Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Reality Bytes #52: Celebrating Gartner's DEX Magic Quadrant (w/ Andrew Robertson)

Transcript

Reality Bytes #52: Celebrating Gartner's DEX Magic Quadrant (w/ Andrew Robertson) · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome Item change Makers to the Deck Show with Tim
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Flower and Tom McGraw. Let's get into it.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: You know what it is, everybody, It's the Deck Show,
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: show within a show within a show, and it feels
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: like quite a special occasion today, a special occasion episode
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: for two principal reasons, and the first of them is
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: the last week, as as many listeners will have noticed,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Gartner released the first ever dex Tool Magic Quadrant. Really,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: I think kind of momentous moment in the history of
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: the space that we cover here on the Deck Show.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: And we have a guest who is perfect to speak
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: to the theme and tell us about it and tell
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: us what's significant about it. But it's also it's also
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: a special occasion for me to have this guest on
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: the show because I would say, I would say nobody
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: in my career has had a bigger influence on it.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: I've worked with Andrew Robertson, Senior director of Analyst Relations
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: now for about ten years. As he might say, for
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: better or worse, and I would I would I would
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: describing describe Andrew as something as a mentor to me.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: So it's a great pleasure to welcome into the show. Hey, Andrew,
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: hey doing.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Hey Tom nicely introlled.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much, My pleasure, my pleasure, and look,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: congratulations you know you are you are as I said,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: senior director of Analyst Relations. So no doubt the last
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: few weeks have been have been tense, but ultimately very
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: very rewarding for you, as they have been for every
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Next thinker.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Right absolutely, And it's not just two weeks. I mean
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: this has been something that we've been working with both
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Gardner and other analysts for you know, five six years now,
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: so it's the culmination of a lot of work, massive
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: kind of team efforts. So yeah, tired, but absolutely rewarding.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Don't believe him, ladies and gentlemen. He does two weeks
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: work a year at most and otherwise it's offline the
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: whole time. I mean it's not you know, analyst relations
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: isn't the only thing you do at Next Think. In fact, Andrew,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: you you have a team who make many significant contributions.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: So why do you introduce yourself and what it is
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: you guys take care of for the listeners?
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Sure so, as you say, I've got two hats at
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Next Think and with Next Think coming up on six
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: years based out of Dublin. So, first of all, as
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: you say, I lead the ance relation team, so we
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: work with analysts such as Gardner Forrester, many others, making
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: sure they're up to date on everything that we're doing,
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: but more importantly probably feeding back their insight into the
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: product teams on product strategy, the executive teams on overall
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: company strategy. And then secondly I lead the customer advocacy team.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: So the customer community is hugely important to us at
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: Next Think, So we're trying to build as strong a
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: community as possible around everything we do. So we're running
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: kind of global information sessions, regional events, user groups, we
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: manage kind of peer reviews and reference calls, and we
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: also support a really strong ambassador program where we provide
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: a range of additional content additional service to our most
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: loyal and proactive kind of customers. And the good thing
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: about both Tom is that they both can both functions
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: integrate fully across all of Next Think. So on the
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: AR side, the and the side, we're working very closely
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: with the exec team with product management, with product marketing,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: and then on customer advocacy, you know, working with yourselves,
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: your team, Tom, around you content with the field team
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: with customer success so anywhere there's a customer touch point
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: where we're dialed into that. So I think they sit
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: really well together.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Fantastic, and we'll hopefully have a little bit of time
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: to touch upon some of those other interesting functions and
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: their relevance to the sort of wider space. But in
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: the meantime, we've got you know, a queue of reality bites.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: We've got Oriana, Shan and Dina with us today, all
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: kind of queuing up to want to talk about the
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: major milestone hand which is, as I said, the Magic Quadrants.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: So I think I hand it over to Dina to
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: ask the first question specifically on that front.
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: Hi, Andrew, It's been a significant year for digital employee
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: experience in terms of market recognition and awareness. Let's start
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: with the Gardner Magic Quadrant, which was officially released just
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: last week. What's the significance of this first Magic Quadrant
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: in your view and what does it tell you about
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: where the market is right now?
