'a'mikewatson

To Innovate is to Differentiate. To Differentiate is to Compete.

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:49:24 +0100

Part of your Cloud Adoption thinking should be ‘Innovation’, a key stalwart of differentiation. Countless ‘Cloud Experts’, from all walks of life talk about it, but few give time to articulate how.

Firstly the definition of ‘Innovation’, all hail Wiki.

“.. the development of new values through solutions that meet new requirements, inarticulate needs, or old customer and market needs in value adding new ways…… accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments, and society.”

I assume that we all grasp the agility factor of ‘Cloud Computing’. A capability to acquire and allow rapid positioning of I.T services in a very prompt time to market. Industry greeted as ‘Innovation’ due to rapid provisioning.

Continually disregarded in empowering the innovative enterprise is a need for cultural workplace transformation around the ‘Cloud’. Simply having a rapid provisioning of compute achieves no business value whatsoever. With ‘Cloud Computing’ as a chunk of your portfolio it should be abusing the low-cost, abusing the rapid provisioning with measureable business process relevance. Relevance crafted to tease out the entrepreneur in each and every one of us. We all have it but do you have the platform to drive diversity? Exploit to aid an enterprise culture of try, try, try, and try. If it doesn’t offer the anticipated result take stock, study what you accomplished and drive onward.

“Innovate on innovation.”

Another ‘Innovation’ golden nugget, ‘Business Process Optimization’. Take what’s current and endeavour to make thinner in process and expense. Assume that what’s current is the only valid way to do it! BPO is limited in its ability to advance any process beyond the framework in which it was conceived, fact!

Think different chaps. Pull the process apart reexamine assumptions and what it’s truly aiming to accomplish.

It’s a humble process with extraordinary impact!

First, distill the task of which the customer wants done into a sequence of process steps.

Second, study the main disadvantages of the products and services customers presently consume.

Third, pinpoint the metrics tangled in the process sequences and steps. This forms a base of the simple ‘job’

And each ‘job’ have the exact same steps

First, what is necessary for the customer define up front in order to proceed with the ‘job’?

Second, what inputs must the customers pinpoint to do the ‘job’?

Third, how must the customer prepare the inputs and environment to do the ‘job’?

Fourth, post prep, what is necessary for the customer to verify before proceeding with the ‘job’ confirming its performed well?

Fifth, what does the customers need to do to perform the ‘job’ well?

Sixth, what is necessary for the customer to monitor to ensure that the ‘job’ is completed well?

Seventh, what may the customer require to amend for the ‘job’ for it to be finished?

Eighth, what does the customer need to do to finish the ‘job’?

Once gathered, an enterprise can generate abundant worth in plentiful ways.

— Improving the effectiveness of specific ‘job‘ steps
— Eliminating the necessity for inputs and outputs
— Eradicating complete steps from the concern of the customer
— Re-Sequencing of steps
— Authorising steps to be executed in new geographies and timezones

“To innovate is to differentiate. To differentiate is to compete.”

Advise for jumpers...??

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 16:58:00 +0100

Advice for any business looking to appreciate the values of Cloud Computing? Successful Cloud strategies are journeys that evolve WITH the business.
Asses the needs before jumping in…….

Why is it that countless vendors, service providers and ‘cloud’...

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 11:21:00 +0000

Why is it that countless vendors, service providers and ‘cloud’ consultancies chase merely the tactical beliefs of cloud computing? Why do these establishments circumvent, or wholly disregard, the necessity to shape a holistic strategy to solve business and IT troubles?

It’s a fact that most of these institutes are entirely sales oriented, flouting the need for a long-term strategic customer emphasis. It’s all about ‘how can I sell the most by quarter end’. This attitude will work short term, but it’s a self-imploding and unsustainable model!

The cloud ecosphere is extremely aggressive as of 2013; every enterprise has a ‘cloud’ budget that’s up for grabs. The vultures congregate praying on the defenceless!

Every vendor, every service provider and every ‘cloud’ consultancy is endeavoring to position before the punter either gets clever, or they’re able to suck the life out of a budget while cloud’s such a hot buzzword! Some don’t even get how enterprise IT works and lack the necessary skills to converse in strategic terms how cloud computing will effect the changing face of business.

Without a well-adjusted view of how cloud can tactically and strategically change the face of old and tired business models it’s never going to be revolutionary. Cloud will simply become datacenter 2.0!

"Also missed on many occasions is the fact that the true value of (private) cloud computing comes..."

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 11:46:02 +0000

“Also missed on many occasions is the fact that the true value of (private) cloud computing comes from the ability to support business agility, which is actually more of a business benefit than operational cost reductions.”

- David Linthicum - CTO Blue Mountain Labs

2013, year of change?

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 09:16:00 +0000

Doing the same as everyone else simply doesn’t work?

