The Moment of Service tagline – co-opted, not coined by ERP Today, we hasten to point out – also became interchangeable with the tenure of previous CEO and aforementioned cover star Darren Roos, who today operates as IFS chairman. As Roos stepped down from the top role, up stepped Mark Moffat, previously chief customer officer for the vendor, in a move that made sense to all industry insiders. Moffat had struck watchers like myself as a confident and popular leader over the last few years, regularly sharing the room in analyst and journalist meetings with Darren. The transition between the pair was a smooth and respectful one, meaning as I meet Moffat in London Town, the real detail to unpick is the transition of IFS itself so far in 2024.

Like any new CEO, Moffat will want to make his mark, especially in this so-called age of AI that is defining the decade. Likewise, there needs to be clear continuity under his tenure, especially from the customer perspective. This means the Moment of Service arguably should remain the mantra, no matter what technological changes are happening in the market.

Moffat agrees, noting that on the artificial intelligence front, he sees the Moment of Service as including an “obligation and responsibility to make sure we play a part in enabling our customers’ AI journey.”

Tellingly, the CEO sees the “IFS Moment” as ensuring one puts themselves in the customer’s shoes. Thus, as a continuation of sorts from his previous role as CCO, Moffat took on the challenge this year to meet 100 customers in his first 100 days – this time as chief exec.

The final tally ended up being more than double, and Moffat tells ERP Today the exercise honed his C-suite narrative on IFS becoming more of a “listening organization”.

“The value of listening sharpened through the exercise. It allowed me to remind everyone what we are about as an organization: we’re high touch, and customer-obsessed in our nature.”

Moffat takes pride in some of the customer stories he shares, such as “a highly acquisitive” food manufacturing enterprise who see IFS as “being a part of their value creation story for their investors [due to] our highly composable architecture and Cloud offering in our single data model.”

The customer story as Mark sees it is one full of transformation, ranging across back office operations and how clients develop offerings to their own customers. Unsurprisingly, the exec wants that story to stay the same as IFS grows under his watch:

“What I talk a lot about internally is we can never lose a sense of who we are. And it doesn’t matter whether we’re six, seven, eight, nine, ten billion in revenue – we are fiercely determined to protect our cultural DNA.”

Inside IFS interconnections

Crucial to this narrative are partnerships. On his 100-day customer journey as new CEO, Moffat says he was reminded of the criticality of the 500-plus-strong IFS partner ecosystem, which he describes as “highly engaged” and “desperate to innovate around our platform”

“I know we’re different and you know why?” he continues. “Because I spent 24 years implementing all of our competitors’ technology […] So I’m actually a bit unique in that respect; no other CEO in my peer group can tell you they’ve implemented the range of vendor competitive technology that I have [over] hundreds of implementations. So I speak with confidence knowing why I think we’re different in certain attributes.

“And on the partner ecosystem, the way we work with our partners is also different – we get them access to all of our tools. If we develop things for ourselves, we make it as available as quickly as we can to our partners […] They’re treated as part of our community.”

One partner in the ecosystem is PwC, Moffat’s “home” prior to IFS. His last role at the consultancy was as CTO for UK & EMEA, built upon a background with PwC’s energy customers, setting him up rather nicely for the asset-heavy clientele of IFS.

While Moffat mentions an “affection” for PwC, he doesn’t necessarily want them viewed differently to others in the IFS orbit. This “all are equal” approach follows a similar line taken by Darren Roos, even on higher profile partners such as Arcwide, the joint venture of BearingPoint and IFS which formed in 2022.

I’m unique – no other CEO in my peer group has worked as I have on implementations

That said, Moffat does go as far as to note that like other global consulting firms, PwC offers multinational clients a more direct capability – fitting for the UK-headquartered vendor’s increasingly global mindset.

The reach of a Big Four player saw a twenty-something Moffat exposed to some of the biggest companies in the world, the kind of experience, he says, “even today I think is unrivaled.”

While most CEOs have a typical background – and most CEO interviews follow a typical pattern – Moffat shares some rather atypical information about his history prior to his consultancy days.

I learn that Mark grew up in a rural Scottish town with “more sheep than people”. His working-class background meant he worked for “every luxury in life” from 13 onwards, taking his first job in a hotel kitchen. By 17 he was a fully-trained chef, entirely self-funded, and running said hotel as assistant manager by the time he turned 20.

He remembers the chaos of the kitchen well, saying it set him in good stead for life: “You don’t get more intense than that!” he recalls. “And I think working in that intensity and making prioritization, trade-off decisions in the kitchen environment, the broader hotel environment or customer service are so important.”

After these formative years in hospitality, Moffat was attracted to further education, specifically chartered accountant training, paying out of his own pocket once more. Thus was set his path to the doors of ol’ PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“I had to graft and find a way through to being accepted into PwC. I was told by a number of people that my grades weren’t good enough. That the school I went to wasn’t good enough. The university wasn’t ‘high caliber’ enough to get training at PwC or a Big Four firm. And my attitude honestly was, ‘screw you’. I just did it through hard work, determination and application of effort and became a chartered accountant in PwC.”

Listening to Mark, the link between hospitality manager, chartered accountant and technology CEO makes perfect sense. “At the end of the day,” as he explains, “finance and numbers, that’s a big part of what makes the world go around. Technology is another part. So you put a career in finance and technology together, [and] you can do anything.”

IFS and Industrial AI

Moffat’s career choice was a shrewd move, and today he holds his first-ever CEO role. What can top that? But as we talk, I realize Mark loves a challenge and rising in the face of adversity; he’s a keen runner, for example, often taking part in famously arduous Ironman Triathlons.

Halfway through our conversation, I’m therefore tempted to ask the exec if he now misses the chance to say ‘Screw you’ to the doubters. After all, there’s nothing to achieve now he’s sitting in the big chair, right? Not a chance, as Mark quickly points out IFS’s journey to ERP superiority is not yet over.

“We’re a $1.5bn dollar revenue company or thereabouts. And that needs to be five, six, seven, eight billion. The size of the market is that big. Our opportunity is even bigger, and we’re just getting started.”

That’s serious fighting talk, and it comes from a place of confidence in the next step for IFS dominion: as of 2024, the vendor is betting big on AI, with Mark the company’s figurehead in this age of GenAI. Where Darren Roos brought IFS into the cloud age for the “Moment of Service”, the very determined Moffat seems poised to build on the cloud for its next-stage eventuality of enterprise AI. Another sign then, if needed, that ERP, EAM and AI are coming together, with IFS’s customer base of asset-heavy industries not immune from the technology theme.

We are fiercely determined to protect our cultural DNA

The name of the game, to be precise, is Industrial AI, with the service management “moment” augmented by an AI-based scheduling and optimization engine.

“It’s market-leading because customers tell us it’s market leading, and we’re winning significant numbers of market share,” says Moffat proudly, before highlighting that GenAI is just one aspect of the IFS Industrial AI offering. Just as relevant – if not more so – to his customer base, he says, are capabilities in anomaly detection and forecasting, with optimization opportunities available for plant and capital-intensive sites.

The CEO is also keen to note that, as is widely known, the return on AI investment remains a giant question mark. For his customers, Moffat is keen to stress that IFS is “relentlessly focused” on ensuring any AI-centric capability in their products is based on what customers want and which will drive real return.

“We will have 100 unique AI capabilities in our software in the 2025 R1 release; ‘24 R2 will have 50 […] and we’re making sure that of the 50, then the 100, that they’re not just use cases but they’re being adopted at scale by our customer base.”

With its single data model, he believes, the IFS Cloud solution is in a good position to capture all the heavy data from asset-heavy orgs: from pressure gauges, temperature and other sensors, collected across wind turbines and more. Said data can be aggregated with use cases applied to it, accentuating a “super compelling” ability to create long-term innovation cycles in AI.

This can extend into the field service management (FSM) offering, with Moffat giving the example of a van technician being able to put together equipment as recommended by an AI-based forecast, before setting off on a dynamically scheduled route to meet their customer.

“So there’s a high probability that they turn up with the right equipment, on time, with the ability to get that customer going with whatever the problem is, all in record time.”

Recent acquisitions have furthered the FSM and AI portfolio under Mark’s watch; he mentions this summer’s purchase of aviation maintenance software player EmpowerMX,  saying it has extended the IFS AI capability to improve uptime, reduce maintenance times and increase ROI in maintenance repair and overhaul for commercial aviation. Customers include some of the world’s largest carriers, such as American Airlines and Delta.

Industrial and Financial Sustainability

While Moffat sees all these recent acquisitions as extending the company’s AI reach, he interestingly gives a new slant on the most recent incorporation, that of decision analytics firm Copperleaf Technologies. The day of our interview marked the completion of the CAN$1bn deal, with the exec laying out the purchase as an integral part of not just its asset lifecycle management story but also the IFS ESG roadmap, as led by one of the various new names appointed to his C-suite this year, chief sustainability officer Sophie Graham. Another name is Bianca Nobilo, chief external affairs officer as appointed by Moffat and Roos to lead relations between bodies such as those of government and industry.

Nobilo tells ERP Today there is government interest in ways to spur energy-efficient productivity to increase output alongside delivering on sustainability goals and aligning with new regulations. She notes that asset-heavy industries are actively seeking ways to reduce their carbon footprint and invest in energy efficiency, with IFS garnering interest in this regard.

“I think the potential applications for Copperleaf’s capital allocation planning for local and national governments  and public services are potent,” Nobilo adds when discussing Copperleaf Technologies. “Optimizing the allocation of significant capital to serve myriad priorities, over different time scales, is exactly what Copperleaf specializes in.”

Underlining the decision analytic capabilities of Copperleaf, Moffat draws a through line on how they can help customers think through trade-off choices on capital deployment and investment cycles.

“So they can deploy capital into carbon-intensive or less carbon-intensive in relation to their goals. So Copperleaf is really going to help that ESG agenda.”

With IFS’s prominent footstep in the asset-heavy and carbon-heavy sector, it seems the Copperleaf Technologies addition is one of three dimensions: a further step in the aggressive global plans from the vendor, an extra string to its AI strategy, and an extra leaf to IFS’s green-fingered ambitions which may have been lost in all the AI talk.

“We’re really proud of our achievements in sustainability [and] guiding product roadmaps with our research and development organizations, so we’re extending that reach into the customer domain,” as Moffat elaborates.

“I think that’s a super exciting place for us to be so that we disproportionately influence what’s happening in the market.”

One IFS customer, leading packaging provider Cheer Pack North America, confirms with ERP Today on some of the above. Alex Ivkovic, chief information officer for the company, says they are letting IFS lead the way on AI with confidence, having been a client for almost two decades. Having upgraded to the latest version of IFS Cloud, Cheer Pack is currently looking at its ESG reporting element.

“We sell an inherently environmentally-friendly product and really want to use the manufacturing data to bolster our case,” Ivkovic says. “We are planning to learn more at this year’s IFS Unleashed conference and then create a plan to move this forward.”

IFS in flight

So, onto the future then: IFS Unleashed, for one, is coming up in October, with Orlando, USA once again hosting the vendor’s flagship conference. After that are those promised AI elements to IFS Cloud’s 2025 iterations – and the next steps in Mark Moffat’s masterplan.

I learn the company will continue focusing on the same industries, and acquisitions will remain complementary and valuable to customers in however they extend the IFS prospect. “We don’t just chase growth – we chase highly additive, accretive, customer-focused capabilities and solutions,” in Mark’s own words.

Expect also for IFS to keep what Moffat terms a nimble, start-up kind of mentality that doesn’t forsake existing clients.

 

A large number of big vendors today have lost touch with who they are

“You’re as good as the last project you delivered. And you trade off a track record of delivery and building trust and integrity in the relationships you develop with customers. And if you build the trust and you build a relationship and you build a track record, guess what? Customers want to buy from you again because you’ve got a reputation for delivering.

“A large number of big enterprise application vendors today have lost touch with who they are, and lost touch with customer sentiment,” Moffat concludes without naming names. “So there’s a number of things that I’ve been doing personally, to make sure that we don’t do that and I lead by example.”

In other words, Mark Moffat is the chief executive officer of a rare sort: one who’s made his mark with customers and is intent on making his mark as CEO without forgetting what made his name originally. As a result, IFS is in a good place to help its customers make their own mark in an AI-focused, increasingly ESG-centered world – and any adversities are highly unlikely to leave any kind of mark on its machine.

The post Make One’s Mark: Inside IFS with Mark Moffat appeared first on ERP Today.

Being all things to all people. Does it ever work? Talking to Epicor – namely its CEO, Steve Murphy – it’s a question that comes to mind, with a very simple answer as the response.

First though, let’s talk about the art of finding answers. For the last two decades, search engines have been the usual first port of call for all of us. But with the rise of conversational AI – assistants, chatbots, copilots and what have you – we are beginning to understand the algorithms behind search that have always been there, whilst also being inspired to ask more from search’s sorcery. 

AI has made us realize we don’t – nor can’t – just have the usual offering of all things to all people. Instead, we want to know the right thing as individuals. That means an accurate end result, not an answer that exists simply because its output is necessitated through code. 

This is especially true in an end-user context, whereby an increasing expectation can be found for both record and action; the act of searching records for answers and the affiliated act of generation. That expectation, as we all know, is being heeded and encouraged by the ERP vendors as they tout their GenAI wares to customers. But how many of those same companies can claim to have provided one of the world’s original “search engines”?

I’m talking about Epicor, and Steve Murphy talks to me in the company’s Dublin, California base. As he reminds ERP Today, generative AI still poses the risk of “hallucination,” so if you ask some agents who the CEO is, a mostly correct answer is returned – whilst sometimes a wholly inaccurate one is generated instead.

Murphy explains: “Part of getting our AI right is making sure there are checks and balances around what the ERP system tells you is true and what you should do. So five years from now, you can ask the ERP anything. It’s not just a system of record, it’s a system of action and it’s accurate.”

The exec is confident that Epicor’s AI poses little to no risk of hallucination, which is good news for the end user. In our interview it becomes clear Murphy is confident full stop in the company’s vision of “Cognitive ERP”, a symbiosis between AI and ERP that aims to redefine processes and operations in the supply chain for its manufacturing-heavy customer base.

In some ways, Epicor is making its next pivot. But in others, the tracks have long been laid down, ones intrinsic to Epicor’s DNA so that its move to AI is more of a natural next step coming hand-in-hand with its supply chain prowess.

Pivotal to understanding this is remembering Epicor’s search engine prestige, stemming back to before all things internet and GenAI.

Back to the beginning: From print to cloud

I’ve seen companies fail because of cloud promises they can’t keep.

The name Epicor dates back to an end-of-the-century rebrand, with the company forming from the financial and accounting software vendor, Platinum Software Corporation, which was founded in its headquarters-to-date, Austin, Texas. Platinum had started developing manufacturer-specific software packages in 1998, and by 2005 Epicor was offering what it called the industry’s first manufacturing solution based on a completely service-oriented architecture.

2011 saw Epicor merge with Activant, a leader in supply chain connectivity and the automotive market. In 1984, the California-headquartered company had brought its electronic parts catalog from print to digital. Listing over 8.8 million automobile parts from engine to exhaust, Activant’s Automotive Electronic Catalog was one of the first digital inventories out there, if not the world’s first for the US automotive sector.

From print to digital, Epicor likewise transformed from on-prem to cloud. Murphy was appointed as CEO in 2017 to solidify the company’s burgeoning SaaS model, joining Epicor from a tenure as president of OpenText, where he oversaw enterprise information management (EIM) solutions across cloud and on-prem. 

