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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