Posts Tagged ‘Gartner’
Herding Consultants 2.0
What kind of title is “Herding Consultants 2.0″? I suppose for search engine optimization reasons I should have used “aligning” instead of “herding” but at some point the whole alignment theme can get boring. I’ll stick with “herding” this time. Having been on both sides of the consulting table leads to some firm convictions about what that means in an era of highly available sources of judgment and advice. In the “old” days (before the late 1990’s) consultants found consultants based on their business offerings, sales campaigns and contacts. A relationship was built based on repeated personal contact. The competitive differentiator was the consultant’s previous work and their skills inventory. That ultimately led to a “resume bake off” when consultants competed for your business. That model is still viable to a large extent.
A new model has appeared over the last few years based on Internet based tools and virtual presence. Blogs have grown rapidly and any consultant worth his salt has one (me included). We use some tool to subscribe to the blogs that interest us, such as our email clients, browsers or any number of other tools. My preference is a tool called BlogBridge. That keeps the blog posts out of my inbox which reduces clutter and makes them easy to scan. The end result is that I now have subscribed to many blogs. I did that because there are many topics about which I want to stay current or have an interest. That creates a need to assign levels of credibility to each blog. BlogBridge makes the assignment of a ranking very easy. It’s the deciding on a rank that’s hard.
My current technique is to look over my “herd” of consultant blogs to spot trends. Once I do that I decide if I’m in agreement with the consensus. If not, I research the topic more to validate my opinions. I’m not trying to be a technical expert but I am trying to understand the topic well enough that I can offer my own options and judgment in a way that adds value for my target clients (C-level executives in mid-market manufacturing or manufacturing related service businesses who are trying to make decisions on the use and deployment of technology tools). I will then vet my opinions with a few people whose opinion I trust and who have differing backgrounds.
This just reinforces the point I have made before. It’s the personal relationships that matter most. It also reinforces the idea that there is just a huge amount of opinions and “experts” out there. Another way of “herding” all of the consultants you rely on for advice is to let the large consulting companies do it for you. For example, both Gartner and Forrester have become active bloggers. You can also just sign up with either of them and get even more information. Essentially, by relying on their blogs you are letting them do the vetting for you. There are other, smaller consulting groups like ebizQ and TechRepublic, which offer similar capabilities. I watch some consultants from each of these.
In summary, my point is that we need techniques to vet the web-based consultants we have all come to rely on. We each need to decide how much effort to apply to that vetting exercise and how to leverage our own personal networks. I have my approach and I recommend that you develop one that works for you.
Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned for more…
Cloud Alignment – Part III (Security)
The purpose of this post is to address the issue of the security of cloud based applications from the perspective of the CIO of a midsize company. His focus would be primarily on prudent cost reduction opportunities. I will not attempt to provide an in depth technical discussion here. I will provide some useful links to such discussions. However, I don’t think a midmarket CIO, or CXO, would be well served by loosing himself in the technical details at this point. It’s all evolving too fast.
As I researched this topic I was initially amazed at the amount of information. After I thought about it for awhile I realized that this was a hot and rapidly evolving topic, so this volume of information is to be expected (and I’m contributing to it myself with this blog post). My research has been fairly extensive but not exhaustive. I could have easily made this a white paper taking months. It will also be dated fairly quickly. Like I said, this subject is changing quickly.
The first item of business is a definition of some useful terms. I will standardize on the definitions provided by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). The link to those definitions is here and a link to a cloud computing overview is here. I like the NIST definition: “Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” The other document at this site is a 92 page PowerPoint presentation. I think it is useful but lacks sufficient material in the speaker’s notes.
I am a big fan of Gartner’s Hype Cycle diagrams. Over the years I have found them to be a good way of representing the expectations we have of technology. I have included an overview below. A link to the Gartner site is here.
Every technology category is typically represented by a point on the curve. That point is color coded to indicate how fast it is moving through the cycle. If you want more details on this I encourage you to go to their site and sign up for their free registration. In Figure 1 I overlaid a red line on that section of the curve where I believe cloud computing is today based on Gartner’s predictions as well as other sources. We are clearly at or near a peak of enthusiasm and expectations for a new technology.
