IT Value Stack

Coca Cola and IT - The Real Thing

One company that seems to have got the message is Coca Cola. I was directed to an Information Week magazine video where the Coca Cola CIO -- Jean-Michel Ares -- details his approach to being more business-centric. His focus is business value.

Specifically he has:

• Repositioned IT as a partner to the business in creating value from senior management right through the organisation
• Created an IT strategy that is totally business centric rather than IT-centric
• Focused on growing and developing the IT talent
• Kept the technology architecture simple
• Refined the IT processes for greater efficiency.

He warns that in a down turn, CIOs need to focus on :

• Demand management
• Productivity and efficiency.

Again simplifying the environment is mentioned as is virtualisation.

Leaders on both sides of the business-IT fence would do well to track Coca Cola and its use of IT.

CEO READ excerpt of The IT Value Stack

The good people over at 800-CEO-READ have posted an excerpt of The IT Value Stack on their excerpt blog.

Some of their other recent excerpts that look interesting include Brain Rules and The Back of the Napkin. Take a look. Their main blog is an easy way to find out what's new in the world of business books.

James Taylor's review of The IT Value Stack

James Taylor of Smart (enough) Systems reviewed The IT Value Stack. You can read his blog post on the review, or read and edit the full review on his wiki entry for it.

The global future of IT

Chuck Hollis, Vice President of Technology Alliances at EMC, has laid out his vision of the future of IT and what that means for IT professionals. His perspective is positive but he highlights that today's technologists will need to adapt to a world where their focus is more on information than technology and how to integrate internal services with those of external suppliers. The implication is that technology will be increasingly encapsulated into services sparing everyone apart from the creators the need to get their hands technologically dirty.

I go along with this. But I would also throw into the mix globalisation. It will mean that many infrastructure roles will migrate to so called low cost countries. Only those roles that are user-touching are likely to remain local. And those that remain local will need to be skilled in working with distributed teams made up of multiple cultures.

However, the good news for those concerned about their livelihood drifting to foreign lands is that India and China (and Brazil and Russia) are growing economically more powerful. They will cease to be low cost and are likely to see western countries as useful from both from a holiday destination perspective  and from an investment perspective. Buying an ailing bank or picking up some cheap property will become more the norm.

Ultimately their economies will be such that IT services will be seen as a second class occupation and so will turn to those economically weak western countries to seek out cheap IT talent. What goes around comes around. Those that prepare for this future will feel they have the most control over their professional destinies.

On the verge of the big switch

I am on the verge of making the big switch to reading Nick Carr's latest book on the holiday I am delaying by posting this blog! However this recent posting on his blog has prompted me to jump the gun and pass comment. The message coming across is that the web and new technologies in general will be so pervasive in the future that they will have a distorting effect on society and thus need the intervention of politicians and ultimate regulation of IT.

The natural extension of this is that like the evolution of the electricity industry, the IT industry as its morphs into a utility industry, will become increasingly regulated and in some cases nationalised. Whether it be to protect those on the wrong side of the digital divide, keep a lid on terrorism or simply control the people, it is only a matter of time before governments realise that they must tame IT and the IT industry.

Nick's book raises serious social issues. Imagine a future where the memory card in your camera is backed up to a storage service provider. Such a service will be very useful to ensure those Kodak moments are preserved. But how would you feel if your government was able to enjoy your photos because they own,  or at least control, this storage service.

Those of us who are trying to steer IT towards delivering better business value and improving the lives of consumers need to have one eye on where this journey might end.

IBM's Scary Move

In his post IBM Wants to Bypass Tech Departments, Too Ben Worthen notes that "It isn’t just Google that’s bypassing corporate tech departments. Old guard business-software companies, too, are starting to realize it may be more important to win over workers than the IT guys."

Scary stuff from IBM if you are a CIO. Up until now the assumption was that the CIO was the final arbiter of what users could and could not do. Sometimes the exec team overrode that assumption, eg. the CFO demanding that SAP be used because that is what he used at his last company. But IBM is taking the view that there is no need to involve the middleman (the IT department) when you can go straight to the users.

This highlights a number of industry changing issues:

• The traditional IT department has lost the respect of the technology vendors who feel that involving the IT function will not add value to engaging with users.
• The traditional IT department is on the verge of losing control of the IT assets within the organisation and all the issues that go with that, eg. security and support.
• IBM would appear to be wedging out the IT function, probably with a view to replacing it with IBM's IT service offerings.

This is all smart commercial stuff from IBM. It should serve as a wake-up call to CIOs globally. If users perceive that dealing with IBM is more valuable than dealing with the IT function then Darwinism will run its course. At some point the CIO's position will become untenable as it becomes apparent that his/her role as head of IT is purely titular.

Pleasing Google's Tech-Savvy Staff

The recent WSJ interview with Google's CIO Douglas Merrill is both likely to inspire and terrify most CIOs, particularly given that most Google employees are both users and technologists. Google would on the face of it have a very laissez-faire approach to IT. Rather than have a core IT strategy that determines what the staff can/cannot do, Mr Merrill is happy for individuals to pursue whatever technology takes their fancy. This sounds like a support nightmare, but Google gets around it by:
a - Trading the cost of the nightmare (support) against the creativity that might emerge
b - Investing in an IT infrastructure that in effect makes the working environment safe.