2012 was not a good year, with well-established organisations struggling to survive. ‘Bricks and Mortar’ once industry frontrunners, eroding from the corporate landscape. Overrun by agile, fresh and innovative companies with the digital world central to their DNA. These companies challenge ‘business as usual’, exploring beyond the assumed. If you’re an enterprise and thought 2012 was hard, 2013 is going to be ‘survival of the fittest’.
Why do we need to change? A small journey back in time is needed to understand ‘success’, to the times of the industrial era. All but a few of today’s ‘conventional’ enterprises are modelled on processes and governance founded through old and tired reworked industrial models. Models that drove stellar prosperity and progression in times past, driving onward the developed economy that the western world has lived through for the past 200+ years. An assortment of processes created on insight, science and efficiency. Conceived in the era of slow communication and close proximity teamwork, it was a model that delivered economic success through independent agility. Everything non-conventional e.g. subcontracting was slow and expensive, why consider a tactic, given its very recognisable adverse worth to agility? Furthermore a top-down command and control elegance in management style to an uneducated ‘workforce’. Senior Management supposed ‘best judged and educated’ to drive significant game-changing choices founded on ill informed and/ or inappropriate evidence mixed with their overstretched calendars and pressure to deliver. Choices not necessarily best executed owing to an absence of contact into the process execution and data available. For the well-informed Cxx this signaled warnings and so began the development of new opportunity, i.e. Business Process Optimization (BPO) Consultancies. To the table they proposed ‘best practice’ methods in strategy, finance and leadership. Bridging the valley of what’s required to prosper the ever-increasing opening world of commerce. And this worked sufficient to a point, with growth and prosperity nurtured profits year on year, bringing great wealth. But that model could only sustain up to a point, and cracks started to show. The early dot-com boom and subsequent bust together with the worldwide credit-crunch catastrophe of 2007 undoubtedly exposed that the longstanding model of old, what most enterprises are founded on, is no longer a relevant and sustainable model. BPO ‘Best Practices’ were no longer a winning formula.
Doing the same as everyone else simply doesn’t work!

“You give a little love and it all comes back to...

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:42:01 +0000

“You give a little love and it all comes back to you…” - Bugsy Malone

Tech heads ??...

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 16:58:00 +0000

Tech heads ??...:

The mainstream of technology pros are still well and truly wedged in the past relative to the strategic behaviors of cloud computing. All but a few are embracing cloud as “just another technology”, leaving choices on what way to implement, own and administer to engineers. To get the maximum business value from your cloud investments enterprises need to appreciate that it is NOT a technical judgment but it’s a strategic one.
However, don’t get me wrong. It’s necessary for technical people to be involved. But let’s be crystal clear, any enterprise strategy will collapse before first execution if it doesn’t embrace beyond I.T departments.

Building a cloud strategy.

"Creativity, the process of taking ideas and making them into ‘real things’."

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 13:40:02 +0000

“Creativity, the process of taking ideas and making them into ‘real things’.”

A Prescription For Distinction

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 14:11:38 +0000

What are the expected returns gained by aligning enterprise ‘must have’ with that of IT? The business ‘most wanted’ be fulfilled, right? In reality there’s an distinct absence of triumph due to both parties modest understanding towards each others need and execution.

Enhanced ROI
Simple, transparent payment models
Flexible, demand driven
Rapid and innovative delivery of products and services

Add to this the often missing advantage of a converged strategy, AGILE ENTERPRISE.

As strategic and operating value chains become more volatile due to upsurges in customer requests, global competition and rapid technology progress the ability to sense relevancy in change and respond appropriately becomes an important factor of company success.

How well can the enterprise adapt to change?
How well can the enterprise ensure business as usual in the face of ever changing, fast moving events?

Technology, a prescription for distinction.

"Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times."

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 12:50:44 +0000

“Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.”

- Niccolò Machiavelli

Is your #cloudcomputing strategy giving you max ROI? Sense then...

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:56:00 +0000

Is your #cloudcomputing strategy giving you max ROI? Sense then respond, enterprise agility.

The VP of "Cloud"

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 07:21:29 +0000

Cloud computing as a value proposition – ‘Business Cloud First’

The economic environment that we live in today forces businesses to take efficient and lean steps, strategically positioning to do more with less. Still countless enterprises are turning to cloud for financial benefit and service optimization. To gain maximum returns on your cloud investments taking a ‘Business Cloud First’ approach is crucial.

To be agile empowers the enterprise to consistently transform and achieve its business outcome. Be flexible and responsive, the ability launch new innovative initiatives without fear of failure, building enterprise differentiation.

Well-judged implementation of cloud allows enterprises to swiftly adjust. Sensing then executing a corrective reaction in a timely and cost efficient way across the entire value chain.

