Cloud Wars Live with Bob Evans

“Sadin on Digital” episodes explore the fast-changing and high-stakes world of digital business. Wayne Sadin and I focus in particular on what CEOs and boards must do to lead their companies successfully into the Digital Age. Today, we dive deeper into a topic we’ve touched on a couple times before: “technical debt.” Through some evocative metaphors, Wayne explains why it matters—and how to avoid it building up.

Episode 9

In this episode, Wayne and I talk about the CIO. He says the CEO gets the CIO they settled for. If the CIO can’t hit your strategic agenda, and help you become a partner, and move the business forward, you’re setting your sights to low. Don’t settle, he says, for a mediocre CIO.

He says the CIO needs to get on the truck if you deliver things. Get in the warehouse if you store things. Get on the factory floor if you make things. Go on a sales call and see what happens when your salespeople get tossed out on their ear.

He then goes on to say that most executives work in vertical silos – as in, I’m in charge of department A or B or C. But he says the CIOs who are effective get out of that way of thinking, and start thinking of themselves as the Chief Process Person.

He tells the story of how he asked a CIO, “What do you think is your biggest accomplishment.” And the CIO said, “Oh, it’s really simple. My IT budget was 0.91% of sales, and I was able to keep it to 0.88% of sales.” Wayne says that’s just nuts – what if they had given him 0.03% of sales to focus on top line innovation, or process improvement, or customer satisfaction?

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Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.

Episode 6

In this episode, Sean and I discuss the pain and suffering at WeWork, which had roughly a $50 billion market cap, and is now struggling to do one-third that much. Their CEO, Adam Neumann voted to oust himself amid various scandals, and their “community adjusted EBITDA” he calls a made-up metric.

SoftBank, their largest investor, was poised to push for an IPO, but Sean says WeWork was a $10 billion great idea – not a $50 billion great idea. He says this was always, at the end of the day, a real estate business, and he compares it to CB Richard Ellis – although with a 5x valuation. And Sean says it turns out that beer and kombucha on tap is expensive – and there’s a lot of that in WeWork spaces.

I tell him about my experience eating seal meat with SoftBank. Sean says I should have moved it around on the plate and hope something else comes along.

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Each month, Tony Uphoff, visionary CEO of Thomasnet.com, joins Cloud Wars Live for a recurring segment. “Uphoff on Industry” will explore the innovations, upheavals, and breakthroughs reshaping the the world of manufacturing and industrial markets. Join Tony and me as we discuss disruptive new trends in the digital-industrial world: how we design, source and manufacture products, and also the new ways in which industrial companies are getting up to speed on marketing, sales and customer experience.

Episode 6

In this episode, Tony and I start off by discussing how there is substantial increase in software products and services in the industrial marketplace – and how software companies really need to focus on customer success. He says he openly will throw rocks – and live in a glass house at the exact same moment.

Tony says that in the spirit of eating their own dog food, Thomas has completely reconfigured over 400 seats of Salesforce and added a completely different order entry system. He says they also ripped out the entire financial software backbone – and installed several other systems to support the financial process.

He talks of Regis McKenna, who was a hugely influential figure in Silicon Valley. He was responsible for a lot of the things we think about in modern marketing and positioning – including Apple and Compaq. And he talks of Jan Carlzon, who resuscitated SAS airlines in the 1980s. He’s written a book called “Moments of Truth."

I mention the remarkable and unexpected changes taking place in the software world, such as the budding BFF relationship between former rivals Microsoft and Oracle. In the interest of driving more value for customers by helping them integrate software from Microsoft and Oracle, Larry Ellison went so far as to say the two companies now have a "great partnership."

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“Wayne Sadin on Digital Strategy” episodes explore the fast-changing and high-stakes world of digital business. We focus in particular on what CEOs and boards must do to lead their companies successfully into the Digital Age. Today, we talk frankly about the recent Capital One data breach, whether AWS bears any responsibility for it, and how companies of all sizes should be thinking about security and the cloud.

Episode 8

In this episode Wayne and I discuss technical debt. I ask him is this technical debt in the financial sense of debt – or is it because you haven’t made the investments to keep up with modern technology? Wayne says it’s the latter. He says technical debt keeps you from delivering and executing on all the business strategies that leaders want and need.

Wayne quotes a CEO as saying, “My Windows XP computer boots up every day, so what’s wrong?” He compares it to a P-51 Mustang fighter plane from WWII. Yes, Wayne says, you could do that – but if you go head-to-head against a Chinese MiG, who would win? Hackers, he says, are flying MiGs.

Wayne goes on to say that Russell Reynolds coined the term “QTE,” which stands for qualified technology executive – an individual possessing a high degree of current technology-relevant domain experience. It was modeled after the Sarbanes-Oxley QFE – a qualified financial expert.

Finally, he puts a plug in for the Digital Directors Network run by Bob Zuckis at USC. Membership is free for board-qualified technology and cybersecurity experts and corporate directors who want to develop their digital diversity skills in the corporate boardroom.

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Each month, “Lochhead on Different” episodes will explore the need to differentiate people, products, and services in a world that encourages a lot of imitation. A best-selling author, top podcaster, and former tech-industry CMO, Christopher Lochhead is a student of not only business and technology and marketing but also human nature, human folly, human genius, and very human joy.

Episode 7

In this episode, Chris and I start by discussing September 11. The 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York is a profound experience that everyone should visit. Chris says he felt anger, emotion, and sadness – but he also felt uplifted. He said the wildest thing is it captures the worst of humanity and the best of humanity at the same time. I quote Virgil from the 9/11 Museum who said, “No day shall erase you from the memory of time.”

