Strategic Foresight - Insights in Business and Technology

 Oracle's Evolution - Database Leader to AI Innovator   Market Cap – 290.15 Bn EV – 369.18Bn Debt - $88.94Bn (High), Cash – $12.08Bn  P/B – 122.43 (intangibles in the book)  P/E (Trailing) – 31.05 (Growth)  P/E (Forward) – 19.43 (Growth) Economic Moat: Wide (product sales, under threat)    Domain: Enterprise Software and Database Comp. (Business Apps) – IBM, SAP, Workday, MSFT, Salesforce Comp. (Database) – MongoDB, MySQL, Cassandra, AWS, Azure, IBM  Growth Segment – OCI (Up)  Oracle's Facing Headwinds - In the Age of No SQL The emergence of Digital Transformation in the early 2010s has brought multiple challenges to Oracle's relational database segment. Today, it is facing stiff competition from both commercial and open-source vendors. It must constantly innovate and create new products and services to stay ahead of the database market. Despite the challenges, it is rising to the occasion by developing its own cloud-native database products and investing in artificial inte

Salesforce and Google Cloud Deal What it Means Source: Seekingalpha.com

  From 7 Rules of Power: Surprising — but True — Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career. His seven rules are:  get out of your own way — that is,  speak with confidence and do not undersell yourself,  break the rules — do the unexpected,  show up in powerful fashion — with conscious body language and actual language,  create a powerful brand, network relentlessly,  use your power — do not be afraid to wield power once you have it,  and finally, remember that “success excuses (almost) everything” — the powerful attract and retain support.”    Why Buyers chose your Customer   When buyers were asked to select their top 5 reasons for choosing the winning vendor over other vendors they considered, the top response was that the winner demonstrated a stronger knowledge of the buyer’s company and its needs (68%). (In fact, lack of knowledge of a company and its needs has separately been cited by buyers as their top deal-killer.)  Focus on Outcomes   Growing faster than the

 

Digital Business Ecosystem Under The Hood   In an ecosystem, we typically see three types of horizontal business models emerge - Aggregators, Integrators, and Infrastructures - which may be distinguished based on their position in the value chain. Additionally, firms may specialise and act as capability providers. Five Anxieties of Tech CEO The first is dealing with increasing individual and team performance. Technology moves at such a rapid pace that is challenging to keep up with evolving new concepts.  The second is with doing more with less – either with resources (people and budgets) or time to meet the company goals.   Most technology organisations have developed specializations over the years and the CEO experiences the third anxiety of leveraging with partner organisations as specializations are all over.  Often, either the organization, the investors or the board has a new vision, and the CEO now needs to deal with the fourth anxiety of how to synchronize one’s executio

 Persona of B2B Early Deciders are following: Younger millennials, with more responsibility.   Employed in larger, enterprise-scale companies that are growing fast.   Technophiles who spend more on IT.   Decisive, authoritative, and deliberate.   Promoters of customer experience (CX), innovation, and brand. Source: Forrester Blog

Get it done CIOs sound off how vendors can measure up The role specialisation in B2B Define and measure the ROI of content marketing Strategy for startups Productivity isn't about management

  Telecom Verticals - IT Strategy, Managed Services, and Implementation View on 1Page. (source: Gartner) Hype Cycle for the CSPs Network Infrastructure 

  Sales  Origin  Word sale came from the old English word sala - "a sale, act of selling", which originated from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse sala, which originated from Proto-Germanic source "salo". The use of this word first appeared in texts around 1866, and by 1910 word Sales Representative was defined.  Definition  A sale is an activity between two or more parties in which the buyer receives tangible or intangible commodities, services, or assets in exchange for money. It is a commitment between the buyer and the seller to be exchanged for monetary consideration. When this activity is repeated multiple times for goods, it is defined as a Sale. Sale is a successful transaction between a buyer and a seller reaching a zone of potential agreement (ZOPA). The interaction between the two individuals or parties underpins the success of this transaction. If two individuals are comfortable interacting with each other, they will transact or do business. In

Weekend Reading Do Product Roadmap needs a Date Seven Myths of Business Experimentation Difficult Conversations at Work  Closing the Cultural Gap Sales Prospecting Tips

How to Avoid no Decision Deal The New Sales Imperative Sales Blocker? Revenue Target needs 3x The Sales Pipeline Overcoming 3 Common Sales Objections 

  Source: Gartner

 Weekend Reading B2B Sales Trend - For Buyers and Sellers Strategic Debt - killer for startups How products can speed up development Myths in Negotiation - Debunked  B2B Sales - Leaders use data to drive better sales performance

 Post-COVID - Know Your Dynamic Demand Profile Trigger to Identify Growth Areas  Source: HBR October 2020 Edition

Excerpt from the upcoming book at  amazon.com     - "Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - Elements of Nature Meet B2B Sales" -- Negotiations - Influence to Win    The business to business (B2B) sales negotiation is a conversation between a seller and a buyer to reach an agreement that is beneficial to both. To reach a zone of potential agreement (ZOPA), both engage in multiple rounds of discussion. The back and forth nature of these discussions are driven to gain an upper hand over the other side by finding their reservation point (breaking point), or their BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) or any useful information which will assist in bargaining. To win negotiations in sales a lot of preparation is required. This includes the collection of information about the other side's negotiation style, motivation, risks, BATNA, concession, reservation, and timing. Without preparation and gathering of this information, the chances of winning negotiations are