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: So short answer, really significant, Dina. I mean, the Magic
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Quadrant is a really important milestone in the evolution of
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: any market, not just DEX because it's providing you know,
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: third party evaluation, validation, of the space from a really
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: well known probably the largest analyst out there, big brand,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: great trust level, and you know, if you think of next,
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: think we created this space, this mon We've been telling
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: the world about decks and now Gardner have stepped in
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: and like Forrester before them, have said this market exists,
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: it's happening right now, and that they're telling their clients
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: they need to understand and address decks in their organizations
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: right now, not in the future. You know. I think
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: the other thing Dina that's important is that this is
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: not an arbitrary assessment, So it has the Gardner brand,
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: the Gartner trust level behind it, and you know, they
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: put a lot of resources into this. They had a
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: really large team of VP level analysts involved in the project.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: You know, they drill down into fifteen different evaluation criteria.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: They looked at peer reviews, they looked at client inquiries,
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: they looked at social media analytics to probably make the
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: most informed decision yet about the Deck's market. So I
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: think the importance is it means the market it's reached
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: a level of maturity. Of course there's still opportunity for
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: significant growth, but the time for dex Is is now
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: now is the time to act. So of course that's
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: that's great news for Next Thing.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: And I'm going to interrupt just for a moment to
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: say it was lovely to see the deck show itself.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Everybody get a shout out in the Magic Quadrant report.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: That was wonderful. So shout out to Dan Wilson, who
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: we all know from the events and no tunes in
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: sometimes we appreciate it very much.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: No, I think Tom Dan is one of your your
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: most loyal listeners. He's always referencing, you know, the work
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: on reality bites, but also the work you know yourself
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: and Tim are doing. So i'd say he's probably your
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: your number one listener.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: What a what a number one listener to have a
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: very grateful sorry Dina.
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: Cut you up there, amazing fank club.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: That's great.
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: So can you tell us about Next Thing's placement in
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: the quadrant and what stood out to Gardner and what
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: stands out to you in turn as well.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Sure, so, I guess it's an easy question to answer
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: in a sentence. So it went really well for us.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: You know, anyone that's seen the quadrant will see that.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: You know, we were the clear leader on both axis,
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: so in ability to execute, so our product quality, our competitiveness,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: our revenue impact, but also a clear leader in the
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: completeness of vision acxis. So that's your market understanding, ability
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: to innovate overall vision, and of course most importantly, we
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: were the absolutely clear leader overall. So in terms of
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: what stood out to Gardner, you know, we scored kind
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: of great everything everywhere. But I'll say that again. So
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: in terms of what Gardner saw, you know, they scored
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: us really well everywhere, but two things in particular stood
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: out to them. One was the next Thing product, so
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: the Infinity platform, the fact that it's highly scalable, extensible,
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: the level of integration that we offer, and they flagged
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: the pace of innovation, the new feature rollout, how we're
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: continuing to kind of improve. And then they also called
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: out our overall market and understanding, so that the fact
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: that we were first to market, you know, the understanding
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: we have of extending the platform through those integrations, extending
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: decks with with DA for an example, and they mentioned
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: our app learned acquisition and for me, it was all
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: about just no ambiguity. It's amazing if you look at
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: any kind of magic quadrants or any analyst evaluation. There's
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: always some level of kind of ambiguity. There's vendors that
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: will appear kind of stronger in some areas than others.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: So it's really unusual to see one vendor so clearly
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: ahead on all criteria, and that was really kind of
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: gratifying for us in Next Thing, So that was kind
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: of my key takeaway. There's no ambiguity about this.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: It's the clarity in leading the market. I think this
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: is what made Next Thing stand out absolutely in all
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: the different aspects. And saying that from customers perspectives as well,
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: knowing that we created the category and leading it, I
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: think this gives us a lot of accreditation now. So
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: a few weeks earlier, we had another reason to celebrate
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: with the Forster wave. So this one wasn't a first
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: Forrester where they have been covering decks or end user
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: experience management as it's known to them for several years.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: Could you share more about our placement there and again
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: what stood out to both to Forrester in this one
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: and to us in return of.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: Course, And I think you know what you say, Diana
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: about our history with Forrester, this is, you know, not
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: the first dex wave that they've they've done, so I
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: think that's kind of important. So, you know, they did
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: the first one two years ago, twenty and twenty two,
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: and we performed very well. We were a clear leader then,
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: and I think we reviewed that afterwards and really we
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: saw it as a kind of challenge, what do we
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: do now all the other vendors are probably looking and saying, right,
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: they're there, they're there to be kind of taken. We
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: now at the opportunity to close the gap to kind
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: of next thing. Shortly after that, we rolled out the
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: next Thing platform, so we were rolling out a new platform,
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: we were transitioning our entire customer base. So sure for
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: an outsider looking in, they must have thought, now is
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: the time, you know, next Thing are probably vulnerable. But
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: actually the reverse was true, and when the wave came out,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: you know, a month ago from Forrester, we've actually increased
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: our lead across all the other vendors. So like Gardner,
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: we were leading on both axes, both in terms of
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: the current offering our product, but also in terms of strategy,
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: so the vision, the roadmap, the partner kind of ecosystem,
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: and like Gartner, clear space between ourselves and the other leaders.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: In the report no ambiguity, which is kind of so
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: important for a client kind of looking at this, it's
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: very very clear, as you say, it's it's all about
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: kind of clarity. And I think you know Forester that
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: they called out overall, you know, beyond the just the vendors.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: They called out the importance of a number of different
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: factors in decks going forward. So they say to clients,
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: you know, you need to go for the deepest and
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: most holistic kind of decks. You need wide visibility across
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: all your endpoints, all your applications, all your network. You
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: need to be quick. You need to get to value quickly.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: So more data is not what you want. You want
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: actionable insights. So they really they scored that as very high,
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: very important for clients. And finally they talked about automation
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: at scale. So DEX is now maturing. People are beginning
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: to start their deck's journey and very quickly they're seeing
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: i can't just do reactive troubleshooting. I've got to do
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: this at scale. I've got to begin automating. And I
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: think you know, Forrester called us out on all of
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: those things. They called out the breadth and depth of
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: our services, how we get customers to value quickly and effectively.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: And I think overall what was really gratifying was that
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: over the two years we've actually extended our lead. So,
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: like the Gardener, both of them together very inconsistent, very
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: consistent in where they place Forester and you know, really clear,
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: and we're delighted with the result.