Figure 1 – Cloud computing expectations
One concern that I have is that when I have talked to people in midsize or small companies making a decision on how to use cloud computing all I hear about is the opportunity for cost reduction. That opportunity is real but the decision is not just about cost reduction. It’s also about risk exposure and that means security concerns. One document that details those risks is from ENISA (European Network and Information Security Agency). Its link is here. Be warned, this document is not for the faint of heart. It is large and detailed but does offer a comprehensive list of risks. Another less detailed source of cloud security insight is provided in an InfoWorld article on a Gartner report. Its link is here.
One thing to remember is that using cloud computing usually means virtualized applications made available over the internet. A useful but detailed discussion of virtualization can be found here. There are several types of virtualization risks such as attacks on the hypervisor, attacks on automated provisioning and problems in digital forensics due to mobile locations of virtual machines. Detailing each of these examples generate a significant amount of information and is beyond the scope of this post.
We should also briefly touch on the major players providing cloud based infrastructure and development environments. The three big names in these areas are the Google App Engine, the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Microsoft’s new Azure Platform. For these offerings, you rely on either secure data center operation or the security capabilities of their development tools. Cloud computing is new to most developers as well. Their skills in using these tools are still maturing, including security.
It would be easy to discuss various risks almost indefinitely. However, that wouldn’t address the main concern of making an informed decision on what to do with cloud computing now. As you can see from Figure 1, I placed a red line over the region of the curve which represents the earliest time for mainstream adoption. The period between where cloud computing is today and mainstream adoption starts is a time for trying out this technology. I recommend a trial that doesn’t involve sensitive company data but is non-trivial. Such a trial will provide insight into the management of cloud based infrastructure, applications and working with cloud vendors. It will provide an opportunity to gain experience in relative safety.
For example, I am part of the Google Wave beta program. If interested, check out this link or the Google site. In addition to that, I am working with Itensil on a new product which leverages Google Wave with its other existing products for collaborative, wiki-based consulting project work. For me it’s a great opportunity to learn more about using cloud computing to do something relevant for my business. That work could eventually lead to a significant competitive differentiator. For a business IT alignment consultant, it’s putting my money where my mouth is and aligning some cloud IT to my own business.
For a blog post, this one is long. As a discussion of the security of cloud based computing, it just scratches the surface. The recession has accelerated the adoption of cloud computing and the recovery will accelerate its adoption further. Midsize and smaller companies will be most of the early adopters of cloud technology along with a few large corporations. Security concerns will be the throttle that regulates the speed of adoption. As cloud security is resolved I think we are in for some very transformational times.
Thanks for stopping by and stay tuned for more…
Forecasts, Optimism and Questions
First, I apologize for this post being late. I will endeavor to get back on schedule. I will not promise never to be late again. This post will focus on an interesting document Gartner has put out. It’s titled “Gartner Perspective: IT Spending 2010″. For your convenience, a link to it is provided here. I’m not going to discuss the entire document, only the parts that I found most interesting. The survey was based on global data. I am most interested in North America because that is where I buy my groceries and my customers buy theirs.
The most interesting table is Table 6 shown below.
What I find most interesting in this table is to compare the actual amounts, not the percentages. If we compare the 2010 forecast to 2008 data we see that spending actually should grow in 2010 over 2008 in the USA, Latin America, the Middle East/Africa, Japan and Asia Pacific. That is not true for Eastern & Western Europe and Canada. For those of us who rely mainly in the USA for our source of business this is good news. It implies that 2009 will be an exception to otherwise steady growth. Remember, 2008 results were dropping off by the end of the year.
Another interesting table is Table 7, shown below.
Since this table is global, it implies that Europe and Canada are depressing the vertical results. On a global basis all verticals are off about 4.7%. The Gartner report has additional insights.
Finally I want to focus on Table 9.
(Warning: below is a blatant self-serving pitch)
What I like about Table 9 is that it prioritizes the focus areas for all businesses. It ranks business process improvement as first priority and ranks improving enterprise workforce effectiveness as third highest. Both of those areas are the focus of StrAIT Advisors. The idea of business IT alignment delivers on both of those. I am delighted to see this data in this report. Obviously, this means that you should take both of those areas and business IT alignment very seriously. Oh, and think of StrAIT Advisors at the same time.
(End of blatant self-serving pitch)
I want to encourage you to get a copy of this report. It’s free and readily available. I think it provides some very useful insight. I find it to be a source of optimism with a few questions. We all can use a little optimism these days.
BPM is a Matter of Survival
The folks at Appian recently released a copy of a research note from Gartner, Inc. I have included a copy of it in the Files section of this blog. The key findings are listed below.