We live in a world that’s hyper competitive and volatile. Doing the same as everyone else simply doesn’t work any longer.

Achievable cloud numbers?

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 19:17:47 +0100

Enterprise that are contemplating a purchase of one or more cloud solution need to value that cloud is strategic and long-term, not a shareholder driven quarter-by-quarter independent product offering!

Moving and building a ‘right’ cloud view is eighty percent driven relevance in supporting an agile business environment, proficient to change paths at the speed of need. Today, alas this statistic is very much to the contrary.

Any company IT department can procure cloud solutions without any real emphasis on corporate strategy. Without planning and supporting your cloud vision aligning to enterprise goals, adoption and investment will be limited. Why? A diverse outlook of what cloud is and what cloud is not, vendors aggressive in their single view of ‘cloud’ running to get their foot in the door before the client gets wise to the ‘integrated strategy’, short term sales driven plans, corporate IT’s nonexistent participation in enterprise strategic direction and vision.

Give it time. When your CEO/ CFO discover a wild and agile competitor driving forward into new areas of advantage through innovation and thought leadership, where and who are they going look to question first?

The projected growth of cloud computing is nothing short of mind-boggling. In 2016 it’s expected to be £130b (158 EUR/ 109 USD)! – It does makes you wonder………

Asking the right questions

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 10:56:24 +0100

What’s being asked….. ‘What cloud should I use… IaaS, Amazon, RackSpace, SFDC, PaaS, Public, Private, HPCloud, IBM, Dedicated, Workday?’
What should be asked…’How do I create opportunities for delivering an agile, responsive and connected enterprise…..’…

An often overlooked point when looking at #cloudcomputing #cloud...

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:20:41 +0100

An often overlooked point when looking at #cloudcomputing #cloud adoption (Taken with Instagram)

Cloud expectations, the stark disconnect…

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 09:56:11 +0100

Cloud expectations, the stark disconnect…

Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 16:18:52 +0100

Enterprise I.T’s happy. They’ve got that all-important ‘pat on the back for cloud’, haven’t they done well. A cloud strategy perception defined, offered and marketed through the desk of those middle-aged Senior I.T Managers. It’s all server consolidation this, cap ex optimization that. Oh the ecstasy, oh the thrill, oh the opportunity L. For these blinkered eyes I beg you to please recognize that a cloud strategy can be so SO much more. Unless eyes start opening, building a united business driven technology strategy, cloud will be no more exciting than walking in the damp damp rain.

True cloud strategies have vision and direction driven by passionate new mindsets. Turning old business models on their head. Tapping into new markets. Expressing new and breathtaking customer focused differentiators. Business as usual is not business as usual. Time to take innovation to all four corners of the corporate monster. Deliver a platform for innovation. The enterprise innovation platform for anyone, anywhere and at any time.

Approach cloud adoption as a new dual consulting process. Educated key business stakeholders who clearly understand the near limitless opportunities that cloud has to offer.

Think new market growth where cloud can rapidly accelerate the strategic direction of the enterprise.

Ideas like this, aligning the business to innovate at a low entry points, will win long term. Current I.T motivated ‘cloud’ initiatives will not!

Business value 1st, technology 2nd - That's the cloud.

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 10:52:15 +0100

Is your company.......

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:03:32 +0100

— thinking of all value gained from cloud computing rather than a single view of IT improvements?
— aware of the goals and benefits cloud adoption can bring?
— aware to how cloud computing COULD deliver greater and faster strategic and tactical objectives?

…… most don’t

To the untrained it's tricky.....

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:55:45 +0100

To assume that ‘business as usual’ IS ‘business as usual’ is to assume that it’s ‘business as usual’. ‘Business as usual’ is not ‘business as usual’, for this needs to be crystal clear.

I like my job….. I get to talk with many execs and business leaders. I like to listen, I like to understand the daily challenges faced in rapidly shifting corporate focus and vision. It’s unbelievable that I get so much quality time with these kind of people. I embrace the challenge of solving pain points through knowledge, experience and fantastic teamwork. The means of identifying game changing ideas and innovations which make even the staunchly resistant sit up and think twice, questioning peoples assumptions of ‘business as usual’.

The new ‘business as usual’ falls under 2 rainbows. First, changing our perception of ‘business as usual’. Second, reducing the cost of doing the new ‘business as usual’.

Normally it’s one or the other. In times of economic growth you can hire the best people, invest in the greatest technology, innovative and deliver new exciting stuff. When it’s grey everything’s on hold. Management inform their Indians to slash spend and innovation’s out of the door.

Cloud driven innovation and cost reduction are no longer mutually exclusive.
Cloud driven innovation and cost reduction IS the new ‘business as usual’.
For those companies who don’t know, it’s tricky. And for those who do, it’s opportunity.