IT matters

Over the last couple of weeks I had two people urge me to go and read Groundswell. So I did. If you haven't already, I would recommend it.

In summary, it's probably the closest thing to a road map for implementing Enterprise 2.0 in companies (although to their credit, they don't call it that).

It's chock full of data (some of which will surprise you) and case studies. It also makes concrete recommendations how to evaluate what's the best strategy for a company (should we do a blog, an open forum or a video on You Tube). And best of all, the language the use (for the most part) is clear (focussed on business value not technology) and practical (always refreshing).

Continue reading "Groundswell: A game plan for Enterprise 2.0?" »

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's always interesting to see how much companies are spending on the race to enable cloud computing. The Economist, in its latest edition, reports on the race to build out data centers and its implications on the enviornment. Some highlights:

• Google has 36 data centers with about 1m servers
• America alone has about 7000 data centers
• Microsoft is adding 20,000 servers a month to its data centers
  

More here. 

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 01:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mckinsey has highlighted eight interesting business/technology trends to watch.  (You may need to register). The abstracts are really short and give only a passing introduction to the subjects, although they do have some neat examples that I had not seen before. To their credit, however, they do provide pointers for further reading. The article got me thinking on how an IT organization could profit from them.

Continue reading "Eight business / technology trends from Mckinsey" »

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Xobni (Inbox spelled backwards) is a neat little tool that leverages data / connections (some would call it spam) that all of us have in our inboxes and turns that into useful information. (This really belongs in a blog on personal productivity but it thought it may be interesting to people here that are drowning in email.)

 
Some of the features in Xobni (such as search) can be found in either Google Desktop or in Microsoft search (which is now integrated with Outlook 2007), but I really like the insights that it provides. What especially caught my eye was the graph that shows when your contacts send emails, the ‘email deficit’ between you and your contact and the ability to quickly find attachments. Can’t wait to try this out. Thanks to Don Dodge for pointing this out.

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nicholas Carr's first book "Does IT Matter" (rightly) raised a ruckus. I hope his new book, "The Big Switch" is as provocative as his first. Early indications are that it is.

From what I can tell, it describes the evolution of IT from in house operations to a utility. Companies that have been leading us up the SaaS path (SalesForce, Google et al) are likely to benefit, while the incumbents need to think hard and come up with a compelling strategy to stay relavent.

Continue reading "Nicholas Carr's new book" »

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Interesting discussion caused by an article in the WSJ about the decision of ASU's chief technology officer to forgo full testing in an ERP implementation. How did he do that? Well, he just took a page book out of all the Web 2.0 startups and released the software in beta (That's a polite way of saying the product/service is not fully finished/tested.).

So who tests the application? Well, the poor users of course. And this is what has caused a firestorm. There have been cases of employees not getting paid, or in some cases overpaid. The CTO's justification for not fully testing? He's apparently managed to save over half the original $70m estimated price tag and reduced the time taken to bring the application to its users. Very impressive. But is this a strategy that other CIOs should follow?

Continue reading "Is testing for girly-CIOs?" »

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 05:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

When I think of IBM, I think of hardware, software and consulting services - I don't think of it as a lender. Yes, that's exactly what IBM has got approval to do.

" IBM Lender Business Process Services, or LBPS, received clearance to provide mortgage origination services for federally insured Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans.

When it announced the unit’s launch in March, IBM said the unit would fill a void in the lending space, particularly for small and midsize lenders.

The Charlotte-based unit will allow mortgage lenders to replace the fixed costs that are associated with typical loan fulfillment operations with a variable-cost framework. This in turn will free up lenders to provide better service and support to consumers, IBM says.

LBPS will offer a variety of lending services, including loan application, underwriting, processing, vendor management, document preparations, and loan closing."

While this may not seem like a significant announcement, I think there's more here than meets the eye. This is really IBM introducing LaaS (Lending as a Service) to the market.

Continue reading "LaaS for the masses?" »

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 04:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Interesting blog on the recently held 'CIO Agenda' event centered around Enterprise 2.0. Some titbits:

~"Keeping operations up an running is just table stakes" - Doug Schwinn, CIO, Hasbro

~ Interest level in Vista seems low; interest level in virtualization, open source and Web 2.0 seems high.

~ All the CIOs on the panel predicted an increase in their IT spend.

More here.

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 04:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the past ten to twelve years, multitudes of IT executive surveys have identified one of the greatest challenges confronting chief information officers throughout the world is to assure that the priorities of their information technology organizations are in line with the business strategies of their corporations.  Several polls have ranked "Aligning IT and Corporate Goals" as their top concern, while almost polls have identified the same concern in the top 3 results. The fact that this urgent message has remained a top concern over the years indicates that very little success has been made to address alignment.

Continue reading "On IT Alignment" »

Posted by Barry West at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Pick up any issue of the CIO magazine, or glance at any IT Strategy related blog postings and you'll hear the constant refrains - "Must have better Business/IT alignment", "Must make sure that IT objectives are in line with business strategy", "Must make sure that IT and business work together as a team" and so on. All good stuff, for sure. And very noble. But it's one thing to announce business/IT alignment at the CxO level, and another to make sure it gets translated to action at the ground level.

Take an average company. Chances are that the users of technology - customer service advisors, production managers, marketing personnel etc. - hate IT. Yes, hate. And not just the abstract concept of hating IT (e.g. hating Microsoft for Outlook), but hating IT people. Why is this so? Is it because IT personnel are in general social misfits and like dealing with machines instead of humans? Is it because IT people can't explain concepts simply? Is it because IT people regard business folk as dumb and incapable of understanding technology? While I think there may be an element of truth in each of these gross generalizations, I think the core of the problem has to do with control and trust. Users of technology resent the control that the IT people have over their professional lives and resent IT's lack of trust. And with good reason.

Continue reading "Death by a thousand cuts" »

Posted by Akash Bhatia at 04:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

The next series of blogs will develop Points of Views regarding - How can organizations achieve differentiation based competitive advantage via IT?

Posted by Anita Ballaney at 02:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

IT and Business Alignment is today’s Holy Grail for IT organizations and the CIOs that endeavor to lead them.  But why pursue something so seemingly unattainable?  Because, based upon a recent survey by CIO Magazine, alignment gives CIOs access to more of the resources they need – everything from more budget to more staff to a greater ability to focus on strategic IT.

Continue reading "Business Alignment and the CIO" »

Posted by Michael Taylor at 01:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)