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: I have a foul question to that. So you're highlighting
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: a lot of I think, very interesting ideas that sort
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: of define decks today, and I'm wondering are there any
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: other sort of common themes that you notice, especially between
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: Gardner and Forrester, and maybe how that would stand out
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: to you in terms of what is different, what is
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: the same in terms of what they're recognizing highlighting both
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: at next Think and as like critical to decks, And
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: maybe you could also give us like a nutshell summary
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: of the overall performance of nets Think across those two
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: reports if you had to compare them.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Sure, So, I think, as I said, you know, both
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Gardner and Forrester was amazing how consistent they were. I mean,
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: there was very little deviation between them in terms of
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: how they see the overall market, how they see individual vendors,
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: how they see. You know. Next, think if I had
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: to take a couple of kind of consistent takeaways from
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: both of them, probably that idea of anaholistic approach. You know,
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: there's both saying, don't think kind of features to do decks. Well,
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: you can't just pick off a couple of features. You
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: need to do all of decks. Well, you need that
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: kind of holistic approach. And they both speak about the
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: need to be kind of strategic. You know, when you
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: start off on your dex's journey, maybe you're thinking of
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: just being reactive. How do I troubleshoot, react to things
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: as they happen? And both next thing start that again.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: So both Forrester and Gartner are saying, you know, being reactive,
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: that's okay to begin with, but you really need to
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: start scaling now to being kind of proactive. I think overall,
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: the great thing about both the WAVE and the MQ
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: is that it forces you to think beyond you know,
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: just product. Who has got the product offering? Everyone is
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: obsessed about, you know, features and bells and whistles. But
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: both the WAVE and the MQ, because there are across
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: multiple dimensions, they're really forcing you know, people entering the
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: deck space for the first time looking to invest in
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: a solution, to think beyond the product. So obviously it's
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: just that the starting point the product. So you need
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: to think, are these vendors resourced to support me? Do
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: they have them a men, do they have the roadmap,
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: do they have the support infrastructure, do they have the
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: partner ecosystem? I'm starting off on a journey. Can this
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: vendor kind of help me? And I think that's what
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: both the MQ and the WAVE are really good at doing.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: They identify, yeah, sure, the best products out there, but
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: they're also identifying those vendors that can really help you
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: on that journey, gets you to value, guide you as
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: you as you go. So I think the summary from
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: both of them is, of course you have to have
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: best in class product, but you have to have the
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: ability to execute and deliver value on top of that.
