Approach to Digitalisation – The tip or the iceberg ?
Saturday, July 18, 2015
We all know
the story of Titanic, the famous ship which sank because it hit a giant iceberg.
The tip of the iceberg could be as small as 1m above the sea level while the
rest of the iceberg could be hundred times longer and wider and be hidden below
the sea level. A ship would be grossly mistaken in its approach to the iceberg
if it judges it only by the tip visible to it and navigates itself based only
on what is visible to the naked eye.
What has that got to do with Digitalisation,
the latest trend in enterprise IT globally?
Digitalisation
is a huge opportunity for enterprises today. It is opening up newer markets,
making friends out of competition and enemies out of erstwhile allies. It is
many things to many people. For some it is simply a new name for creating
mobile App for a function which normally you did on a desktop or a laptop. For
most of the business and IT decision makers it conjures a grand vision of a
paperless enterprise which has been awaited for many years now. It is a
different matter that execution of that vision into realities needs us to
straddle many different problems at multiple levels, both with external world
and internal world of an enterprise. Successful cloud technologies across all
levels, reducing costs of bandwidth and mobility, Advances in Big Data
Analytics and IoT (Internet of Things) and proliferation of open API based
business models lead us to believe that the completely connected and
digitalized world is no longer a dream but a reality already facing us.
It is easier
said than done though.
Consumerisation
of enterprise IT and rapid advances in Mobility and internet penetration has
ensured that users are enjoying their place at the center which they have long
been deprived of. The advances in 60s and 70s and 80s were about large scale
processing, focus on enterprise systems and ability to manage and process
complex systems.
Over the
last decade, user experience and focus on the consumer has gained ground and rightfully
so. The business processes and technology advances are aligning themselves to
suit the user experience as against the earlier trend of having the user adopt
to the technologies and business processes which was the norm in 70s, 80s, and
90s.
However
large global enterprises have to deal with a complex stack of business
processes, Applications and Infrastructure built over a period of time to
deliver a seemingly simple user experience. Simple every day transactions in
every business, like withdrawing money from a bank or making an online banking
transaction involve multiple layers of this stack.
Large scale
Digital Transformations have to go way beyond making changes at the design
level or App level of how users navigate the digital interface which could be
the customer facing online platform or the intranet portals used by the
employees.
It is the
norm now to develop a mobile App for every need and redesign the web interfaces
to make them user friendly. That, however,
is just the tip of the iceberg.
If we want
to unleash the true potential of digital transformation and harness the power
of all technologies, enterprises need to look at the entire stack. This means
redesigning and simplifying the business process to suit the users and the new
realities, transforming the Applications landscape, rationalizing them and then
taking advantage of the agile and robust infrastructure technologies available
today. It also means using latest analytics and ITFM models to discover the
true per unit cost of a transaction is pre and post transformation scenarios
and accurately modelling the business benefits of digitalization for the enterprise.
It means using current models of cloud technologies when applicable and not
having to work with legacy systems. It means leveraging the power of APIs to
extend connectivity to multiple stakeholders outside your closed network.
One of the
examples of how the underlying stack impacts this is implementation of Digitisation in some of large government programmes. An
ambitious digitization programme in a government ministry which deals with
clearances of several departments never delivered the results because the
underlying process of approvals was so complex that it took several months for
approval of a license. A digitilisation of the process without simplification
of the process failed to deliver successful results.
In another
example at a Bank, ambitious goals were set to reduce the time taken for an
online customer facing transaction to reduce it from 2 days to a few hours over
a few clicks. However the programme could not deliver as the necessary
investments required in underlying Application architecture and infrastructure
were not approved.
There are of
course many more examples of successful transformations where the architecture
teams have taken pains to detail out the dependencies across the entire stack,
and business has made the necessary investments in transforming the underlying
stack for the multi fold gains expected to materialize. That is the right thing
to do but it takes time and patience and the rewards are worth the effort.
A rush to
focus on the tip while ignoring the huge mass of ice underlying the sea can
expose you to unknown risks, just like Titanic!
posted by Anirudh Joshi @ 9:32 AM,
,
A delicate balance
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
I have had very educating discussions with folks all over the globe, in enterprise IT organizations and people working in Technology companies and IT services companies since I wrote my last post.
It is clear that implementing "Anytime, Anywhere Any device secure access to applications and data" is more a journey than a goal, given the complexities of the enterprises, especially those with global presence and multiple business units with large workforce.