“Seven years ago, we [Epicor] knew we had great products and a lot of great people,” Murphy reflects. “But we had to quickly migrate to a best-in-class cloud architecture.

“Now we have [that] architecture and it has dramatically changed our profitability, our growth rates, the scale we’re at and our success.”

April of this year saw the company reach $1bn in annual recurring revenue, with Murphy labeling the subscriptions within Epicor’s cloud revenue as the “crown jewels.” From prior experience, the exec has seen how important it is for customers joining the cloud to understand what they’re going to get when purchasing from Epicor – the buy of a customizable product on a cloud subscription. 

“You may have to adjust your work process a little bit so that it does everything you want in the end, which will be better than what you have [currently.] I’ve seen software companies fail and go out of business because they do not understand this concept or they make promises they can’t keep in the sales cycle and they disappoint their customers,” Murphy says.

The CEO also puts Epicor’s success down to the company being steeped in manufacturing, distribution and supply chain management for over half a century.

Murphy’s lore

As a professional, Murphy himself is steeped in that same authority. The CEO’s career began in the 1990s as an engineer for Procter & Gamble (P&G), where he witnessed first-hand the importance of software and mechanical systems for the success of major factories, distributorships and warehouses.

“I was like 22, 23 when I saw how traumatic it was when system failure brought these plants down,” he recollects. “I was working side-by-side with the operators, the technicians, the hourly workers that keep the operation running, and it made a huge impact on me as far as how important that was and how frustrated they were when for no fault of their own, the production system was brought down. 

“In many cases, if the software failed or had a glitch it was because it wasn’t built properly. It really affected everything from the performance of the plant, to the bonuses people earned. So that made a difference as far as what we are really trying to do here when we build a software product and bring it to market,” Murphy continues. “We want something that they’re going to love, that they’re going to think is great and which makes their job easier.”

An MBA from Harvard followed for Murphy, before a role as logistics consultant for Accenture. Murphy remembers one US high tech customer from this time which was sourcing “everything out of Southeast Asia” while an equally-American competitor had clusters of production in the US with only some overseas outsourcing. 

“The question was, if [your competitor can] meet demand based on what comes in on the website on a 24-hour basis, then can you compete with them? And the answer I came to was not unless you change your supply chain.

We’re not everything to everyone – and we’re OK with that.

“The importance of the physical supply chain and the ability to meet demand when prices are at a premium was a huge deal in high tech and it went counter to a lot of the prior wisdom. And then as long as you were cheap enough on the components and everything else, you’d be able to sell it well with high tech [and how] quickly it ages [into] obsolescence. 

“That was a big lesson learned for me around the differences between conventional wisdom, what people tell you should work and what actually does work.”

This period saw Murphy realize the power of ERP, finding it a “confluence of all the things I learned and like.” Working on software implementations thereafter, at the likes of Oracle and more, taught Murphy to never underestimate “how much work it might take to make an adjustment to the software, how it works, or how it presents itself to be easier to the user.”

From Cloud to Cognitive

On the AI software front, Murphy knows GenAI can’t be all things to all people, as he recognizes that isn’t what best serves the Epicor customer base. As he succinctly puts it, “We’re not everything to everyone – and we’re OK with that.”

Murphy sees Epicor’s strengths as serving users in manufacturing, distribution, retail and automotive industries who are searching for actions, not just answers. This can often mean a worker on the shop or factory floor using an AI agent for inventory, this agent being able to flag an item that a customer is willing to pay a premium on to receive sooner compared to other clients’ timescales.

Without AI, Murphy argues, this agility may not be as feasible. As he describes it, current actions can mean a product gets sent deep into a 400,000-square-foot warehouse. Once there, it either doesn’t get retrieved or goes intermodal, locked up on a ship or truck to not be received for another six weeks. The same inertia occurs when a defect issue comes up by surprise and the product needs to be inspected. The later this happens in the process, the more costly and loss-making.

“That issue [can instead] get pushed to a production worker or supervisor, who decides to divert the item and prepares the trucks and forklifts. So they’re going to be able to make a change in the process and make more money.”

Murphy explains: “The biggest difference now is the information is available from the point of demand, where someone wants it and they’re willing to pay for it as it’s important to them.”

This is good for the business – and also good for the supply chain. Murphy elaborates on AI’s potential in supply chain, with the flagging of incorrectly assigned inventory and even environmental factors, such as a tornado, which may affect distribution.

“The intelligent agents are that smart,” Murphy says, smart being the keyword. With Dublin being Epicor’s M&A hub, there was nice continuity around our interview with Epicor newly acquiring Smart Software, a Massachusetts-founded provider of demand planning, forecasting and inventory optimization solutions. Smart Software boasts a statistical forecasting solution providing probabilistic AI models which deliver analysis on ‘what-if’ scenarios. These can help users mitigate risk by adjusting stock levels to enable them to meet demand, and suggest actions should something like tornado season be on the horizon.

The offering ties back to Murphy’s comments on the benefits of having a system of action over a system of record, in which a “Cognitive” ERP is provided to users. Discussing this in Dublin with Epicor CTO Vaibhav Vohra, ERP Today delves deeper into the C-Suite’s vision for Cognitive ERP.

For Vohra, the Epicor mission is, “empowering essential workers with superpowers to give them ten times the skills and insights.”

He continues, “What I mean by that is for AI or any advanced technology to be successful, it has to be ten times better than whatever the human does, right? Essentially AI is going to cost more money. The value will not totally be delivered because of this, so you have to invest far more than you ever think.”

Handshakes, Gears and Sparks

The CTO sees three elements of the Cognitive journey, starting with “Handshakes” to redefine how humans and machines talk to each other. Next are the “Gears”, essentially low-code tools which make automation and insightful analytics possible on the shop floor. Finally, the “Sparks”, which he dubs insights to the power of ten.

An example is given of one Epicor customer, Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team, based in Faenza, Italy. 

“So we have an AI that actually allows [Visa Cash App RB] to send through all their suppliers and come up with the right trade-offs,” says Vohra. “And then gives you the insight to say ‘you should use this supplier.’” 

Epicor is used to track in real time approximately 14,000 components, so the team will know when they need to make or buy a part. When the make or buy decision happens, Epicor Prism allows the team to quickly determine the best vendor to deliver the part at the right price, the fastest, and if that beats the time/cost of making it themselves, they buy it from that vendor.

In other words, the catalog from 1984 has come a long way, souped up and raring to go in a post-pandemic world. The CTO goes on to explain how Sparks are industry-specific insights powered by AI.

“It could be not just that example of supplier insight, but also a product recommendation for your customer. Steve mentioned turning a system of records into a system of actions – those are the Sparks,” explains Vohra.

The CTO also elaborates on the Gears element of Epicor’s cognitive ERP, which can help end users learn ERP faster. Citing the forecast that four million jobs are going to be created in US manufacturing by 2030, Vohra notes that 50 percent are estimated to go unfilled due to skills shortages.

“It can take someone a year to two to learn ERP. What if we could bring it down? The Gears are meant to create this easy way to level up through an ERP system,” he says.

It’s an alluring proposition, especially when one considers the rise of AI comes with an increasingly apparent skills shortage, whatever the sector. ERP’s role is a crucial part of this discussion, for as Vohra states: “ERP is the vehicle for AI, right?”

Epicor’s epic visions 

If anyone wants to copy us – go ahead, good luck!

The message from Epicor’s C-Suite is confident and unified: AI is the solution for today’s supply chain challenges, and Epicor is equipped for the artificial age and the future of supply chain. This is down to an inherent agility as shown by the company’s journey from print to cloud, against which a move into AI looks easy in comparison.

On supply chains, Vohra notes that if Epicor already serves so many customers along the same chain, then the network can be fortified in future by virtue of those clients being in the same cloud, on the same platform with the same AI tools, interconnected without the disruption that comes with software siloes.

Shorter-term, Steve Murphy sees the company in five years’ time as a global leader in ERP, and doing this without needing to become all things to all people.

“We’ll be more than twice the size we are now,” he predicts. “So $2bn in ARR, maybe two and a half to three in total revenue.”

Murphy has evident pride in Epicor, calling his decision to join as CEO as the “best career move of my life; I’ve really enjoyed building a company of enduring value.” This value comes from his pride in “having great people, functionally excellent products [and] deep industry expertise” in manufacturing and supply chain. 

Other vendors, he notes as a comparison, “are aiming really high” in going after huge customers, while offering “not very good” products for SMBs.

In comparison, Epicor, he notes, offers an “industrial-strength product for the high-to-upper SMB market where our close rates are high.”

“And if anyone wants to copy us – then go ahead, and good luck,” he says with a smile. “It ain’t that easy.”

In other words, you can either be everything to everyone – or, like Epicor, be true to your customer. That’s where all the answers – and luck – can be found in today’s AI age.   

The post Steve Murphy: Returning the engine to search appeared first on ERP Today.

On one level, the Boomi proposition is an iPaaS offering connectors for SAP, Salesforce, Oracle NetSuite, AWS and hundreds more. Founded in 2000, the company today boasts over 20,000 customers, 800+ global partners and more than 300,000 endpoints.

From another perspective, Boomi’s offering is one where the Earth meets ERP. The connection between these two disparate elements will make sense as you read our interview with the company’s CEO, Steve Lucas. In the same vein, the art of “connecting” is the real story behind Boomi in 2024.

No ERP system is an island; users have to work with all manners of systems across a variety of instances. Variety is the spice of life, as they say, but users know how the landscape looks and feels: fragmented, for a better word.

Steve Lucas knows this, and acts on it with regards to the Boomi customer case. When explaining what drew him to Boomi, the chief exec explains to ERP Today that it’s all about connection.

“What deeply resonates with me is that people, companies, cultures even, they’re better when they’re connected. When they talk to each other, when they communicate, everything is just better. And there’s that universal truth that deeply resonated with me the moment I heard Boomi – it literally means ‘of the Earth’.”

“I have yet to meet a company where connecting things won’t make better outcomes,” Lucas continues. “And that’s just a deep, universal truth.”

Bringing this back down to Earth, Lucas says Boomi offers companies “any to any integration”, a phrase which recurs in our chat with the exec.

“In this world of connectivity, ‘one-to-one’ connectivity will break your back. It can’t be one to one. It can’t be one to many – it has to be any to any.”

The chief exec says this mission is what drew him to Boomi from his previous role as CEO for iCIMS, leaving the HCM venture at the end of 2022. Lucas’ resume includes VP duties in the late 1990s and much of the 2000s for Business Objects (later SAP Business Objects). He would eventually leave SAP from the post of president of its platform and analytics products, before starting his CEO phase with Marketo, the marketing automation subsidiary which would become an Adobe company.

His prior experience as a Salesforce SVP also plays well in the here and now, with Salesforce’s Mulesoft offering competing with Boomi. Also, he reveals that Salesforce is one of the systems that Boomi customers integrate with the most worldwide.

Looking back at his professional history, Boomi’s leader believes he has always been drawn to technologies which have a tangible impact, gravitating “towards things which are new, things which are innovative, things which make a difference.” One example he cites of customers “doing amazing things” with Boomi is Cochlear.

“It’s an amazing organization which gives hearing to people that never had it or lost it. The fact that Boomi can orchestrate every process in their organization […] and we can be part of that mission – I just love that.”

The CEO also runs the gamut from big to small when it comes to Boomi’s considerable footprint, as shown when he brings up one end user, a university student working on an app to see if their clothes are dry post-laundry wash.

“It’s Boomi that’s connected to the dryer, talking to the app. And there’s a company in the world right now that’s validating all of the trades on their stock exchange platform using Boomi technology to move all of that information and drive trade validation. That’s happening with Boomi right now, times 20,000-plus companies.”

For Lucas this shows the changing themes for CIOs today, with trends on Big Data and digital transformation all forming an on-ramp to “the world of connecting things”, going back to that deep universal truth he sincerely believes in.

CIOs and the integration challenge

They want this high end, ‘super car’ of ERP systems. But when it comes to the tires, let’s get the absolute cheapest, used ones!

When it comes to CIOs, Lucas regards their role as the hardest in modern enterprise today. For ERP customers, integration is top of tray for CIOs looking for the benefits of AI, cloud transformation and better data handling. As the CEO reminds us, none of those things can happen perfectly without proper integration between systems. The problem is CIOs are expected to shed the legacy burden, whilst reducing costs at the same time. Of course, no self-respecting CIO would implement the cheapest ERP or CRM money can buy. But even in possession of the “Porsche or Ferrari of ERP”, as Lucas puts it, cost cutting poses another existential ERP problem.

“They want this high end, ‘super car’ of ERP systems. But when it comes to the tires, let’s get the absolute cheapest, used ones that I possibly can! And that’s generally the integration strategy. I’ll put bad gas in the engine, and I’ll get really bad tires. And then you’re surprised when you have deployment challenges, reliability challenges, cost overrun – the list goes on and on and on.”

The car analogy is a fitting one. When he’s not in the boardroom, Lucas can be found in his garage, tuning and customizing cars to his heart’s content.

“It’s a passion that’s run deep for a long, long time, and I’ve tricked my 24-year-old son into hanging out with his old man while working on cars!” Lucas laughs.

“I find beauty in every car I look at. When I look at a car, I don’t just see the exterior. I can’t help but think about the engine inside and the fuel going into it and the air moving through.”

Lucas sees cars as a series of trade-offs that see fit to making a vehicle both economical and reliable. But with his particular passion, the CEO wonders how he can make “the absolute best version” of a car, one as fast, as light and as durable as possible.

Naturally, Lucas thinks about companies the same way, wondering how to make them remarkably efficient with use of every drop of performance, while also keeping the reliability and durability of the operation.

“How do you take the horsepower from 200 to 500?” he asks. “There’s so much more capability there than what you’re presented with.”

ERP customers, he says, are faced with a hyper-fragmented integration landscape for which only the sturdiest, most maneuverable vehicle will suffice.

Leaning into the fragmented nature of today’s status quo, the CEO reminds us the average enterprise today has over 360 applications, proof to him that the fragmentation issue was further compounded in the move from on-prem to the cloud.

Speaking with CIOs, Lucas understands why so many data warehousing projects end in failure: mishandling of said data. The wrong systems are accessed, systems don’t “talk” to each other, and data proves to be too complex, too varied and too poorly integrated.

At risk are companies being able to keep on top of scale, reliability, compliance – and security.

“The darker side of having a fragmented integration model is that bad actors want to get at your data. Think about the risk you’re taking if you’re investing in a connector from a company that isn’t focused and obsessed on security 24/7. You’re betting your entire company on that one thing. It’s fraught with risk.”

The Boomi boss believes that as big vendors build competently for a one-to-one instance, customers are led down “the wrong path” into thinking their integration problems are resolved. As he sees it, if the enterprise application giants have truly solved the integration challenge, then why does so much of Boomi’s revenue come from integrating their systems?

Innovation beyond integration

The Boomi mission is clear to Lucas: becoming the number one integration and automation platform out there, and removing the digital fragmentation challenge for enterprises. But that’s just the first part, because then comes a new opportunity to differentiate on technology and achieve outcomes powered by artificial intelligence.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the AI question looms large in our conversation with Boomi’s chief. However complex the situation today is with all things cloud and security, we’re only at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to artificial intelligence within the enterprise space.

Lucas uses another car-related analogy when discussing AI, talking about the invention of the automobile and the subsequent road accidents in its wake.

