Today is my last day at SAP. After 8 great years, it is time for me to move on. As of tomorrow, I am joining NextPrinciples, a social analytics and social CRM provider in the emerging field of enterprise software. I am truly excited and look forward to the next chapter in my career.
Social Media
Customer experience in the age of social media
My Verizon experience last week reminded me how early some companies are in their quest for a coherent and consistent customer experience. I was looking forward to switching from AT&T but I was instead confronted by multiple issues, including confusing pricing, rude agents and a social media interaction that informed me that their service is “stellar”. Needless to stay I am sticking with AT&T.
The end game is enterprise, not social enterprise
Is the hype around the terms ‘social enterprise’ and ‘social business’ reaching it peak? I sure hope so. I recently gave a talk on the corporate social maturity model, and in it I elaborated on the four messy stages. In my opinion the end-state is one where social is embedded in our corporate DNA and we no longer talk about social media or social enterprise, the same way we do not talk about ‘web business’ today.
Social Enterprise Software: $4.5B by 2016? (Part 2)
This follow-up post to Part 1, details the size, growth and ‘consolidator’ potential for each sub-sector in the emerging stack. While I expect significant innovation and growth across the entire stack, two areas, namely the Engagement and Integration sub-sectors hold the promise of becoming the true anchor points in the evolution given their current attempts to stitch the stack together.
Social Enterprise Software: $4.5B by 2016? (Part 1)
IDC recently forecast that social enterprise software will be a $4.5B market by 2016, while McKinsey predicted up to $1.3T in benefits from social technologies. The platform wars are only beginning as all enterprise software mega-vendors have entered the market. User experience will become a key competitive advantage and companies stuck in the old paradigm will perish. At the same time, I expect most innovation to come from the emerging sub-sectors, such as gamification and profiling. Part 2 will cover each sub-sector in more detail.