both a problem as well as an opportunity for business leaders today.Industry cloud: Market transition or marketing hype? The major tech players are jockeying for position to dominate the emerging position of vertical industry clouds. This is far, far more than simply new marketing nomenclature and positioning.Manufacturing is the next big tech market. Reshoring, the Buy American Act, the Berry Amendment have accelerated investment in technology and a pent-up economy are creating a massive sustained resurgence in manufacturing.This is also creating a massive opportunity for tech vendors: Many of whom have yet to really understand the depth of the market opportunity that manufacturing represents today. The Big Quotes:“We have a division called Thomas Industrial Data – now that we're selling data into hedge funds and private equity firms.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Tens of thousands of people working in our vertical business: They have deep vertical knowledge and apply to some of our horizontal products, like ERP and CX.General contractors and subcontractors: 88% of users are small- to medium-sized businesses that make up the contractor/subcontractor community. It’s an easy and painless way to go to a pure click technology.We announced a partnership with Microsoft: For Oracle and Microsoft, we have exactly these types of scenarios, and we have interoperability among the cloud – both on the horizontal and vertical level.Self-healing, self-securing, self-patching: I think when you put those things together, the application is fully autonomous. The Big Quotes:“Our [industry] cloud business today is bigger than our traditional [industry] license business.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:We launched the Cloud Database Report in February: Sign up now via the Cloud Wars website.Moving data to the cloud is more complicated than it seems: Will your next database migration project take one year, or one click? Snowball, Snowcone, Snowmobile: Snowmobile is an 18-wheeler. It’s a tractor trailer that they back up to your data container and upload a hundred petabytes at a time.InterSystems has been around for 40 years: They have deep expertise and proven technologies, and they’re expanding into new spaces. The Big Quote:“I think of Snowflake as the Robinhood of databases.” This episode is brought to by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Roaring 20’s redux: Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that the economy was at an inflection point: 6%-7% or more growth, and unemployment 4%-5%.Two books on strategy: “Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity,” by Scott Galloway. And “Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick” (McKinsey).Technical debt can sink you: But a due diligence approach can save you. The Forbes article by Noah Barsky offers great insights—as do Wayne’s comments.Board governance of technology: A certified board of directors spends 5% on cybersecurity – and hardly a word on other technology risks or opportunities. The road to perdition!The Big Quotes:“How intense is the war for talent? My number one trend over the last 30, 45 days is this: recruiters—the people doing recruiting every day for search firms or manufacturers or high-tech firms—are being recruited themselves to help find great new talent.”This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:$5 billion building and rewriting modern cloud apps: In the last few years we’ve really had all the ingredients, the products, the market, the technology – and so we’ve pushed it hard.We’re private and extraordinarily well-funded: That’s actually given us an advantage on that front. We are truly thinking in decades.Last mile functionality, last mile content: The solutions have to be architected in a way to address an adjacent set of industries.One throat to choke: We’ll have our services teams to partner with Deloitte or Accenture, or a typical SI. We’re clearly a part of this and are answerable to any issues. The Big Quote:“It does feel like companies want a return on their investment a lot more quickly because they're facing much more material business issues and disruption.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Pet peeves: Not every manager is a leader. When you need a leader but hire a manager, you quickly realize that you’ve either hired the wrong person, or the wrong team—and it’s usually the wrong person.A culture of fear: What kind of culture do you have? How are you leading and how do you assess whether you’re courageous or not. You have to embrace the notion that everybody in your organization is a leader.We teach the Marine Corps how to be a leader: In bootcamp, I remember standing at attention in a chow line about half a mile long reading the Marine Corps book on leadership. So leadership can definitely be learned.Jack Welch is a classic example of someone who led with intent: You do not have to agree with the intent. That's not the point of this, but he said we would be number one or number two in every single market or segment we participated in. The Big Quotes:“It's not a 60-minute meeting for crying out loud. We have enough of those in our days, right?” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:We’re getting back to normal – which is awesome: But the markets are crazy and the blank check companies – or SPAC as they’re often called – are red hot.Private schools are expensive: Do you want to get that Gulfstream or not?These magical moments: A lot of these companies want to delight their customers. They absolutely do make these companies more efficient.There’s a bigger mountain over there: We’re looking over there and saying it’s a ton of fun right now. The Big Quotes:“I think they will both be fabulously successful – great companies that are here to stay.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Manufacturing is hot again: In this country there’s a Renaissance, I love it because I joined Thomas four years ago with the idea it is going to get white hot again.The millennial generation: Young people in particular are starting to imagine what their future might look like, and what manufacturing provides for them that other technology doesn’t.The Dollar Shave Club: The technology enabled the ability to create a subscription business out of razors into a retail outlet of my brand of razor.If you're a horizontal player: At some point you’ve got to understand that your entry into a marketplace needs to be vertical. The Big Quotes:“So the idea that a computer company could be a car company and a car company could be a computer company is not a reach today. It's a reality.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:The appetite for industry solutions is expanding in a very big way: Speaking the language of our customers is key.AI becomes much richer: The key element is how do you imagine the whole thing using AI – including industry-specific data models, processes, and analytics.Industry-specific offerings: Partners and customers building on top of not only our 360 platform but also industry-specific clouds. The Big Quotes:“We have seen an immense need from our customers and we have responded in kind by building and acquiring these companies, which are based on top of our plan.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Results based upon ~400 vetted project reviews: Completed by customers involved with the implementation of SAP, Oracle, and Workday within the past 24 months.On-budget delivery scores: As a rule of thumb, customers should figure on 1.5x the proposed amount for implementation.The team stayed the same – no changes: If you are like the majority of customers, your team is likely to change during the course of the project.Highest satisfaction for partner and project: SAPHighest satisfaction for software: WorkdayMost responsive during implementation: Oracle The Big Quotes:“All three vendors here are fairly neck and neck in terms of change orders.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:The business case for becoming a category creator in 2021: The “be different” category designers captured 51% of the revenue growth, and 80% of the market capitalization growth.Net worth of a typical White family is $171,000: Ten times greater than that of a Black family ($17,150). (Brookings)10-second video clip just sold for $6.6M in “Non-Fungible Tokens” (NFTs): This selling of a piece of digital art has changed the future. A new category design could have profound implications.Netflix moves 2% of its cash to Black-owned banks. Twitter, Costco, others join in; Netflix moves $100M. Where do you bank?The Big Quotes:“They're trying to move the world from one way to another way. They take big risks in doing it. They have to have a point of view.”This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:The economy is opening up: Are you ready? Businesses are developing new ways to delight customers and the federal government is about pump more capital into the market.Invest in capabilities to win: Cloud, ERP/CRM, collaboration tools, networks (5G/Starlink/SD-WAN), and teleoperations (AR/robotics/low-latency networks).How do you budget for IT? Old: Centralized as a fixed number percentage of sales. New: Business-unit led with tech purchases seen as *business investments* rather than “IT spending.”The ability to move faster is a hallmark of true digital transformation: It’s far more important that CEO/CFO/BoD unshackles the IT investment process than investing in any specific thing. The Big Quotes:“So the worst outcome is we’ve got a tiger by the tail and they're multiple tigers running off in multiple directions.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:We immediately solved all their networking and network security issues: Now we are enabling them to actually deploy – and now they’re looking at going beyond that first cloud and two or three other clouds.Aviatrix is the new Snowflake: Snowflake raised $1.4B. We’ve raised $150 million. The only reason people aren’t using Aviatrix now is they never heard of Aviatrix. That’s going to change.Power of visibility: The center of gravity is now moving to the cloud, and we need that level of visibility and control.A new leader is going to emerge: If you're not working with Aviatrix yet for your networking in the cloud, you need to call us. The Big Quotes:“I think we’re going to surpass Snowflake, because the network was the most important part of the stack.” Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Blending old and new communication channels: It’s that personal connection that we’re really pushing with many of our clients, and now we’re able to consult with several clients about their talent acquisition strategy.A huge passion: Moving a client from a passive to an active recruiting model is the right thing.Treating a candidate with respect: In the end when you turn them down, they still feel like you are someone that’s been their biggest advocate.Innovative and disruptive leader in HR: There are many out there today, and we’ve seen HR become more strategic. The Big Quotes:“There are companies out there that really have figured that out. Many of them are tiny or small companies, but they've just done it brilliantly.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Digital question marks left and right: It’s the old BCG (Boston Consulting Group) matrix. Figuring out how to regenerate and develop their future cash cows.Everybody’s innovative: Most firms are incrementally innovative vs. transformationally innovative. To create this muscle allows me to keep up with the market.The path to extinction: The withering on the vine is pretty apparent. Can these leaders be bold enough to say the very things that take their companies down a different path?We started with this notion of the word: The word is “I.” An incredibly powerful word but where does “I” come from?The Big Quotes:“In terms of universal truth, this is one that struck me as something I've encountered quite a bit in the last number of weeks.”This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:No more looking in the rearview mirror: We’re talking about what we can do looking out at the front of the car, and how we can steer the car going forward.The CIO’s next adventure: You’ve done all the hard work to get yourself to a point where you can help these companies do this.Truly transformational business functions: We’re going through a transformation right now where we shift information from something that is relegated to the back office, to something that changes how each of these business functions work.How do we maximize revenue? How do we optimize lifetime value? And the reality is you've got to apply industry insights on top of that. The Big Quotes:“Be the person who's going to the board and wowing them with how this can transform your business.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Keep it simple: Your projects are complex but you must be able to distill your progress into an executive summary that can be absorbed in a minute or less.Deliver the bad news as early as possible: Problems tend to snowball in these projects, so get them out in the open before they derail the project.Give ‘em the good news: Celebrate milestone successes and team members who made a difference. Showcase early impacts and user feedback.Do a post-mortem upon completion: Knowing that these projects never end, measure the final impacts versus the expectations of value going in. The Big Quotes:Mark Twain: “I was going to write you a short letter, but I didn't have time. So I wrote you a long one.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Traditional on-premises databases to cloud databases: Gartner predicts that 75% of all databases will be deployed or migrated to the cloud by the end of next year.The terabyte transition: Go back 20 years ago and that was big data. Now it’s petabytes, exabytes, zettabytes, and yottabytes.Civil War times: Business intelligence has been using this since 1865. It’s still something that many businesses have not really mastered.Fast and furious: The Cloud Database Report can help everyone get a better sense of what’s happening across the market. The Big Quotes:“The cloud database report is available on Cloud Wars. There's no registration required, just go to Cloud Wars and you dig into the deep analysis that we're providing there.” This episode is brought to by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:What does Remote 2.0 look like? As the world starts to open up what will office work look like? Many companies are announcing that they will offer remote work in perpetuity. Other companies have announced a choice between full-remote and a hybrid remote and office model.Commercial office leases are being severed at an astounding rate: But yet we also hear that there may be life left in the WeWork model, as companies will look to have a pared back office capability.The story of the COVID-19 pandemic: At some level it is a massive supply chain failure story. At the same time the story of the COVID-19 vaccines is a big data and analytics story. In both cases better use of advanced technology is the key theme.The automotive industry has become the electronics industry: Our data shows a remarkable increase in sourcing events for electronic components, sub-assemblies and related products and services. The Big Quotes:“And I think this idea of the customer experience is something that we've used a lot, but now it's becoming a North Star for many folks.