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Digital Workplace Service

RESEARCH NOTE Number: 2017-22 June 22, 2017

Author: Jim Sinur

Hot Vendors in Digital Business Platforms, 2017

Summary: The demand for new digital implementations that differentiate organizations is increasing quickly, which has created a fertile environment for the growth of Digital Business Platforms (DBPs). DBPs coordinate goal-directed work and support the smooth interaction of people, software, and machines in a most intelligent manner. The Hot Vendors in the emerging Digital Business Platform market are addressing these needs in an incremental fashion, but they may not have all of the functionality now. In fact, a number of the DBP Hot Vendors augment the base functionality in DBPs to make them more competitive and link them to business outcomes. Introduction The Digital Business Platform (DBP) market is a new and emerging market. The DBP combines five major technical tributaries to create a cornerstone technology base that supports the changing nature of business, as well as the work that supports digital business. A 100 percent complete DBP is rare in this early market, so this report will show promising players that either are aimed at becoming a complete DBP in the future, or that perform one aspect of a DBP very well (see Figure 1 on page 2). Below are the five major technical tributaries that comprise the DBP:

1. Process/Work Management Platforms, which include process management, case management, digital transaction management, unified communications management, and others.

2. Analytics/Cognition Platforms, which include business intelligence, real-time dashboards, predictive analysis, cognitive thinking, natural language, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and others.

Topics: Digital Workplace and Digital Transformation Issue: Who are the key Digital Business Platform players and DBP Augmentation players, and how will they evolve?

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Digital Workplace Service RESEARCH NOTE Number: 2017-22 June 22, 2017

3. Integration/Development Platforms, which include

data integration, transformation, system integration, event aggregation, composition environments, rapid development, and others.

4. Internet of Things Platforms, which include sensors, signal aggregators, chips/boards, controllers, machines, single purpose robots/drones, multi-purpose robots, and others.

5. Application Platforms, which include prepackaged software, models, components/snippets, frameworks, and others that deliver consumable function for organizations.

Figure 1: The components of a Digital Business Platform.

Digital is Growing to Deliver Business Capability Quickly Digital not only delivers strong technical tributaries, it combines them in ways that enable organizations to deliver key behaviors necessary to support digital and Industry 4.0 outcomes. Digital also delivers new and innovative results for customers and other constituents that interact with an organization. This means that there have to be many requirements fulfilled by Digital Business Platform providers:

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Digital Workplace Service RESEARCH NOTE Number: 2017-22 June 22, 2017

• Perform flawlessly in many contexts • Extremely pleasing and adaptable by many types of

users • Effectively link humans to software to machines • Handle variable and extreme speeds • Provide extreme agility with great control and

productivity • Support extreme visibility with variable scopes &

governance approaches • Support various kinds of data and content types • Able to incorporate emerging technologies quickly • Detect signals and patterns of interest • Apply varying levels of intelligence to data, patterns,

decisions, and actions

While not all of the 2017 Hot Vendors satisfy all of the above requirements to the 100 percent level, they each have a unique approach to supporting the needs of the DBP sector. Hot Vendors in Digital Business Platforms, 2017 This Hot Vendors research note is not intended to be a complete list of vendors in the markets being discussed. Rather, it highlights providers with interesting, cutting-edge products, services, or technology (for a list of the most complete Digital Business Platforms, see The Aragon Research Tech Spectrum for Digital Business Platforms, 2017). One of the Hot Vendors in Digital Business Platforms for 2017 includes:

• Decision Management Solutions

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Digital Workplace Service RESEARCH NOTE Number: 2017-22 June 22, 2017

Decision Management Solutions Decision Management Solutions, based in Palo Alto, California, is aimed at assisting businesses in managing decisions, rules, and analytics in operational systems. At the same time, it also helps businesses run in a more agile fashion by linking to change programs and cycles. Decision Management Systems (DMS) are aimed at delivering high ROI by boosting revenue, honing policies, and maximizing scarce resources.

Figure 2: An example of a decision (aka decision service) represented in standard DMN notation shown in the context of actions taken. The secret sauce is that business people can represent their decision(s) in a friendly, visual, and industry standard model. Additionally, they can store their current decisions in inventory while managing the most recent decisions’ logic and analytics in many systems, processes, and work management platforms with speed and consistency. This helps with operational policies, decisions, analytics, and rules for optimization and compliance. In some cases, organizations

Note 1: Decision Management Solutions at a Glance

Decision Management Solutions offers both software and services to help organizations manage their decisions and analytics to drive change. Location: Palo Alto, CA CEO: James Taylor Availability: On request Website: http://www.decisionmanagementsolutions.com/

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Digital Workplace Service RESEARCH NOTE Number: 2017-22 June 22, 2017

can manage rules by emerging business scenarios.

Figure 3: Decision Models and the Services they represent are true reusable assets in business context. Who Should Evaluate Decision Management Solutions? Enterprises that are looking to manage a complex or rapidly changing set of rules that empower outcomes would benefit from decision management as offered by Decision Management Solutions, especially when combined with predictive or real-time analytics. Most DBP platforms do not support this kind of functionality, so Decision Management Solutions will augment DBPs for now.

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Digital Workplace Service RESEARCH NOTE Number: 2017-22 June 22, 2017

Aragon Advisory

• Establish your digital goals in terms of immediate, intermediate, and long-term digital outcomes. Look for a Digital Business Platform (DBP) that can deliver on those goals and desired outcomes.

• Create a Digital Business Platform target architecture chart and fill out as much functionality as possible from as few sources as can be effectively managed.

• Look at all of your DBP platform candidates’ future roadmaps to make sure they have the plan that matches your long-term goals.

• Evaluate your needs for early deliverables and pick a digital platform(s) that looks best to meet those goals. For example, pick a platform with good analytics visibility to help refine Digital Transformation goals.

• Pick a timeframe for an audit on results and DBP partner delivery and potentially reevaluate, if necessary.

Bottom Line Digital is a hot area of pursuit and organizations are looking either to buy a near-complete Digital Business Platform or employ a best-of-breed approach that will leverage multiple providers of differentiation to help deliver a Digital Business Platform that best fits their organization. Additional Reading:

• For more detail on Digital Business Platforms (DBPs), please refer to The Disruptive Rise of the Digital Business Platform.

• For more detail on the progress of Digital Transformation, please refer to The Digital Maturity Model for the Measurement of Digital Progress.

• For a technology rating of DBP players, please refer to The Aragon Research Tech Spectrum for Digital Business Platforms, 2017.