Kevin Benedict's blog listings. Feed Zend_Feed_Writer 1.10.8 (http://framework.zend.com) http://www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/kevinrbenedict SAP M2M Expert Suhas Uliyar Shares Strategies for the Internet of Things This is one of the most informative interviews I have recorded on the subject of the IoT (Internet of Things).  IoT is a big subject here at SAPPHIRE NOW 2013.  In this interview Suhas Uliyar shares what an end-to-end M2M (machine to machine) solution looks like in an SAP world.

Learn how the SAP Mobile Platform, Hana, Syclo, Right Hemisphere/ SAP Visual Enterprise, Afaria, Augmented Reality, Mapping, cloud computing and SAP NetWeaver all work together in an M2M solution.

Video Link: youtu.be/vJMCzQS-9wA

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile 

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked 

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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]]> Thu, 16 May 2013 11:16:18 -0500 http://www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/kevinrbenedict/blog/2013/05/16/sap_m2m_expert_suhas_uliyar_shares_strategies_for_the_internet_of_things http://www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/kevinrbenedict/blog/2013/05/16/sap_m2m_expert_suhas_uliyar_shares_strategies_for_the_internet_of_things This is one of the most informative interviews I have recorded on the subject of the IoT (Internet of Things).  IoT is a big subject here at SAPPHIRE NOW 2013.  In this interview Suhas Uliyar shares what an end-to-end M2M (machine to machine) solution looks like in an SAP world.

Learn how the SAP Mobile Platform, Hana, Syclo, Right Hemisphere/ SAP Visual Enterprise, Afaria, Augmented Reality, Mapping, cloud computing and SAP NetWeaver all work together in an M2M solution.

Video Link: youtu.be/vJMCzQS-9wA

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile 

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked 

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
0 Comments - Leave a Comment
]]> 0 Mobile Security Updates from SAPPHIRE 2013 Yesterday at SAPPHIRE 2013 the SAP mobility team announced a new SAP Afaria in the Cloud edition that will be available for approximately $1.12 per month per device (read press release).  Some vendors charge by user, rather than by device, but SAP says they want to know exactly how many devices they are managing. 

Sanjay Poonen said the cloud is the direction MDM is going.  In fact, the cloud model can be updated and upgraded much faster than the on-premise version of Afaria.  I believe this.  We don't expect to buy a separate security model to speak on our phones, likewise, we ultimately want all mobile voice and data security to simply be part of the network.

In addition to the cloud edition of SAP Afaria, SAP announced a partnership with MAM (mobile application management) company Mocana (read press release).  I was told by several SAP folks that MDM (mobile device management) is quickly becoming a commodity, and the future will be in mobile application management.  Mocana, is not an exclusive partner of SAP, but SAP will be putting significant resources behind this relationship.

I asked an SAP representative why they didn't simply acquire Mocana?  The unofficial answer was we are not certain which mobile application management and MDM model will ultimately win.  We are happy to partner with leaders and observe how the market matures.  This again, points to the value of using a cloud solution when the future direction of the product category is unclear.  Why place big bets on such a dynamic space, when cloud options are available?


************************************************************* 

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile 

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked 

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
0 Comments - Leave a Comment
]]> Thu, 16 May 2013 11:13:31 -0500 http://www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/kevinrbenedict/blog/2013/05/16/mobile_security_updates_from_sapphire_2013 http://www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/kevinrbenedict/blog/2013/05/16/mobile_security_updates_from_sapphire_2013 Yesterday at SAPPHIRE 2013 the SAP mobility team announced a new SAP Afaria in the Cloud edition that will be available for approximately $1.12 per month per device (read press release).  Some vendors charge by user, rather than by device, but SAP says they want to know exactly how many devices they are managing. 

Sanjay Poonen said the cloud is the direction MDM is going.  In fact, the cloud model can be updated and upgraded much faster than the on-premise version of Afaria.  I believe this.  We don't expect to buy a separate security model to speak on our phones, likewise, we ultimately want all mobile voice and data security to simply be part of the network.

In addition to the cloud edition of SAP Afaria, SAP announced a partnership with MAM (mobile application management) company Mocana (read press release).  I was told by several SAP folks that MDM (mobile device management) is quickly becoming a commodity, and the future will be in mobile application management.  Mocana, is not an exclusive partner of SAP, but SAP will be putting significant resources behind this relationship.

