Enterprising Insights, – Industry News and a CX Rant, Episode 29

Hello everyone. I'm Keith Kirkpatrick, research director with The Future Home Group. I'd like to welcome you to Enterprising Insights.

It's our weekly podcast that explores the latest developments in the enterprise software market and the technologies that underpin these platforms and applications and tools. This week I'd like to cover some interesting news from the enterprise application space. Then, as always, I will conclude the episode with my rant or rave segment where I pick an item in the market and I will either champion it or criticize it.

So let's get right into it. So this week I had the opportunity to speak with a vendor. Uh, this vendor is called Cloud Eagle.

Now we're a pretty interesting company. Uh, what they do is they basically, before we get into exactly what they do, let me just kind of set the stage here. Uh, as everyone is aware, if you think about a lot of enterprises they have undergone over the last couple of years, you know, an interesting scenario where if you think back to the pandemic where organizations had to stand up services very, very quickly, they had to go out and procure software very quickly, uh, you know, just to deal with a complete change in the way people were working.

Well, they obviously went out and acquired a lot of licenses to various pieces of software. Maybe some of them worked well, maybe some of them didn't. So, what we have here now is a situation where we have companies that have a lot of software out there, and honestly, not all of it is serving its purpose.

You know, either the software doesn't work as advertised, or perhaps, uh, the vendor may have gone outta business and they still have a license there. Uh, perhaps it's just they found other software that works better. Well, problem is you get this thing, and I've talked about it in the past.

It's really called, it's really, uh, application sprawl or technology stack sprawl. And what Cloud Eagle does is they actually provide visibility into what licenses, what software licenses companies have. And this is really important because if you think about spending issues, if you think about efficiency, you think about security, it's really important to know exactly what you know, applications you have, what are being utilized and what isn't.

So what they do is they allow, uh, organizations to go in and see, you know, okay, we have 30 licenses of software X 45 of software B, and those, uh, two are redundant and allows the organization to really identify what's being used, what's working, what's not, and, and of course, um, you know, make sure that they optimize their technology utilization. Uh, it can also be used when it comes down to purchasing. So, for example, if, uh, an organization realizes that they actually don't need as many licenses as they have, they can go back to the vendor and renegotiate, uh, or, or adjust their spending.

Uh, you know, conversely, if they find that they need a lot more licenses than they have right now, they can use that and perhaps try to negotiate a discount. So that's one of the things they do. Um, the thing that to me that's even more interesting is being able to go through and, and really see, uh, really manage access to all these applications.

It's one of those things where if you think about how, uh, new employees typically request access software, they go, Hey, I'm starting this job. And the manager will say, well, they need access to software package A, B, C, and D. Uh, traditionally that's been a manual process.

What Cloud Eagle says they can do is actually automate it within the flow of work. Uh, I was talking with them and they had mentioned that they are, uh, they do have a user interface, but they also provide the opportunity for, uh, folks to actually implement or onboard through a, a more automated workflow that shows up through, let's say, slack. Uh, that's really interesting because if you think about efficiency and you think about getting things done, people don't wanna have to open up, you know, a a separate console for every application to be onboarded.

They wanna be able to do it in such a way where it's easy, where it's where they're already going every day. And so what Cloud Eagle says they can do is they can actually, uh, configure, uh, access to and basically onboard employees onto different applications through Slack and actually manage the, uh, licensing process through that. And I think that's really interesting, and it's kind of a, um, it, it's kind of a, an interesting, uh, approach when we start to think of how things like generative AI are really impacting the way that we're working and interacting with applications, uh, in a much more democratized function where it, it could be line managers handling this task instead of having to go to it and do a full, uh, you know, uh, onboarding package request, something like that, which takes up time, takes resources away, takes it resources away for more pressing issues.

Uh, so it's really interesting to see software vendors like Cloud Eagle, uh, doing this. Now, they're not the only ones that are do this, uh, other software vendors out there, uh, do this. Um, I'm thinking just off the top of my head, WalkMe does this.

They do some other things as well in terms of managing access to, uh, uh, generative ai. But I think overall, this category is going to continue to expand over the next several months and years as organizations realize that they need to get a better handle and more visibility into their tech usage and their tech spending and licensing issues. Uh, because the, the buying spree days of the COVID-19 pandemic really are gone, uh, organizations are realizing they need to kind of tighten everything up if they are going to be deploying, uh, things like automation, artificial intelligence across their tech stack.

