My Microsoft and GitHub Excitement

I am excited and many Microsoft employees I know are excited by Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub. I was thrilled with the acquisition of LinkedIn, but GitHub is different. As an engineer employed by a core engineering and product company, this is truly exciting. 

In my personal opinion, it is a testament to Microsoft’s commitment to open source. In the last several years, Microsoft has contributed significantly to open source, and this commitment will continue with this major buy. Long gone are those days when Microsoft products worked only on windows, now they work on all platforms and all browsers. It is not surprising that the Outlook mobile app is one of the heavily downloaded apps from mobile app stores and all Microsoft mobile office and other apps are widely being used across Android and Apple devices. 

As a company that is on the verge of reaching a trillion-dollars market cap, Microsoft has embraced a “learn it all” culture with no arrogance under Satya’s leadership. Microsoft feels like a changed company with its growth mindset culture, and commitment to open source, diversity and people empowerment. Microsoft is more confident than ever.

With its intelligent cloud, productivity tools and also personal computing product sales growing in double digits, Microsoft is attracting more and more developers. This acquisition will motivate more developers to use Microsoft platforms. 

(These are my personal opinions and thoughts only.)

Marketing Technology Decisions from Complex to Common Sense

Technology is an integral part of a company’s progress and decision making, it impacts all functions and organizations of a company. CMOs are now accountable for revenue and Marketing technology has become a key driver for a company’s revenue growth. A good system can improve the bottom line and conversely bad technology can negatively impact company’s fortune. It is a daunting task to evaluate marketing solutions out there (5,341 per chiefmartech) and decide on solutions that fit a company’s current and future needs and aspirations. Especially for enterprise companies because many of these vendors knock the CMO, CIOs and Directors’ doors and try to sell their solutions every day.

However, I found that the system selection becomes less challenging if we adopt a “fail-fast” approach. I am sure you heard this phrase before and probably a lot – fail-fast is OK but learn and optimize. I adopted the fail-fast approach in selecting marketing technology solutions. Test the system fast, learn and move on. And the methodology is working and providing time-tested outcomes. I try to refresh our marketing technologies annually, so we are always on the lookout for new and modern technologies that create the performance differential.

I adopted the Define-Pilot-Adopt approach:

1.    Define Criteria – Document user scenarios and requirements in no more than 3-5 pages. Focus on customer experience and consciously document platform interoperability, reporting, compliance and regulation requirements. We need to ensure the new solution fits into our current marketing and sales automation technology stack and adheres to the defined processes

2.    Choose Three Solutions – I entertain several vendor meetings and encourage teams travels to different industry conferences to stay connected with the latest technology. I refer to our past vendor meetings, Gartner and Sirius Decision frameworks, and invite three vendors- and each vendor for a 3-hour session.

3.    Assess the Solution – In these 3-hour sessions, get a demonstration of the solution, understand the solution architecture, the technology that binds the solution and of course checkmark the criteria developed in Step 1. I always tell the vendors what other solutions we are vetting to get their perspective as well.

4.    Pilot the Solution – In case of core technology, pay a visit to the company’s headquarters to ensure the vendor can support a large enterprise company and check one customer references for real life buying journey experience. The Pilot runs for a month to three months depending on the type and complexity of the technology. We test for customer experience, interoperability, ease of use, training materials, technology and data.

5.    Buy and Adopt – Many times, if the solution is not a good fit, we discover incompatibility in less than a month. If this happens, immediately stop the pilot and move on. if the solution is proving to be impactful and passes the inspection then the solution will be adopted globally.

With good project management, this process can be fast. I have made some great and some not so desirable decisions in the past. However, following a process which is quick and vets the vendor with good conscience always help in making progress.

How do I make Marketing Technology decisions?

When I go to our customer meetings, or events, many attendees ask me “how do you select marketing technology?” This question was moot eight years ago because there was not much marketing technology then. Coincidentally, I was in a similar role six years ago, helping my healthcare customers choose inpatient and outpatient systems. 

Today with 5,381 marketing solutions (per chiefmartech.com), choosing any marketing technology has become a daunting task. What are CMOs most worried about? They are worried about changing customer expectations and driving growth. We all have targets to hit. 

In this mobile and social world, technology companies not only compete with other technology companies but also every other company providing customer service like AirBnb and Costco. So, the CMO challenge is to connect with customers across their devices and create campaigns that blend social media, events and paid advertising. 