I asked an SAP representative why they didn't simply acquire Mocana?  The unofficial answer was we are not certain which mobile application management and MDM model will ultimately win.  We are happy to partner with leaders and observe how the market matures.  This again, points to the value of using a cloud solution when the future direction of the product category is unclear.  Why place big bets on such a dynamic space, when cloud options are available?


************************************************************* 

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile 

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked 

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
0 Comments - Leave a Comment
]]> 0 Are You Acting Strategically Enough with Your Enterprise Mobility? I read the following question recently, "Are we acting strategically enough to matter?"  I remember the question, because I believe it is so important for us all to answer.  It is a question all IT and business people should be asking themselves!

In this picture of charging elephants, would it really make a difference if you took a baby step to the left, right, forward or backwards?  Probably not!  The only way to save yourself would be to do something strategic and fast!

I see enterprise mobility in a similar way.  How long are large enterprises going to engage in tiny proof of concepts before they do something big!  The mega-trends of SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) are not going away.  The faster companies recognize these are absolutely market and industry altering trends and begin to do something smart about it, the better.

I read a very interesting interview with Silicon Valley veteran and investor/celebrity Marc Andreessen the other day.  Here are some of his candid technology and trend predictions:

  • Nothing is going to stop the consumerization of the enterprise. 
  • Nothing is going to stop the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend. 
  • Nothing is going to stop Software-as-a-Service. 
  • Nothing is going to stop the cloud. 
  • Any installed software, where there is a web or a cloud equivalent, is in real trouble.  Old software vendors are charging these huge upgrade and maintenance prices. Companies can switch to SaaS for less than the cost of the maintenance on the old software.
Do you agree with him?  I mostly do!  I think BYOD is really BWITUICS (bring what I tell you I can support).

I was teaching a SMAC strategies workshop the other day in Edinburgh, Scotland.  The large global financial services company I was meeting with had an "Innovation Team" consisting of members of the business and IT members.  This team was tasked with recognizing market and industry impacting trends on the horizon and having a plan in place to address them.  They invited me to come in and share the results of my research on enterprise mobility and SMAC.  
I believe all companies need to have some team in place watching the horizon and developing responses to emerging opportunities and threats.  These days demand foresight and courage.  Does your company have them?

************************************************************* 

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile 

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked 

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
0 Comments - Leave a Comment
]]> Wed, 08 May 2013 09:19:07 -0500 http://www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/kevinrbenedict/blog/2013/05/08/are_you_acting_strategically_enough_with_your_enterprise_mobility http://www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/kevinrbenedict/blog/2013/05/08/are_you_acting_strategically_enough_with_your_enterprise_mobility I read the following question recently, "Are we acting strategically enough to matter?"  I remember the question, because I believe it is so important for us all to answer.  It is a question all IT and business people should be asking themselves!

In this picture of charging elephants, would it really make a difference if you took a baby step to the left, right, forward or backwards?  Probably not!  The only way to save yourself would be to do something strategic and fast!

I see enterprise mobility in a similar way.  How long are large enterprises going to engage in tiny proof of concepts before they do something big!  The mega-trends of SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) are not going away.  The faster companies recognize these are absolutely market and industry altering trends and begin to do something smart about it, the better.

I read a very interesting interview with Silicon Valley veteran and investor/celebrity Marc Andreessen the other day.  Here are some of his candid technology and trend predictions:

  • Nothing is going to stop the consumerization of the enterprise. 
  • Nothing is going to stop the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend. 
  • Nothing is going to stop Software-as-a-Service. 
  • Nothing is going to stop the cloud. 
  • Any installed software, where there is a web or a cloud equivalent, is in real trouble.  Old software vendors are charging these huge upgrade and maintenance prices. Companies can switch to SaaS for less than the cost of the maintenance on the old software.
Do you agree with him?  I mostly do!  I think BYOD is really BWITUICS (bring what I tell you I can support).

I was teaching a SMAC strategies workshop the other day in Edinburgh, Scotland.  The large global financial services company I was meeting with had an "Innovation Team" consisting of members of the business and IT members.  This team was tasked with recognizing market and industry impacting trends on the horizon and having a plan in place to address them.  They invited me to come in and share the results of my research on enterprise mobility and SMAC.  
I believe all companies need to have some team in place watching the horizon and developing responses to emerging opportunities and threats.  These days demand foresight and courage.  Does your company have them?