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: That's such a great point. Can you tell us a
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: little bit more about some of the specific elements beyond
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: the product itself, because I know our technical services and
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: support received a lot of well deserved recognition. Do you
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: think that the growing emphasis on more sort of holistic
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: services by vendors indicates maturity or maturing of decks overall,
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: and can you talk a little bit more about why
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: that's important to customers of decks.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: Of course, really interesting question because anyone that's that's looked
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: at the the Gardener MQ will see that it's it's
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: quite a strange shape. It's unusual for an MQ and
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: that normally you'll have your your leaders top right, but
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: then you'd expect a host of kind of challengers top
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: left that maybe don't have the longer term kind of
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: vision and momentum, but actually are executing today and can
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: deliver today. What was strange about the Dex MQ was
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: that that that space was empty, there were no kind
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: of challengers, And I think what it says to us
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: is that Gardner is saying that really there's a there's
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: a lack of execution capability in the market today. Sure
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: it's quite a new market, but it's still kind of maturing,
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: and while there's a lot of different products out there,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: that that empty box top left is telling us that
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: really there's a there's a lack of maturity in terms
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: of how vendors are supporting their customers, delivering after sale
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: kind of service and managing them on that Dutchie that
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: I mentioned earlier on so I think again that's what
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: both both analysts called out around next think our ability
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: to manage that journey with the customers. So identifying your
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: start point, understanding your direction of kind of travel, prioritizing
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: your progress, benchmarking your kind of performance. You know, you
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: don't need a product vendor to do that. You really
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: need a partner or a trusted strategic advisor to to
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: do that. And I think from our side, if you
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: talk to you know, any of our customer facing kind
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: of folk that are always consistent in saying we're not
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: selling kind of quick wins where we want to deliver
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: value consistently. It's a long journey. You're not going to
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: solve decks overnight. So really, you know, working with next thing,
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: you want value delivered consistently at every stage. As as
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: you go, am I up.
• 16:54
  Speaker 6: Cutting in, you can cut that part out, Andrew. How's
• 16:56
  Speaker 6: it going?
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: Sean? Here? Hey Sean, how are you doing good? Good?
• 17:00
  Speaker 6: I have a couple questions for you, But first, I
• 17:02
  Speaker 6: know this has been a big summer for you with
• 17:03
  Speaker 6: the work you put in. You did hire Tom and
• 17:06
  Speaker 6: I a couple of years ago. I think that probably
• 17:09
  Speaker 6: was your biggest success, but this comes in a close second.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: So congratulations with everything.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: I think they're kind of up there together, Sean. I
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: mean I hired you once, I made the mistake of
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: hiring Tom twice, so obviously very good decisions. Delighted with
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: them both, and this is up there with them definitely.
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: Well, now we have a second reality bites for next week.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 17:30
  Speaker 6: Okay, So, Andrew, I'm curious. You know, you've been working
• 17:36
  Speaker 6: you know, Next Thing for a couple of years and
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: in the topic of digital employee experience, and your view
• 17:42
  Speaker 6: is twenty twenty four the year the tipping point for
• 17:45
  Speaker 6: decks and where do you think the industry needs to
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: go next to kind of capitalize on this and sustain
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: the momentum.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, good question, Sean. I'm not sure it's the tipping
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: point twenty twenty four. I think it's obviously a hugely
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: important milestone having both Forester and Gardner be all over
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: this space, but I think it's more it's a progression.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, we've all been working in Next Thing for
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: some time now. We know we've put many years of
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: work into this. Both Gardner and Forrester talk about you know,
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: ongoing twenty percent growth in the market, so, you know,
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: I think this has been happening for some time. Next Thing,
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: obviously is as category creator has been at the forefront
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: of that. So I don't think it's necessarily the tipping point.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: I think it's, as I said earlier, really kind of
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: important milestone in the progression. I think both Forester and Gardner,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: you know, they are tier one analysts. They are well
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: ahead of anything that anyone else is doing in the
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: deck space in terms of their analysis. They will get eyeballs,
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: you know, they will get viewership. I think it's going
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: to bring a lot of people to the deck space
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: for the first time. So yes, it's going to definitely
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: kind of drive the momentum. How do we take advantage
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: of that momentum, Well, I think it's probably what we're
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: doing in Next thing. We've been focused for a long time,
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: especially with the launch of the Infinity kind of platform.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: It's not just about features, but it's about it's not
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: about more data, it's not about you know, more granular troubleshooting.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: It's about, you know, big picture. It's about being kind
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: of strategic incorporating AI into what we do, allowing people
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: to solve problems before they occur. And I know you
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: guys have touched on this topic a good few times,
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: you know, around that the service desk. The minute that
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: someone makes that call to the service desk, you've lost
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: and really everything about decks and everything that we're trying
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: to do around DEX is to eliminate that call kind
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: of completely and to move people as early as possible,
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: be very strategic, identifying problems really really quickly in the cycle.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: So I think that's that's one big thing that we
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: need to continue doing to carry on the kind of
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: the momentum. I think the work we've done after the
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: app Learn acquisition and introducing kind of DApp as a
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: key component of dex is hugely important and was recognized
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: by Gardner and the MQ as well. So I think
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: we're going to see you know, adap playing or digital
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: adoption playing a significant role in the future of decks.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: So it's not enough that an application is performance and
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: is online. You have to get your employees, you know,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: using the service, understanding the service, becoming power users. That's
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: going to be a key part of DEX the in
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: the future. And I think overall final point on this
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: would be. You know, we keep talking about EUC the
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: end US computing space DEX. I think the future of
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: des is much broader than that, you know, So we're
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: already seeing we're having conversations you know, much more widely
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: across our customer organizations at at a business level, whether
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: that be at HR, CIO or even up to kind
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: of CEO level. So I think if we can keep
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: the momentum going, then I think we'll see that transition
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: from DEX being viewed as very much an EUC thing
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: to being a company wide thing in the future lovely.