Thus employees feel less 'locked down' and more inclined to innovate.

This is a tricky balance to achieve and perhaps one needs Google's free cash to achieve it. However a message for less risk averse CIOs is that getting the core infrastructure right can provide an environment within the IT function that promotes innovation, rather than the usual boring 'IT as a tool for cost management'. And the message for the CEO is that the sooner your IT and user communities morph into one the sooner you are likely to play in the Google league.

(The WSJ article is also being discussed at Just Do I.T. and the WSJ technology blog)

A corporate cure for bad circulation

It is no secret that the efficient circulation of blood around one's body is critical to good health. Obstructing this flow can have fatal consequences. Similarly, efficient circulation is critical to the health of the body corporate.

I refer specifically to the flow of data, information, knowledge and wisdom to those that need it, when and where they need it.

The high cost of labour will drive the need to "sweat" more value from the staff. This will only be achieved if they are empowered to make intelligent business-sensitive decisions at every level down to the shop floor. Organisations with poor circulation will suffer the consequences.

>>>Read the rest of my Financial Times column, "A corporate cure for bad circulation" on the Financial TImes website.

EDS Review of The IT Value Stack - Part 3

Here's the last of three posts that respond to The IT Value Stack review that Charlie Bess of EDS wrote on their blog, The Next Big Thing.

Charlie said:

3. One other area that wasn't brought out in the book that I'd like to hear Ade's perspective on is: Cloud Computing. Most of the folks who are working in cloud computing can spell "cost" fairly well, but don't understand "value" and what the organizations will require to use it as an integral part of their business. We'll see how many lessons are going to be learned in that space before there are some changes in the market.

I do believe there was a great deal of useful material in the book and it should make the reader sit back and contemplate their ability to adapt and adopt the concepts, since in any shift like this the leader must ensure that there are followers.

My response:

I have only recently come across the term Cloud computing. It looks like an attempt to bundle grid, virtualisation and utility computing into business/media friendly concept.

That said, extracting better value from one's IT assets is to be applauded. Three years ago grid computing in particular was marketed by IBM but was still really a subject for comp sci academics. In the last year I have seen it turn into commercial reality, particularly amongst investment banks. But true grid computing whereby the user devices contribute to load sharing as well as the servers is some way off as the security implications and underlying architectural requirements are horrendous. But this may move forward faster than I expect because the concept at least is boardroom-friendly. I am sure the out sourcing community will put their shoulder behind it as it strengthens further their value proposition.

I have enjoyed responding to your thought provoking comments and would be happy to take the discussion forward. I have worked with EDS in the UK in respect of helping the IT recruitment function in respect of talent management.

These are interesting times!

EDS Review of The IT Value Stack - Part 2

Here's the second of three responses to the book review written by Charlie Bess, who writes for the EDS Next Big Thing Blog. (See his complete review here.)

Charlie raises this point:

2. Even though Ade talks about the business value being based on the use of IT, he keeps pounding away that IT is separate and must be "entwined". I'd have bought that argument in the mid 90s when most middle management had little understanding of computers, but that does not hold up today. When he and I exchanged a note about how the "typing pool" has disappeared, I suggest the same thing is happening with "long tail" application development, through the use of mashups and other similar techniques. He does talk about the CIO being the evangelist or enabler, but it was a bit weak for me. IT's days as a separate entity inside the corp. are numbered. Everyone needs to take a hard look at the territory they want to claim for their corporation and prepare the IT organization to make it happen. In Ade's book there is a good tactical framework to do this, and it appears to be a valid means to an end. It's just the end state that I'm afraid could have been more thoroughly explained.

My response:

I work with some of the biggest companies in the world and most middle and senior managers are clueless about what IT can do in respect of cost management, innovation and governance. So I am comfortable with the notion of a business-IT divide.

The fact that we have business/systems analysts patrolling the DMZ between the two parties attests to a serious rift. I agree that the IT department's days are numbered, I am pushing for it. In much the same way as the typing pool used to be a function now everyone does their own typing. So it will be with IT. Thus the IT department's days are numbered, but it’s a relatively big number, in my view.

My perspective on outsourcing is that many providers can do IT better than many end user IT functions. An alert-IT department has the advantage that they know their business processes much better than any outsourcer. As time marches on the technology piece will be trivial, the value will be in the business knowledge. But I accept that where an outsourcer acquires the business expertise then that is a heady combination. Some of the outsourcers have already got this message and have moved their proposition up the 'value chain' by presenting themselves as business outsourcers.

On reflection the book would appear a little harsh on outsourcers. I have no fundamental issue with it. I simply want the IT function to put up a better fight, for everyone's benefit. Your comments will certainly influence my presentations/writing and consulting activities to be more balanced on this.