The Edelman Trust Barometer: From Innovation Anxiety via Grievance to Insularity
The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer is out. What do its results mean from a #CX angle? Based on the trajectory from Innovation Anxiety (2024) to Grievance (2025) and finally Insularity (2026), we can see five critical impacts on Customer Experience (CX). The data suggests that CX strategies must pivot from purely functional service delivery to acting as engines of trust, fairness, and local connection, i.e., become more strategic (pun intended). The Shift to “Polynational” CX: Localizing the Experience The 2026 report identifies a sharp rise in “Geopolitical Insularity,” where consumers (i.e., people) significantly distrust foreign companies compared to domestic ones. Source: Edelman Trust Barometer 2026, p6 Impact: Global brands cannot rely on a one-size-fits-all customer journey anymore. They must adopt a “polynational” model where the brand feels deeply local. Actionable CX Strategy: To overcome the distrust of foreign entities, companies must demonstrate long-term commitment to local communities. This includes hiring customer support staff from the local community (38% say this earns trust) and investing in long-term local projects (27%) rather than just transactional interactions. MyPoV: Zoho does something very right with its strategy of transnational localism. Many companies, including enterprise software vendors should have a hard look at this book. AI Implementation Must Be “Vetted” and “Inclusive” The reports reveal a deep divide in how customers perceive technology. In 2024, acceptance of innovation hinged on it being “vetted by scientists” and understood by the public. By 2026, a new fear emerged: 54% of low-income respondents believe they will be “left behind” by generative AI rather than realize its benefits. Source: Edelman Trust Barometer 2026, p12 Impact: Implementing AI in...
Sweet Transformation: Inside SugarCRM’s New Direction
Fresh from the 2025 SugarCRM Analyst Summit, waiting for my plane home, it is time to sort my thoughts. From Monday, 1/27 evening to Wednesday 1/29 in the morning we had some time jam packed with information and good conversations with SugarCRM execs, customers, and in between analysts. The main summit started with a bang, namely the announcement that industry icon Bob Stutz joins the SugarCRM board of directors, which is something that few of us, if any, had foreseen. This is exciting news. With David Roberts, who succeeded Craig Charlton in September 2024, SugarCRM itself has a new CEO with a long time CRM pedigree. As with every leadership change, this promises some change. Every new CEO evaluates what they see vs. where they want their company to go and then, together with the team, establishes and executes a plan to get there. Usually, this involves some change in the structure of the executive leadership team, too. This is what happened and happens with SugarCRM. The company had and has a strong leadership team, with new faces like Paul Farrell (joined in March 2024), Jason Glass, and soon a new Chief Customer Officer – although with Christian Wettre or Chris Pennington some other strong players left for various reasons. As I have written in the past, the company has a great yet varied history and, more importantly, potential due to great software. What SugarCRM to some extent is missing is a distinguishable identity. In a market that is as crowded as the CRM/CX market, differentiation is of crucial importance. As I have said and written before, SugarCRM’s messaging...
SAP belittles its CX chops – and why this is dangerous
Cloud Wars’ Bob Evans recently did an excellent and very interesting interview with SAP CEO Christian Klein about SAP’s priorities, which include integrating generative AI with SAP Business AI “to address complex business challenges an drive holistic transformation by optimizing processes like quote to cash”. Klein repeatedly referred to end-to-end (E2E) and SAP’s great library of E2E processes that gives the essence of or at least a standardized framework for the value streams within a business. Not surprisingly, and correctly so, Klein also repeatedly emphasized the value of AI and, in particular, generative AI, to create customer value. This happens via Joule’s ability to orchestrate different agents across the value chain, i.e., different E2E processes. Joule is SAP’s Ai assistant. He also emphasized on the value of the suite and on the importance to “in the core business” not run with “agents of 100s of different tech companies”. This is where “the suite is winning”. Evans writes that SAP had “significant growth in applications, outpacing competitors. Klein attributes this to SAP’s suite approach, which provides a comprehensive solution for core business processes. He talks about the importance of integration and extensibility, allowing customers to choose the best solutions for their needs.” This is technically a correct statement. I am fairly sure that SAP will report another outstanding year on January 28, 2025. In the first three quarters of FY 2024 SAP certainly outpaced the cloud business applications competition, including Salesforce. However, there is a caveat to it. This growth is largely attributable to S/4HANA cloud. Don’t get me wrong, doing this is no mean feat. SAP profitably grows while...