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: And that transitions quite nicely to my final question. So,
• 20:59
  Speaker 6: I know analyst release isn't the only area you and
• 21:01
  Speaker 6: your wonderful team oversee. I know that you also work
• 21:06
  Speaker 6: with a user group program and the DEX user community
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: for Next Thing. Could you just give a quick overview
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: of those projects and explain how existing customers can get
• 21:16
  Speaker 6: involved in why it's important of course.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: And yeah, and as I mentioned at the start, so
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: customer advocacy is the other hat that I wear in
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: Next Thing. So we made a decision a couple of
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: years ago that you know, obviously the community is hugely
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: important to us. There's a lot of knowledge in our
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: customer base. We'd love to get them kind of sharing
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: with each other. The long term goal for a strong community,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: I think we'd love to be, you know, like an
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: oracle or like a service now where we're not involved
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: at all, that customers are running their own kind of
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: independent communities, learning and sharing tips and tricks. We're not
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: quite there yet, but that's definitely the goal within Next Thing.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: So we're kind of doing that in a number of
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: fronts where running. We're trying to get our customers to
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: get first and firm foremost, whether that's virtually on a
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: kind of weekly technical kind of call, whether that's physically,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: we do regional user groups around the world globally, we obviously,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: you know, have these experience events at the end of
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: the year, so we're doing a lot to try and
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: keep get our customers together, get them you know, talking,
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: get them learning from each other. And it's amazing when
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: you you know, you go to these events and you
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: might see a new Next Thing customer or even at
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: a next Think prospect talking to someone that has been
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: using Next Thing for four or five years, and the
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: amount of knowledge that's flowing kind of back and forth
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: it's incredible to see. That's what we really want to
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: you know, promote within kind of Next Thing. We're running,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: as I mentioned, you know, an ambassador program, so we
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: ask all of our customers to become next Thing ambassadors
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: and we give them you know, early access to content,
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: to the executives to our product. We run you know,
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: special sessions around dex but also around wider EUC and
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: wider kind of technical kind of leadership kind of topics
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: as well. So on a number of fronts, we're trying
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: to get our customers you know, together. The hope of
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: the benefit for us at the end of the day,
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: and you guys will know this more than anyone is
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: that you know, they are more likely to want to
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: talk tell their stories, you know, and obviously third party
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: customer content is so much more compelling than anything that
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: we great though we are are going to put together
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: within next Thing. So we're you know, we have a
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: small team, but we're running kind of globally. We're running
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: both virtual and physical events. Any opportunity we can to
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: work with you know, the sales facing parts of next
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: think customer success field marketing to bring our customers together
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: to help them give them early access and build that community.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: And I think that that community will be fundamental to
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: our success going forward.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: It's such a good, such a good note to end
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: the conversation on, because that community is such as such
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: a vibrant one, right Like if you, if you talk
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: to customers, if you attend any of your events, nobody's
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: phoning it in, you know, visa, visa, visa, you know, lively,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: lively occasions. A lot of people bring a lot of
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: good ideas and a lot of good connections and relationships
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: are made there. And you know, it's a key component
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: of of of what DEX is, which is, you know,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: a movement, right this is what the VMQ indicates, It's
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: what the wave indicates. It's not just a marketing concoction.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: It's not just a space that somebody is trying to
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: create to make money. It's a genuine movement within it,
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: which is I think at the moment, at the absolute
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: forefront of it. So I want to just sort of
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: end the end the conversation by saying congratulations to everybody
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: who's a part of it, right from from the customers
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: who who use next think or use it, or use
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: a competitor organization, you know who are making who are
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: committing their resources time to improving experience of their organizations.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: And of course congratulations to our friends Andrew Hewett Forrester,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: to to Dan Wilson, a gardner, and to everybody behind
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: those reports. And last but not least, to every Next Thinker,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: certainly including yourself Andrew. It was great to have you
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: on and to discuss this milestone today. It was I
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: think an important episode to do and thanks for making
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: Thanks. Tom really enjoyed it.
• 25:27
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• 25:43
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• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Until next time,