This is part of the FirstRain Persona Series.
Many may not recognize the title, “Chief Strategy Officer,” as part of the C-Suite, as the role has recently become popular, but will recognize a CSO’s duties. People have come to know the CSO as the “enforcer”, or a “mini-CEO” because of their main focus: to implement the vision of the CEO and company.
No one likes to be the “tough guy”, but many companies have already recognized a need for a Chief Strategy Officer such as Deloitte, IBM, Citrix, Intuit, Cloudera, Oracle and Cisco. CSO’s are usually recruited from veteran roles in management where they have a proven track record of successfully leading teams. Often their titles are coupled with CTO, Head of Corporate Development, and VP of Strategic Alliances.
Today, the CSO works closely with the CEO and bears the challenge of rapidly implementing a strategy that will drive a company to meet end goals and objectives. They understand the importance of being able to influence and mentor people to meet industry demands.
So what does the chief strategy officer do? Some CSO’s act more like a strategist while others are “doers”, and others, facilitators, but regardless of their implementation style, they must effectively oversee the entire company’s strategic plan.
A top priority for a CSO is bringing cohesiveness across the company and making sure that everyone is on board with the company’s strategic goals. Not everyone is apt for change, but working together is necessary to effectively move a company forward. A lot of a CSO’s time is spent working closely with upper management to communicate clearly the next stages a company must make. Their message must be clear-cut and definitive to create an immediate response from these teams.
Setting concrete plans, and goals are necessary to meet long-term visions. With a dynamic list of priorities, a CSO must be mindful of change. In today’s hyperactive digital business world, strategies must account for market changes. Successful CSO’s are not reacting to market trends and changes, they are preparing for them.
Acting pre-emptively to threats, competitors and all the other bumps on the road, will be key to the success of the office of the CSO. Today’s CSO must leverage business intelligence tools that are responsive to market trends and changes and, therefore, able to focus on facilitating strategy as the company’s “Strategy Orchestrator”.
For example in the financial industry, a CSO might be responsible for mitigating risk and growth opportunities. They must be aware of mergers and acquisitions, competitors, global economic changes and especially disrupting technologies in FinTech. This can be overwhelming and can deter a CSO away from enabling a strategic plan. Enterprise business intelligence platforms are fulfilling the need of identifying risk within markets. Companies like FirstRain identify market trends and provide their users with actionable insights to better prepare for market changes, competitors and opportunities.
In Industrial Manufacturing, for example, a CEO’s plan might require rapid growth to stay afloat, and this will require a Chief Strategy Officer to work closely with Sales and Marketing to implement a strategy that will require sales teams to work more effectively. For a sales team to drive results, they must be supplied with technology that prioritizes clients and presents actionable insights for new opportunities that help fulfill the corporate strategy. CRM intelligence software helps prioritize tasks that meet short-term goals, mid-term goals, and successfully steers a company to growth.
Regardless of the industry, a Chief Strategy Officer plays a key role as a leader who understands the mechanics of getting things done. The role often demands the CSO to drive a company through market change, growth, or disruptions, but at end of the day, the CSO must be influential in facilitating change and bringing a vision to live.
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This is part of the FirstRain Persona Series.
The role of a CIO has evolved. Now, the responsibilities demand a CIO wear many hats; to be a chameleon and a visionary.
Today’s CIO must be able to lead, adapt quickly, be a pioneer with an innovative and competitive perspective. And let’s not forget, a CIO bears the challenge of finding business technology that embodies all of these traits.
A core challenge for the modern CIO is finding fundamental technology that can be productive, predictive and proactive across the many divisions of a company and accessible through many platforms. She/he is responsible for creating fluidity for internal and external business information.
Chief Strategy Officer of Adjuvi , Dion Hinchlcliffe confirms, “While yesterday’s IT could be somewhat siloed, today’s modern enterprise must have an open architectures, from data to APIs, to search and discovery, that makes it possible for the knowledge that flows within the organization to find its way to wherever it needs to be, and to do it all securely as well.”
CIOs face the challenge of finding enterprise solutions that transmit a cohesive streamline of information throughout a business network. In the past, the role was focused on precision in the implementation of effective IT departments. Now, the role demands much more.
CIOs must pioneer a digital business strategy that will address the needs of transitioning legacy software into Cloud, SaaS platforms. According to CIO.com, many companies are still struggling with software updates with significant IT costs and CIOs are challenged with mitigating the risk of moving too fast or moving too slow.
CIOs are aware of the transition that is taking place. They know that they must implement a digital strategy that meets the demands of day-to-day processes and future enterprise goals.
A CIO must service the key responsibility of providing teams with internal and external access to intelligence technology, both equally important and crucial for business development.