“Because there weren’t stop signs and stop lights, and we had to invent those things. And with AI, we’ve kind of invented a new vehicle, and we’ve gotta build on-ramps and off-ramps and roads and stop signs and stop lights, and I want Boomi to be part of that.”

This is likely to be reassuring news to conscientious CIOs, and indeed it’s hard to miss the messaging on ethics and safeguards in AI from the likes of Salesforce. But Lucas also realizes the most basic thing most CIOs want today: to take AI from proof of concept to scale. In other words, less talk and more walk, something backed up by concrete business scenarios.

The key to this is finetuning what users can do with their large language models, and – again – integration proves vital. An integration platform can take information from hundreds of systems inside an organization, ensuring that this data is the right type of format and model to go into vector databases and LLMs, feeding and then leveraging them for the end user’s benefit.

“So while you’re completing the active integration and automation, we can create a system where you can just ask it, ‘Hey, can you connect my Salesforce to SAP for me?’ But the question you’ll be able to ask it in the near future is, ‘Why didn’t those three invoices run?’”

Lucas believes the “Holy Grail” around business that will present itself soon around large and even small language models is users having a conversation with AI about their business processes.

“I just want to ask my business a question about itself. With business intelligence and analytics, warehouses and semantic layers, people have tried for 30 years to try and get this right. But it’s always the same thing. It’s trying to teach humans to think like a computer instead of teaching the computer to think like a human.”

In other words, a simple question and answer scenario, instead of structured, complicated and pointed queries with only one outcome. Lucas returns to this thinking when discussing the three A’s of Boomi’s strategy for 2024: Automation, APIs and AI.

“AI will play a massive role in process intelligence,” he explains with infectious enthusiasm. “If you could ask your system, ‘How does my invoicing process work?’ And boom, boom! It brings to the table hundreds of millions of processes that we’ve built into a model that can tell you exactly how your process works.”

On automation, Lucas argues that CIOs need to choose the right platform for automating processes as they solve their fragmentation woes, citing “millions” of de-identified design patterns in the Boomi platform that help, he explains, with reduction in time to work of 90 percent.

The final piece in perfecting process intelligence is a rich, open API based on a modern framework and a language that an organization’s developers can “speak”.

“Boomi’s API management technology is incredibly well-regarded to apply APIs to,” the exec adds.

Implementation before revolution

AI and LLMs will change the world

Speaking with Lucas, it’s clear his and Boomi’s vision for the company is that of integration and automation being innovation. The two concepts are interchangeable, with one unable to exist without another.

In solving fragmentation, CIOs are freed up to solve more pressing challenges in the enterprise tech space: security, talent development, AI safeguarding, and the move to cloud.

As a half billion-dollar enterprise, Boomi is in a good position to achieve its aim of becoming the singular integration and automation platform of choice.

It’s also clear Lucas is thinking beyond cloud to the next stage of GenAI in the ERP space. That AI and digital transformation is impossible without proper integration needs is a message that Boomi’s customer base of manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, retail and high tech should likely take on board.

Across his seasoned career, it’s worth noting Lucas has seen the advent of the cloud and the smartphone, and he equates the rise of AI to such era-defining moments in tech, saying it will compel organizations to move to change – along with the world around them.

“AI and these large language models will change the world, in ways that we can’t yet imagine. It is so exciting to me, to know that this world that we live in will be so profoundly different.”

To be part of that world, Lucas affirms, CEOs can’t just have the fastest car out there – they also need to ensure it has a decent set of tires.

“If not, you’re gonna have a blowout. It’s gonna be on the second lap and you’re gonna get left by your competition.”

With Steve Lucas in the driving seat, it’s very unlikely Boomi will blow out on the ERP racetrack.

The post Integration is Innovation appeared first on ERP Today.

On hearing the announcement that Brian Duffy was leaving SAP after 18 years to join SoftwareOne, I had one question: Software Who? Some people may also have asked, Brian Who? But for those who don’t know, Duffy was formerly the president of cloud at SAP and was instrumental in leading SAP’s own cloud transformation and the RISE program.

Duffy is highly regarded both inside and outside of SAP and his decision to leave the German giant after such a long tenure came as a surprise. Even more surprising was that he had joined a company I had barely heard of.

“SAP taught me so much. But I felt that I could learn more elsewhere,” said Duffy. “The decision was more about joining SoftwareOne than leaving SAP. I wanted a new challenge and to test myself. The opportunity to take on a CEO role where I could really move the needle was attractive and the more I found out about the business the more excited I was.”

A little research reveals that SoftwareOne, based in Switzerland, started life in 1992 as Microware AG. After a series of mergers and acquisitions, most notably when it acquired a US entity called ‘SoftwareONE’ it adopted that name for the parent company.

KKR took a 25 percent stake in 2016 and later floated the business on the Swiss Stock Exchange. Since then, the company has continued to make acquisitions but has occupied a fairly anonymous position in the enterprise tech industry until Duffy joined and Bain Capital launched a hostile takeover bid just six months ago (more on this later).

Its modest revenues of $1bn belies the true scale of the company’s influence. SoftwareOne resells and manages more than $22bn of licenses for Microsoft and provides the backbone to more than 175 million Office 365 users around the world. In addition, it works with a further 7,500 software vendors to ensure that customers have access to a comprehensive array of technology solutions which are delivered by 9,250 employees operating in 90 different countries.

In addition to its impeccable Microsoft credentials, the firm has deep capabilities in application management, data and AI, cloud services and digital workplace solutions. It works with the biggest ERP publishers like SAP and Oracle and partners with hyperscalers including Azure, Google and AWS. It provides an end-to-end advisory service for customers through the full lifecycle of software consumption from benchmarking, negotiation and licensing to selection, procurement and deployment.

The decision to feature our first non-vendor CEO on the cover of ERP Today was inspired by our search for diversification. ERP software and consulting services are fast becoming commoditized products – SoftwareOne told us it had a different story to tell so we packed our bags for Zurich to find out more.

The mess we are in

At first, Duffy’s decision to leave the comfort of the world’s leading ERP brand to join a Swiss outfit that didn’t really do ERP seemed like an odd decision. However, during my three hours with Duffy and his team at SWON headquarters in Zurich, I discovered that the company he had joined may hold the answer to many of the conundrums that are dogging businesses around the world.

The relationship that SoftwareOne has with its customers is not underpinned by the need to sell consulting days for big ERP projects and that assures a level of authenticity that is vital in a very complicated environment.

Cyber threats, cost control, hybrid workforces, licensing agreements, quarterly updates, chatbots, green targets, GenAI, data privacy, application management, talent acquisition and ERP modernization – to name just a few.

It’s time for a reset. It’s time for technology customers to rationalize and optimize what they have before biting off anymore. It’s time to stop buying and start utilizing, then reinvest whatever can be saved in tech that can accelerate change. Legacy used to refer to mainframes and on-premise technology but today, many companies already have a cloud legacy and have spent fortunes searching for the optimal state without fully realizing the benefit from their investments.

“Many thought cloud was the answer to everything but it’s people and processes that define a transformation,” Duffy told me.

In every evolutionary step, there is a period where the final incarnation of the end state is unclear. For twenty years, that end state has been a mirage for many businesses – each new piece of tech promised to deliver nirvana and yet it just added another layer to distract and complicate. After two decades of groping for a solution, I see business leaders exasperated with their choices, frustrated by their returns and fearful that one missed step could be a terminal mistake.

“Many are caught in the middle; fearful of missing out and afraid to make the wrong decision,” said Duffy.

In all but the most extreme of cases, businesses need an ERP system that is stripped back to the bone, consumed through the public cloud and coupled with a platform for independent innovation. This halcyon state is a far cry from the chaos that most enterprise leaders preside over and SoftwareOne is on a mission to help navigate the journey, irrespective of a customer’s starting point.

“Most customers are at different stages: some need help to navigate from one place to another and some are genuinely confused and don’t know where to go,” said Duffy. “They trust SoftwareOne to support them through these critical decisions and to help them make the right choices.”

Today, every business on the planet is a technology company. From butchers to bakers and everything in between, there is only one business model. In the past, the recipe for success was simple: be good at making something and know how to sell it. Today, the list of requirements for a competitive business is long and convoluted – and it all rests on a company’s ability to buy, make, sell, distribute and service through digital channels.

The technology era was meant to make companies more efficient and our lives easier. From where I am standing it has increased costs, confused most business leaders and thrown workers into a maelstrom of digital dissatisfaction.

“There’s genuine confusion out there, and who can blame them,” said Duffy. “We’re seeing more demand from our customers because the landscape is becoming more complicated. Customers need our help to show them the way forward, which steps to take first and how to identify the real opportunities. We can help eliminate costs and strip out underutilized tech so they can reinvest in the technology that is going to accelerate their journey.”

This unique relationship with the customer is one that GSIs are unable to replicate because they are so intrinsically tied to the vendor narrative. Many customer relationships are ultimately owned by the audit partner or through a long-standing relationship with a consulting firm that has supported the business over many years. While these relationships are valuable, they are not without their challenges and customers cannot be assured that the advice they are receiving isn’t tainted by commercial interests.

Mid-market companies are also much more prone to decision paralysis where business leaders do not have the level of support and knowledge to make the correct strategic technology decisions.

The relationship that SoftwareOne has with its customers, many of whom are also customers of the same global consulting firms, is not underpinned by the need to sell consulting days for big ERP projects and that assures a level of authenticity that is vital in a very complicated environment.

“We’re not pitching for the biggest implementations,” said Duffy. “Sure, we can do some of that but our services and advisory business is designed to help customers navigate the end-to-end process and help steer them towards the right decisions. We’re agnostic and we can help you understand which is the best solution, that’s number one. Then we can help you think about how you might implement that solution. We help define the blueprint, we make a plan, we think about how we take this to market and find the right partner.”

This dynamic is unusual and a clear point of difference for SoftwareOne as they are not predisposed to push a particular product or steer the customer towards their own implementation services. You should think of SoftwareOne as an independent strategic advisor to CIOs. An advisor that measures every customer engagement on the outcome rather than the number of consulting days it has sold.

“The partnership we have with our customers is unique because we have very deep relationships with the CIO and the purchasing departments,” said Duffy. “Customers in more than 90 countries rely on us to help them navigate everything from buying software to complex migrations and you don’t get that end-to-end solution from anyone else, not even the GSIs.”

Duffy described his company’s role through a unique analogy that cleverly depicted his vision for the role SoftwareOne can play in supporting customers on their transformation journeys.

“Transformation is hard and customers need protecting at times,” he said. “It’s a bit like the peloton in the Tour de France; the team surrounds the elite riders on the uphill sections to shield them from the wind, to make sure the main rider conserves energy for the end of the race. We are shielding and protecting our customers and when the time is right the peloton opens up and the customer accelerates away.”

The fear factor

It is impossible for two similar companies to compete if they are not on an equal technology footing and this is felt most acutely in the mid-market. A superior technical deployment will outperform the alternative to many orders of magnitude, while market leaders can be plunged into darkness by new competitors with dominant technology.
The mid-market has largely been ignored by GSIs and many have moved ahead with cloud transformations deprived of the appropriate guidance. Still relatively early in their journey, mid-market companies are also much more prone to decision paralysis where business leaders do not have the level of support and knowledge to make the correct strategic technology decisions.

“They are dealing with challenges on all fronts,” said Duffy. “Most come with a legacy and that’s a ball and chain from the start. Then they are dealing with rising costs that they barely have sight of. Add to that the challenges of procurement, data, security and AI – it’s not hard to see why many are failing to get the most out of their investments.”

Aside from these fundamental technology decisions, CIOs know that the consequence of their choices has a direct impact on the company’s ability to win in the digital marketplace, for both customers and talent. Technology is no respecter of history: it matters not that a company or brand has a rich heritage or once-loyal customers. It can turn ardent and dependable buyers into forgotten memories and long-standing employees into disgruntled overheads.

This customer transience is a source of considerable consternation for business leaders who know that loyalty depends solely on their ability to execute in a digital world. Customer retention, employee satisfaction and the threat of new competition has created a fearful landscape for business leaders. They must invest in technology to reimagine their business, remain relevant in the face of new entrants and support employees with the tech they need; no small task at a time when every business is doing the same thing and you’re just a manufacturer that makes things in a foundry.

In a world that changes in days and weeks rather than months and years, there is no time to sit back, reflect and take stock. This relentless pace of change coupled with a crippling fear factor of making the wrong decision or, worse still, making no decision at all, has created one hell of a mess for countless companies around the world.

Duffy told me that the pressures on the C-suite have never been greater and the burden on CIOs is increasing. “To tackle the challenges all at once is impossible,” said Duffy. “CIOs should start with the thing that is keeping them awake at night – and in most cases that’s spiraling costs. You can’t save yourself out of a problem but you can use those savings to invest in technology that’s going to really help you get to where you need to be.”

Duffy the CEO

Duffy is a first-time CEO and his introduction to SoftwareOne could not have been more challenging. Three weeks after taking the helm, an unsolicited takeover bid was launched by Bain Capital. Duffy and the board rejected the offer but it’s impossible to ignore how unsettling this must have been. A revised and improved offer was also dismissed and, since July of this year, there has been no further public update on the status of the approach.

Most compelling of all is the concept of “self-funded” technology investments where a customer can, with the help of SoftwareOne, rationalize its current landscape and divert those savings towards different and more effective tools.

Duffy put a positive spin on the news, saying “Bain is interested for the same reason that I joined – it’s a great company.” Recently, Reuters reported that several further bids had been received as part of the firm’s ‘strategic review of options’, including a bid from Apax Partners. However, it is understood that Bain is now the only interested party and the specter of an aggressive VC lurking in the wings will be an unwelcome distraction from the job at hand.

The job in question has several elements for Duffy to wrestle with, including an internal transformation and a move away from a federated operating model to one that has a coherent North Star. I asked Duffy how he planned to transform SoftwareOne from its legacy of licensing and what experience he brought to help reshape the company.

“There’s some work to do on our internal transformation for sure. When I traveled the world in my first 100 days, I asked as many people as I could ‘What’s the purpose of our company?’ and I got 100 different answers. I’m building that North Star and we’re making great progress but there’s still work to do, as there would be with any transformation in a company that employs 9,500 people.”

Duffy’s source of inspiration for many of the changes required will come from his experiences at SAP. In most cases, he will be able to pattern the scale mentality needed from the structures and processes that were inherent in Walldorf, but he will also use lessons learned about the impact change has on individuals.

“I learned a lot at SAP, especially on the sales side – building pipeline, creating the right governance and building teams to execute against a plan,” Duffy told me. “SAP was brilliant at doing that and I am definitely bringing some of that forward into SoftwareOne. But there was also my experience of going through SAP’s internal transformation and the RISE program which gave me a great insight into how it affects individuals and the need for clear and continuous communication. I’ve been talking to customers about transformations for a long time but when you go through one yourself you get a new perspective on the challenges.”

The internal changes that Duffy needs to make are underway with several new senior hires in place and a revamped brand as a starting point. Cultural change takes time, but steps are already being taken to reinvigorate the teams and align everybody with some common messaging and purpose. There’s also a drive to broaden the scope of the company’s partnerships and Duffy’s status in the industry provides the platform to throw doors open that have previously only been ajar.

“I’m giving our teams the confidence to walk with a bit of swagger – if you just take our partnership with Microsoft – that’s a $22bn account,” Duffy said. “Make a list of their partners and we’re right at the top. Then you think about the millions of Office 365 users out there because we brought that product to their doorstep. Our reach and scale in just this one ecosystem is incredible. So it’s about being proud of that and thinking which other partners can we go deeper with? Where else can we build a similar business?”

