Ventana Research Analyst Perspectives

For years various types of systems have produced log files to help with monitoring, debugging and performance management. Often, this information was used in forensic analyses of why interruptions in service or other problems occurred. In many cases, log files are still used this way. But systems have grown more complicated, and many more devices are instrumented. Systems have been decomposed into much finer-grained, interdependent services. Infrastructure is now distributed between on-premises and multiple cloud providers. In addition, expectations now include 24x7 operation and real-time responsiveness. All of these factors combine to create challenges with volume and velocity of data that is collected and analyzed.

With Ventana Research’s 2023 Market Agenda, we continue the guidance we’ve offered for two decades to help organizations derive maximum value from digital business technology investments. Through our market research and expertise, we identify trends and best practices and share insights on how to achieve technological effectiveness, particularly in key processes and systems to engage the workforce.

In my previous perspectives on cloud computing, I addressed some of the realities of cloud costs as well as hybrid and multi-cloud architectures. In the midst of the pandemic, my colleague, Mark Smith, authored a series of perspectives on considerations for business continuity in general, beginning with this look at some of the investments organizations must make to mitigate the risk of business disruptions. In this perspective, I’d like to address some of the realities of business continuity and cloud computing and how they impact the digital technologies of an organization. The cloud can be both advantageous and disadvantageous when it comes to providing business continuity.

The server is a key component of enterprise computing, providing the functional compute resources required to support software applications. Historically, the server was so fundamentally important that it – along with the processor, or processor core – was also a definitional unit by which software was measured, priced and sold. That changed with the advent of cloud-based service delivery and consumption models.

Over a decade ago, I coined the term NewSQL to describe the new breed of horizontally scalable, relational database products. The term was adopted by a variety of vendors that sought to combine the transactional consistency of the relational database model with elastic, cloud-native scalability. Many of the early NewSQL vendors struggled to gain traction, however, and were either acquired or ceased operations before they could make an impact in the crowded operational data platforms market. Nonetheless, the potential benefits of data platforms that span both on-premises and cloud resources remain. As I recently noted, many of the new operational database vendors have now adopted the term “distributed SQL” to describe their offerings. In addition to new terminology, a key trend that separates distributed SQL vendors from the NewSQL providers that preceded them is a greater focus on developers, laying the foundation for the next generation of applications that will depend on horizontally scalable, relational-database functionality. Yugabyte is a case in point.

I recently described the growing level of interest in data mesh which provides an organizational and cultural approach to data ownership, access and governance that facilitates distributed data processing. As I stated in my Analyst Perspective, data mesh is not a product that can be acquired or even a technical architecture that can be built. Adopting the data mesh approach is dependent on people and process change to overcome traditional reliance on centralized ownership of data and infrastructure and adapt to its principles of domain-oriented ownership, data as a product, self-serve data infrastructure and federated governance. Many organizations will need to make technological changes to facilitate adoption of data mesh, however. Starburst Data is associated with accelerating analysis of data in data lakes but is also one of several vendors aligning their products with data mesh.

With the announcement of Ventana Research’s 2022 Market Agenda, our expertise in Digital Business continues to advance the market need for effective investments into technology, and I will outline here the key areas of focus to provide insights to organizations that can increase their organizational resilience and workforce readiness. We are proud to provide expertise on ensuring technological effectiveness through our market research and experience in providing guidance on trends and best practices.

The term NoSQL has been a misnomer ever since it appeared in 2009 to describe a group of emerging databases. It was true that a lack of support for Structured Query Language (SQL) was common to the various databases referred to as NoSQL. However, it was always one of a number of common characteristics, including flexible schema, distributed data processing, open source licensing, and the use of non-relational data models (key value, document, graph) rather than relational tables. As the various NoSQL databases have matured and evolved, many of them have added support for SQL terms and concepts, as well as the ability to support SQL format queries. Couchbase has been at the forefront of this effort, recognizing that to drive greater adoption of NoSQL databases in general (and its distributed document database in particular) it was wise to increase compatibility with the concepts, tools and skills that have dominated the database market for the past 50 years.

When NICE acquired inContact in 2016, it began a transformation that saw it broaden its product offering and positioned itself to play a larger role in the contact center and customer experience industries. It was a prescient move, creating a firm that could supply end-to-end contact center functionality in the cloud. And it anticipated today’s market dynamic, in which NICE and its competitors are racing to define (and capitalize on) the post-contact center future.

The age of digital communication platforms is upon us. The need has never been greater for an open and secure platform that satisfies the demand for enterprise-grade business and technology requirements. Overcoming today’s technology challenges is possible with a next-generation cloud-based delivery model that is both extensible and reliable. Organizations considering a digital communication platform can take decisive steps to ensure digital communications for everyone — inside, outside, everywhere, anytime, any location and on any device.