As end user architecture teams in enterprises wade through the maze in this journey, it is all about maintaining a delicate balance. A balance between key imperatives of IT risk, compliance, user experience, costs, operational efficiency and agility. We find some large companies willing to experiment to implement VDI up to 85% of their estate, for they think it will reduce their risk, and some larger ones who choose not to take this route at all (since they don't see a business case in VDI) since cost is THE primary driver for them.
Many companies give more importance to user experience than costs and risks and their approach to mobility or workspace transformation is driven by what will make most sense to the end user. They are willing to make trade offs on costs or IT efficiency, especially in cases where business is driving some of these decisions.
Industries like Healthcare and Insurance which are compliance driven show a different pattern in implementation and adoption of some of these technologies.
It is early days yet in this journey, and no one is claiming a perfect answer or a perfect balance.
Do you know anyone who has found it yet?
It is clear that implementing "Anytime, Anywhere Any device secure access to applications and data" is more a journey than a goal, given the complexities of the enterprises, especially those with global presence and multiple business units with large workforce.
As end user architecture teams in enterprises wade through the maze in this journey, it is all about maintaining a delicate balance. A balance between key imperatives of IT risk, compliance, user experience, costs, operational efficiency and agility. We find some large companies willing to experiment to implement VDI up to 85% of their estate, for they think it will reduce their risk, and some larger ones who choose not to take this route at all (since they don't see a business case in VDI) since cost is THE primary driver for them.
Many companies give more importance to user experience than costs and risks and their approach to mobility or workspace transformation is driven by what will make most sense to the end user. They are willing to make trade offs on costs or IT efficiency, especially in cases where business is driving some of these decisions.
Industries like Healthcare and Insurance which are compliance driven show a different pattern in implementation and adoption of some of these technologies.
It is early days yet in this journey, and no one is claiming a perfect answer or a perfect balance.
Do you know anyone who has found it yet?
posted by Anirudh Joshi @ 10:04 AM,
,
Anytime, Anywhere, Any device Secure Access - HOW?
Saturday, July 19, 2014
In all the meetings that I have had of late with IT executives of global enterprises, and product and services vendors, everyone talks incessantly about how the new changing work style is about "anytime, anywhere, secure access from any device" to data and applications.
Most vendors claim to have an out of the box solution to help users and IT achieve the utopian dream of anytime, anywhere secure access to their work using any device, and it is tempting to believe them.
It is easier said than done, though.
While tablets have become commonplace in enterprises, getting access to the important business applications while being on the move involves much more work on this. Most enterprises haven't moved beyond calender, email and basic productivity applications.
In the large pool of technology products available out there, big and small, which claim to solve the workspace problem of tomorrow, the user and the IT Admn are both chasing the utopian combination which will deliver the "anytime, anywhere, any device secure access to work".
Is it a destination, or is it a Journey? Who has done it, how? What is the best way to do it?
Would love to share ideas and solutions towards how to achieve this in a practical and most elegant manner.
Most vendors claim to have an out of the box solution to help users and IT achieve the utopian dream of anytime, anywhere secure access to their work using any device, and it is tempting to believe them.
It is easier said than done, though.
While tablets have become commonplace in enterprises, getting access to the important business applications while being on the move involves much more work on this. Most enterprises haven't moved beyond calender, email and basic productivity applications.
In the large pool of technology products available out there, big and small, which claim to solve the workspace problem of tomorrow, the user and the IT Admn are both chasing the utopian combination which will deliver the "anytime, anywhere, any device secure access to work".
Is it a destination, or is it a Journey? Who has done it, how? What is the best way to do it?
Would love to share ideas and solutions towards how to achieve this in a practical and most elegant manner.
posted by Anirudh Joshi @ 1:21 PM,
,
"Ensumer" sets the Agenda for IT
Thursday, December 12, 2013
The other day I was in a meeting with a CIO of a large
healthcare company. She sounded
exasparated by the pressure her team was facing from end users who
seemed to know more about the latest devices available and the technology they
were using as compared to some folks in her team. “My users are getting ahead
of my team,” she said.
As if the incessant pressure on budgets, the inadequate
supply of difficlut skills to execute projects, and the tight rope walk to
manage different vendors was not enough, this new phenomenon of end users with
high expectations was driving her crazy.
For decades, the CIO has been the master geek in the
enterprise, holding the keys to secret chambers of technology, who decides what
technology is used by business – both the senior and the junior folks. His writ
was seldom challenged by users, because they didn’t know better and because
they didn’t have a choice.
That has changed completely in last couple of years. The
advent of mobility, the ipads, the reduction in bandwidth costs and reach of
internet has ensured that the equation between technology at home and
technology at work has changed irreversibly. A user has more choice of
technology, sometimes gets better speeds, and lesser restrictions when he works
from home as compared to the restricted environment he faces at work. The
younger generation entering the work force is demanding the same level of
flexibility and not settling for less. The lower ranks are rebelling against IT.