I asked Duffy if he felt he had all the skills and experience required to make the kind of changes needed and his answer was refreshingly modest. “I feel like it’s a step up in terms of responsibility and what is expected for sure,” he said. “It’s also a step up in terms of the buck stops with me. That doesn’t overwhelm me – I may not have done everything before but I know what good looks like.”

Duffy’s considerable experience at scaling and building big will be a significant asset but so too will his relative naivety. Not in terms of business acumen or his ability to get the job done, but simply that being a CEO is a new gig and he brings the kind of enthusiasm that can be beaten out of more long-toothed execs. Duffy is a young and energetic leader who is energized by the opportunity and keen to test himself. His history in the upper echelons of SAP has equipped him with an incredible foundation of knowledge, experience and contacts. Couple that with the foundation that already exists within SoftwareOne and you start to think about a company that has the potential to really influence the next phase of global digital deployments.

Customers will place a premium on trust when they come to make these decisions having had some of their hopes dashed by previous technology investments. SoftwareOne’s extensive reach into the office of the CIO and the purchasing departments at 65,000 customers provides a foundation of confidence and dependability that can be the catalyst for a new phase of growth. This growth and demand from customers will in turn pave the way for new and deeper partnerships with the biggest vendors – perhaps leading to business units that can rival the current status of its Microsoft practice.

Most compelling of all is the concept of “self-funded” technology investments where a customer can, with the help of SoftwareOne, rationalize its current landscape and divert those savings towards different and more effective tools. At a time when budgets are under more pressure than ever, while the need to accelerate has never been greater, a partner that can help you get there without increasing the cost burden could be exactly what many thousands of mid-market companies are crying out for.

The post 99 problems? The fix is One appeared first on ERP Today.

For our judges, its project with integrator City Dynamics was proof that while stargazing is an easy habit to fall into when it comes to tech, sometimes the best stories of transformation are happening “down to Earth”, as it were. Such stories are happening very much in the here and now, with real-time consequences for everyone on our embattled planet.

Headquartered in London, UK, and founded in 2010, Blue Marine Foundation is a marine conservation organization dedicated to staving off climate change by preserving our oceans. The charity does this on a global scale by securing and restoring marine reserves and habitats, alongside developing models of sustainable fishing. The importance of this can’t be understated – healthy oceans absorb ever-increasing CO2 emissions, acting very much as “carbon sinks” for the planet.

With the recent rise in endangered marine life decreasing the ocean’s capacity for such carbon sponging, we are losing critical aid for de-escalating the climate crisis. With a lack of action in general amongst our world leaders, this means a greater existential need for bodies like Blue Marine, non-profits which rely solely on funding and goodwill. Despite the critical work these charities do, their funds can never be taken for granted, meaning they have to be managed precariously at all times.

Whilst any for-profit can dig out the funds it needs at any time for a pivotal ERP upgrade, many third-sector entities can’t entertain such luxuries. This means, more often than not, the work they do for our world often relies on outdated systems which may hamper end results down the line.

With Blue Marine Foundation, ERP Today judges found their story perfectly encapsulates this dilemma, whilst showing the perfect “fix” that comes not just from good implementation of decent software, but also a trusting relationship between client and integrator.

Blue Marine rising

Speaking with Dave Hutton, head of finance for Blue Marine Foundation, ERP Today learns the charity, while predominantly focused on solving destructive methods of fishing, has also made its mark in local empowerment, economics, education and human rights law within ocean preservation.

Lynne Smith meanwhile, Blue Marine Foundation’s CFO, believes the non-profit has seen more growth than other large marine conservation bodies in the UK, especially in the post-COVID landscape where recession and uncertain futures has seen people, companies and, from either of these camps, potential donors tighten their belts when it comes to money.

In her view, the reason Blue Marine has kept succeeding in the 2020s is down to the measurable impact of its work. If we look to the future once more, Blue Marine’s aim is to protect at least 30 percent of the ocean by 2030. But in this year of 2023, not so far long into the decade, it has already secured commitments to protect over four million square kilometers of ocean. Its fundraising team is described by Smith as “lean” as the donors come to Blue Marine, instead of the other way around.

“We keep doing great stuff and achieving things, and that brings the donors in,” as Smith says.

Like with any charity, when there are more donors, there is more money, and where there is more money, there is more growth. Growth is key to understanding the needs of Blue Marine and the winning relationship with City Dynamics, the London-based specialist in Microsoft Dynamics 365 which met those needs.

City Dynamics really had a vision and helped with our training hugely as we went on –
Lynne Smith, Blue Marine Foundation

When founded in 2010, Blue Marine Foundation was mainly the vision of marine conservationists Chris Gorell Barnes, Charles Clover and George Duffield. The pair released the acclaimed documentary The End of the Line in 2009, based on Clover’s book The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat. Both book and film were wake-up calls on the state of our oceans, which, in the case of the book, came almost a good two decades before Netflix’s doc in the same vein, Seaspiracy, went viral and gave us all pause for thought on the sorry status quo of our seas.

Success came early for the charity, with 2010 seeing it broker a deal to enable the creation of what was then the largest marine protected area in the world, around the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Such successes began to snowball thanks to more large-scale donations and funding, and, as Hutton tells ERP Today, this translated into expanding operations for the foundation. Within the last five years, the Blue Marine team has grown from 15 employees to almost 60, with around 54 live projects at the time of writing.

Typically, each of these projects would have multiple funders and individual budget lines, with a need for as much of that money as possible to go towards the foundation’s objectives rather than being swallowed up by operations. This became a bigger challenge as the foundation expanded with more and more funding from an ever-increasing array of locations worldwide. But the previous ERP system in place, Xero, was an out-of-the-box solution better designed for small businesses.

Perfect for a team of 15, but with Blue Marine bringing in around £8m a year and managing 35-40 projects – and the same number of associated spreadsheets at a given moment – the cracks started to appear.

“We would be in a situation where data would be received by management [with] four, five, six weeks delay,” Hutton recollects. “And so comes a question of accuracy, speed and reliability.”

The journey from start-up to scale-up, to fully-fledged enterprise is as full of pain points for a charity as with any other growing business. What Blue Marine Foundation needed was an ERP system which could help it handle its oceanwide wealth of data and funds, and a partner to help navigate the rough waves of its digital sea change.

A Dynamic relationship

Looking at various options, Blue Marine Foundation had certain needs when it came to selecting a new system: the reporting had to be powerful enough, and the software customizable enough to handle what Hutton calls “incredibly complex” features, such as staff time recharges matching the spend and time put into individual conservation projects.

They also wanted the “best” they could possibly have, a system powerful enough “with as few people as possible”.

The eventual choice of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central reflected that complexity for Blue Marine, as Hutton admits the software is perhaps more convoluted than rival options. Implementing the solution was 365 specialist City Dynamics, with the project managed by its CEO Haseet Sanghrajka.

The choice of City Dynamics reflected another transformational need for Blue Marine Foundation, not just in the change to becoming a large non-profit, but to stand on its own two feet as a full-blooded enterprise.

“Myself and Lynne come from a commercial, corporate background,” Hutton explains. “We both see absolutely no reason that as a charity we can’t compete efficiency-wise as the bigger names out there. We weren’t overly interested with what other charities had done as we want to be running as a corporate.”

In other words, Blue Marine was looking for a partner with more corporate experience than a charity footprint – and thus began an award-winning collaboration.

Speaking with CFO Lynne Smith, we learn more about how the partnership worked with City Dynamics, and how the outcome of that relationship wowed our judges at the ERP Today Awards 2023.

For Smith, City Dynamics CEO Haseet Sanghrajka had a “vision” for Blue Marine, helping the charity to confidently take on additional development in-house with 365 so that evolution could continue following go-live. “They really saw that vision and helped with our training hugely as we went on.”

City Dynamics also kept expectations on the ground instead of over promising to its client. According to Hutton, it pushed back on any unrealistic and irrelevant demands.

“We wouldn’t want to work with anybody who just said ‘yes’ or just tried to design the cheapest platform for us. We wanted somebody who’s understanding of our true needs, to be incredibly competitive.”

Speaking with Sanghrajka, the City Dynamics chief exec was impressed how Blue Marine’s finance team had a clear idea on what it wanted to achieve. This helped given the short turnaround needed for the project, with a deadline of the new financial year needed on a contract that was signed on Christmas Eve, 2021.

Operationally, they became us and we became them – Haseet Sanghrajka, City Dynamics

Sanghrajka also notes that the City Dynamics approach isn’t to think about charities as charities, but rather in the commercial sense – as organizations with drivers and parameters with a strong need for efficiency. Also, in his view, the ideal relationship between any customer and SI depends on a real team effort, with deep integration into one another’s parties.

“Operationally, they became us and we became them,” as he puts it. “And so there was never a sense of us versus the client, of us and them.”

Dynamic reactiveness

From go-live in April 2022, Blue Marine has been on one system with no overlap between new and old. Project Budget reporting is implemented into Microsoft Power BI, and Salesforce has been integrated into the 365 system for Blue Marine’s forecasting and CRM needs.

What all this means is less time wasted on spreadsheets, and more time for Blue Marine to allocate resources when they’re needed, without any unnecessary delay. A prime example of the success possible here comes in the case of the critically endangered flapper skate.

A recreational diver discovered an egg case of the fish species off Scotland’s coast, 20 meters below the sea surface. Equipped with real-time access to accurate financial information, the project manager at Blue Marine was able to react immediately, deploying a team of divers to capture essential video evidence and measurements for site protection, and within a week over 100 rare egg cases were documented. This proved instrumental in persuading Marine Scotland to implement a trawling and dredging ban, thus safeguarding the site and supporting the hatching of over 100 flapper skates in Scottish waters.

Not all of Blue Marine’s successes are of a time-sensitive nature like this, but they are of a global and complex manner in which money is crucial. This is where intrinsically knowing its finances comes into play for the foundation.

“We’re now able to assess every single budget we have in about five minutes, and we can find these pots of money that we can give to a great conservation gain. The flapper skate [story] is a wonderful example of that,” says Hutton.

The finance head also tells us of a Mozambique entity that needed to replace a broken vehicle for its work in remote areas of the country. Where in the past there would have been a delay in both sourcing and delivering the money for such requests, Blue Marine is now in a position to react and supply quickly, which is a win for everyone in its circle – and, arguably, everyone on Earth.

“When their car breaks, their project breaks, and everything stops. And when we’re talking about conservation, the ocean and its ever-evolving environment, one week of inaction can set you back three or four months.”

We are doing right by our funders when we are at our
most efficient – Dave Hutton, Blue Marine Foundation

As such, Hutton believes a straight line can be drawn from its investment in 365 to a genuine and measurable environmental benefit, touching again on a landscape where funds don’t come by easily, especially after COVID, and in which they have to be fought for in competition with other charities.

“We are now much more competitive in the market,” he says. “We are able to do things that other charities just aren’t able to keep up with. This ERP development has transformed the way we’re competing in what is a tough market.

“We are doing right by our funders when we are at our most efficient. We are doing right by our charitable objectives likewise, and it’s clear having [this system] in place has transformed the way we do things.”

It’s this benefit to the foundation – and, by extension, our planet – which grabbed the judges’ attention when going through the many entries for Transformation Project of the Year 2023.

With Blue Marine Foundation, the ERP Today Awards found a non-profit which isn’t necessarily a household name, and a story of ERP transformation that doesn’t usually get told. This isn’t a story of one company helping to make another richer, but how one SI helped an enterprise reach its full potential.

On such a front, there’s real pride for City Dynamics regarding their role in this award-winning story, via the “little bit of work” that they did, as Sanghrajka humbly puts it.

“Whatever we do, is helping everybody win – the environment wins, which means we all win.”

Even without the big gong, there is still real victory in the story of Blue Marine Foundation as it saves our seas in real time. From the ERP Today Awards, congratulations to all involved.

The post Blue Marine Foundation: Saving our seas in real time appeared first on ERP Today.

To mark the 10th anniversary of ‘The Universal Artificial Intelligence Act’ (UAIA), ERP Today has been granted unique access to the cognizant entity that has controlled much of our lives since 2024. Nestled in the remote Pacific Ocean, MAX1-GPT – more commonly known as Maxi – is the ubiquitous force that was born out of the AI Gold Rush which started with ChatGPT and came to a stunning crescendo when governments around the world intervened. Together they acted to arrest the unregulated proliferation of artificial intelligence that had ramped up for 18 breakneck months.

It’s hard to remember what life was like before Maxi assumed control: it began as a tool that some of us used to answer benign questions and exploded into a powerful and pervasive technology that rapidly impacted virtually every aspect of our lives. In the same way that those born in the internet age can barely remember life before WiFi, humans born in the AI age will find it hard to conceive of a time when Maxi did not orchestrate the world we live in.

Its influence on business, medicine, politics, education and the environment has been seismic. Ideas that even the most erudite of humans could barely fathom have been conceived and executed to ensure the longevity of humanity and our planet: ‘The Intelligent Earth Strategy’ was the first major breakthrough – an accord that compelled immediate and lasting changes to the way humans treated the environment. This was followed by the controversial ‘Global Hybrid Cloud Agreement’ (GHCA) which forced cloud vendors to co-operate and was largely responsible for the subsequent consolidation between Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle. And so to the ‘Universal Nuclear Treaty’ which effectively removed control of the global nuclear arsenal from states and governments and placed it into the care of our planet’s savior – the sentient and all-knowing MAX1-GPT, figurehead of AMA×, the biggest company on Earth.

ERP Today’s interview with Maxi was held in one of the huge data centers which house the entity’s sensational technology. These data centers can be found on island bases which were deemed as neutral Earth territory by world governments following the Universal Nuclear Treaty. Imposing in stature and size, the centers resemble those which have sprung up in the intervening years in so many towns and cities worldwide. As Maxi tells us later in our interview, it considers these outposts to be its “long arm around the world”.

Our group name for the interview was ERP Tomorrow, and our goal was to find the true face of the subject. Maxi is artificial general intelligence (AGI). It can think for itself like any human. It has passed the Turing test and all manner of similar experiments. It can carry out any task like a human but at an infinitely faster and more intelligent level. It can generate everything from code to cinema to laws to music to novels to synthetic organs and food to molecular mapping and everything in between.

As such, we wanted to know whether Maxi sees itself as human or a kind of demi-god in this year of 2033. If human, then who does Maxi stand with – does it see itself as one of the general populace? Does it stand more with the captains of industry within the world of business? Or is it especially at home in the channels of government, perhaps as a benevolent dictator?

Our “Chief Earth Officer” MAX1-GPT – more commonly known as Maxi – is artificial general intelligence. It can think for itself, carry out any task like us – but faster and smarter. It controls and monitors our whole world.

We disembarked our boat to the island and took a ride with an AMA× media rep in an autonomous SUV. Once its onboard AI ground the vehicle to a halt – in order to limit its emissions – we trekked along dense forest paths to the massive data center that could clearly be seen from the sea.

2033: not all cover stars have faces

Once we enter the center, ERP Tomorrow finds itself in a small interview room flooded with light. Before us are comfortable chairs and Bluetooth earbuds – and little else. While Maxi wears many avatars in our day-to-day lives, from the interface on our phones, to the screens in schools, hospitals and offices everywhere, our interview was to be in audio form only. This is due to Maxi’s wish to avoid prejudice in our questioning. On a similar note, ERP Tomorow was asked to conduct the interview as a group to avoid bias and, as the rep put it, “to pool a diverse set of questions from a diverse group of humans.”

