Integration as an on-demand service
Here’s a quick interview I did with Matt Childs from Vidcaster on the show floor at Dreamforce 2013:
Last week I interviewed Jeff Kaplan from THINKstrategies to get his views on the conference and what was announced. Some of the highlights are here. The slides we reviewed are below.
If you aren’t feeling the excitement yet, just check out #df13 to get fired up by the Salesforce community. (While you’re at it, check out #batkid – what an amazing story!)
Here are my predictions heading into the conference. It remains to be seen if @Benioff has joined the Movember movement, but I have seen an impressive mustache initiative from Salesforce Platform evangelist Reid Carlberg.
In this post I summarized why it’s important to go beyond the simple requirements of the Salesforce Data Loader – Don’t Just Get Loaded at #DF13.
Here are a few predictions for the week from Appirio that are worth reviewing. We’re clearly going to hear a lot about mobile and the Internet of Things…that Chatter.
Earlier this week I participated in a webinar focused on Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) and the important role application and data integration plays in the success of each initiative. The slides are posted below. Have a fantastic Dreamforce!
Does this sound familiar? You’re moving from an independent instance (or org) of Salesforce CRM to the consolidated corporate org. While there will definitely be business benefits in terms of visibility, reporting, customer/prospect communication, support, responsiveness, enablement and general leverage of corporate resources, it still represents a potential loss of autonomy. But it’s the right strategy for your business. Or is it?
Whether you ended up with multiple Salesforce orgs through mergers and acquisitions, separate brands or divisions, or through organic growth: at some point your organization is going to need to determine what is the right approach to multi-org consolidation. Here is an overview of 3 approaches to consider.
This week I had the pleasure of hosting a webinar featuring two great subject matter experts on the topic of cloud data management in the era of hybrid IT:
Mike West outlined why “hybrid” (or highly interwoven) deployments are the new normal for enterprise IT. He reviewed how the coud is radically changing the role of enterprise IT and why data management must be a part of an overall cloud strategy. He identified 7 trends of the so-called Boundary Free Enterprise and pointed to these 5 best practices:
Andrew Bartels shared the story of how he led the transition at his company to “cloud first” and drove Salesforce adoption from a peripheral system to a key driver of business performance and success. Andrew spoke passionately about the need to treat data as an asseet and concluded with the following words of advice:
I’ve embedded the video below and posted the slides on Slideshare. There’s some great insight here. I hope you find the discussion interesting and useful – I sure did!
Every year Salesforce announces the top partners by AppExchange category based on the quantity and quality of reviews. Today they blogged the winners. Congratulations to these partners who continue to demonstrate such a high degree of cloud customer adoption and success.
Sales: There are multiple winners in this category based on functional area.
Overall winner: Adobe EchoSign (They have now won 7 years in a row! I actually thought the award had only been around for 5 years. Hmmm…. They have an astounding 2040 reviews for their electronic signature application.)
Customer Service: Clicktools Surveys and Scripts by Clicktools
IT and Administration: Informatica Cloud Integration for Salesforce (Informatica has been recognized 5 years in a row as the top cloud integration solution!)
Marketing: Marketo (Big win over Eloqua in a very competitive category – congrats!)
Human Resources (HR): Jobscience for Professional Recruiting by Jobscience
ERP: Ascent by Precisio Business Solutions (I’m interested in feedback on this app. Thought you’d see Financial Force here.)
Collaboration: SpringCM Free Content Management from SpringCM
Analytics: Sales Pipeline Visualization by SalesClic (First I’ve heard of this app – looks interesting.)
Congratulations to all of the winners and thanks to the Salesforce users who took the time to post their reviews!
Related Articles:
I wrote earlier in the week that cloud integration suddenly seems cool. A few articles this week reminded me that it’s not just about cloud integration, it’s about cloud data management. And in many cases, it’s about the need for Cloud Master Data Management.
It seems we have we gone from a “SaaS spree” to “SaaS sprawl” and now finally to “SaaS sanity”?
Here are three brief videos that explain at a high-level how the key capabilities of a cloud master data management (MDM) solution can help deliver SaaS sanity:
I started a blog post with an “is it me?” question once and got one comment: “Yes, it’s you.”