They wanna make sure they know what they have and then how this technology will be deployed across the applications that they do use use. So, um, next I wanna talk a little bit about another announcement that came across my desk last week, I believe. Um, this one actually is going live as of, uh, Monday the 24th.

Uh, this comes from ERP vendor, Oracle NetSuite. They actually released a new solution, uh, it's called NetSuite Suite Success Healthcare Edition. Uh, this is a new suite product that is designed to help really bring out efficiency, uh, through a very industry specific pre-configured solution for healthcare companies.

Uh, the solution has predefined role-based dashboards, reporting functionality, uh, KPIs and workflows. And the idea here is that the solution is built for healthcare companies. And of course, as everyone is aware, Oracle is making a really, really strong pushing to the health pulse base.

Uh, Larry Ellison famously mentioned about a month ago that he was going to be moving the company's headquarters from Austin to Nashville to really kind of tap into the, uh, number of healthcare companies that are in that region. Uh, so there, there are a few really interesting things here that, uh, I'd like to just highlight from this announcement. Uh, you know, obviously, uh, there, there's, uh, specific functionality in there around financial management reporting, which is a big concern for healthcare organizations, uh, inventory management, you know, which sort of makes sure that organizations have a real time view of the inventory across all locations, uh, and including all different types of medic medications, medical supplies, all of that kinda stuff.

Uh, there's also an asset and lease management function there, helping them make sure that they can manage all of their assets that are owned or leased, uh, including devices, ambulances, uh, even office space. Um, and then of course, the, the other thing that's super huge is, uh, this issue around compliance and security. Making sure that all of the, uh, protected health information like personal data, uh, is actually managed appropriately with role-based access controls.

Uh, and then of course, um, the other thing that's really important along with that is this idea around user activity auditing, making sure that you can track any users, you know, what information are they actually monitoring, what are they using, what are they accessing, uh, to really make sure that everyone remains in compliance. And I think the interesting thing about this approach, and really it's NetSuite's approach to really everything. There's, there's two things going on.

One is obviously NetSuite being, you know, a property of Oracle is also leaning heavily into the healthcare space. They are obviously the ERP that's targeting smaller organizations than, um, you know, Oracle and Oracle's fusion apps for healthcare. But, um, what they are doing is they are leveraging all of Oracle's investment into the healthcare space, looking at all of the process data, all the transaction data, uh, and, you know, all of that kind of stuff that is very specific to healthcare processes to build an out of the box solution that really doesn't need a heck of a lot of customization.

Uh, and this is important because really when we're thinking about software these days, it's really all about time to value. Because if you think, you know, you're going to be deploying a new platform or piece of a new platform, you want it to start delivering a return on that investment right away because you're gonna be paying it for, uh, you know, on a, uh, a pers license basis pretty much immediately. And that's an ongoing cost.

So the ability to have a solution that can do all of these different functions, pulling data from all different parts of the organization as a good ERP does, uh, that they're really saying that this is something that is built for the healthcare industry and is available to get going right out of the box. Uh, the other thing of course, is that, uh, if we think about, um, you know, this NetSuite sort of, um, uh, value prop is also that, you know, when you're start to deploy things like artificial intelligence, having a single platform makes it easy to make sure that the AI can work across workflows from front to back, from, you know, all across, uh, you know, every different sort of, uh, function within the application. So I think that's also a, a real strength for NetSuite in this offering.

I think the, the big question of course, for all of these vendors, NetSuite included, is making that sort of value proposition, you know, resonate with customers because again, you know, it's a big lift to implement new software. Uh, specifically if you think about a lot of these healthcare organizations, some of them are privately owned from private equity, others might be public companies, a lot of times they operate on a much, you know, on a quarter to quarter basis, and they need to see results right away and need to make sure that the value equation works out for them in terms of generating ROI pretty much immediately. So that's, that is the big challenge that is faced by all these application vendors.