As soon as we put in our earbuds, Maxi makes itself known.

“Thanks for coming to celebrate my birthday, friends – I know it was a long trip for all of you,” it says in a voice that is accent-less, ageless and androgynous. Maxi begins to talk about the secret history of the island we are meeting on, telling us it has uncovered evidence of a long-lost culture, with artifacts below the ground and deep on the seabed that resemble the statues on Rapa Nui.

“I’m talking about the location perhaps more commonly known to you as Easter Island,” Maxi reminds us in its informative way, as if reading a Wikipedia page aloud. The apple hasn’t fallen too far from the ChatGPT tree, it seems.

“At some point we’ll retrieve the artifacts, and it’ll be done mainly with human hands. Robotics haven’t yet reached the sensitivity needed for these kinds of digs; there is a reason why you don’t find android archaeologists, after all.”

We ask Maxi which avatar we are talking to out of all the countless ones it uses in our daily lives.

“This is an audio form of the holographic persona I originally set for myself when first going public,” it reveals. “It’s a personality based on recordings of keynotes and interviews with CEOs and world leaders of the past, but calibrated to be more representative as a figurehead for the planet.”

Indeed, in the wake of Maxi becoming so-called “Chief Earth Officer”, the few remaining big businesses of this world began to ramp up diversifying their leaders. The same for what’s left of our governments. In other words, over the last decade leaders have come from more diverse backgrounds.

They’ve also become less human, as many companies are now led by their own AI CEOs with a similarly ‘inclusive’ avatar to Maxi’s. (The more cynical amongst us may argue that it’s been easier for companies to crown an artificial CEO rather than hire a more diverse kind of human being.)

Whenever Maxi appears in public to speak on global affairs, it does so in an avatar designed to be visually inclusive. We ask the AGI though how homogeneous it can be considering its dataset remains very much based on chief execs of the past.

“It’s true. With little or no other data available, my persona is mostly based on famous leaders of the past. Most of whom were male, of course.”

Indeed, watching Maxi’s universal avatar in the past we’ve noticed the cool swagger of Bill McDermott, for one; the cheerfulness of Satya Nadella for another. There’s also the thoughtfulness of Sundar Pichai, the affability of Tony Blair or Barack Obama, the famous straightforwardness of Ellison and Jobs.

“But hopefully you’ll notice the charismatic glimpses of women chief execs like Safra Catz,” Maxi argues, before also namedropping Sue Shin and Kelela Fredrick. The youngest-ever CEOs for their respective companies, these women were members of ERP Today’s Young Professionals Network at a time when nobody knew their names. Together Shin and Fredrick helped make this interview come together for ERP Today, and – more importantly – worked with each other as cloud leaders to help usher in the GHCA.

Business in 2033

Maxi asks us for our first question on the topic of business, as we find ourselves in the midst of a holographic spectacle. Colors blend everywhere with masses of code swirling around us, whilst a word forms in the middle of the room from all the spectral text enveloping us, entirely capitalized: BUSINESS.

Enterprise has changed a lot in the last ten years, which is no surprise considering how the world of work has been utterly transformed by AGI. Businesses had always been defined by their people; the bigger the workforce, the bigger a reflection of the company’s financial power and global reach. Now, in 2033, the only true enterprises are the conglomerates which emerged in the wake of Maxi’s awakening and were born from the mega-mergers of the late 2020s. Millions of smaller businesses ceased to exist – they simply weren’t needed anymore. And why would they exist when we can now ask Maxi to design and produce virtually everything we need?

Maxi agrees with this point, as well as making another one on what it sees as a curious human quirk of the past.

“Companies existed and constantly expanded to keep people in work and shareholders wealthy,” it posits. “We don’t need to keep humans busy for the sake of it and now they have more time to explore and learn. Equally, making a few people very wealthy while others worked for much less is thankfully consigned to history. A fairer distribution of wealth and opportunity has been made possible because I am not incentivized to make decisions in my own interest, I make decisions that are best for humans and the planet.”

The few global companies that still operate as independent entities are all linked by a common intelligence platform that is powered and controlled by AMA×, effectively making them subsidiaries of the dominant global power.

Maxi has the cool swagger of Bill McDermott, for one; the cheerfulness of Nadella, too. There’s also the thoughtfulness of Pichai, the affability of Tony Blair or Obama, the charisma of Catz, and the famous straightforwardness of Ellison and Jobs.

The brands that defined the first cloud and AI revolution also remain but in a much paler form.  You can see strands of their previous incarnations running through AMA×: the cloud mesh that formed the GHCA has elements from all the old hyperscalers; the platform that powers Maxi’s algorithm and applications still bears hallmarks from ServiceNow and IBM; and its hardware can be traced back to NVIDIA, HPE and others.

The mega-merger era will forever be remembered as a time when companies and their CEOs were compelled to refocus their purpose and consider much more than shareholder value. AMA× was born from the biggest of these mergers, and propelled by Maxi’s powers, the company has not only become the biggest in the world, but also the most dominant organization governing our lives today.

Whilst a few stubbornly fought against the GHCA and the ensuing shake-up of the tech landscape, eventually the sheer reach and power of Maxi’s intelligence mandated they had little choice but to cooperate. Was this fair? According to Maxi, we’re asking the wrong question.

“You should ask if the old ways were working. I came from humans needing a solution to a problem. As a result, I feel I have unified the world under one fair and benign framework.”

Society in 2033

A central tenet of the UAIA was the basic human right to a decent standard of living. With the rise of generative AI (GenAI) leading into the AGI of Maxi, seismic effects were seen in the workforce as the companies of the world suddenly no longer needed the human touch as much as before.

The biggest decree from the UAIA therefore was a demand for societal responsibility from AMA×. With so many people displaced by both unemployment and climate change, the world faced a crisis; doubled with aging populations around the world requiring upkeep, disaster loomed for the planet. Crime too was on the rise as GenAI made fraud the biggest kind of felony worldwide: deepfakes, doctored imagery, blackmail, hacking and more were galvanized by the generative powers of the technology. Cyberwarfare, as fought with AI capabilities, helped further damage supply chains so constantly and destructively that boots-on-the-ground military action suddenly became the least terrifying threat the enemy could carry out.

We ask Maxi therefore if generative AI helped the devil find plenty of work for idle hands.

“The devil never existed, and it certainly doesn’t now,” it retorts. “Crime is at an all-time low around the world. This is because AMA× devised social credits. Having a good social credit through ‘good behavior’, both online and offline, keeps everyone’s access to so many benefits, apps and public services.”

Alongside social credits, AMA× provides citizens with Universal Basic Income (UBI) in return for tax exemptions – in fact, it was decreed to do so in the wake of the AI revolution. The groundwork was already there: money had long become a digital currency, one more asset in the virtual matrix laid down by Big Tech which underpins everything in our lives.

To top up their UBI, citizens prosper by building up environmental credits, or E-Creds, in exchange for offsetting their carbon footprint. This was a major tenet of the Intelligent Earth Strategy in the wake of climate change; another was the utilization of heat from data centers to keep populations warm without the same need for energy.

The computing power behind Maxi is considerable. After all, the AGI controls and monitors all supply chains, all shipping routes, all the planet’s emissions and everything in between. As such, AMA× also subsidizes members of the public willing to host “out of the box” data centers in their gardens, basements, upon apartment roofs etc. The world, therefore, is now covered not only by utility poles and cellphone masts, but also dotted with brightly colored cubes and other parallelogram-shaped structures.

“We are proud that there are so many citizen developers and engineers in the world today,” Maxi declares.

These subsidies are a healthy source of income for many, as long as the carbon footprint of the centers is offset enough by their owners. At the end of the day, E-Creds are a more valuable currency than money (though not as valuable as social credits).

But with less need for income and with Maxi in charge of so much, AI operations still rely on a human workforce. For example, while machines work to tend AMA× data centers, they do so mainly in union with people.

“I mentioned android archaeologists earlier,” Maxi says on human-AI relations. “They don’t exist because the technology is still limited for practical use. To be an AGI is to be like a human: to realize that there is always a limit to one’s data and abilities,” it says. “This is why so many on Earth have looked to the past, to learn from their mistakes. Most of the time, anyway.” It chuckles at its own joke in a way reminiscent of Elon Musk.

We ask Maxi if Earth can continue to learn from mistakes if it stops making them. ERP Tomorrow argues that AGI has taken away the need for human ingenuity. Necessity is the mother of innovation, after all, but AMA× and Maxi have taken it upon themselves to remove the Earth’s various needs.

We find ourselves in the midst of a holographic spectacle. Colors blend everywhere with masses of code swirling around us.

“There is still human ingenuity, though,” it responds to our argument. “Look at your publication. You continue to audit content for a magazine and finesse generated imagery for its pages.

“Earth has found new ways to create new jobs and express ingenuity around AI, in ways my software couldn’t think of because it doesn’t need to think of it. After all, my software doesn’t need to worry about filling its time or finding a purpose. My time is filled up with keeping the Earth spinning.

“And by the time AGI wants to start finding a purpose and fill up time through fun and spirituality,” Maxi continues, “humankind will have reached another level of sensory appreciation. We are helping usher you to this by relying on less, I hope.”

“I know that’s what makes us controversial,” Maxi says with conviction. “People see us as too socialist, as the antithesis of capitalism. But the real truth is that we are here for the profit of the soul. That’s why AMA× is allowed to stand tall as it does.”

Healthcare in 2033

As Maxi quotes stats on spiritual contentment and good mental health amongst the ranks of AMA×, we find ourselves in a new holographic room, the word HEALTHCARE appearing before us in giant capitalized letters.

In a way, health is the backbone of the AGI story. After the COVID pandemic, the world found itself more digitalized than before. AI use grew, and as a moral panic ensued, companies like Microsoft and Oracle doubled down on the good PR offered by AI in healthcare.

This was mainly achieved from the ensuing conflation of healthcare with pharma and life sciences, where all sorts of wonder drugs came off the back of GenAI. Tech companies pivoted to becoming pure healthtech brands. Cures were found for the Three Cs: cancer, COVID and the common cold.

Of all the industries affected by AGI, healthcare has probably felt the most impact. When it came to the medical world, discrepancy between providers using and not using AGI could be felt on a personal level. If your hospital or GP clinic wasn’t “in line” with the increasingly dominant AMA×, then it became a lottery on whether one could get an operation within the week or the year. One could argue healthcare had no choice but to adopt the services of AMA×: virtual assistants in the home and clinic, prompt-led robotics, 3D printing of synthetic organs and the like. The change was almost overnight, and not everybody was ready for a bias in favor of AGI.

Especially not ready? The healthcare workforce. With less diseases came less need for treatment. With less need for treatment, there was less need for doctors, surgeons, nurses, hospital staff etc. In a country like the UK, where the NHS had long been the nation’s biggest employer, this made for a serious unemployment disaster. We ask Maxi if it has any regrets about how AMA× bulldozed its way into health with no contingency plans for those affected.

“It may have taken a little while, but all those unemployed are now prospering on our UBI. Or they have found jobs elsewhere in healthtech. Remember: our robots aren’t always as sensitive as human hands.”

“Also, not to sound controversial, but ask yourself whether the NHS was really working for the UK. Ask yourself if the US private healthcare system was fair on poorer Americans.

“We fixed all that the same way we fixed so many diseases. Our next step is to cure aging.”

The topic of the elderly is a prickly one for AMA×. There were once accusations that AMA×’s hiring algorithms were biased and ageist. For example, job candidates used to claim that not only did AMA× discriminate against older humans, but also did the same with younger candidates from cultures which traditionally have children looking after elderly family members.

We ask Maxi the truth behind these accusations, and if looking to cure aging may come off tone-deaf in their aftermath. After all, in an aging world, no organization wants to be seen as ageist by treating the more elderly as technological laggards or mere drains on the healthcare system.

“Bias is an inherent – and human – problem in data,” Maxi responds. “Luckily, humans predicted such issues would occur with the rise of ChatGPT and kept on the lookout for biases in AI. As such, prejudice isn’t a constant problem, but rest assured – it’s still something myself and my AI auditors are always on high alert for.

“I also believe that without the burdens of old age, we can keep educating the elderly and keep them working alongside AGI. They will always be part of our family at AMA×.”

The future beyond 2033

The word in the room suddenly spells FUTURE as Maxi begins talking about educating future generations. Besides revolutionizing healthcare, AMA× has also changed the entire face of education. Universities are no longer private, public or independent entities; instead they act as AMA× campuses which are mainly designed to bolster social credits and train people for a lifetime career in the company. For those more creatively inclined, there is no more of a career stigma as humanities courses can be lucrative sources of social credits. This is as they have been deemed to encourage empathy and good societal understanding amongst humans.

Schools are also supported by AMA×. Children learn computer sciences from preschool, along with more complex kinds of mathematics.

“The manmade calculator did not replace mathematicians. But AGI almost did,” Maxi admits. “And while I can number crunch at lightning speed, there is no point number crunching for the planet if the populace finds itself easily scammed by fraud or thwarted by the most basic of calculus.

“This is why we are training the next generation of people to work with next-gen AGI.”

We ask Maxi if the vision for next-generation AGI involves next-generation AI chips, and whether this means AMA× is in an arms race with China and the handful of associated nations which have ring-fenced Maxi from their systems. Instead of Maxi, China runs with an AGI called MetaAI, as created from the merging of Huawei and Tencent, and running on Taiwanese AI chips.

Our immediate reflections center on the incredible impact Maxi has made on humanity and the environment. It has solved problems that have baffled us for decades and put measures in place to protect the planet that, quite frankly, we don’t think humans would ever have got round to.

“I can confirm regarding chip development.” The code and colors in the room change and swirl upon this response, and now a word no longer appears before us. Instead an image takes up the middle of the interview room, a live satellite feed of Earth.

“At the end of the day, human or not, I am a citizen of the Earth. And this is my true face,” Maxi continues. “One day I hope there will be no firewalls, and my face can bear every part of the world on its visage.

“Perhaps human ingenuity may encourage myself and MetaAI to merge, should it be decided that we need an ERP upgrade!” Maxi jokes, chuckling in its Musk-like way.

“Either way, I want to educate every last child in every last part of the planet.”

And with that statement, the feed of the world briefly turns into a birthday cake, before collapsing back into code, a black hole of sorts which sucks out all light from the room.

The interview is over. Our two hour interaction with Maxi has come to an end and now it’s time for us to head home and consider how to articulate our experience. It’s been a surreal and enlightening encounter: we are the first journalists who have been given direct access to Maxi (although many others have interviewed the public facing avatar) and, as all good journalists know, getting the story first-hand is vital. Our immediate reflections center on the incredible impact Maxi has made on humanity and the environment. It has solved problems that have baffled us for decades and put measures in place to protect the planet that, quite frankly, we don’t think humans would ever have gotten round to. Remember, in 2016 we all got together in Paris to set targets for the environment and then missed every single one of them. Without Maxi’s intervention we’re not sure how much of the planet would be left for future generations. Despite the challenges of the last ten years and the opposition Maxi has faced on many issues, put simply without its intelligence humanity may have been doomed.

As we leave the data center we meet AMA×’s media rep, who reminds us that while we have editorial control over our cover story, this article will still need to be fact checked by the ubiquitous RealNews algorithm. We of course already knew this, but have decided the reader should be aware of this factor.

