Enterprise hits and misses – connected healthcare needs consumer trust, CES faces off against the pandemic, and supply chains remain the 2022 bugaboo

Lead story – Can connected healthcare earn consumer trust? 

MyPOV: The pandemic forced surges in digital health care connectivity – seemingly obvious things like virtual visits that should have been part of the health services repertoire already. But how far can connected healthcare go? Will the changes stick?

Stuart takes up the questions in Trust me, I’m a digital doctor! The importance of trust in delivering connected health. Noting the recent acquisition trend (e.g. Oracle’s monster $28.3 billion Cerner bid, IBM Watson Health reportedly on the chopping block), there is money to be made. But a Salesforce study on connected health care leads Stuart back to the fundamental issue: consumer trust.

Just over a third of respondents (36%) say they completely trust their health providers, while 49% say they ‘somewhat trust’ them. That raises some concerns, notes the Salesforce study:

‘Yet in an industry that witnessed both nightly cheers for health workers as well as vaccine skepticism and misinformation, the decline in trust is complicated and varies across sectors.’

It doesn’t get better for big pharma. Stuart quotes the Salesforce report:

Only 13% of consumers with prescriptions completely trust pharmaceutical companies. While heightened skepticism around vaccines hasn’t helped consumer confidence, there’s more to unpack across this sector.

One massive complication with these data sets: health care views vary greatly by country. So what are consumers looking for? Stuart:

So what is it that the ‘trusting’ consumer is looking for from health tech? The Salesforce respondents expose a significant gap between what is wanted and what is currently delivered. For example,  91% of us want access to a complete view of health expenses, but only 40% are offered this. (Again, this is based around a very US healthcare model; NHS patients in the UK are unlikely to ask for a breakdown of their treatment costs!).

Speaking only for the US market, I believe we’ll never see the amount of quality face time with our doctors we might ideally want. A savvy use of wellness technology and virtual visits could close a great deal of that gap. But the data silos between these services remains daunting – and full of frustrating friction. Still, Stuart sees the opportunity, and he’s not wrong:

There is a great opportunity here. Nearly two-thirds of respondents under age 65 (64%) already believe that providers with better online capabilities are more likely to deliver better service.

Diginomica picks – my top stories on diginomica this week

• Ten principles of Frictionless Enterprise, a framework for digital work and business – I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. Phil breaks out the frictionless enterprise framework, with more posts to follow.
• Supply chain issues cause problems, but Bed, Bath & Beyond’s omni-channel long game continues to play out – With NRF’s “Big Show” coming right up in NYC, Stuart returns to BB&B. No surprise: supply chain logistics versus omni-channel aspirations is the big theme.
• Quantum computing – how the ‘Big Five’ will race to win in the cloud in 2022 – Quantum computing isn’t yet center stage for the enterprise, but I do believe it will become a factor. Chris handicaps 2022: “As ever with quantum innovations, the inherent problems are noise and error correction – both within quantum circuits themselves, and within the industry, given the bold claims and counter claims that characterise this sector.”
• How Palatinate Group CIO tees up its bespoke travel service – The travel sector is not an easy place to make hay, but as Mark Chillingworth reports, Palatinate Group is getting it done. Two lessons: specialize, and don’t just see remote as an obstacle. Instead, cast a wide (remote) talent/recruitment net.

Vendor analysis, diginomica style. Here’s my three top choices from our vendor coverage:

• Zoom as a video production platform shows it knows that online events aren’t going away – Will Zoom be standing (and thriving) as the online meeting deep pockets double down and try to get their clunky meeting apps up to snuff (Teams, Google Meet, etc.)? I don’t know, but I do like Zoom’s big bet on online events. Kurt nailed this story: “After licking its wounds and seeing the fleeting mirage that is a return to pre-pandemic norms of office work and mass in-person events, the company appears committed to turning Zoom into a distribution and production platform for both unrehearsed meetings and highly produced online events.”
• Inflection point in PSA – M&A and advanced tech are defining the future – Some might think the PSA (Professional Services Automation) market is fairly mature. Brian says otherwise. Noting the merger activity, Brian explains why we should care: “In a market that was full of niche solutions and small application suites, we will soon see large, multi-disciplinary software suites emerge. And these new super-suites will have implications for software buyers as well as the big and small vendors in the space.“
• SAP cloud adoption, and an SI’s take on RISE with SAP – behind the numbers with Syntax and ASUG – “SAP cloud adoption remains a hot topic – and a complicated issue to grapple with. The same goes for RISE with SAP.” I kick off the new year with a closer look at SAP cloud adoption, and how smaller SIs are reacting to SAP’s all-in push on RISE
• UK’s largest dried fruit and nut supplier Whitworths turns to cloud analytics for supply chain management – Gary filed a nifty Qlk (and IFS) use case, which puts supply chain analytics to the pandemic economy test.

Jon’s grab bag – Use cases with home-grown apps (at scale) are always worthwhile – check Gary’s Five Guys Europe app-based intranet cooked to perfection. Mark filed a worthy tech-for-good story: Joining the Dots – UK tech leaders band together to fight digital poverty.

Neil addressed issues raised in his AI deployment piece: The last mile in AI deployment – answering the top questions. He also jousted with the lead author of a Deloitte report on tech ethics: Beyond good intentions – a critical review of Deloitte’s report on the ethical dilemmas facing the tech industry.  Finally, I successfully ruffled feathers and threw Instagram influencers under the bus in No, B2B and B2C content strategy are not the same – why the dynamics of attention for B2B content are different. From the range of reactions, this was my personal fave:

Best of the enterprise web

My top seven

Whiffs

My two fave headlines this week are neck-and-neck: An album of endangered bird sounds beat Taylor Swift in a top 50 chart, and Canada party plane influencer ‘idiots’ fly home to face music.

Each year, I try to find a best-and-worst of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). I couldn’t find a good one this year, the closest I came was: Here’s all the revolutionary, innovative, and wacky tech from CES 2022. To which I responded:

Joe McKendrick called me out (a bit):

C’mon, if you’re going to call something ‘revolutionary,’ I expect to see something that fits the bill. Besides, how can I be a cynic, Joe – I said I liked the tractor!

On the downside, I found a couple words on the 2022 “banned words list” that I still use:

I need to up my anti-buzzword game. Finally, we have this debacle:

I may be wrong about that whiff-of-the-year thing though – Norton isn’t even alone here.

Something tells me 2022 is going to be a doozy. See you next time…

If you find an #ensw piece that qualifies for hits and misses – in a good or bad way – let me know in the comments as Clive (almost) always does. Most Enterprise hits and misses articles are selected from my curated @jonerpnewsfeed.

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