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Technical debt: If you write off $0.42 during a $100M bank reconciliation, I guess you created ‘financial debt,’ but so what? It’s the Enron’s of the tech debt realm that warrant attention.Whenever you don’t fix something: Technical Debt as a board level off-balance sheet issue is the systemic and long-term policy of neglecting your IT environment.Digital transformation: Just because it’s “digital” doesn’t make it transformative. Digital optimization is a good thing – it’s just not the same and distracts CEO/BoD’s.CEOs/Board of Directors: You need a translator to help keep the discussion flowing. Someone who can call BS on the “just ain’t so.” The Big Quote:“A CIO needs to be able to do all of those things. And then as their side job, keep all the tech plates spinning.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Andy Jassy is now the CEO of Amazon: The force of nature that is Jeff Bezos is going to be executive chairman.Databricks and Snowflake are going neck-and-neck: Databricks closed a billion dollars of funding at a $28 billion valuation. That makes Snowflake look cheap!Oracle started the world’s greatest relational database: Oracle has spun out vertical solutions that can deliver impressive business value.Building a data lake or building a data swamp: The customers want to start getting business value from it, whatever it is. The Big Quotes:“The value proposition of the C-suite is we can take that data and change how your business runs to make it better, faster, and allow you to delight customers in new ways.” This episode is brought to by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Living up to the hype: Whether you’re talking about cloud applications, or cloud infrastructure, it’s a huge accelerator.Put it in a giant backpack: You just carry it over to the public cloud and empty it out. But if you’re a brand-new company with no legacy, that works pretty well because your backpack’s empty.It took 17 seconds for everyone to have a smartphone: The transition was easier – it was better. Everyone knows the cloud is better, but we’re at 15% market penetration.Not afraid of hard engineering problems: The thing about doing hard engineering is that when you get it wrong, it looks like a lot of egg on your face, but when you get it right, you build something truly magical. The Big Quotes:“That's our job. It's our responsibility. We've been that leader for 30 plus years. We need to be that leader now.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:The Autonomous Digital Enterprise (ADE): A roadmap for companies putting a lot of focus on providing solutions for customers, and to help them accelerate this with technologies such as AI.Immense amount of data: Successful companies have to figure out how to use this data and turn it into insights.We've been in business for over 40 years: We've partnered with our customers from different industry domains over the year, and we have a pretty in-depth understanding of many of the challenges that they face – and the opportunities as well.Optimistic and bullish on the future ahead of us: Last year was tough. But it taught us to pivot quickly and learned lessons that we took there that will make us stronger and more effective. The Big Quotes:“You're all in the technology business, regardless of what business you're in.” Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Know your why. Don’t do projects with unclear outcomes or that do not solve a defined business issue/goal. Digital transformation only works if there’s actually a business transformation.Integrations.They’re more important that you think, take longer and can be problematic. The less spaghetti, the less mess.Your team will make or break your success. Pick the best partner, project leader, and internal team for your project, and if you don’t have a solid executive sponsor, you’re fighting an uphill battle.Control what you can control. Before your project gets approved, start getting your house in order. Clean up bad data before you start your project. Make sure you have a way to manage your project systematically throughout. The Big Quotes:“Customers and vendors celebrate this idea of go-live, like yay! And they have cakes and they take pictures and isn't that great. But the reality is that's really when the work begins.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Not so Unified Communications. As many/most companies have shifted to some version of remote work, we’re seeing both the benefits but also the limitations of video communications.Virtual culture: We’re nearing a year of virtual, remote work for many of us. Nurturing, supporting and reinforcing culture is challenging in the best of circumstances. Ironically working remotely is forcing companies to be more intentional about their culture, causing some to reassess their cultural attributes and beliefs, and how best to train, nurture, and harness them.5G, Cloud, Mobile, and IIoT are converging: To create a massive market transition. This is most acutely true in manufacturing, where we’re already getting glimpses of the future. While the news is mostly focused on the consumer impact, the reality is the B2B impact may be even larger. The Big Quotes:“There's another dynamic that we don't focus on, but I think is playing a major role here. And that's the dynamic of the multi-generational workforce.