The big events by the major vendors in Autumn 2016 have been marked by the focus on using IoT to add ‘value’ in different deployments. The delivered ‘value’ usually is on the basis of the traditional IT Back Office model of using Technology for cost and efficiency improvement. However, IoT is an opportunity to create a Front Office revolution in customer interactions and satisfaction to the benefit of increased revenue at reduced sales costs. A point that under pins the much discussed transformation of the Digital Services economy.
The Salesforce annual Dreamforce continued their focus on how enterprises succeed through customers, but broader theme of using IoT connectivity and Services to change customer relationships, and business models was a dominant factor.
The technology industry, as a whole, does these events really well, and attendance remains the best way to really get a ‘feel’ for what is hot and happening even in the online age. After all if you don’t know what you don’t know it can be pretty hard to find it with a search engine! So while there can be no doubt this Autumn that the whole Technology industry gets IoT, AI and Services on the Cloud it doesn’t mean necessarily they have the same approach to Business deployment and the resulting ‘value’.
Salesforce has a reasonable claim to being a founding father of Front Office Transformation around better business engagement with the Customer., and at Dreamforce 2016 it showed. For the attendee this was as much a show to learn about Customer centric Business Models and Services, as it was a Technology company product show.
Coca Cola, General Motors, Eli Lilly, etc. all had their own sizable stands, (under their own names), to talk about their strategy in customer engagement. Most stream sessions seemed to be demonstrations by a wide variety of Salesforce customers about how they are transforming their customer interactions, (albeit with Salesforce technology). Major names in the Technology Industry, as well as new players with impressive new capabilities, were all present.
All united by their use of Salesforce Platform(s) to deliver their capabilities resulting in something of a master class in understanding new Business Models to engage with customers. Clouds and Services may have been around for a while now, but adding IoT and AI Technologies is a further game change to up customer service levels.
Q. What is it that delights customers and is a new change factor?
A. Timeliness….. The fact, or quality, of being done, or occurring, at a favourable, or useful time. Source; Oxford English Dictionary
It is far to say that the original CRM Back Office IT systems worked in ‘computer time’, which does not correspond to the sensation of time experienced by frustrated customers, or employees. (Ever waited for the computer to find the copy of your order so you can buy the same item again?). CRM has come a long way since then, and its fair to say that Salesforce has played a leading role in its development and enjoys the respect of being thought of as a market leader.
Dreamforce as a total experience provided three big ‘strategic’ messages;
- In the IoT world where everyone, and everything, is part of the connected economy of Digital Services concentrate on aligning your business to the customer
- Use AI to ensure that you can interpret everything from 1) smoothly and quickly to make the customer an optimized response
- Gaining ‘Timeliness’ of activities using 1) and 2) is an enterprise wide transformation
GM staff discussed how the customer, and not just the car, was now central to their strategy. The customer is a continuous relationship across the ownership of many cars, together with GM provided Services in areas that touch on cars and transportation. As an example earlier this year GM made an investment of $500m in Lyft citing its potential for self-driving ‘cars’ to provide ‘rides’ for its customers rather than the current individual car ownership market model.
On the next stand Eli Lilly offered the insight of their ability to support your life long ‘Wellness’ through its Services, with the role of Doctors centered around ‘event’ interactions to deal with specific health issues identified at various times. Emerson wants to look after your comfort in your home environment rather than sell you HVAC with a maintenance contract.
All of these transforming Business models rely on IoT Devices and Connectivity to provide ‘insightful’ data to trigger the ‘Timeliness’ of the interactions that provide perceived customer value. Respectively; ‘Black Box’ driving monitoring, FitBit style lifestyle activities and temperature/HVAC sensors all contribute essential data as to circumstances in ‘real time’.
The connectivity of the hundreds of devices that will make up a single personal customer profile, aggregated with the monitoring of the hundreds of thousands of devices to provide coverage across the entire customer base is a complex job. It’s not the ‘Big Data’ and BI style analysis that has become familiar from the Web. It’s a ‘Small Data’ model as individual IoT ‘event’ triggers are small data packets in a steady flow albeit in aggregate this represents a large volume.
IoT is a game change through its introduction of a new ‘Timeliness’ in reading, analyzing and orchestration reactions to events and circumstances in a time frame that can change and optimize the outcome successfully.
Salesforce, in a move that is somewhat differentiated to other Technology Players application of IoT/AI, has applied the combined capability, in association with its Cloud based Services, to the whole (complex) process of customer relationships.
AI, better thought of as Augmented Intelligence than Artificial Intelligence, is focused on analyzing data to identify possible/optimal actions before the outcome is transacted. This is completely different approach to using ‘Intelligence’ to BI, which analyses the results of transacted Business actions.
Though announced before the event, Dreamforce was where the full impact of Salesforce AI capability called Einstein was on show for the first time. The Salesforce Einstein keynote is well worth watching to understand exactly how events are analyzed and transferred into a complex series of actions that ensure no small detail is over looked.
Naturally all such demos will take the capability to the extreme, but that should not to deter from the significance of what Einstein is able to achieve in respect of ‘Timeliness’ of responses to Customer engagement. However, it’s not only about transforming the Front Office, and Salesforce are also increasingly seen as providing support to operate the alignment with the Back Office resources.
Looked at strategically Salesforce with its Cloud Platforms and Services architecture are well on the way to forming an Enterprise Middle Office as the operational center of managing the ‘Agile’ Enterprise; see previous blog From IT Transactions with BI to IoT Interactions with AI An argument for a ‘Mid Office’ architecture. Add to the Dreamforce announcement that third party Services operating on the Salesforce Clouds could be remain under their own names and it seems a genuine ‘open’ platform for Services may also emerge to strengthen the Salesforce capability to act as an Enterprise Middle Office.
Addendum
Constellation Research Paper;
The Algorithm of You: How IoT Transforms Customer Experience; by Dr Natalie Petouhoff