To maximize the value of the workforce and the work conducted, organizations need to increase the effectiveness of workers assigned to critical, interrelated tasks. Doing so requires a commitment to planning the best use of workers and resources. Failing to do so can limit an organization’s ability to reach essential milestones and complete work related to business processes with customers, partners and across the supply chain.

As the pace of digital innovation has accelerated, many organizations have found it harder to manage the portfolio of work conducted by the workforce to ensure timeliness and mitigate the risk of increased costs and resources. The challenges in managing the work related to project plans are not only to ensure the timeliness in performing and tracking the individual tasks and activities every single moment of the day, but also having the intelligence to adjust and guide all future work. The advent of work management is a systematic approach to prioritizing work and optimizing resources to perform at the desired levels. It requires dedicated applications designed to continuously monitor and streamline activities and processes in ways traditional spreadsheets and project management systems cannot. Ventana Research asserts by 2024, one-third of organizations will deem existing project management and work experiences ineffective to engage or motivate the workforce to be productive.

Strategic planning has always been difficult. But it is even more so in this age of rapid digital transformation and the pressure of business continuity, which has introduced disruptive changes. What’s needed, ironically, is a methodical approach to how an organization manages strategic planning to allow for beneficial disruption that is not avoidable, balancing finance and operations, engaging existing expertise and factoring in technology to ensure that new initiatives can be strategically aligned to the goals and aspirations of the organization. In essence, the essential foundation for performance management is planning that can ensure its alignment or optimization in order to reach strategic objectives.

With the announcement of Ventana Research market agenda, a new expertise in Digital Business has been launched, I will outline the areas of focus that provide insights to organizations that can be used to optimize technology, increase agility and organizational readiness. We are proud to provide expertise on digital effectiveness through our research and insights on trends and best practices.

Augmented reality (AR) is a critical component of digital technology. The role of AR is to virtualize the visualization and engagement of assets and products with information that can enhance the value of it for many purposes including manufacturing, marketing, sales and service. Consider how manufacturing and field service organizations are starting to use AR technology for hands-free call-up of service manuals using glasses so technicians can verify progress without looking away from their work.

Through 2021, one-half of organizations will realize that digital transformation (DX) investments have not met the organizational readiness requirements of business continuity, leading to a new focus on innovative digital technologies that more reliably sustain operations. Which processes does your organization need to prioritize most to operate continuously? Who are the organization’s stakeholders and champion coordinators that will be called upon when an incident arises? What business applications and technologies will help optimize your digital experiences? How can these approaches be applied to a long-term business strategy and planning process rather than a knee-jerk reaction to the unexpected?

These questions and more are addressed in this Ventana Research Analyst Perspective. Join Ventana Research CEO & Chief Research Officer Mark Smith for this brief video as he uncovers the current market situation and recommends three steps that organizations can take to plan for business resilience.

The workforce is an essential part of an organization’s overall business potential because it ensures continuous operations, even in black-swan events. The workforce is the core of the organization and should get the attention it deserves. In challenging times, a “customer-first” mentality tends to take hold — this is not unreasonable but in focusing on satisfying customers and opportunities, business leaders too often forget that the workforce experience is essential to achieving desired results. Fulfilling this objective requires technology designed to meet these human capital management (HCM) objectives. An organization’s agility and ability to invest adequate time and resources into the workforce experience is essential to an organization’s sustainability and operational effectiveness.

Sales plays a lead role in the revenue and growth of every organization. Whether the selling is direct or indirect, what happens in the sales department has ramifications that are perilous to underestimate. The imperative to maintain business continuity becomes painfully clear in a global pandemic, and that imperative demands that organizations cultivate sales excellence. This effort should start with leadership and engage sales operations, management and professionals with the objective of building customer relationships that can survive the test of time. The health of a sales organization hinges on an effective selling experience, and this requires technology investments that enable leaders to not just manage sales performance but help inspire it every single day.

At Ventana Research we’re familiar with the need for digital transformation as we have been researching and providing education on this topic for almost two decades. And recent global challenges make even clearer the sea change at hand: digital innovation is essential for not only success, but survival. Business continuity during a pandemic, natural disaster, cyber event or geopolitical situation requires business and risk mitigation processes, but unfortunately very few organizations had been doing so. We are seeing how quickly organizations are going into survival mode, in how they operate and communicate to meet the expectations of the workforce, customers, stakeholders and potentially shareholders.

A colleague had written a piece about disaster recovery and business continuity – motivated not by the horrors that exploded over the television last night after an 8.9 earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered  a tsunami, but by unexpectedly heavy rain and snow in the northeast. Should he hold off publishing it, he asked, so as not to be seen as exploiting the disaster?