Cloud Wars Live with Bob Evans

The Big Themes:Balancing conflicting responsibilities: Christian's first story takes place during an operation by the Marine Corps when he was a young platoon commander.Reflecting and preparing for big life changes: The second lesson Christian learned came to him after he left active duty, and was struggling with the loss of community and camaraderie.Staying vulnerable and open to input: Lastly, Christian recounts a period in his business career when he got himself trapped in tunnel-vision on a project—and the results were quite bad.The Big Quote: "I don't always want people to hold my hands. When I make a mistake, sometimes I want somebody to go, you made a mistake. There's something really powerful about direct and even near-immediate feedback, when delivered with good intent, with the purpose of correcting something that maybe needed to be corrected." This episode is brought to you by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:ERP as a Service: In the past, business transformations and ERP transformations took years to complete. Today, customers need to get up and running on new platforms much more quickly—so Infosys developed an ERP as a Service offering, a bundle that simplifies and accelerates the process.Industry cloud solutions: Part of how Infosys guides clients through business transformation is through industry-specific "templates" that help customers envision what their new processes will look like.Clients save 30 to 40% on TCO: Infosys helps its customers get up and running on S/4 HANA cloud more quickly, but also at a reduced cost thanks to increased efficiencies.The Big Quote: "We are very thrilled to take the partner-managed cloud approach for RISE with SAP. We're seeing a lot of successes and clients are loving it. Clients are saying that the whole adoption of S/4 HANA cloud is simplified even more with Infosys ERP as a service."This episode is sponsored by Infosys. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:The trap of vanity metrics: certain statistics you hear all the time, like "we have 96% customer satisfaction," are not telling the full story. These metrics are easy to come by and make us feel good, but in the end they do not really help us.Metrics that actually matter: in a digital transformation, the stats that you need are those that tie back to business objectives. This means revenue improvements, cost reductions, and working capital improvements.Trust but verify: Raven Intelligence can help with choosing a vendor or partner by helping you verify the metrics you're hearing from salespeople. It's important to confirm the source of the stat, and its relevance to your business and goals.The Big Quote: "You hear a statistic like 'on-time delivery.' But how is that defined? Because if on-time delivery is 96%, and it's based on a date that's moved eight times... Well, it's easy to have an on-time delivery for a moving target. And so in those types of cases, when you hear numbers like that, you always want to sort of peel back the onion." This episode is sponsored by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Massive changes to cloud marketplaces: Amazon and Google Cloud are transforming the ways that companies buy software through their cloud MPs, and DoiT is helping customers respond to those changesGrowth requires agility: the standard locked-in discounts of the past aren't working for software companies anymore, so DoiT is taking on the lock-ins with cloud partners and delivering flexible, growth-oriented benefits to ISV customersTrusting customers to know what they need: DoiT’s ISV Program and products like FlexSave, GTM Funds, and Agency selections, reflect its belief in trusting customers to know best what they needThe Big Quote: "It's this fundamental shift from the old way of thinking, which was 'if I spend a million dollars, will you give me 5% off?' And this new way of thinking is, 'because I'm spending a million dollars with you, how can you help me grow?'"This episode is brought to you by DoiT. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:The "cradle to grave" approach: Pat and Pam worked together for many years to develop creative, advanced programs for talent acquisition and retention. One of their initiatives was to increase the collaboration between talent acquisition and talent management teams.Planning a culture vs. letting one happen: Companies should be in the driver's seat when it comes to HR and company culture. This requires focused, pointed culture development.Assessments and candidate data: The information gathered about candidates through formal assessments or otherwise should be shared throughout the organization to help develop their training and path.The Big Quote: "I think a lot of organizations think of assessments as being punitive, but in fact, the data is so rich and can really help you think about somebody's career plan, somebody's career growth opportunities, and help to align that with somebody's own aspirations." - Pam SeplowThis episode is sponsored by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Netflix's disruptive start: Tony had an "inside baseball view" of the early disruptions Netflix made to the entertainment industry in the early 2000s, and he reminds us of just how innovative the company wasA myopic focus on customers matters more than ever: when companies start to "over manage the equity markets" and fail to put the customer at the center of everything they do, that's when things go southLet's talk about business growth at Cloud Wars Expo: join us in San Francisco June 28-29-30 to explore critical questions about how to unlock, manage, and accelerate growth in today's world.The Big Quote: "Somehow, one of the world's most valuable and and most scalable companies ever created lost touch with customer sentiment and customer needs. And I think that's the real story here." Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Episode 20The Big Themes:Change management and change agility are often overlooked: Raven Intelligence research shows that customers' most frequent regret after completing digital transformation projects is that they didn't dedicate enough time and resources to change management processes.The Six Es of Operationalizing Change: From a presentation by Josh Bersin, these six steps are absolutely essential to change management, Bonnie says.Change agility: With how fast technology evolves, change management is always an ongoing project, so companies need to commit to cultivating a culture within their organization that is change-agile.The Big Quote: "It's not just an idea, it's something that you need to budget for during a digital transformation. It's sort of a box that you need to sort of put around all of these things. And I will tell you, it's not a cheap box."--This episode is sponsored by BMC Software. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:How silos impede product innovation: Ray describes "a chasm" that has traditionally existed between product teams and their counterparts working in sales and marketing. Given that every person in those departments has a hand in bringing a product to market, closing that gap is necessary to make better products, and make them faster.Industry-specific solutions are the future: Customers' expectations are higher than ever before, and they expect their vendors to understand their specific needs, pain points, and goals. As such, companies like Propel need subject-matter experts to help design software and solutions tailored to customers' industries.The tailwinds driving growth for Propel: The way businesses work is changing rapidly and in countless ways. As leaders rethink their business and revenue models, internal structures, and more, Propel is the perfect partner to help them design a "whole office" solution for product development.The Big Quote: "It used to be that we as product people and product managers thought, 'We understand what the customer needs. We're gonna design it. If we build it, they will come.' It was kind of a Field of Dreams mindset of how products were designed and launched. But it's not the case today, because people have way too many choices."--This episode is sponsored by Propel. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:How Ulta grew 40% amid Covid-19 disruptions: Omar talks about the company's innovation department and the remarkable 4-week turnaround it achieved for introducing curbside pickup at all physical locations.Merging the physical and digital: Ulta aims to dazzle customers with a seamless experience, no matter where they're shopping. Omar describes what that would look like from the customer's perspective and what Ulta's doing in terms of increasing personalization.The power of data and Redis: In addition to making Ulta's backend systems faster and more efficient, Redis has helped simplify the entire process of upgrading Ulta's technology platform. The Big Quote: "What we don't want to do is just put something out there because Omar wanted it, but millions of customers don't even care about it. So data is key. Data helps us make the right decisions, data helps us to make the right investment. With data we can be sure that we're actually delivering what our customers are looking for."--This episode is brought to you by Redis. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:An update on the sale of Thomas to Xometry: Tony describes how the two companies are fitting together and creating a new kind of on-demand manufacturing marketplace.What's the true ROI of technology these days? Following the acquisition, Tony's been on a bit of a listening tour, having lots of conversations with other business leaders, and a theme that's emerged is uncertainty around the real impact that new technology can have on a business. Tony has some important ideas about this.The role of CXOs in tech implementation: It's essential that business leaders work to demystify new technology for employees, and help their teams understand how they fit into the new structure and processes it creates. The Big Quote: "Technology is about growth. Yes, you might create something more efficient. But if that increased efficiency doesn't allow you to reallocate resources and push growth, then frankly, I don't know that your shareholders are going to be dazzled."Want to be part of Tony's listening tour?Connect with him on LinkedIn and fire away. Visit Cloud Wars for more.