Making IT Deliver on its Promises

Stan Mrozinski — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:57:14 +0000

Does IT deliver on its promises? Does it make sense to invest in new technologies and new service offerings in order to achieve cost reductions and improve service in the business?

IT has offered the promise of efficiency, cost reduction and improved service levels both internally and externally. The Internet, outsourcing, off-shoring. ASP, SAAS, VMware and ERP have promised huge potential opportunities, yet we read how those solutions have fallen short on the promise. In fact, over the last 10 years technology like the Internet has enabled the opportunity for a global business model that otherwise was impossible.

Does that mean that those technologies or solutions don’t deliver on the promises? In my experience it is a more complicated answer – but the short answer is – it can. The key is to put as much emphasis on the “I” (Information) as we do on the “T” (Technology) in Information Technology.
Some of the technology misses that I’ve experienced in both, large public companies and small/medium private enterprises include:

Suppliers arrive with clear value propositions, but they often make assumptions that the business pursuing the solutions understands what needs to be in place to realize the benefits. The businesses that pursue these solutions with the intent to simply ‘hand-over’ the operation to a service provider resulted in chaos and higher costs.
Business and IT leaders facing such serious business challenges that they are looking for quick help. They go to the technology experts and technology consultants with hopes that their technology and business issues resolve themselves once the technology is acquired. Only to realize after the investment that an organizational change initiative wasn’t even considered.
A multi-billion dollar business commits to an ERP implementation only to have it fail. Then they write off a $180 million sunk cost and virtually start over again.
A business pursuing an out-sourcing of the their IT infrastructure with the intent to eliminate their internal IT staff and reduce costs by at least the promised 20%, only to find that the service levels became substantially worse while the costs actually increased.
A business unit get excited about the promise of a SAAS solution without due diligence around security costs. While the costs on the surface may prove to have a lower initial out of pocket investment, when all the security, integration, WAN and service costs are incorporated, we found that the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) over 5 years only had a 5 – 10% benefit with increased risk vs internal hosting.

So what is the answer? Here is where it gets challenging:

If it sounds too good to be true, there may be a need to dig in for more facts and understanding.
Pick a partner that is willing to help prepare the business for the technology before jumping into the technology-enabled solution
IT and the business need to work together to prepare for the introduction of the solution
Have a clear and thorough understanding of the services the ‘old solution’ provided
Have a clear and thorough understanding of the services the ‘new solution’ is expected to provide
Understand how you used to do business / IT and measure it
Understand how the new solution will enable the business and how it will impact / improve your existing metrics/ measures
Invest in the ‘Information Architecture’ as well as the ‘Technical Architecture’
Look at operational solutions and SLAs differently from project solutions and SLAs (in the case of outsourcing)

By preparing your business processes and your IT processes you can create the foundation for the transition. By understanding how to measure your business and IT results, you will more clearly understand how to quantify your benefits realization. By understanding your ‘As-is’ service levels agreements, you will be prepared to deal with the ‘to-be’ SLAs with an outsourcer.

Your technology partners want your initiative to succeed. Success on both sides will hopefully lead to good business results for you, and a long term relationship with your partner.

Time to get REALLY Social!

Shridhar Joshi — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:51:19 +0000

Social media is the rage now and has been for the past couple of years. Many experts predict that corporate websites are dead–social media is where people are. Add to that the excitement that Social Media IPOs have been genereating. Obviously, any company that does not have a ‘real’ presence in this area feels left out.

Any consumer-focused company that does not have a Social strategy should worry as customers are increasingly becoming weary of corporate websites. They get their information from their friends, family and other customers like them. If you are in the market for a new Sony television, do you visit the Sony website or do you “google” it to find customer ratings on it? Seriously, when did you last visit Sony’s corporate website to get information on a product? So the experts are right about this one – corporate websites are dead and social media is where the people are. But does having a social strategy means creating a Facebook page? Hardly! While creating a presence on Facebook, Twitter and other similar social mediums is a MUST for every company, it is hardly sufficient. A true social strategy is to create an open environment where customers can freely engage in the conversation about your products and the company. Under a true social strategy, a company willingly transfers the control of the conversation to the customers (and its employees) and resists every urge to promote itself. A great book that talks about this phenomenon is called Clue Train Manifesto by Levine, Locke, Searls and Weinberger. What is even more amazing is that this was written in 1999! That’s right! Way before Facebook or Twitter were invented, before the dot com bust, in fact even before Y2K. So the thing to remember–Social Media is not a platform to deliver a sales pitch. It is not for talking about the company. Rather it is a medium to listen to the customers to find out their needs so the company can respond to fulfill those needs resulting in a healthy relationship between the business and its customers.

So the next logical questions are: what is the ROI on social media? Is there an ROI? Or is it just the cost of doing business? Is it just another form of advertising or something much more? The answer is simple – There is a clear ROI if the company knows how to use it effectively. When used properly, social media can increase sales, help improve new product development, reduce customer support costs and grow the brand value. An effective social strategy (i) targets social ‘influencers’ and uses them as the brand ‘ambassadors’ (ii) identifies social product ‘experts’ and creates a platform for them, and (iii) leverages all available social platforms to create a unified message about the brand.

In other words, creating and implementing the right social strategy offers both monetary and strategic benefits.

Pegasus Knowledge Solutions, Inc.

Making IT Deliver on its Promises

Time to get REALLY Social!