In addition to this, all the XaaS options available to
business means they can meet their own needs by directly going to cloud
bypassing the IT and the CIO. This has made IT vulnerable to the senior execs
who control budgets and who now have altenative options to compare the IT costs
and performance. The higher ranks which at best viewed IT with skepticisim,
have more choice and are questioning IT more aggressively than before. When it
comes to mobility and ipads, the senior executives and CXOs are joining the
lower ranks in demanding IT deliver on all their expectations of flexibility
and user choice.
In the fast moving goods market, the consumer who has
hundreds of choices sets the agenda.
Enterprise IT which was in its cocoon so far, now has to deal
with the consumer who has entered the skin of the end user, and turned him into
a demanding “en”sumer who is getting to set a difficult agenda for the
enterprises IT teams to follow.
What exactly is the user demanding, and how is IT reacting to
this dynamic agenda of the “en”sumer?
posted by Anirudh Joshi @ 7:14 PM,
,
Love thy neighbor’s business
Saturday, January 12, 2013
It is 2013, the new year, and it is the season for resolutions, planning and predictions.
The analysts and pundits and magazines are out with their lists of the top 10 and top 20 trends. All of them are interesting and full of knowledge and wisdom, (at least they claim to be).
I am no pundit, nor an analyst, but that does not stop me from doing my own crystal-ball gazing!
I won’t present a long list of top 10 or top 20 trends though. Gartners and IDCs are pretty good at it.
I will call out just one trend that is visible to most of us today. It started a couple of years back and will catch steam even more in 2013.
I call it, for lack of a better phrase, “Love thy neighbor’s business” syndrome.
Whether 2013 will be a year better or worse (than 2012) for IT business is the key question racking everyone. All the companies in the marketplace are trying all possible options. Some to win, some to survive.
In this rush to explore multiple options in the battle of marketplace, companies are rethinking their original models and exploring areas and market spaces which they had consciously stayed away from.
So we are seeing all companies try greener pastures, thinking the “grass is greener on the other side”. Every company is exploring areas which was considered as “different business/not our turf” until now.
For many, exploring the green grass is a desperate move in the hope that it will be the silver bullet that will yield the promised gold, while for a few others it is a conscious, well thought through move to expand their footprint.
So in 2013, it is going to be the year of pendulum swinging to the other side in many ways for many companies. We will see many IT firms take 180 degree about turn and taking aggressive postures on areas they never paid attention to before. They will step on each other’s turf, make it more competitive, and make things messier.
So Product Companies will focus on services business which means revenues from consulting services and professional services and a bigger push on the XaaS model. Hardware companies like Dell, HP, Xerox have already set the agenda for Product companies getting into services in last few years.
As IT budgets stay flat, and companies want to move from capex to opex, focus on licenses and big budget purchase is going down. So companies who forever focused only on licenses and box sales, are now giving greater emphasis to subscriptions sales and revenue from consulting and professional services.
2013 might see big ISVs like SAP and Oracle get into acquisition of consulting and professional services firms. This is over and above the focus on cloud strategy and ISV’s acquiring firms with cloud offerings.
Services companies on the other hand will focus on generating their own IP (which they have desisted from doing for long and focused on building business around IPs created by other companies) and generating services around these IP models.
Pure play services companies like Accenture, CSC, T-Systems, and offshore players like TCS, Wipro, Infosys are all focusing on strengthening their own IP sets in addition to providing professional services around products from established ISVs.
This revenue is still a very negligible portion of their overall revenues so in 2013, so you can expect more focus from services organizations to build their IP assets (or buy them) which will get integrated in the services offered by services firms.
Hardware product companies will continue to make acquisitions of software companies to make their portfolio more integrated (CISCO bought Newscale , Dell bought Quest, Lenovo bought stoneware).
We also have software companies getting into hardware.
MS has already launched surface. Oracle after its acqusition of Sun has launched appliances. Symantec has launched backup appliance already. Google’s nexus brand of smartphone and tablets are causing quite a bit of anxiety to the incumbent players.
The software companies who have already entered into hardware will get deeper into it and those who have not will worry about what they are loosing by staying away, so some will launch hardware products without thinking through and some will acquire a hardware firm.
Companies which have focused on consumer market will focus more on enterprise market (aka Amazon, Google, Apple). We haven’t seen any enterprise focus companies enter into consumer market yet, but with cloud coming in, SMB space will be the next big thing for enterprise focus companies.