************************************************************* 

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile 

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked 

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
0 Comments - Leave a Comment
]]> 0 Big Data and Mobility Change the Way We Live This week I read an interesting article titled, Mobile Phone Data Redraws Bus Routes in Africa.  Seems the MNO (mobile network operator) Orange released 2.5 billion phone records (anonymised data) from 5 million phones for an exercise on how Big Data could be used to improve lives.

The data was used by IBM's research laboratory in Dublin to determine how people could reduce travel times in the city of Abidjan, Ivory Coast.  They compared the locations of actual mobile phone usage with current bus routes, and then developed a plan to change the bus routes to more efficiently serve the actual locations of where people lived.  They reported there could be a 10% reduction in travel times by following their plan.

This is very interesting to me.  Instead of guessing how people live, travel and use their mobile phones - big data reports the facts.  If you combine telco data with actual public transportation data and other sources you can learn an immense amount about the world we live in, and thus how we can improve it.

I recently read about a research project that compared actual email flows to organizational chart structures.  The results showed that the people with the most influence (measured by numbers of emails sent and received) did not correlate with organizational charts.  In a social business, the most influential people are those with good information and the willingness to share it, not simply those with company bestowed titles.

I am reading a book now called Big Data by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier.  In this book the authors write, "There is a treasure hunt under way, driven by the insights to be extracted from data and the dormant value that can be unleashed..."  So much information and data in the past has been on paper.  It has not been in a format that was digitized, searchable and able to quickly be analyzed.  The authors call the process of transforming information from paper to digits datafication.  Once information goes through datafication, immense amounts of interesting results can be found via big data analytics that can be used to find efficiencies, make our world a better place, or at least push the problems to someone else's neighborhood.

Many analysts are projecting that future increases in productivity are likely to come from big data analytics that can discover inefficiencies never before recognized.  It is going to be an interesting future!

*************************************************************

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile 

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked 

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
0 Comments - Leave a Comment
]]> Mon, 06 May 2013 09:12:59 -0500 http://www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/kevinrbenedict/blog/2013/05/06/big_data_and_mobility_change_the_way_we_live http://www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/kevinrbenedict/blog/2013/05/06/big_data_and_mobility_change_the_way_we_live This week I read an interesting article titled, Mobile Phone Data Redraws Bus Routes in Africa.  Seems the MNO (mobile network operator) Orange released 2.5 billion phone records (anonymised data) from 5 million phones for an exercise on how Big Data could be used to improve lives.

The data was used by IBM's research laboratory in Dublin to determine how people could reduce travel times in the city of Abidjan, Ivory Coast.  They compared the locations of actual mobile phone usage with current bus routes, and then developed a plan to change the bus routes to more efficiently serve the actual locations of where people lived.  They reported there could be a 10% reduction in travel times by following their plan.

This is very interesting to me.  Instead of guessing how people live, travel and use their mobile phones - big data reports the facts.  If you combine telco data with actual public transportation data and other sources you can learn an immense amount about the world we live in, and thus how we can improve it.

I recently read about a research project that compared actual email flows to organizational chart structures.  The results showed that the people with the most influence (measured by numbers of emails sent and received) did not correlate with organizational charts.  In a social business, the most influential people are those with good information and the willingness to share it, not simply those with company bestowed titles.

I am reading a book now called Big Data by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier.  In this book the authors write, "There is a treasure hunt under way, driven by the insights to be extracted from data and the dormant value that can be unleashed..."  So much information and data in the past has been on paper.  It has not been in a format that was digitized, searchable and able to quickly be analyzed.  The authors call the process of transforming information from paper to digits datafication.  Once information goes through datafication, immense amounts of interesting results can be found via big data analytics that can be used to find efficiencies, make our world a better place, or at least push the problems to someone else's neighborhood.

Many analysts are projecting that future increases in productivity are likely to come from big data analytics that can discover inefficiencies never before recognized.  It is going to be an interesting future!

*************************************************************

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile 

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked 

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
0 Comments - Leave a Comment
]]> 0 When IT is Destroying Your Company's Future A long time ago, before gray hairs appeared on my head, I was an IT manager.  My title was B2B E-Commerce Manager for a computer manufacturer.  I remember sitting in long meetings discussing how successful Dell Computer was with their just in time manufacturing and just in time supply chains.  I also remember our business representatives asking IT if they could develop systems that would allow us to operate in a similar supply chain model and the answers seemed always to be, "NO!"  Our IT systems were not set-up to support a real-time environment. 