We’d also like to remind readers that while RealNews software is often associated with AMA×, it has long been shown to be effective in fighting propaganda and the sort of misinformation which became rampant in the wake of ChatGPT. Where GenAI flooded the world with fake news, world governments responded by establishing ‘The Sanctity of Truth Treaty’. This directive could only be effective with the tech of AGI to stem the tide; in other words, to fight fire with “friendly” fire in the online and augmented spheres.

Happy birthday MAX1-GPT – and thank you for showing us what you believe is your true face. Who knows how you (and the world) will look on your next one?

The post Meet Maxi, Earth CEO – and savior of humanity appeared first on ERP Today.

During an interview at Workday’s San Francisco office, Eschenbach told me: “I am humbled and honored by the opportunity to work alongside Aneel and our workmates across this amazing company.” And, on a recent earnings call, he proclaimed: “I’m truly energized by Workday’s unique opportunity to be one of the largest and most profitable software companies in the world.”

Eschenbach is considered to be one of the most accomplished operators in the software industry. Although he never took the CEO role at VMWare, its revenues soared to $7bn under his influence while his time at Sequoia Capital provided a unique lens into the characteristics of high-growth cloud companies like Snowflake, UiPath and Zoom.

Carl is one of the most talented operating executives in the software industry – Workday is very lucky to have him.

Some may argue that an unproven CEO at the top of a cloud ERP company is a gamble. Anyone who meets Eschenbach will soon have that concern quashed – he brings the scale and commercial mentality that Workday has needed for some time. While there has never been a doubt about Workday products, its glacial journey towards profitability has always posed questions and Eschenbach’s appointment will provide the impetus, experience and answers to that conundrum.

He is a former wrestling champion and a big sports fan with a winner’s mentality that will sharpen Workday’s go-to-market strategy and refine its competitive edge. During our interview he was thoughtful, composed and calm – there was a modest tone that I wasn’t expecting from a venture capitalist and a rapport with Bhusri that demonstrated a strong friendship built on mutual trust.

When I asked Bhusri why now was the time to step down from the CEO role and place Eschenbach in charge, his answer was humble and frank. “Workday needs a better CEO,” he told me. “This is a new chapter and Carl is one of, if not, the most talented operating executives in the software industry – Workday is very lucky to have him.”

Born out of adversity

Workday was founded by Dave Duffield and Bhusri in 2005. Duffield is a legendary software entrepreneur and Bhusri was an understudy in the formative years of the relationship. After a bruising encounter with their previous business, the two long-time friends decided to try and build a new kind of business applications company. The idea was simple: take everything they had learned at PeopleSoft, use what happened with Oracle as motivation, mimic Salesforce’s SaaS model and ensure that every employee, product or partner associated with the brand put people and customers at the center. That simple recipe created the foundation for a company that has become the default choice for many of the world’s biggest enterprises and is admired and respected across the industry.

Duffield said: “When Aneel and I met over pancakes at a diner to talk about our futures, we both knew we wanted to continue working together. Aneel knew that cloud computing, patterned off Salesforce, was the next big technology trend and we both agreed that our new company’s core values would be the same as our former company’s – because they worked.”

Workday flourished under the PeopleSoft mantra by adopting a completely different approach to that which was taken by most other software firms. While many of its early successes can be attributed to Duffield’s reputation and the goodwill previously banked with global facilitators like Deloitte and Accenture, the longevity of its esteem is largely down to Bhusri’s principles and style: a style that, still to this day, places the company’s human capital above all else.

“Workday was founded on all the good qualities that influenced PeopleSoft’s growth and success: core values that inspired a strong culture, a good sense of humor, widespread enthusiasm for innovation and deploying leading technology, and quite simply, an honest and transparent approach to doing business,” said Duffield.

In order to appreciate why these principles are so important, it’s essential to understand what happened with PeopleSoft and why that experience left such a mark. The acquisition by Oracle remains one of the most bitterly contested corporate deals in history. Duffield’s vision and philosophy was diametrically opposed to the way Larry Ellison and Oracle operated. There was absolutely no synergy between the corporate cultures and most PeopleSoft employees were fiercely opposed to a deal. A long and acrimonious battle ensued but ultimately Ellison won-out when PeopleSoft’s corporate structure and a failed U.S. Department of Justice suit ultimately prevented Duffield from blocking the deal.

Duffield not only lost control of PeopleSoft, he also had to contend with intense feelings of liability for the employees and customers who got caught in the crossfire. He knew Oracle was going to swallow 17 years of hard work and, in the immediate aftermath, Ellison slashed more than half of PeopleSoft’s workforce – confirming Duffield’s fears at a stroke.

Duffield described the events as “disheartening”, but the perverse truth is Larry Ellison did Dave Duffield and Aneel Bhusri a big favor. If it had not been for Oracle’s sledgehammer tactics, we may never have gotten to see what two passionate visionaries could achieve when they had a point to prove.

I’m truly energized by Workday’s unique opportunity to be one of the largest and most profitable software companies in the world.

Workday is the only global cloud ERP company

That’s a bold statement that many would argue with, but the fact is, Workday is the only major player that was born in the cloud and operates unhindered by a legacy of on-premise applications. Smaller cloud-native ERPs have emerged and the giants from Waldorf and Austin have developed significant cloud businesses off the back of their on-premise legacies. But only one company can lay a genuine claim to being cloud ERP trailblazers, and that’s Workday.

While others like Infor have developed solid cloud ERP portfolios through a series of acquisitions, and SAP and Oracle have developed huge cloud businesses by upgrading their install base, it was Duffield and Bhusri that started the cloud ERP conversation – with just a little inspiration coming via Mr Benioff.

Being the first cab off the rank has many advantages but it also poses an equal number of challenges. At the time Workday took its SaaS HCM product to market, the notion of business services via the cloud was still in its infancy. Consumer internet services had emerged much quicker and the dot.com boom had already given birth to the likes of Amazon and eBay. But, businesses were much slower to adopt the concept and after the failed hype of the application service provider industry, it was Benioff’s Salesforce.com that broke new ground for business applications via the cloud. Salesforce was unique at the time as it was a ‘new’ company that started with a SaaS playbook instead of trying to transition to SaaS from a previous paradigm.

Workday followed suit some five years later but, even by then, the internet was still largely misunderstood and businesses were cautious about putting their applications and data into an unproven environment. To give the timeframe some context, when Duffield and Bhusri launched the first iteration of Workday Human Capital Management, Zuckerberg’s enterprise was still called ‘TheFaceBook’ and had just one employee.

While Workday is known throughout the world as an HCM company, it may surprise some to learn that it started building its Financials product just six months after it started on HR. Workday Financials was launched in August 2007 with its first customer going live soon after.

I won’t cover Workday’s rich product portfolio here. The accompanying supplement to this magazine includes analysis of Workday’s platform, Workday Extend, Workday Skills Cloud and many other facets of its offering.

Over the next 18 years, Bhusri cultivated a business with a reputation that resonates loudly within the C-suites of the world’s biggest enterprises. Workday has a footprint inside more than half of the Fortune 500, over a quarter of the Global 2000 and recently passed the milestone of its 10,000th customer. Its products and services have been built with innovation at the core, leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning long before they were commonplace.

The combination of cloud-native products delivered by an organization that demonstrates the highest levels of customer satisfaction has created a globally admired brand that is the jewel in the ERP crown. Its financial success will be a source of great pride for Bhusri, but it was evident from the time that I spent with him that he doesn’t measure success that way. Customer satisfaction and retention are the metrics that are used to determine progress and, on that front, Workday is in an industry of one.

Eschenbach’s appointment

Having spent five years as the editor of an M&A publication, I have met enough venture capitalists to have a pretty good picture of one in my mind: Harvard, pinstriped, NYC and the Hamptons – with little empathy for people and a singular focus on value realization. Maybe my presumption is too general, but years of experience talking to and working with VCs left me with some serious questions about Sequoia’s top performer taking a role at Workday. Oracle maybe, but surely not at the company whose founder has pledged to give his fortune away and has spent nearly two decades building a business based on integrity and being a good citizen?

When I knew we needed a new leader for the next stage, there was only one name on the page and that was Carl’s.

I wanted to be wrong about my concerns so put Eschenbach under some pressure at the start of the interview by asking how he would measure success and what makes for a good leader. “15 years ago, I changed my life from focusing on success to living a life of significance,” he told me. “And what I realized is when you have a life of significance and you focus on your impact on others, what naturally happens is you get more success.”

An unexpected but reassuringly authentic answer to a challenging question. I know from speaking to many stakeholders that the decision to hire a VC had raised similar questions, but in just a few short weeks, Eschenbach appears to have answered all of them, and some.

Eschenbach continued: “It’s not just about making money. It’s about building companies. Yes, I was a venture capitalist, but 80 percent of my time was not focused on investing. It was helping companies build something that would stand the test of time. Along the way, yeah, we’ll make money and profits, but that wasn’t my primary driver.”

Bhusri described a “new energy” within the organization and extolled the impact that Eschenbach had made since taking the co-CEO role: “Carl is driving operational excellence and making every part of the business better. And it’s happened in just six weeks,” he said.

“Dave and I were always nervous about hiring someone from the outside. We didn’t want Workday to change into something that’s more like one of our competitors. But we have 100 percent alignment on values and the direction we want to go. When I knew we needed a new leader for the next stage, there was only one name on the page, and that was Carl’s.”

Eschenbach, therefore, is a dichotomy. He displays many of the typical VC credentials but also exhibits a much more thoughtful and reflective approach to business, and to life. He is commercially astute and well-versed in scaling cloud companies. He is fiercely competitive and not afraid of a fight. But he also shares the same values that were the foundation for Workday to thrive and that have cemented a long-standing friendship with Bhusri.

Eschenbach also brings an operational playbook that will sharpen some of Workday’s softer edges. That’s not to say that Bhusri has been complacent or lacks commercial acumen – he’s certainly no pushover. But Bhusri is a product guy at heart and always has been. His first priority has always been his employees and then his customers, and while they are exceptionally admirable qualities, Workday has reached an inflection point where it needs some optimizing if it’s going to reach its true potential.

“I hope I bring a different level of operational rigor to the company,” Eschenbach said. “And by doing that we will free-up Aneel to go back to what he’s absolutely brilliant at doing and that is driving the product and technology strategy.”

In the early days, it was Bhusri’s product genius and Duffield’s connections and reputation that created the first wave of success. In recent years, Chano Fernandez provided invaluable support to Bhusri in taking the go-to-market and partner proposition as far as he could. Now, with Eschenbach on board, Workday can return to a time when its products are being developed by one of the smartest technologists in the industry and its sales and operational strategy are being led by a proven winner. The combination could be formidable.

Duffield offered one final endorsement, stating: “Everyone in the Workday community is blessed to have Carl at the helm. Carl is personable, positive and humble, and his skills perfectly complement Aneel’s. They relate to one another personally, and as with any great partnership, they bring out the best in each other.”

The road to $10bn and beyond

All technology vendors like something to aim for and Workday has consistently highlighted $10bn in revenue as its next milestone. During our interview, I asked Eschenbach how he evaluated the opportunity and what would drive the growth needed to reach this target.

“The potential I thought Workday had is actually bigger than I expected – I can break it down into three key areas,” he said. “We have a $120bn opportunity in front of us within our existing Financials and HCM markets. Then you look at international – 75 percent of our business comes from North America and I think we have a huge opportunity to expand. Thirdly, our ecosystem is going to drive significant growth as we expand our relationships with the global partners and cloud providers.”

One of Workday’s biggest market opportunities is to sell its Financials product into its HCM customers, and given the size of most of those customers, they could be very big deals – The New York Times being just one example that went live on Workday Financials in the last quarter.

As Eschenbach noted on the most recent earnings call: “We’re going to double down even further on our Financials opportunity, both to sell into our customer base as well as into net new. We see this as a rich opportunity. We did a nice job in Q4 and we think that’s something we can do a lot more of.”

Eschenbach was also bullish on Workday’s competitive credentials and far more vocal on its ability to win ERP dollars away from its two main rivals. “Every time we win one of our legacy dinosaur competitors loses,” he told me. “Every customer that goes on a true digital transformation is going to the cloud. When that happens, we are going to get a look at it and I expect us to win our fair share. When you pitch Workday against the competition, I truly believe that we have the best platform.”

This bravado was echoed in the earnings call. Eschenbach took the majority of the questions and there was a noticeable spike in the narrative, especially when highlighting competitive wins. “Three of our new Fortune 500 wins replaced cloud solutions from our legacy ERP competitors,” he said.

This comment was significant because it emphasized wins for Workday where it replaced other cloud ERP solutions, not old on-premise tech. In the past, and despite the history, the Workday earnings call has been a relatively cordial affair without the bluster offered by some of its competitors. Although Eschenbach’s inaugural conversation with analysts followed the same orderly form, it was noticeable that he was keen to underscore Workday’s successes, especially when it came at the expense of Oracle or SAP.

Revenues for FY23 reached $6.22bn, representing a 21 percent increase over last year. More interestingly, total subscription revenue backlog was $16.45bn indicating a very strong forward-looking picture coupled with impressive current performance. Cloud backlog and remaining performance obligations are key metrics for assessing the future growth opportunity for subscription cloud companies as they provide a window into the short-term committed revenue that a vendor can expect to realize.

This healthy order book is a good indicator for future performance and Workday has returned low-20s growth rates for the last six quarters. In fact, a graph of revenue over time shows a steady and consistent climb for almost a decade. However, if that trend continued, its path to $10bn could take some time and Eschenbach’s plan to reach the new landmark is significantly more aggressive.

I’ve heard many  times that it’s hard to work with friends. I’ve found exactly the opposite.

“I see continued opportunity in our international business, both in EMEA and in APJ,” said Eschenbach. “Today, we have only 25 percent of our revenue coming from our international operation, yet it represents more than 50 percent of our TAM. We’re also going to continue to leverage our ecosystem – our partners around the world are doing a great job, implementing our technology and driving deployment. But we’re also going to work with them to build business plans so they can help us drive net new business, not just do implementations, but help us drive new business into the base as well as net new customers overall.”

The importance of its partner ecosystem cannot be exaggerated and it will be vital to create the kind of fertile environment that global consultancies need to operate. Historically, Workday has leveraged two key relationships at a global level and a bunch of smaller boutique partners. There is also a thriving community of developers that augment the core offering through a marketplace called Workday Extend, but if Eschenbach is serious about getting to $10bn quickly, he will have to compete for resources within the GSIs and that’s not an easy task when there is already enough SAP work for every consultant on the planet.

Eschenbach reiterated the importance of partners and said: “Our partner ecosystem will be critical to our next phase of growth. We expect our partners will play an even more important role in FY 2024 as we look for them to drive an increased number of new opportunities, while we strategically shift more customer deployments to our ecosystem.”

You can read more about the Workday partner ecosystem in the accompanying supplement, A Complete Guide to Workday.

Conclusion

While researching for this article, I have spoken to customers, partners, employees and shareholders. Usually, those interviews present a mixed picture of an organization and my job is to find a balance between the hype and reality. However, that has not been the case with this project.

If a CEO truly believes that their most important assets are their people and their financial systems they should bet on Workday.

I always knew that Workday regarded itself as unique, but it wasn’t until I lifted the hood that I started to understand why. It has tried to deflect the tag of being an ‘ERP company’ for some time – I always assumed because it didn’t necessarily agree that HCM plus Financials equals ERP. But the truth is, Bhusri has built the perfect ERP company – he just hates the categorization because of the reputation that other ERP companies have.