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Authentic dialogue is dying in America: Stanford Research shows us that people are caring more about themselves and less for others.Good conversationalist vs. “selfie”: Many people think the purpose of a discussion is to win. At one point changing your mind was called “learning.” Today it’s called flip-flopping.People are told to shout their story: Not to listen. Not to collaborate. Not to learn. Not to teach. Just “tell it.”We will either have civil discourse – or civil war: This is the time to elevate the value of authentic dialogue. In person. And online.The Big Quotes:“We talk to each other and if we're human beings, we sort it out, that's the best mechanism, just be human with each other.”This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Last mile networking – down to last few feet: Data to/from the edge will skyrocket in quantity and in value.IT risk-awareness rises: Cybersecurity attacks are on the rise. Russia, China, Iran, etc. are going for third-party attacks on the US.2021 is predicted to be the biggest job growth in history: Government stimulus will drive infrastructure and investment, and trigger a seller’s market for talent.Healthcare changes are massive: Tele-everything – talk, telemetry, teleoperation, and vaccines and other therapeutic drugs. And—at last!—doctors can practice across state lines. The Big Quotes:“If you’re a CEO, a board member, a C-suite executive, you've got to be ready to sense and respond faster than ever. You've got to be able to move faster and you've got to be able to take those leaps, and manage your risks better than you ever could.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

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The Big Themes:Shift in size, scope, and delivery: The pandemic has caused a shift from mega projects to more incremental work. Many large projects were put on hold and have been modified or scaled back.Systems integration market: Their world has been turned upside down with everyone working from home and travel restrictions. How are they coping?No customer conferences to “Press the Flesh”: All in-person events have been cancelled, which has made it difficult for smaller firms to get noticed.How have customer expectations changed: Systems integrators are so busy focused on challenging market conditions – and not focused on internal projects.The Big Quotes:“I think in 2021, the businesses that really stepped up this year are going to see the benefits next year, when things get back on track and we go back to some semblance of normal again.”This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

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The Big Themes: Wall Street/Main Street: The software sector had a great year. The markets didn’t correct. Main Street not so much – stores are boarded up and it’s a ghost town. Disney played this perfectly: Netflix and Disney are going head-to-head. Both companies have done well in 2020, but you’re going to see Disney outperform Netflix in 2021. Walmart and Amazon: Does Walmart really want to finance their number one competitor – and does Amazon want that too? Rockefeller, Standard Oil, and AWS: John D. Rockefeller fought hard not to have Standard Oil split apart, but the wealth creation that happened was huge. The Big Quotes: “I still think Amazon needs to spin out AWS. It's crazy that they haven't yet.” This episode is brought to you BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Process geeks rejoice! Reimagining business process is the next frontier: New technologies; especially in AI and Machine Learning are enabling a complete reimagining of business processes, way, way beyond simple process improvements. They hold the potential to catapult business performance but require new ways of thinking about business process and how employees work with technology.“Nothing can happen for decades. And then decades happen in weeks.” Quote attributed to Scottish MP George Galloway. The COVID-19 pandemic has radically and irrevocably accelerated pre-existing trends. Eight weeks after the pandemic reached US shores eCommerce grew to 27% of retail, which represents a decade of growth in eight weeks. In essence business leaders are now running against 2030 expectations. This has huge implications for business leaders across most every industry.The pandemic will create a revolution in healthcare: 99% of people accessed healthcare during the pandemic, without setting foot in a doctor’s office, much less a hospital. This forced embrace of telemedicine will drive an explosion of innovation and holds the potential to materially change the burdens of the beleaguered US healthcare system. The Big Quotes:“The data shows maybe I don't need to go to from point A to point B to point C. Maybe I just go from point A to point Z.