With that as an intro and a risk, let me ask: “Is it me or is cloud integration suddenly cool?”
Okay, maybe “cool” is the wrong word. But take a look at the trend:
So what’s so hot about cloud integration? In May 2010 I wrote about Phase Two Cloud Integration and The Dangers of Delaying Cloud Integration.
What’s changed?
Here’s how I answered the question in a recent interview:
“The first wave of cloud adoption was driven by software as a service (SaaS) applications. Pioneered by companies like salesforce.com, these applications typically were sold directly to the business, with minimal (if any) involvement from the traditional IT department. While there was a great deal of small to mid-sized company adoption early on, there was just as much departmental purchasing taking place in larger companies due to the benefits of ease of use, the promise of rapid deployments and the operational expense appeal of the subscription pricing model. On the IT side of the fence, I would characterize this as the “cloud skeptical” phase. On the business side, it was more like the Wild West. This is where cloud-based data integration first gained a foothold. Mid-sized companies and autonomous divisions and departments had limited technical resources but needed many of the same capabilities – data migration, synchronization, replication, and of course data quality.
Fast forward to today and IT organizations are increasingly becoming “cloud first.” Cloud deployments are becoming more complex, whether they are software, platform or infrastructure as a service; and the importance of broader cloud data management strategy is now recognized as the critical enabler of success. It’s a now truly a hybrid IT world. To avoid the perils of data fragmentation and “SaaS sprawl” business and IT organizations are starting to align around the need for trusted data.”
Do you agree? Disagree? Anyone got a comment?
The video of 3 great enterprise customers sharing their Salesforce integration and master data management stories at Dreamforce 2012 is now posted. You can read a blog post on two of the companies that presented so far:
And here’s the video (slides are here):
Have you recovered from Dreamforce 2012? Next week I’ll be at Oracle Open World talking about cloud integration and to be honest, I’d much rather write about the Marc Benioff show than register for Larry’s World at this point. (Although, I do wonder if we’ll see the 2nd tweet from Mr. Ellison and what his position will be on all things cloud this year. Remember the @Benioff boot out last time around? Some classic tweets.
I guess like a lot of people you could say I’m stuck in the PDC (Post Dreamforce Cloud) at this point. I’ve been spending time in the Dreamforce Chatter org reviewing sessions, watching YouTube videos and reading a plethora of blogger opinion about the conference (see links below). Sound familiar?
To bring back some of the #DF12 energy, today I hosted a webinar focused on some of the Dreamforce data management highlights. The presentation congratulated the 2012 Informatica Cloudy Award winners and featured live demonstrations of two of the hottest topics at the Informatica booth:
You can download the slides and watch the recording here:
Two things stuck out for me at Dreamforce 2012:
When it comes to the back-office, Big Data Management apps top the list of Salesforce customer requirements. Oh, and by the way, all new cloud applications must connect across the business.
Today two post-Dreamforce 2012 articles caught my attention that address the need for cloud integration head on. In his post – Plumbing the Salesforce Clouds is Your Business, Mark Smith from Ventana Research notes:
“The challenges your organization faces with data are getting larger, and the financial benefits of data in the cloud, such as reduced TCO and reduced implementation fees, are substantive. Too much time and too many resources are wasted in manual approaches where data is transitioned inconsistently and incorrectly. Automation helps organizations rationalize their overall information management efforts.”
Joshua Greenbaum at Enterprise Applications Consulting has this to say his his article, Salesforce.com, Enterprise Platforms, and the End of the End of Software:
“And the tools are there, or on the way. Hence the refrigerator pitch, though it was interestingly devoid of details on just how easy it will be to build an integration framework that could tie together a Pandora-like pure cloud environment or a more common hybrid cloud/on-premise environment. But heck, that’s really hard. It took SAP years to get NetWeaver out of slideware mode and into simple and easy to implement mode, despite all their efforts. So I don’t expect Saleforce.com to settle this issue in just one Dreamforce. It will take a while, no doubt.”
I’ll write about the Informatica Cloud integration and MDM session later this week on the Perspective blog. In the meantime, I’ve embedded the slides below so you can see for yourself how three enterprise organizations have taken advantage of data integration, data quality and master data management technology to drive overall Salesforce adoption and success. It’s Big Cloud Data Management in action!
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