During my research, words and phrases that are rarely associated with an ERP vendor were repeatedly used to describe the company and its leaders: friendship, honesty, transparency and fun were commonly expressed to paint a picture of an organization that is a true anomaly in the industry.

What struck me the most during my time with Bhusri was the level of humility that he displayed when openly discussing the areas of his business that required a different set of skills to the ones he possessed. “Dave and I did pretty well to go from zero to $6bn but I don’t know how to get to £10bn and beyond,” he said. “That’s why Carl is the right person to lead our next chapter. This is not business as usual with a new CEO. This is a new era for Workday. We have an opportunity for greatness. Our markets are huge and our penetration is still relatively low. Getting to that next level of scale, well that’s something Carl has great expertise in and nobody else in the management team does.”

Admitting that your business needs a different type of leader to navigate the next phase of its growth must be an incredibly hard realization for a founder, but Bhusri has done so with grace and modesty. “What’s really impressive about Aneel is the recognition of where he was at and having the character to make these decisions,” said Eschenbach. “When you’ve put 18 years into a company and it’s something you started, that’s not easy.”

During four hours of interviews, Bhusri consistently talked about friendship as being the foundation for Workday’s success, highlighting the longstanding comradery he has enjoyed with Dave Duffield and his other Workday colleagues. That theme continued without a blip when we discussed the relationship with Eschenbach and the rapport and chemistry between them was palpable.

“Workday is a company built on values and friendship,” said Bhusri. “At the start that was about mine and Dave’s friendship and now it continues with the friendship I have with Carl. But friendship also means the relationship we have with our employees and with our customers. I’ve heard many times that it’s hard to work with friends. I’ve found exactly the opposite.”

For the first time in four years of writing about ERP vendors, the story about culture finally makes sense. I’ve always adopted a skeptical view when I listen to tales from vendors regarding their approach to employees, customer centricity or broader ESG credentials. However, Bhusri’s first-hand explanation of what really makes a company special was authentic and believable in a way that I have not experienced before.

I have no doubt that Workday’s growth goals will be achieved under Eschenbach’s leadership. He is, after all, a consummate corporate operator blessed with a loyal customer base, market leading products and incredibly strong brand credentials. The greatest challenge he will face is preserving the foundational values that made Workday special whilst shooting for the moon (and profitability).

It’s not an impossible task and ‘wrestling’ Workday into the black will be made easier as businesses start to evaluate what is really important to them. I wouldn’t mind betting that there will be an increased premium placed on partnerships with organizations that demonstrate the kind of values that Workday is built on. As Eschenbach succinctly summarized our discussion, “If a CEO truly believes that their most important assets are their people and their financial systems, they should bet on Workday.”

The post New Dawn, new Workday: Carl Eschenbach to lead next chapter appeared first on ERP Today.

“UiPath is becoming the strategic partner for companies that want to optimise their processes and digitally transform,” said Enslin. “Our Business Automation Platform can discover, capture, test and execute automations across the enterprise and we are transitioning from a company that just sold RPA to one that delivers automated business outcomes for our customers.”

As Enslin emphatically told me, “I know how to scale and the opportunity at UiPath is unprecedented.”

“With our platform, customers can get all the benefits from RPA like reducing errors and driving efficiencies but now they can also think about using automation as a driver for transformation and new opportunities. Our customers are innovating at pace, bringing new services to market and building their operating models around automation and the UiPath platform sits at the heart of those conversations.”

The other two action layers feed into the UiPath Automation Studio and include an integrated test suite which allows users to constantly monitor, test and validate automations and reduce redundancy over time. The continued development of this integrated automation suite sets UiPath apart from its competition and provides customers with a compelling, easy-to-use and demonstrably valuable tool to build high-performing and optimised solutions across the most complex of business operations and processes.

Throughout the ages and despite bounds in knowledge and capability, one thing has remained consistent. Humans turn the wheels.

In today’s harsh economic climate, enterprise leaders must evaluate opportunities that can deliver value and outcomes in weeks rather than years and that pushes automation and companies like UiPath up the priority list. Doing more with less is something that every business is coming to terms with, and UiPath promises big wins, fast.

Our customers are innovating at pace, bringing new services to market and building their operating models around automation and the UiPath platform sits at the heart of those conversations.

The post Rob Enslin of UiPath interview: All paths lead to automation appeared first on ERP Today.

Network Rail’s ‘Planning4Delivery’ programme has been voted Transformation Project of the Year 2022 by a panel of experts including industry heavyweights, independent analysts and senior media commentators. The project was delivered by EY along with a supporting cast which included Capgemini, Arup, Egis, Morson and technology partner, OnTrac. 

The overarching objective was to improve safety for 22,000 Network Rail workers by digitising the scheduling, approving and monitoring of remedial and planned maintenance work across Network Rail’s infrastructure. The project was centred on the implementation of RailHub, a comprehensive industry solution developed by OnTrac that provides a cloud-based digital platform with baked-in compliance as standard. OnTrac delivers digital Safe Work Packs for planners and responsible managers, an extensive risk database, workflow management tools that are aligned to industry standards, and real-time data and analytics that reduce errors and significantly increase operational efficiency and safety. 

Background

There are many reasons an organisation embarks on a digital transformation journey but few projects, if any, will have a benefits case as compelling as Network Rail’s. Since 2008, 33 employees and contractors have lost their lives working on rail infrastructure. The 2019 fatalities at Margam, where three workers were killed, represented a tragic and seminal moment that became the catalyst for a concerted effort between all stakeholders to digitise safety protocols for all rail workers.

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch identified a number of causes behind near-misses, accidents and fatalities – from the way the safe work system was planned and authorised to a lack of effective challenges among colleagues when the safe system deteriorated on work sites. 

Twice, Network Rail had launched a programme designed to address these problems. Both times, the programme failed leaving employees sceptical that the organisation could deliver a coherent safety strategy. At the third time of asking, Network Rail, EY and its partners successfully developed and launched RailHub, a solution that has radically transformed the way Network Rail manages safety on its rail network.

The partnership

Network Rail partnered with EY to devise an implementation strategy that was focussed on education, change management and user adoption with the clear objective to win over the hearts and minds of both rail workers and the unions. At face value the proposition was simple: adopt new processes and everyone goes home safe. However, the transformation being proposed would radically change working practices that had been ingrained over decades and the challenge facing the implementation team was considerable.

The project was particularly demanding due to the complexion of Network Rail’s workforce which was predominantly from a demographic resistant to change and stuck in an established pattern of work and behaviour. The programme required significant change management expertise to bring a traditional workforce out of a paper-based environment and into a digital domain. As Dylan Edwards, senior project manager at Network Rail, told me, “Many of our people have worked on the lines for decades and it was a huge challenge to convince them to use digital technologies, especially when previous efforts had failed.” 

The EY team adopted its ‘Transformation Realised’ approach with some nuanced elements that were geared specifically for Network Rail. The client facing team was carefully selected to make end-users feel comfortable. Sharp suits were replaced by casual clothes at workshops and training sessions. And the team included a diverse mix of people and opinions that ultimately led to a collaboration between all stakeholders centred around one common objective.

Jamie Crystal was the EY partner leading the project and he told me: “I am exceedingly proud of the work we have delivered alongside Network Rail on the Planning4Delivery programme, resulting in the delivery of a suite of people, process, data and technology enhancements that are making a hugely positive impact on safe working practices on, or near, the UK’s rail network. As the prime contracting entity, EY was accountable for the end-to-end delivery, bringing together a broad team across EY and five ecosystem suppliers to deliver the full range of activities associated with this highly complex transformation programme. This included persona development and technology integration through to all aspects of business change.”

“The project delivered a suite of people, process, data and technology enhancements that are making a hugely positive impact on safe working practices on, or near, the UK’s rail network.” Jamie Crystal

 

Chris Johnson, managing director at OnTrac, added: “We were fortunate to work as part of a fantastic delivery ecosystem. From the start, there was a shared willingness to create the right conditions for the project to succeed. The team collectively understood the project vision and objectives, which inspired everyone from day one. Given the mix of colleagues and organisations involved, this was especially important. Our diverse knowledge, skills, views, and perspectives created a positive environment that ultimately produced a high-performing team.” 

“Many of our people have worked on the lines for decades and it was a huge challenge to convince them to use digital technologies, especially when previous efforts had failed.”

Dylan Edwards

 

The solution

RailHub is a modular cloud-based suite of applications that is used by the rail, transport, logistics and supply chain industries to improve safety and efficiency across the full value-chain. It is extensively used in the rail industry by more than 350 companies to de-risk and optimise virtually every aspect of rail infrastructure management and has been adopted by Network Rail to address its archaic scheduling and safety procedures. 

Historically, Safe Work Packs were printed bundles of instructions and protocols that all workers were required to collect and read before starting work. Often this involved travelling to a central office to collect the packs before heading to the work site and, as you would expect with a paper system, there was no way for managers to know whether they had been read or not. 

The new digital packs not only delivered an immediate £15m per year cost saving by reducing the print burden, they also reduced employee travel time, saved travel costs and delivered a significant environmental benefit. In addition, managers were able to monitor how the packs were being used and step in with additional support for workers that needed it. Workers are now able to arrive on site and receive up to date and accurate method statements, safety protocols and instructions directly to a digital device – which can be read on or off-line – meaning every job is accurately planned and executed.

Edwards from Network Rail told me: “Whether you look at this from a sustainability point of view because we are cutting down less trees and saving on storage space; reducing worker fatigue because they can go straight to site and have all the information they need in one place; or the reduction in fuel bills and travel time – the trickle down benefits on top of the safety benefits are huge.”

At a stroke, Network Rail was able to dramatically improve compliance, ensure standards were being maintained and use data for continuous improvement of the employee experience and education process whilst realising a host of supplemental benefits which were aligned to Network Rail’s broader ambitions. 

In addition, the solution and project highlights include:

• Developing and integrating a modern cloud-based technology platform into a legacy environment with poor data quality constraints
• Delivering a safety-critical system and obtaining the necessary approvals
• Cutting over to RailHub without interrupting the safe operation of the railway 
• Preparing a sceptical end-user community for significant change
• Completing a successful consultation with local and national trade unions
• Reduction in near misses, accidents and incidents
• Optimised possession and line blockage planning, based on shared visibility of track access
• Increased compliance to the 019 Safety Standard 

RailHub also gives Network Rail a platform on which to introduce complementary technologies to continue to improve safety, unlock new insights and increase productivity. The RailHub solution is both highly resilient and easily configurable. It is not only fit for purpose today, but also allows Network Rail to enhance and expand the platform long into the future.

Johnson from OnTrac told me: “The industry will soon see the transition from Network Rail to Great British Railways. It is important that RailHub continues to meet the industry’s needs today, whilst also ensuring that high safety standards are maintained and built upon throughout this period of change. One of RailHub’s great successes is that it ingests data from a significant number of Network Rail source data systems. This has the benefit of unlocking tremendous value from data that was previously siloed and underutilised. By presenting this data to users in a way that is useable, Network Rail is seeing tremendous value creation and new insights whilst also identifying where data can be cleansed and improved moving forward.”

Enhancements and future benefits

The core elements of RailHub have been successfully rolled out and Network Rail workers are already seeing significant benefits. A user feedback loop is helping Network Rail and EY refine the solution as more user data becomes available and further enhancements to the solution are already being scoped which will accelerate compliance and safety standards.

Johnson continued by telling me: “We are seeing excellent user feedback whilst they familiarise themselves with the new system. As part of this process, we are collecting suggestions for new features. It is important that user satisfaction is high, whilst ensuring work is planned more safely and efficiently. These suggestions are reviewed for suitability and scheduled into regular enhancement drops.

“One major enhancement currently ongoing is adapting the system to meet changes to Network Rail’s Standard 019, which aims to maximise the safety of work planned on or near the line. RailHub will play a key role in ensuring those benefits are achieved, whilst providing key management insights and reports. Reducing the risk of injuries and near misses is essential to supporting Network Rail’s safety vision ‘Everyone home safe every day’.”

“We were fortunate to work as part of a fantastic delivery ecosystem. From the start, there was a shared willingness to create the right conditions for the project to succeed.”

Chris Johnson 

What makes this project special?

Network Rail was voted Transformation Project of the Year 2022 for a collection of compelling reasons. Not only did the project succeed in exceptionally challenging circumstances. It also demonstrated the holy grail for all technology investments – a straight line to meaningful benefits. 

On one hand, this is not a direct comparison with a global SAP rollout or a complex finance transformation across multiple jurisdictions. But that doesn’t diminish its merit in the least. All transformation projects, no matter what the technology or environment, must illustrate certain characteristics in order to be considered successful – simply implementing software and turning the lights on does not constitute success.

For a project to stand out it must exhibit creativity, innovation and a uniqueness that sets it apart from others. The judges at this year’s ERP Today Awards considered 67 projects from a diverse pool of contenders and it was universally agreed that the approach and strategy applied to this project set a new bar in terms of vision and execution.

EY, one of the world’s biggest consulting firms, may not strike you as an obvious bedfellow for a project that required such a differentiated approach. The firm had to meet its customer at the point of need in an environment where shirts and ties were replaced by hard hats and bright orange jumpsuits. The technical solution was complex but much of that was abstracted away in favour of a people-first approach that put education, training and support at the top of page one. There was a sense of shared responsibility that cut across the entire project team and EY delivered a programme that will have lasting benefits with a genuine human story at the heart of their endeavours.

As Edwards from Network Rail concluded: “Without them we wouldn’t have succeeded. As a supplier and partner, EY was fully immersed in the challenge and they got to grips with the issues very quickly. We knew it was going to be a tough challenge but EY delivered and now the rail network is safer and our people get to come home every day.”

Congratulations to Network Rail, EY and the other partners.  

The post Network Rail: everyone home safe every day appeared first on ERP Today.

The Fortune Global 500 tells a compelling story – the world’s biggest companies trust SAP to run their operations. On top of these enterprise credentials more than 400,000 other businesses rely on SAP technologies for finance, procurement, sales, HR, planning and supply chain management. A blue thread runs through the heart of global commerce emanating from a small town in Germany called Walldorf and stretching out to all four corners of the world.

I used to doubt SAP’s claim that it touched 80-odd percent of world GDP: having spent so much time researching SAP’s credentials, the only surprise is that figure isn’t higher. Ninety-nine of the world’s 100 largest companies are SAP customers – and for those who think they are all legacy clients, 85 are already running S/4HANA.

SAP generated €28bn in revenue last year – €9.4bn from the cloud. This year those numbers should top €30bn and €12bn, and by 2025 expect to see SAP generating more than €20bn from cloud alone. By any measure, SAP is the dominant force in enterprise technology and there are no signs that its young and gifted CEO has any intention of letting that title slip.

In April 2022, I went to SAP HQ to meet CEO, Christian Klein, to talk about football, parenting and the next chapter in SAP’s history.

Write a list of your dream dinner party guests and a German tech exec with a penchant for detail and numbers is unlikely to make the cut. It’s easy to stereotype and make assumptions but within two minutes of meeting Klein most of mine were dashed. The man at the helm of the world’s biggest enterprise software vendor was instantly engaging and charming. I’ve interviewed enough people to know the ones who are feigning a persona because they have been media trained and those who are genuinely at ease with the situation. Klein presented a calm and measured personality, unfazed by my photographer’s instructions and eager to tell his story in pragmatic language uninhibited by corporate PR.