Of course the business would then say this must change if we are going to be competitive, and the IT would say then give us the budget to change.  Many years after I had moved on, the computer manufacture closed.  This manufacturer had never been able to gain freedom from their business-limiting legacy IT environments.

I was in England and Scotland last week teaching SMAC strategies (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) to large companies.  In a number of these sessions, I heard echoes from my days at the computer manufacturer, "Our current IT systems are not set-up to support those kinds of things."  They were not arguing the need for business and IT transformation, they were simply sharing the reality of their current IT architecture.

When working with companies on enterprise mobile strategies, the ability to support a real-time environment is often crucial to optimizing mobile apps and the ROI.  I have personally worked with many large utility companies that wanted to support real-time mobile solutions for their field services technicians, but the biggest challenges were trying to get their back-end legacy systems to work in a real-time environment.  Some simply couldn't make that change, and they stayed with a batch service ticket model and gave-up the attempt to fully optimize their systems.

I came across this excerpt from the article Four Reasons Your SMAC Initiatives May Underperform, "The cost to support and maintain existing IT systems is eroding companies’ ability to fund new investments in social, mobile, analytics and cloud IT initiatives (SMAC). Out of the $3.8 trillion expected in worldwide IT spending in 2013, NPI estimates there will be $760 billion in unnecessary overspending in non-value creation areas such as maintenance and support, over-subscription, license program misalignment, and sub-optimal contract negotiation and management."

That is a problem.  I have also often read that 80 percent of an IT budget goes to support legacy IT environments, leaving only 20 percent of the IT budget left for strategic initiatives.  If this is true (it was when I worked at the computer manufacturer), then our past may be preventing us from achieving our goals in the future.  In order to break this cycle, often something transformational must happen.  Something beyond the normal iterative improvements.  This takes courage.

************************************************************* 

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile 

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked 

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
0 Comments - Leave a Comment
]]> Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:38:30 -0500 http://www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/kevinrbenedict/blog/2013/04/30/when_it_is_destroying_your_companys_future http://www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/kevinrbenedict/blog/2013/04/30/when_it_is_destroying_your_companys_future A long time ago, before gray hairs appeared on my head, I was an IT manager.  My title was B2B E-Commerce Manager for a computer manufacturer.  I remember sitting in long meetings discussing how successful Dell Computer was with their just in time manufacturing and just in time supply chains.  I also remember our business representatives asking IT if they could develop systems that would allow us to operate in a similar supply chain model and the answers seemed always to be, "NO!"  Our IT systems were not set-up to support a real-time environment. 

Of course the business would then say this must change if we are going to be competitive, and the IT would say then give us the budget to change.  Many years after I had moved on, the computer manufacture closed.  This manufacturer had never been able to gain freedom from their business-limiting legacy IT environments.

I was in England and Scotland last week teaching SMAC strategies (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) to large companies.  In a number of these sessions, I heard echoes from my days at the computer manufacturer, "Our current IT systems are not set-up to support those kinds of things."  They were not arguing the need for business and IT transformation, they were simply sharing the reality of their current IT architecture.

When working with companies on enterprise mobile strategies, the ability to support a real-time environment is often crucial to optimizing mobile apps and the ROI.  I have personally worked with many large utility companies that wanted to support real-time mobile solutions for their field services technicians, but the biggest challenges were trying to get their back-end legacy systems to work in a real-time environment.  Some simply couldn't make that change, and they stayed with a batch service ticket model and gave-up the attempt to fully optimize their systems.

I came across this excerpt from the article Four Reasons Your SMAC Initiatives May Underperform, "The cost to support and maintain existing IT systems is eroding companies’ ability to fund new investments in social, mobile, analytics and cloud IT initiatives (SMAC). Out of the $3.8 trillion expected in worldwide IT spending in 2013, NPI estimates there will be $760 billion in unnecessary overspending in non-value creation areas such as maintenance and support, over-subscription, license program misalignment, and sub-optimal contract negotiation and management."

That is a problem.  I have also often read that 80 percent of an IT budget goes to support legacy IT environments, leaving only 20 percent of the IT budget left for strategic initiatives.  If this is true (it was when I worked at the computer manufacturer), then our past may be preventing us from achieving our goals in the future.  In order to break this cycle, often something transformational must happen.  Something beyond the normal iterative improvements.  This takes courage.

************************************************************* 

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile 

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked 

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
0 Comments - Leave a Comment
]]> 0