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:The end of Silicon Valley: Elon Musk and Larry Ellison of Oracle are pulling up their tents and going to Texas.Eric Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom: 2020 entrepreneur of the year: Eric Yuan. This one’s really obvious – he gave Zoom to the schools, and he had the biggest B2C growth stories in the history of the technology industry.Fender’s fabulous fret-filled adventure: Fender thought at the time that there would maybe be 100,000 people. The company set its sights on over 1,000,000 million people. Seven million PR impressions, 1,300 powerful stories, and 140 artists in social shares have resulted in a 150% increase in paid subscriptions.Don’t let them go on CNBC looking like a dork: The bottom line is to make your executives look good – not bad. The Big Quotes:“There's never been a greater time in history than right now – this moment right now to be in the information technology industry.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Strategic planning: Strategic planning is a lot about what you want to do – but also about what you’re able to do.True cloud-native ERP: That includes business intelligence, low-code, data lake – and is different from old-style on-prem ERP. Clients who haven’t seen this are just getting used to it.5G and other advanced networking: The bandwidth is terrific, but latency is the game changer for IoT apps, and other simplified “edge computing.”There are no stupid questions: If someone on CIO’s team makes a CEO or board member feel like he or she has asked a dumb question, get rid of that IT person. The Big Quotes:“How are you enabling? How are you empowering? How are you teaching them to think differently?” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:General contractor and owner: Eternal truth: it all comes down to motivating people – from high-tech to one of the most basic human activities, which is building a home.Men and women in uniform: Military members and veterans are great leaders and achievers. Can be enormous assets to businesses looking for character, achievement, team players.Fear kills: The only thing that sells better than sex is fear. Fear of being left out, and fear of not being in the group.The wooly mammoth: Sorry to say but some companies are wooly mammoths from bygone era—they’ve got 2 legs in the tarpit and don’t even realize they’re doomed. The Big Quotes:“You can avoid a lot of the chaos by simply understanding what makes people tick, and how to get the very best out of people.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Apple and a thousand Intel employees: The M1 chipset Apple wanted was a billion-dollar investment in 5G, which they did in 2019. Will Apple use M1 to go up against AWS?The 800-pound gorilla: Microsoft has a culture that looks less transactional and more collaborative. They are a Trojan Horse – and an 800-pound gorilla.Oracle and SAP are back at it again: They’re both creating elegant and powerful new apps for industry-specific solutions in what promises to be a huge new market.Transform the industry: How we can be business partners to transform healthcare, manufacturing, automotive, and mobility – and how to adjust those businesses over the next 12 to 18 months.The Big Quotes:“I literally can't come up with anybody other than potentially Jeff Bezos, who just wants to be CEO of this whole thing, who this isn't a win for spinning out AWS at this point.”This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

We spoke with David Trice, Honeywell Forge Chief Product Officer and General Manager Connected Buildings, in a Cloud Wars Live Perspectives. Here is our conversation.The Big Themes:Honeywell Forge: Enterprise performance management is bringing a new solution to the table – eliminating the barriers of complexity.Transforming into a software company: Honeywell is going to be a software company – and an industrial company.Mobile first software company: How you engage with the customer, how a building operates, how the supply chain operates, and what we do in the next step of our transformation.Reinventing everything: Honeywell’s business is to reinvent everything – from on-premise hardware driven-control systems to virtualized capability to digital transformation.The Big Quotes:“We understand, there's a lot of complexity. That's why we purpose-built Honeywell Forge to rethink the problem.” Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Mix of old school and new school: Know that there are different types of recruiters, just like there are different types of CXO executives and HR executives.The virtual employee: Bill Gates, Chairman and Founder of Microsoft is saying 50% of employees going forward will work from home – and 30% of office space will diminish.A huge gap in the industry: Bringing in diversity is a huge priority. Retaining talent so that they stay for 10 or 20 years is another goal.Looking ahead to 2021: The head of talent needs to be much more focused on earning the right to be a strategic partner and trusted advisor. The Big Quotes:“The head of talent acquisition really needs to have a seat at the table too.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.