Within the company, internal information management technology must be productive and sensitive to existing legacy software. Business technology companies are addressing these enterprise needs and have built platforms and services that are scalable with easy plug-and-play implementations offering an array of accessible platforms. For example, companies like Salesforce, Oracle and Microsoft, offer their customers enterprise cloud based platforms that meet the needs of today’s CIO.
Today’s CIO must understand the sensitivity in moving legacy software to a digital world, and must also act like a CMO, a sales hustler and must understand the importance of staying competitive as a global business.
Access to external information should not only be predictive it must be actionable to stay competitive. For example, a CIO in the manufacturing sector requires industry analysis that draws meaningful connections between current business relationships, and the global economy. New technology is doing just this.
Business intelligence software companies are fulfilling the need of identifying the intricacies of products, vendors, markets and the global economy. They offer market insights and competitive intelligence tools that address risk and opportunity.
For example, FirstRain, an enterprise leader of data analytics, provides access to a dynamic platform, that delivers target market analysis of emerging events, market trends, management changes and strategy developments so a CIO can help his/her teams stay competitive and engaged.
As global business technology becomes hyperactive and continues to evolve, so does the role of a CIO. Today, the CIO must be a CMO, a sales leader, a CFO and successfully sail the enterprise to meet the goals of the CEO and board of advisors. Connecting teams to the right technology can drive results, and this is why the role of a CIO continues to be pivotal.
If you want to learn more about how transformational CIO’s are using the FirstRain platform please visit our website or contact us!
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Big congratulations to our FirstRain product and data science team, for winning the Ventana Research “Marketing Excellence Award” for 2015! Driven by our recent Orion release, FirstRain was distinguished as a groundbreaker in Marketing Strategy and as an Essential Tool for Marketing Success by Ventana Research.
The annual Ventana Research 2015 Technology Innovation Awards recognizes companies and technologies that are continuing to innovate and utilize expertise to interact with customers and we are proud to be one of the recognized leaders amongst these!
The FirstRain platform is an analytics platform that empowers enterprise customers to deliver business-critical and actionable insights to departments, teams and individuals. Mark Smith, CEO and chief research officer at Ventana Research affirms, “Marketing needs up to date information as it assesses the market and takes action, and FirstRain’s platform exemplifies our idea of an essential tool for marketing success, through FirstRain, enterprises and especially marketing organizations are not only able to learn more about the marketplace, but they are also able to gain insights leveraging big data analytics for highly personalized, relevant and timely information for sales and marketing teams.”
FirstRain dramatically increases strategic insight by adding new families of business analytics and the ability to integrate and analyze internal company data with Web and social data.
“Ventana’s Operational Innovation Award for Marketing Excellence is a testament to the powerful business insights that we provide our customers through the FirstRain platform,” said Penny Herscher, president and CEO of FirstRain. “With FirstRain, marketers can unlock the value of internal company data with Web and social for disruptive analytics that drive smart business decisions.”
For more information on the award please read the full press release and visit the Ventana Research Innovation Awards site.
What to learn more? Please contact us for a demo!
FirstRain is proud to have been named one of Oracle’s key ISV partners as part of Oracle’s Partner ecosystem expansion announcement at this week’s Oracle Open World (#OOW2015) annual conference. In support of helping customers maximize ROI from its Oracle Cloud Applications, our newest offering, FirstRain for Oracle Sales Cloud provides subscribers on-the-go access to real-time, relevant insights into the customers, competitors and markets they care about most. With FirstRain, Oracle Sales Cloud users are coached on who to call and what to say using advanced analytics and are able to quickly stay current on the critical changes impacting their customer’s business and end markets in a simple, elegant format directly in their Oracle Sales Cloud workflows.
You can read the full press release on the Oracle website or you can visit the FirstRain for Oracle Sales Cloud listing here. What to learn more? Please contact us for a demo!
You saw Lightning. You heard Thunder. Did you discover FirstRain?
For our fifth year running, the FirstRain team was a force to be reckoned with at Dreamforce, with the mission of sharing FirstRain’s brand new product release, a powerful analytics platform called Orion.
Marching through the crowd, our astronaut met and took pictures with many conference attendees and was even featured on KPIX Channel 5 news.
As a part of our Discover FirstRain initiatives, we held Exploration Sessions where executives toured our platform and learned how to use FirstRain to tap into their customer’s world through real-time analytics of their markets, competitors, critical events and developments in key sectors and product lines.
The attendees had a chance to preview our newest families of analytics that create even richer business insights, a newly designed user interface that allows to both get a bird-eye view of the industries and markets that the sales rep sells into, and do a deep-dives into topics and markets that help them make smarter decisions.