On a lighter note, Chris says that approximately 50% of marriages originate digitally, according to Pew Research. And couples who meet online tend to communicate better and have longer and happier relationships. Chris says a trend now in marriages is putting pot in the wedding bouquet – and even in the floral arrangements at the dinner table. He then goes on to say that a future Google AI program will be spying on your baby – and that fires up his George Orwell.

Chris had Eric Yuan of Zoom fame on his podcast. Zoom is now a $20 billion+ publicly traded company, and he created a tremendous amount of wealth for his employees and shareholders. Eric said, “I think it was a good thing that it was really hard for me to get into the United States, because it taught me as a young man perseverance.”

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Each month, Tony Uphoff, visionary CEO of Thomasnet.com, joins Cloud Wars Live for a recurring segment. “Uphoff on Industry” will explore the innovations, upheavals, and breakthroughs reshaping the the world of manufacturing and industrial markets. Join Tony and me as we discuss disruptive new trends in the digital-industrial world: not just how products are designed, sourced and manufactured, but also the new ways in which industrial companies are getting up to speed on marketing, sales and customer experience.

Episode 5

In this episode: Tony and I discuss self-management, something that he says doesn’t get talked about enough. He says the emotional stamina required to run a business today is infinitely more difficult and more trying than it was even 10 years ago.

Tony says there’s been nearly 200,000 robots purchased in the U.S. in the last seven years – and in those same seven years there have been 1.3 million new manufacturing jobs. He says he’s not a huge fan of the work-life balance; it’s not about how many hours do I spend working and how many hours do I spend in my personal life – it’s about how do you stay fresh. And finally, Tony says if you’ve lost your curiosity and passion for the industry, you might want to consider calling up private equity and deciding to get out.

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Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.

Episode 5

In this episode, Sean and I discuss how he wants everybody to think about themselves as an entrepreneur – and that includes people working inside large businesses. He quotes Jim Collins of “Good to Great” fame by saying good is the enemy of great – and that’s why some entities don’t become great. Sean says that software, when done well, provides asymmetric value, and how Satya Nadella of Microsoft said that over the next five years, 500 million new applications will be written – far more than in the history of the software industry. And finally, Sean says you can go to corporatestartuplab.com and see free tools that are in development – all the Corporate Startup Lab asks for is feedback. His podcast Agile Giants is on all the major streaming networks.

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SPONSORED CONTENT

This episode is brought to you by Oracle.

For this sponsored Cloud Wars Live conversation, I sat down for a talk with Bruno Aziza, Group Vice President of Oracle Analytics. Bruno says Oracle Analytics and AI can help organizations make faster and better decisions and help companies be better companies – and better societies. He says if you’re not a cloud-first analytics solution, you’re going to have a lot of issues with data provisioning and data protection.

Bruno says it’s not just data scientists, engineers, and business analysts that need insights into their workflow – it’s employees. And yet only 35% of employees can use the data analytics tools that have been produced for them – and 65% of them are in the dark. He calls it the “silent majority.” If you could enable 10% more, how many more ideas could you get to win in the marketplace?

Bruno’s weekly YouTube podcast is called “Destination:Insight,” where you can go on LinkedIn and reach out to any customer. He says they have a very engaged community who are dying to tell you about their story.

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Each month, “Lochhead on Different” episodes will explore the need to differentiate people, products, and services in a world that encourages a lot of imitation. A best-selling author, top podcaster, and former tech-industry CMO, Christopher Lochhead is a student of not only business and technology and marketing but also human nature, human folly, human genius, and very human joy.

Episode 7

In this episode, one of his finest, Chris says that Nike acquired a company called “Celect,” which is a retail analytics and demand sensing firm. (Nike purchased it for its omnichannel expertise.) And Chase bought a company called “Persado,” which is an AI company that specializes in marketing and copywriting. (Their AI performed better than ads written by human copywriters – with a higher percentage of clicks in some cases.)

Chris then goes on to say he had some visitors from London, and the teenagers were constantly on their phones – the sunset, the S’mores, the beach fire didn’t seem to register with them. He says he went to a Rolling Stones concert at Levi Stadium – and the Stones ARE rock & roll – but you wouldn’t know it from all the people texting on their phones.

Chris says you should stick to your vision – people said Chris swore too much, was a bad interviewer, interrupted his guests, was annoying, was bald. Now he has the #53 podcast in the country – outpacing Oprah for a time.

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“Wayne Sadin on Digital Strategy” episodes will explore the fast-changing and high-stakes world of digital business. We’ll focus on what CEOs and boards must do to lead their companies successfully into the Digital Age. Today, we talk about hyperscaling, digital transformation, and shifts in enterprise technology that are creating opportunities for differentiation.

Episode 7

In this episode: Wayne looks at Capital One and their data breach. Is it Amazon’s (AWS) fault or Capital One’s fault. He digs down to say that Capital One shoulders the blame – but they noticed the discrepancies and did their best to patch it. Hackers will always be upgrading their technology and sharpening their tools – and we need to be diligent.

Wayne compares it to a hole in a fence. You can drive trucks through there and you’re perfectly safe. But what if a human being can walk through the hole; then you have a problem. But Wayne says that no one should spend enormous sums on cybersecurity when you can buy preconfigured solutions for most of the standard problems facing you.

He then goes on to say if we turned up everybody’s thermostat to 100 degrees during the middle of a heat wave, how many pets and how many people would we kill?

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