My take on arriving at the right technology is in addition to looking for core scenarios, I framework my selection based on the following criteria:

 

• First, Customer Experience – the technology I choose must support consistent customer experience through all marketing channels. For example, when we look for an event platform, we not only look for registration experience and integration with sales automation system, but also a good real-time check in experience for our customers and can post and create demand on social channels. Given marketing technology is still maturing, It is difficult to find all these features in one seamless solution. However, we can stitch two solutions together to get what we need. 

• Second, Interoperability - I will look for a solution that fits into our current MarTech stack, for good customer experience and real-time marketing leads flow. The reasoning is very clear-every day that goes by that a qualified lead sits unattended, the deal goes nowhere, because the optimal time for lead conversion to opportunity is the first 3 days 

• Finally, the Ecosystem. Ecosystem of partners and vendors are critical for a MarTech solution to success. To stand up a MarTech solution quickly, I hire services directly from the MarTech vendor in the short term. But In the long run, I get innovation and guidance from technology partners and consultants. Now, how do I narrow down to a single marketing or sales solution in the next article. 

"Taxing Times", Really!!!

Well, I was traveling on a Delta flight to Baltimore last week and read an interesting article written by Delta's CEO, Richard Anderson.  In an editorial titled "Taxing Times",  Anderson points out that the taxes on passenger tickets tripled since 1970 but the services  did not improve.  He claims that tax money is not being channeled directly to the air traffic control (ATC) and so, passengers are still experiencing long security lines and flight delays.  At the same time, he observes that airline ticket prices fell by 50 percent.  He attributes this to price transparency and discipline exercised by the airline industry.  He charges that the government has exercised no such discipline and is imposing further taxes on passengers.  Per this article, passengers pay 20 percent of the total ticket price in taxes.  Currently, airports charge $4.50 per take-off per passenger and the government is proposing to increase this tax to $7.00 per passenger.  It is very interesting because I did not realize that I have been paying so much in taxes for airline tickets.   

It is an intriguing read, particularly the subtle comparison between tax increases by the government and the fall in airline ticket prices.  Is the comparison valid?  Also, what contributed to this price fall and why do taxes have to increase by so much?  I did some digging.

The airline deregulation in 1978 triggered a dramatic growth in the airline industry.  Air travel grew at an average rate of 43 percent more in revenue passenger miles (total number of passengers multiplied the total number of miles traveled) per year in the period between 1978 and 2002 than that during the period between 1954 and 1978.  This high demand generated more revenues, and airlines responded with better prices and more scheduled flights.  In addition, the total number of available airline passenger seats grew by 133 percent more during 1978 and 2002 than during 1954 and 1978.   The total US commercial fleet grew from 2000 in 1978 to 7000 in 2002. 

This growth has created a tremendous opportunity for airlines and a challenge for Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).  During this time, horizontal integration has occurred and several large national airline carriers emerged.  With vertical integration, airlines have developed regional hubs and funneled passengers through their hubs, thus achieving economies of scale.  Due to this hub and spoke model and the advance pricing system (yield management system) adopted by airlines, the seat occupancy rate went up to an average of 72 percent in 2002.  By offering different prices to virtually grouped seats, airlines offered low prices to price-sensitive passengers and sold off excess seats while preserving passengers willing to pay higher prices.  Overall, airlines have become more efficient in their operations, have adapted to latest technologies and have become very profitable.

On the other hand, FAA faced quite a few other challenges.  With dramatic increase in air traffic, the demands on them have grown, but unfortunately, FAA has not adapted and made required changes.  ATC still uses technology developed during World War II.  This technology relies on ground-based surveillance and is very labor intensive  with position monitoring and position vectoring.  It is not scalable, expensive and inefficient.  In addition to continued 4 to 6 percent growth in air traffic every year, the FAA faces another big challenge - terrorism.  FAA is not only deploying more personnel in airports, but is also procuring expensive technologies to ensure passenger safety.  Increasing taxes is an easy way, but  FAA needs to think about increasing capacity so that it can generate more revenues. FAA should think about adapting new technologies, improving productivity and cutting costs (through consolidation).  

Overall, though, the comparison of fall in ticket prices and increases in ticket taxes are not directly related.  However, twenty percent taxes on each ticket are really very high and increasing taxes further is not justifiable!!  The US system is a role model for many other countries.  FAA should revise its strategy and not increase taxes in the name of more security.

On the side:  Demand and Supply
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A key force behind airlines profitability is the economy.  A prosperous economy creates travel need, which in turn creates demand.  High demand typically results in higher revenues and profitability for airlines, which in turn provides airlines the flexibility to offer better prices and more flight schedules (supply).  Additionally, profitability and increase in supply creates more jobs and other benefits, which in turn contributes to the economy.