About the software part of the ecosystem...and women's shoes....
Sunday, February 28, 2010
This is the most glamorous and most “watched” component of the CIO’s ecosystem, maybe also the most critical and the one which will be most impacted by new trends.
I recently had dinner with a successful enterprise software exeutive. He has spent years selling software to enterprise CIOs and understands the business very well. He started his career selling shoes to women..and said he was pretty good at it….and he was very successful in selling software too!
“I found some similarity in both”, he said. “In both cases, managing perception of the customer and making them feel that it is a “must-have” is important”.
On a more serious note, he also admitted that in 90s he could truly establish a linkage where the software gave his customers a competitive advantage and delivered real business value…which today is not as visible and clear and tangible as it was earlier. There are too many me-too software vendors and ISVs have been selling too much of software at too high a price without delivering enough of value.
A CIO on defensive will mean that the software vendors are going to be much more on defensive.
The CIOs will demand lower costs of license and lower costs on recurring maintenance. In cases where enterprises have built a spaghetti of too many applications, rationalisation will be a clear goal thus impacting the recurring revenue to ISVs from enterprises.
Open Source software is a very real threat, SaaS is no longer a “fringe” and is a “must-have” part of business model for all software companies, and third party maintenance companies like Rimini street are attacking the “cash-cows” of assured support revenues which were the cushion to help them meet quarterly numbers.
If one has to choose one sector which will be most impacted by CIO’s defensive posture, it is the enterprise software sector.
posted by Anirudh Joshi @ 7:48 AM,
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about the business side....
Sunday, February 21, 2010
One of the comments I received from Matt, who is an experienced software executive, sums it up pretty well…
“For years the CIOs had the ability to talk a language of black magic to the CEO/CFO about the unique technical components and architectures required to run the business. The CEO/CFO always demanded more for less, and the CIO could use techno jargon to explain why it couldn’t be done any other way. …..the ability to re-direct the discussion with black magic language is no longer available.”
The pressure from business is only going to increase and the CIO’s conversations with business are going to be lot more about ROIs, ease of service, and cost of service…as compared to which technologies are in and which are out.
I read a very nice book recently “The Real business of IT” by Richard Hunter and George Westerman. Very well written and captures the context of this relationship between CIO and the busienss pretty well.
A must read for anyone who wants to understand this better.
posted by Anirudh Joshi @ 10:20 AM,
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The ecosystem around the CIO in a typical enteprise
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Here are the 5 key components of the ecosystem around the enterprise IT/CIO..
1) Business …..The business users, the other CXOs, the end customers when IT plays a role in their interaction with an enterprise…all these are the ones who maximise the pressure on the enterprise IT function.
2) Software companies…The enterprise software companies ..the SAPs and Oracles of the world and the numerous small ones (a typical large enterprise IT spend includes more than 100 types of software licenses)..and the rapidly growing SaaS vendors..
3) Technology gear providers…The IBMs, HPs, CISCOs, Dells of the world ..The hardware gear vendors of computing, storage and networking technology...
4) Services companies – The IT serviecs providers (HP-EDS/IBM GS/CSC/Capgemini/Wipro/TCS/Infosys…etc), the Network services providers like AT&T….and the BPO serviecs providers…
5) IT teams….The full time employees and contractors of the enterpise IT departments..
The successive blog posts will be about what does the “IT on defensive” trend mean to each of these....
posted by Anirudh Joshi @ 8:29 AM,
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with its back to the wall...
Saturday, February 6, 2010
It is the second month in the new year and the usual buzz around the new year has almost settled down. I have been reading analyst predictions of top 10 trends and have been keenly listening to the “IT speak” from enteprise IT teams– their thoughts and plans.
Amidst all the noise about the latest and hottest trends and listings on what is in and what is not, one fundamental shift, about the enterprise IT, is unmistakable..
The IT function in an enterprise seems to be on defensive….Even as the recession seems to come to an end and companies world over claim a return back to a “new normal”, the IT budgets continue to be flattish…and the CIOs under pressure to show more “proof” that the spending on IT is delivering value. In the post 2008 days, IT has seen itself transform from a function which was focussed on how to aid and support the exploding growth of businesses to a function which is suddenly seen as “spending too much money” without necessarily showing enough of results.
The CIOs are hard pressed to keep their budgets flat and juggle their spend to reduce the keep-the-lights-on spend and increase the transformational maintenance spend. Trends like cloud and social networks while being powerful and game changing are giving them more power against the vendors but are also putting more power in the hands of business which can now directly go to cloud.
What this means to the ecosystem around the CIO, the product and the services vendors who serve the CIO, and the busienss groups who are CIO’s end customer. is the topic of another blog post…
posted by Anirudh Joshi @ 9:15 AM,
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