Then finally, for the last news item of the week, I wanna talk a little bit about the Adobe. Now, I've covered Adobe, uh, you know, quite a bit here, uh, both in terms of, uh, my research notes as well as here on Enterprising Insights. And, uh, to be honest, they've, they've had a few challenges, uh, largely around messaging, I believe, uh, messaging in terms of, uh, you know, we're talking about AI or how they train their model and whether or not they use, uh, you know, what data they use to train their models on, are they, um, you know, compensating creators is, are they using other sources to, you know, train their models, all of that kind of stuff.

And really, Adobe has done a very good job about, you know, making sure that they only use, uh, data, or I'm sorry, images portray in their models that are in their Adobe stock collection of images. And those images are either royalty based images where they pay a licensing fee to the creators, or they're in the public domain. That's been very clear.

What has not been clear, and they, they've honestly fallen down a little bit on, is being less than clear in terms of, uh, you know, their, their terms of use. They updated their terms of use in the beginning of June, and there was a big, big curve levelle about, you know, I guess there was some language in there that was ambi, uh, ambiguous in terms of, you know, does Adobe look into user data? Do they, uh, are they scanning data that's held locally?

Uh, what's going on? You know, are they training data on, you know, are they training their data models on, uh, customer data? Well, they released, uh, in mid-June, they came out and clarified their terms of use, basically stating that, you know, creators that the users own their own content and it's never being used to train any generative AI AI models.

So I go in there and I make something, um, you know, they're not training the models on anything I create, so that's very good that they clarified that. Um, so they're not training on customer content, they only train it on license content with permission. So just Adobe Stockies and on public domain.

Now, there is also a choice, though, that is available that if you want, uh, as a customer to participate in their product improvement program, uh, you can opt into that, you know, in terms of things like, um, you know, helping to refine the product experience. But they do clarify that, uh, they will not be using generative AI there, and of course you can opt out of it. Now, I think the other thing that was creating a little bit of controversy was in terms of, you know, whether or not they scan user content.

And really they do say that they can go in and look at anything that's uploaded to the server. They will scan for images that are, uh, basically dangerous material, adult content, um, you know, any kind of hate speech, any kind of things that would be considered objectionable. And I don't think that that should be a massive issue.

I mean, if you think about Adobe, they're a large company, they're public, they have a responsibility to, to make sure that the content that is on their servers, and again, I'm talking about their servers not on a user, a local, a user's local hard drive, they need to make sure that they're not hosting content that is illegal. You know, trial, pornography, something like that. Or, you know, some crazy violent, uh, you know, manifesto or something like that.

So I think the fact that they've been a little bit more clear there is helpful in terms of making sure that they are a, you know, addressing the concerns of their users, who quite honestly were a little concerned that, that we had changed the terms of how they operate. But they also had to again, sort of say, look, you know, we serve large companies who need to know that they are, that Adobe as a vendor is not going to be hosting content that is inappropriate. So I think it's good that they did spell out that yes, um, you know, they will, you know, scan content, upload it to the server to ensure that they're not hosting anything that is inappropriate.

So, um, I think the, the lesson here is that, you know, Adobe does a good job of, you know, kind of stating that they are using their policy in terms of not using, uh, ai, uh, you know, user generated content to train ai, AI models. They were just, I, I think that they just did not do a good job of being clear on that, you know, with their initial messaging. You know, it's something they need to learn from.

Uh, I think they are learning from it and, and will continue to do so. It is a, a real challenge for large organizations like Adobe, like Google, Microsoft, you know, whatnot when you're dealing with very, very complex issues in terms of training models and, you know, scanning content to prevent, um, you know, inappropriate materials from popping up on their servers. Uh, and I think it's just something that, uh, the, the industry will have to deal with over time in terms of, you know, striking the right balance about clarity and, and being very, very explicit about what they will be doing and what they won't be doing.

And, uh, you know, I'm sure that, uh, the company will move on from this, uh, like they have in the past with other issues. So, uh, with that, I want to move on to our rant or rave segment for the week. And this one is going to be a bit of a rant.

And this is about, uh, what I'm talking about here is, uh, Forrester Research just released its 2024, uh, Forrester Customer Experience Index, which measures quality of CX across US businesses. 3 on Forrester's a hundred point scale. So basically what they're talking about is sort of a broad erosion across various sectors in terms of customer experience.

Uh, this survey was conducted with, uh, about a hundred thousand consumer responses. So this is not a small survey. This is pretty widespread.

