Phil Wainewright's XaaS positioning has gained considerable attention in the last year. Here is a precis of his first update to our d·book The XaaS Effect.

Included links are: 

XaaS virtuous cycle of engage-monitor-improve.

How Bosch has replaced its old 7-layer hierarchy with a matrix of 54 separate teams of less than a dozen people each and fintech startup Monzo is a showcase for rapid decision-making enabled by its use of Slack. Here too, cross-functional teams have become the norm.

It may be fashionable to demolish hierarchies, but the trend toward flat organizations already faces an academic backlash

Writing in Forbes, Unit4’s Claus Jepsen says Service organizations need to put their XaaS hats on and engage with their customer ecosystem.

If you’re attending UNLEASH19 in London later this month, catch Phil's session at 11:45am on the 20th, when I’ll be speaking on Frictionless Enterprise, Digital Teamwork and the Future of Work. It’s a perfect opportunity to talk XaaS in person!

This is a podcast that talks to the newsletter that Derek duPreez curates. It includes stories about data sharing in the context of the NHS, an interview with Karl Hoods CDIO at the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and some thoughts about Matt Hancock's recent bans on pagers and fax machines. 

Derek also shares a few tweets that come from alternative voices. Check this status update.

On today's agenda - construction, media streaming and open source. Includes a hard-hitting customer story. 

And...such important news...

In this 26 minute conversation, Den speaks with Robert Townley, a deeply experienced ERP consultant who, in the last 5 years has turned his attention to cloud deployments. Why? They deliver value and that is something that is seen as important from, of all places, the PE market. 

Robert is a firm believer in what BYD offers but like others he wishes SAP did a better job of helping the partner ecosystem. 

 Much of what is discussed here is about the change in training needed to help IT people better understand the business. Lo-code and No code may be fashion mots du jour but they count for little if the developer doesn't have a good sense of what business problem is at stake. Simply asking to help with digital transformation doesn't cut it. 

On today's agenda, Marks & Spencer's tilt at Ocado, manufacturing excellence (aka dumping the spreadsheet), motoring mayhem in the modern city and a ministerial meerkat. You have to be British to get this last one but trust me, it's worth it. 

On today's agenda, digital burgers, ethical crises and cloudy success - and a sad dose of Breaking Bad bigotry.

Each customer story provides a different angle on the work companies are undertaking to further their digital transformation journeys. 

Accuride is especially interesting as it plays off a podcast I recorded with CIO Paul Wright. We've been following this firm for 4 years and the story keeps improving, despite multiple technology providers plus M&A in the mix. 

It's the use case edition folks with awesome success stories that feed directly into topics that matter in the 21st century. 

I have a fascinating conversation with Jonathan Phillips who leads the SAP Business ByDesign implementations at Aspen Pumps, a mid-sized UK based manufacturer of condensate pumps.

There are tremendous lessons to be learned about how to establish a successful, mission-driven culture.