Already companies like SAP, Oracle, SAS who earlier always focused on large enterprise are using cloud to crack the SMB market and hoping to make a big dent.
All these moves will threaten incumbent leaders in the existing areas, disrupt alliances and partnerships and shake up the overall eco system even more. Not all these will succeed, in fact most will fail. It would be interesting to watch the few who will succeed.
So whatever happened to the famous theory of core competency suggested by Prahlad and Gary Hamel?
It seems companies have more faith in ancient wisdom of Confucius who said, “Consistency is the virtue of fools (and wise people change their minds as they grow wiser)”.
Would you agree?
posted by Anirudh Joshi @ 10:11 AM,
,
December 21 this year.....and the different views
Monday, December 17, 2012
Has been a long gap since my last post.....have been busy...so was on a break....but now back!
Much has been written and discussed on how 2012 will be the year of transformation or the year of doom, and December 21, the last day of the mayan calender, is considered to be the D-day.
have spent some time lately reading up on this and talking to folks and I find broadly 4 types -
Doomsayers - who really believe world will end on 2012, and are preparing for it.
Don't think about it folks - folks who are busy with life and work and have no time to pay attention to this hype...who think Dec 21 will come and go and nothing will change
Optimists - a section who believes that 2012 is truly the year of transformation, Dec 21 will mark a cycle where the consciousness of human beings will shift to a different plane. The real shift will be invisible and at at a consciousness level, no earthquakes or volcanoes or explosions worldwide. So the next year and the years to follow will see many more changes, unexpected and unpredictable, but by and large those which will take humanity in right direction.
Fence sitters - Folks who have been following all news on this, think there might be something to it, but don't know what exactly and how much to believe of the load of confusing stuff out there.
So which group is right, and which group are you in?
Much has been written and discussed on how 2012 will be the year of transformation or the year of doom, and December 21, the last day of the mayan calender, is considered to be the D-day.
have spent some time lately reading up on this and talking to folks and I find broadly 4 types -
Doomsayers - who really believe world will end on 2012, and are preparing for it.
Don't think about it folks - folks who are busy with life and work and have no time to pay attention to this hype...who think Dec 21 will come and go and nothing will change
Optimists - a section who believes that 2012 is truly the year of transformation, Dec 21 will mark a cycle where the consciousness of human beings will shift to a different plane. The real shift will be invisible and at at a consciousness level, no earthquakes or volcanoes or explosions worldwide. So the next year and the years to follow will see many more changes, unexpected and unpredictable, but by and large those which will take humanity in right direction.
Fence sitters - Folks who have been following all news on this, think there might be something to it, but don't know what exactly and how much to believe of the load of confusing stuff out there.
So which group is right, and which group are you in?
posted by Anirudh Joshi @ 6:11 PM,
,
Failure of Success!
Friday, January 21, 2011
I had an interesting conversation the other day with Mouli, who is a veteran in IT Services.
We were talking about Xerox, how they were so successful in their business and how they pioneered several concepts in Services and products side.
It is ironical it was to see how the global success of Xerox in its monopoly business of copiers blinded them to understand the power of the technologies which they had themselves invented.
Product technologies like GUI, Mouse, PC, Ethernet were first created in Xerox research labs but Xerox failed to monetize these ideas and see the true potential of those ideas because they were so focused on the “successful “ business model of selling and maintaining photocopiers.
So a company which could have been pioneer in desktop computing and networking eventually is slotted as a document management and services company only.
The example of how IBM underestimated the power of DOS and allowed MS to create their monopoly on desktop OS is too famous to bear repetition.
Is there a lesson to be learnt here?
What is the new opportunity we are missing out by being too successful in the traditional business model of IT services?
We were talking about Xerox, how they were so successful in their business and how they pioneered several concepts in Services and products side.
It is ironical it was to see how the global success of Xerox in its monopoly business of copiers blinded them to understand the power of the technologies which they had themselves invented.
Product technologies like GUI, Mouse, PC, Ethernet were first created in Xerox research labs but Xerox failed to monetize these ideas and see the true potential of those ideas because they were so focused on the “successful “ business model of selling and maintaining photocopiers.
So a company which could have been pioneer in desktop computing and networking eventually is slotted as a document management and services company only.
The example of how IBM underestimated the power of DOS and allowed MS to create their monopoly on desktop OS is too famous to bear repetition.
Is there a lesson to be learnt here?
What is the new opportunity we are missing out by being too successful in the traditional business model of IT services?
posted by Anirudh Joshi @ 3:24 AM,
,