In good Dreamforce spirit, of course we had to raffle off something. Sorry, it wasn’t a Tesla Model X—maybe next year. But Jessie, who attended one of our Exploration Sessions, won a GoPro, courtesy of the FirstRain marketing team. Congratulations Jessie! We are looking forward to collaborating with you in the future. Send us some videos of your adventures with it!
FirstRain is proud to be on the forefront of today’s business analytics technology platform and enrich the Salesforce experience right inside CRM workflows. While Salesforce helps you manage leads, pipeline and forecasts, FirstRain provides personalized high precision insights on your accounts, end markets and competitors. The custom analytics are flexible, manageable, extensible and easy to understand and act upon. Our technology brings together dynamic categorization of the global enterprise data sources including web and social that are highly relevant to each user and augmented with real-time scoring and ranking across all sales rep’s accounts.
Interested?
Visit us on the Salesforce AppExchange or Contact Us for a demo.
Today, we have Big Data and dynamic, sophisticated visualizations to help our businesses bloom with insight into predictive analytics that identify risks, specific market trends, and relationships. How did the business world unfold and understand information before the use of big data? The remarkable tools used before big data evolved may not be receiving enough credit. These tools incorporated logic, intuition and most of all great minds. Of course, where we are today propels far beyond the expectations of the scientist before our time.
Before the evolution of big data, scientists relied on data visualization in order to present data and information. Data visualizations ranged from wood blocks, to images, to tables and charts. Some of the world’s greatest thinkers gained tremendous insight and changed the world simply by organizing and deciphering basic data sets in new ways.
Edward Tufte, a statistician and artist, and Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science at Yale University, wrote, designed, and self-published 4 classic books on data visualization. The New York Times described ET as the “Leonardo da Vinci of data,” and Business Week as the “Galileo of graphics.” ET teaches a one-day course on Fundamental design strategies for all information displays: sentences, tables, diagrams, maps, charts, images, video, data visualizations, and randomized displays for making graphical statistical inferences. Gaining knowledge of the past critically influences the future.
Read More here.
FirstRain understands sales. Who should I be calling today? What should I say to attract their attention? Is my team prepared for that meeting? Are we all on the same page? How is my competition doing? What are they pitching? How do I intersect the value proposition with my customer’s needs? These are the questions that run through your mind every day. We got answers.
FirstRain gives you exactly the key information you need when you need it. Find new opportunities, develop and maintain key relationships with your customers, and ultimately close more deals.
Walk through a day in the life of a salesperson and gain a real-time understanding of the powerful information at your fingertips as a FirstRain user.
Collaborate, get smarter, and win.
FirstRain’s case submitted on ‘Personal business analytics platform for reasons to call’ was selected for NASSCOM Top 50 ‘Excellence in Analytics’ 2015. The case study was selected from over 200 submissions received. As a result, NASSCOM has released a report reflecting the application, innovation, and maturity of analytics. The evolution of new technology that drives analytics adoption is trademarking globally. Shifting to a analytics centered culture is an exponential, high-powered change.
Read the report here.
FirstRain is proud to be named a finalist for “New Product of the Year – Business Intelligence Solution” as part of the Annual American Business Awards for our recently released Personal Business Analytics for CRM solution!
Our submission highlighted the “unique way that FirstRain ranks top accounts by the quality of triggers that are dynamically discovered based on a user’s role, and the products and services they sell. And how using an adaptive business graph that delivers unmatched categorization and precision, and in-the-moment, context-aware personalization, FirstRain can coach sales teams by alerting them of “Deal Breakers” and ”Accelerators” – which include real-time triggered events on potential risks in active Salesforce.com sales opportunities, or real-world events that will help accelerate sales discussions.”
As a result of our nomination, we are included in voting for the People’s Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products.
Voting is open, and the winners will be honored at The American Business Awards’ new product & tech awards banquet in San Francisco in September 2015.
TO VOTE, PLEASE GO TO:
Short Code: W496Y
FirstRain’s case study on Personal business analytics platform for reasons to call has been chosen for NASSCOM’s Top 50 Excellence in Analytics 2015. The award was presented at the NASSCOM Big Data & Analytics Summit in Hyderabad, India on June 25, 2015 with the theme of “Data-Driven Disruption – The Next Frontier”. The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) is a trade association of Indian Information Technology (IT) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry. This summit brings together industry professionals, companies and individuals from the field of Big Data and Analytics.
MohanaKrishnan, Director, NASSCOM, said “Disruptive technologies, informed customers, rapidly changing business models are presenting challenges as well as opportunities for enterprises to explore innovative solutions available in the ecosystem. The need for drawing better insights from huge volumes of data has fueled the need for innovative analytic solutions”.
FirstRain analyzes external and internal unstructured data to coach teams and professionals on key business developments that affect their go-to-market strategy, business relationships, and investments.