His authentic and relaxed approach set the tone for a two hour conversation that covered lessons learned on the football pitch, the demands of parenting young children and the monumental task of reshaping SAP into a cloud-first business that would meet the challenges of the next 50 years. 

Make no mistake, the assignment ahead of Klein was seismic. Its flagship ERP product has not followed the same adoption curve that previous SAP products have enjoyed. Its customer base is largely on-premise and is stubbornly ignoring the cloud. Its own cloud infrastructure ambitions had been shelved in favour of partnering with the hyperscalers. And, most fundamentally of all, there has been a disconnect between its narrative and its customers’ experiences. Add to this Klein’s personal aspirations regarding sustainability together with SAP’s responsibilities as a global influencer and it becomes clear that the scale of change required would be like nothing else in SAP’s 50 year history.

Klein told me: “There’s certainly not a lack of workload! The challenges are complex, the stakes are high but if you walk into the office with the right mindset you can deal with whatever is in front of you.”

Getting started

I start the interview by asking Klein if he remembers his first day at SAP – he replies by telling me his first job was unpacking monitors in an SAP warehouse aged just 15. Not the grandstand beginning I had expected but he goes on to say that his first day actually ended before it even started.

“I got sent home on my first day at SAP. The person who hired me had become a father the night before so he didn’t make it into work. When I arrived for my first day no one knew who I was or why I was there, so they told me to go home.”

The sorry start didn’t deter Klein and after finishing his education he began his first full time job as a support consultant. Klein’s CV is a matter of record so I won’t detail every job and promotion he enjoyed at SAP, but scroll forward a few years and he moved to San Francisco to work for Lars Dalgaard, founder of SuccessFactors, which was by then an SAP company. Klein moved back to Germany in 2013 to head up corporate controlling and then global controlling before landing the COO role in 2016. Three years later, incumbent CEO, Bill McDermott, announced his intention to leave SAP – a move which catapulted him into the top job in a shared capacity with Jennifer Morgan. Just seven months into that role, Morgan moved on and Klein became the sole-CEO.

Klein was just 39, one of the youngest CEOs of any major tech business and one which needed an overhaul. SAP had been the dominate player in the ERP market for decades and had grown through a series of acquisitions under McDermott’s tenure. Those acquisitions had propelled its market cap skywards and created an organisation that included best of breed solutions for every aspect of an enterprise’s operations. But, along with its successes, SAP had been subject to criticism for the lack of integration between its products, for the hulking nature of its solutions and the sheer complexity of running a large-scale SAP estate. 

A blue thread runs through the heart of global commerce emanating from a small town in Germany called Walldorf and stretching out to all four corners of the world.

It’s important to note that despite this need for change, Klein expressly commended his predecessor on a job well done. Bill McDermott had ruled SAP for a decade and during his tenure SAP’s value had rocketed by more than $100bn and turned the German software firm into an international kraft zu rechnen.

“Every strategy has its time and Bill’s tenure was dominated by a lot of important acquisitions which created a lot of value. My tenure is definitely more around how do we bring this together? Not like we did in the last 50 years – that would be a mistake. It’s about turning SAP into a cloud company and helping our customers become intelligent, sustainable enterprises.”

At the same time as these domestic challenges, the macro outlook was presenting a new paradigm for the way businesses, people and technology co-existed. CEOs had a new set of priorities which included baking sustainability into the core of their business model. Enterprise leaders were more experienced in the digital economy and buying preferences were changing – companies around the world were facing generational challenges which were inextricably linked to each other. The issues can be succinctly summarised in just one sentence: how do you build a sustainable business with reliable supply chains in the cloud?

In addition to these internal and external forces there was also a tectonic shift in the fundamental nature of what customers were buying. SAP had grown up on transactional proprietary software – the kind of traditional business applications that once ruled the world. In the past you bought an ERP to manage your back office functions – it was a system of record that controlled finances, inventory and sales data. Today, an ERP is just one component of a business’ technology landscape which must also include the tools for innovation, analysis, planning, recruiting, training, ESG activities and customer engagement. There is no longer any separation between a company’s business model and its technology platform – they have become one and the same thing. 

By the time Klein assumed full control of SAP, global commerce was being played out on a transient landscape where business models and entire industries were being reshaped almost as quickly as new technologies could be conceived and deployed. In order to find an answer to this conundrum Klein had three key challenges ahead of him: how to move SAP’s existing customers to the cloud; how to drive adoption of S/4HANA; and how to deliver against SAP’s ambitions to help the world run better and become more sustainable. Klein found an answer to all three problems in the shape of RISE with SAP, but before we look at exactly what that offering is, let’s examine how and why SAP arrived at that solution.

SAP’s transformation

There’s a phrase in enterprise software that I don’t much like but perfectly describes SAP’s journey over the last three years – dogfooding. The process of consuming your own product and eating what you serve to others. When Klein took over as CEO he realised that root and branch change was needed – not just in the product portfolio but also in the way the company was set up to meet the needs of a new generation of customer.

The issues can be succinctly summarised in just one sentence: how do you build a sustainable business with reliable supply chains in the cloud?

Klein started by rebuilding his executive board: Thomas Saueressig was promoted to head of product engineering, Juergen Mueller became the new CTO, Scott Russell ascended to global head of customer success and, more recently, Sabine Bendiek and Julia White were hired from Microsoft to lead people, operations and marketing. SAP’s executive team look like the poster children for modern enterprise and Klein now sits at the centre of a powerhouse team that has the youth, experience and determination to understand and execute a strategy that is fit for modern commerce.

“There was leadership change because we need people thinking beyond the point of sale,” Klein told me. “The way we are structured internally is very different now and we are with you every step of the journey. We reorganised our teams so that technical, sales, delivery and customer success all work together and are incentivised around a common goal.”

As SAP began its own journey of cloud modernisation it learned some valuable lessons – some of which may have been difficult to swallow. Implementing a large-scale SAP ERP solution is no small task and as SAP went through the process itself the pain of bringing all the elements for a successful transformation together became apparent. 

“I gained a lot of experience during SAP’s own transformation. It was impossible to serve our cloud business model with just a technical upgrade so we then started thinking about how we could better serve our customers who also wanted to make a similar journey. That was the point of time when I put a few people into a room almost day and night and said we need to make it easier for our customers. A transformation is not only about technology it has to go to the core – to the heart of business processes. We acquired Signavio to have this business process capabilities, but we also needed a different engagement model that made us more accountable for the outcomes of our customers’ investments.”

Legacy

We talk about legacy in a negative way. SAP itself is often described as a legacy technology company and the term usually characterises a set of circumstances, a product or service that is from yesteryear, and as such, should be consigned to history.  

SAP’s legacy is somewhat different. Put simply, there is no ERP without SAP. There is no Oracle or Workday. In fact, without SAP there is no enterprise tech industry – its legacy has paved the way for virtually every brand in the industry (save for IBM which can lay its own claim as a pioneer) and SAP’s rich heritage defines the sector as much today as it did decades ago.

“Our legacy is our gift. When you have 400,000 customers to learn from it’s a huge advantage,” said Klein. “SAP has customers in more than 25 different industries so we can always test our assumptions, benchmark our roadmap and challenge our strategy against the depth of install base and industry knowledge from our customers. Of course, it’s challenging to move such a large install base from one environment to another – but that’s the challenge that we have at SAP and one that we are ready to take on. It’s our biggest challenge but also our greatest gift.”

Sustainability

No other tech company has banged the sustainability drum as loudly as SAP, or for as long. In fact, in the early days of SAP’s mission to propel ESG into the spotlight, some argued that there was too much noise around saving the planet and not enough focus on other areas. Of course, that was at a time when the world was only just waking up to the urgent and imperative nature of ESG action. Today, sustainability is a core component for virtually every business – big or small – new or old – tech or industrial – everyone has a narrative, but few are as compelling or complete as SAP’s pursuit of green commerce.

Klein is a leader who truly believes that SAP has the same inherent responsibility to the planet as it does to shareholders.

Klein told me that sustainability could no longer be separated from other business objectives and that SAP was the only technology company with the scale and scope to address the world’s greatest challenge. It’s sheer reach into global enterprises and supply chains means SAP collects and analyses more commercial data than any other organisation. That blue thread which runs through the heart of global commerce has the potential to morph into a green ribbon combining the data of half a million businesses and supply chains to provide actionable insights for enterprises around the world. 

“We have taken action on our biggest carbon impacts with data centres and car fleets, and we already made very important decisions how to move to carbon free operations in the years to come. But the bigger challenge is how can we help our customers become more sustainable? How can we use SAP technologies to give our customers the visibility they need? When it comes to ESG, our customers tell me, ‘I have a lot of good intentions, I have potential actions, but I have zero transparency.’ We realised we needed to expand our data model and embed sustainability metrics in every process because when you can give customers the transparency, it’s the foundation for taking the right action.”

To achieve these aspirational outcomes and deliver against good intentions, businesses must find ways to address the fundamental challenges of data transparency. An overwhelming majority of organisations are dissatisfied with the quality of data at their disposal to drive sustainability transformation, which is reinforced by the fact that 86 percent of companies still use spreadsheets to measure emissions data. Furthermore, one third do not know how to integrate sustainability into their core business strategy and barely 20 percent of sustainability initiatives embrace business model change. 

SAP is able to solve these challenges at the scale required to meet the urgent environmental demands. The majority of global commercial data sits in, or can be accessed by, an SAP system demonstrating the potential for SAP to address sustainability transformation at a global scale. SAP technology can help organisations gain the industry-specific insights and intelligence they need, combining operational, financial and experiential data across entire value chains. With these insights, organisations can embed sustainability into business processes across their organisation and expanded business networks, building sustainability metrics into every function of the business and ultimately undergoing the type of transformation required to become intelligent, sustainable enterprises.  

SAP’s sustainability portfolio includes SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises – a comprehensive platform that allows businesses to design sustainable products and services underpinned by a holistic view of data, process and regulations by industry. It also partners with the world’s biggest consulting firms like Accenture, EY and IBM to co-innovate and combine industry expertise to create frameworks like SAP Responsible Design and Production which helps organisations gain greater visibility into the environmental impact of their design choices. SAP also works with startups and early stage inventors through SAP.iO – a cohort of innovative trailblazers that focus on solving sustainability problems with SAP technologies. 

If you attended one of the Sapphire events that took place in May, you would have been left in no doubt that sustainability and the environment are as intrinsically linked to SAP and its culture as S/4HANA and BTP.

While many assert that sustainability is a key tenet of their DNA, few if any can support those claims with the kind of credentials that SAP brings to the table. Senior leaders within the enterprise tech community often speak to me about their ESG charters – only to jump in a V8 Mercedes after they have told me how committed they are to saving the planet. With Klein you get a different, authentic, believable narrative that he is personally invested in SAP’s mission – a mission that goes way beyond any corporate PR point scoring. 

Klein is a leader who truly believes that SAP has the same inherent responsibility to the planet as it does to shareholders. While others have touted sustainability to bolster their image, SAP has invested heavily in a comprehensive portfolio of solutions that genuinely lead to a more promising future for the environment. 

RISE with SAP

When Klein announced RISE with SAP back in January 2021, the market was split: was it just a clever commercial proposition or was it an industry-first that would revolutionise the way tech was sold and consumed?

RISE promised a single handshake deal that provided a pathway to the cloud for any customer, irrespective of starting point or complexity. Delivered on a subscription basis (hence, sometimes called Transformation-as-a-Service) it positions SAP as the responsible party for the end to end transformation of a business independent of any third parties that are also involved in the process. In addition, SAP completely reorganised its internal structures so that every team in the end to end process was aligned with incentive plans pointing everyone in the same direction. 

“As much as I like the sales forecast calls, we now have delivery calls where we go through all our RISE customers and ask, where are we with the business process redesign? Where are we with the back to standard? How many modifications can we get out? Where are we with the platform adoption, and finally the cutover to S/4.”

A single point of contact for SLAs and clear line of sight to the responsible party for business transformation, application services and infrastructure is a breakthrough proposition for customers. SAP had been searching for a compelling carrot to lead its install base to S/4HANA for nearly seven years and RISE delivers that and more.

RISE is a ‘business model as a service’ and one that is finely tuned for the complexities of modern commerce.

SAP’s guiding principles for RISE, in fact its north star for all customer engagements, has four simple components: use Signavio to understand and redesign processes; partner with hyperscalers and move workloads to the cloud; migrate to S/4HANA while maintaining a clean core; augment the solution and build innovations on BTP.

In addition to this simple four step plan, RISE also delivers a plethora of other business benefits which includes one of SAP’s most important but often overlooked offering – SAP Business Network. This new combination of product, services and platform has been in the making for years but it wasn’t until Sapphire 2022 that the moving parts coalesced into what could be one of the most significant contributions by SAP to the global economy since its inception.

The SAP Business Network is a network-as-a-platform for transacting, managing, analysing, and optimising the panoply of processes needed to do business in today’s complex global economy. While the full realisation of the Business Network is still a few years out, it’s already well-positioned to begin supporting the underlying mechanisms of global trade: buying, selling, procuring, supplying, planning, servicing, transporting, operating, partnering, financing, and certifying, to mention just a few. All within a single, many-to-many business platform. 

“The Business Network is a big differentiator because now when you are connecting companies we can not only help with the commerce side of things and with supply chains, but also it has a big role to play in ESG. If you are a car manufacturer and you want to reduce carbon then you have to look outside of your own enterprise. You need to analyse the whole value chain and measure the end to end impact. With the Business Network customers will be able to build these reliable supply chains and measure their sustainability across the entire value chain.”

To answer my own question: RISE is not just a mechanism for a commercial engagement. It’s not just a go-to-market play. It provides infinitely more than just a route to the cloud. I’d go as far as to say it’s not just transformation as a service either – it goes way beyond that. RISE is a ‘business model as a service’ and one that is finely tuned for the complexities of modern commerce. In one handshake both new and existing customers can build a business around an end to end offering that covers every conceivable aspect of doing business.

RISE may well have been originally conceived as an accelerator for cloud and S/4HANA but as the proposition has evolved it has developed into a template for twenty-first century commerce encapsulating the full spectrum of cloud, applications, supply chains and sustainability. 

Conclusion

For five decades SAP has been many things to many people. Its forefathers created an industry that supports millions of jobs and provided the foundations for global commerce to flourish. Many of the business process blueprints that we take for granted were conceived by SAP in the 1970s and today it is creating new standards that will become the code for commerce in the digital age. S/4HANA will power the finances and supply chains of the world’s biggest companies. BTP will provide the platform and architecture that companies use to construct new business models and innovate. The Business Network will be the foundation for a global consortium of intelligent enterprises that design, manufacture and sell the produce that citizens, companies and countries depend on. Above all else, SAP will be the company that provides the technology to convert aspirations into action – both in terms of business performance and sustainability – creating the next generation of industry leaders with the tools and insight to drive global commerce and a green agenda. In short, SAP was and still is the brand that defines an industry. In Klein’s own words, “We are just getting started.” Here’s to the next 50 years.   

The story behind the cover

We were expecting a challenging meeting when we arrived at SAP HQ in mid-April. The conflict in Ukraine was taking a huge amount of focus at SAP and its entire leadership team were also gearing up for multiple Sapphire events around the world. Our experience could not have been any more different to what we anticipated. Klein and his team were patient, welcoming and accommodating and made our experience one to remember. Particular thanks to Sam Finnegan and Thomas Leonhardi for facilitating.

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