Key Findings
- Companies that use BPM create business process models that identify process redundancies, hidden costs and avoidable risks. Companies survive by using cost savings from BPM efforts to fund critical business operations.
- Applying BPM enables process visibility, allowing better collaboration among the activities being performed.
- For struggling companies, compliance is often another burden. BPM is well-suited to drive costs out of compliance and regulatory work.
- Simplifying the administrative work of your employees can increase morale and enable them to spend time on high-value work. It can also help companies in survival mode do more with less.
Recommendations
- Gain a competency in BPM now.
- Before you wield the cost-cutting axe, construct a high-level business process model to understand the impact of head count and resource cuts across the enterprise so that you do not decrease process efficiency and inadvertently drive up costs.
- Use BPM to manage your business case justification and measurement processes.
- Identify processes where costs may be high and there is not a focus on measurement. Target one of these processes for your first or next BPM project, and demonstrate tangible results.
Survival Actions
Put BPM to work immediately:
- Identify your most-valuable business processes.
- Select from that set the business processes necessary for survival and where money may be wasted.
- Target one of these processes for your first or next BPM project.
BPM can be a powerful tool that plays a critical role in the survival of your company — it can reduce costs, ensure compliance, avoid mistakes and create the visibility needed to manage processes as assets to your enterprise. Initial projects can produce impressive results. You cannot, however, simply focus on one-off projects. You will need to assess the impact of cuts to the process overall, not just isolation in one area. To scale and integrate BPM into the fabric of your organization requires attending to the discipline of BPM and putting the constructs in place to support the practice of BPM. Although much of the survival work will focus on projects that generate significant results, resources must also be allocated to communicating and making BPM repeatable and scalable. For step-by-step information about building an effective BPM program.
When building a BPM program, be sure to pay attention to some critical elements:
- Build communication into your BPM work to address the cultural and political implications that will arise.
- Start up the business process competency center to ensure that your efforts will scale.
- Prove the results by doing several short-duration, high-impact projects.
- Educate your organization about BPM — build the skill set, and strive to embed continuous process improvement into everyone’s job.
Laying the groundwork for BPM and proving results are powerful and can become a platform to elevate BPM to its true potential — BPM as one of the strategic management disciplines — and enable your organization to move from using BPM to survive to helping your organization to thrive.
StrAIT Advisors recommendations
This research note includes some specific savings example, which is always helpful and should be valuable to you as well. I recommend that you take these observations and recommendations seriously. For those of us that have been around a while, we remember recessions past. As usual, there were many jobs lost. And as usual, as the economy recovered many companies found their experience inventory in core areas had been depleted. This lack of experience where it was needed most seriously hurt those companies. It took them years to recover.
Download a copy of this research note and share it within your organization. It’s clear, direct and important.
Preparing for Recovery
I recently read a Gartner Insights report provided by Forbes magazine. It provides some data on the outlook for the economy from a number of C-level executives. I read it in light of recent stock market performance. One year graphs of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 are shown in the MarketWatch charts below. It clearly indicates that while March of this year was not good, it may represent a bottom. More data is needed to call a bottom so we won’t know if that was a true low point for a while yet. However, the signs are encouraging.
I take this data in light of the Gartner Insights report. The report concludes with “Although cutbacks are seen as an inevitable consequence of the current economic recession, many businesses are using this time to formulate strategies that will give them an advantage when revenue growth returns.” It seems apparent from the data provided in this report that essentially all companies have had to reduce headcount. It is appropriate to remember that along with those staff reductions comes a corresponding reduction in skills inventory and experience.
Even when some portion of the staff is eventually replaced, the experience and skills inventory will take years to rebuild. That’s why it is so vital to decouple a company’s operations from as much dependence on that lost skills and experience inventory as possible in preparing for a recovery. There is no substitute for experienced and motivated workers. However, a fact of corporate life is that you probably will never have as much of either as you need. The only hedge is to simplify and automate your workflow as much as possible. Just make sure to simplify them before you automate them.
These ideas may seem obvious yet many companies lose site of these ideas in the day to day struggle for survival. Survival can generate a lot of background noise. I argue that it is now time to stand back, take a deep breath and consider how you will prepare for the upcoming recovery. These decisions will be with you for a long time.
Thanks for stopping by. The referenced Gartner/Forbes report can be found at Preparing for Recovery [Gartner].
Dow Jones Industrial Average Source: MarketWatch (www.marketwatch.com)
S&P 500 Source: MarketWatch (www.marketwatch.com)