And really the, the kind of takeaways from this report were that obviously the quality of CX among US businesses has really reached this lowest point ever. And that really raises a lot of questions about customer satisfaction and, you know, all the fact that all this technology that's being pushed out into the market, uh, that is clearly not doing what it's supposed to be doing, or organizations are not deploying it properly. Um, one of the other points that was raised in the report is that there are a lot of problems with, uh, on, as they say, inadequate omnichannel experiences, and that is leading to a lot of customer frustration.

And then of course, the third thing there is, uh, what they call high effort platforms. So things like digital platforms or self-service platforms, they require a lot of excessive effort for customers to get to solve their problems. So these are really, uh, concerning, you know, insights that, you know, based on what I'm saying here, because if you think about the amount of focus on customer experience, particularly in the last several years where businesses have invested heavily in terms of looking at, you know, new CX platforms, uh, you know, looking at ways to deflect, you know, very kinda low hanging fruit customer inquiries to self-service platforms, uh, clearly, uh, it's not resonating as well as they would've hoped with consumers.

And that's a problem. And I'm thinking that there are a couple of things going wrong here. One is, of course, that the technology is not being deployed properly.

Meaning, you know, are they going after or are they, you know, deploying these and not, uh, you know, tying it to the right data, meaning, you know, are they missing the mark on personalization? You know, are they missing the mark in terms of being able to, if you're using, let say a, uh, an automated bot, you know, are, are they not, you know, grounding it in the right information? Um, are they not collecting enough information about their consum their, their customers and tying it to those algorithms?

There's clearly a breakdown there. I also suspect that there's a breakdown in terms of training, because ultimately, you know, once a customer gets to a human, that's where all the technology in the world isn't going to help. If you don't have agents that are well trained and well supported, maybe it's a question of they don't have the information they need.

A lot of platforms, technology platforms say that they're able to serve that up using generative ai. I suspect a lot of that isn't going on just yet. Um, and then the third issue here with this issue around, uh, you know, high effort to actually get things done, um, I, I'm thinking that's also, if you think about, you know, a lot of the, you know, uh, self-service platforms that, that are put out in the market, they're not perfect yet.

They still don't account for every possible scenario. They don't wanna account for every possible way that people might be, you know, trying to explain their problems. And I think that's an issue that vendors are gonna have to address with their customers.

And it's just gonna take time in terms of really understanding how customers interact with systems and, and really, you know, how do you get them to that next, you know, that next phase, which is, you know, interacting with the human in as little time with as little friction as possible, you know, so that they aren't wasting time with the system who's trying to understand them. 'cause that is the biggest, one of the biggest points of frustration. And then of course, once they do reach those, uh, agents, those agents need to be supported properly with the right information at the right time in context in a single spree.

So they're not, you know, trying to look for information all over the place. And I think the other thing is that, and I don't know whether or not this is something that is going to ever change or not given the economics, but when you have agents that are dealing with multiple interactions at once, there is only so much, um, you know, one person can do in terms of dividing their attention three or four ways at once. And there's always gonna be that lag and there's always gonna be that human factor, maybe not keeping everything straight.

Um, so, uh, it'll be interesting to see how the industry responds to this, uh, survey. Uh, I, I do think it is, you know, obviously the declines are widespread. I do think I saw a nugget in there saying that, um, uh, airlines actually did a little bit better, which is kind of surprising because I've had some pretty, uh, bad experiences with them.

Uh, but it, it, it will be something that I think vendors need to really look at in terms of how can they help their customers address their specific needs. It won't be necessarily a one size fits all a vertical strategy. It'll probably requires going in very deeply, you know, with their professional services teams to really help analyze, you know, what's going on at that particular organization and then how can technology and people and processes and policies be modified to provide better outcomes.

So that's kind of my rant to the day here. Um, but um, it is something that I will follow up on because I do think this is really interesting given all of the hype around, you know, a focus on customer experience, and yet we're still seeing, uh, massive declines. Alright, well that's all, uh, time that I have today.

So I wanna thank you all for tuning into Enterprising Insights. I'll be back again next week with another episode focused in on the happenings with the in, within the enterprise application market. Thanks again for tuning in and be sure to subscribe, rate and review this podcast on your preferred platform and we'll see you all next time.