Showing posts with label cloud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cloud. Show all posts
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Sunday, September 01, 2013
Cloud Software Lets CIOs Make Little Bets
In the book 'Little Bets', author Peter Sims talks about how comedian Chris Rock prepares for his comedy shows. Mr. Rock does not try out new jokes in front of large audiences first. Instead he tries his jokes in front of small audiences in relatively obscure comedy clubs in unannounced sessions. He only picks the jokes that work for his subsequent shows in front of large audiences. I noticed similar behavior in a few CIOs and IT Directors that I worked with in the past months.
There is a set of very respected, talented and visionary CIOs who recognize the power of cloud software as a tool to solve current business problems, free up capital for strategic projects and plant the seeds for ongoing management innovation. Such CIOs are able to articulate the value of the cloud to their colleagues and get their support to make big bets in the cloud.
There is another set of experienced CIOs and IT Directors who are a bit more cautious and want proof before making large commitments. Such people may have made big bets in other areas recently and may not be willing to make more bold moves once more.
While cloud software makes it easy for the CIO who wants to make a big bet to do so, the technology also enables the more cautious CIOs make little bets and test the waters without making large commitments. For example a CIO who wants to test cloud software for people management can start with an area such as performance management for all employees to see how cloud software works for his or her organization. Once his team and his business colleagues understand the advantages and disadvantages of the cloud, they can expand the cloud foot print of their people management software to solve immediate business problems facing their organization. For example a few of the CIOs I worked with decided to start with recruiting execution and learning software in the cloud because they were anticipating talent shortages in their industry. Another set of CIOs started with workforce planning and workforce analytics in the cloud because they wanted insight into their organizations before making investments in other people management software modules.
I personally prefer the little bets approach. Making a small bet, creating a small success and building on the success works for most organizations. Contrary to popular belief, I believe that even visionary CIOs make multiple little bets to test the waters in the cloud before making bold investments.
By the way, these experiments can be conducted within weeks. Not months. Modules such as workforce analytics and performance management can be implemented and rolled out within weeks. My recommendation to all organizations big and small is to make a little bet quickly, learn from it and build on it. It is much better than demanding your software providers to prove that the cloud works for your organizations. Frankly, they are not in the best position to say what will work for your organization. Some unscrupulous ones may even say what you want to hear just to sell you their software. Go ahead. Make a little bet. Find out for yourself.
There is another set of experienced CIOs and IT Directors who are a bit more cautious and want proof before making large commitments. Such people may have made big bets in other areas recently and may not be willing to make more bold moves once more.
While cloud software makes it easy for the CIO who wants to make a big bet to do so, the technology also enables the more cautious CIOs make little bets and test the waters without making large commitments. For example a CIO who wants to test cloud software for people management can start with an area such as performance management for all employees to see how cloud software works for his or her organization. Once his team and his business colleagues understand the advantages and disadvantages of the cloud, they can expand the cloud foot print of their people management software to solve immediate business problems facing their organization. For example a few of the CIOs I worked with decided to start with recruiting execution and learning software in the cloud because they were anticipating talent shortages in their industry. Another set of CIOs started with workforce planning and workforce analytics in the cloud because they wanted insight into their organizations before making investments in other people management software modules.
I personally prefer the little bets approach. Making a small bet, creating a small success and building on the success works for most organizations. Contrary to popular belief, I believe that even visionary CIOs make multiple little bets to test the waters in the cloud before making bold investments.
By the way, these experiments can be conducted within weeks. Not months. Modules such as workforce analytics and performance management can be implemented and rolled out within weeks. My recommendation to all organizations big and small is to make a little bet quickly, learn from it and build on it. It is much better than demanding your software providers to prove that the cloud works for your organizations. Frankly, they are not in the best position to say what will work for your organization. Some unscrupulous ones may even say what you want to hear just to sell you their software. Go ahead. Make a little bet. Find out for yourself.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Cloud Will Make Software Affordable & Help Grow The World Economy
When I first moved to the San Franscisco Bay Area from Minneapolis, I was put up in the DigitalThink corporate apartments in Jack London Square in Oakland, California. I could see the container ships load and unload at the Oakland port from the water front. It was interesting to see huge ships dock at the port and cranes go to work to unload the ship and load them again within hours.
What surprised me was the lack of people involved in the whole operation. I could hardly see any people in the dock. I wondered what happened to all the longshoremen who loaded and unloaded the ships and the waterfront culture we have read about in stories and have seen in movies. The Oakland docs were a bit boring in my opinion.
So when I ran into the book "The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger" by Marc Levinson, I picked it up and read it.
Mr. Levinson talks about the culture of the docks, which where in the middle of the great cities of the world like New York, San Francisco and Rotterdam. The longshoremen earned above average wages, even though work was dangerous and had unpredictable hours. They had to load and unload ships manually and the process was the most expensive part of the transportation cost.
The standardized container gradually eliminated this inefficiency and, after 20 years of legal and unions struggles, became the standard way to ship cargo around the world. This reduced shipping costs significantly, made goods cheaper, created jobs in many parts of the world and grew the world economy.
But at the same time, docks did not need as many longshoremen. Factories did not have to be located near ports. Ports moved away from city centers to cheaper locations and the culture of longshoremen was transformed from brawny risk takers to high skilled very well paid machine operators.
When I read the book, I could not help think about the many similarities between longshoremen and the millions of information technology workers in the world. The tasks of corporate information technology teams that spend most of their time, installing and maintaining software will be shifted to few data centers around the world and will be made significantly more efficient than today by cloud technology. Corporations will still need high skilled information technology workers. But their jobs will be to perform tasks that make a corporation competitive, not just keep the software running.
The cloud is not just making things efficient. It used to be that only large companies of the world could afford enterprise software because of the cost associated with it. Cloud software is changing that. Cloud software is making enterprise software affordable to millions of organizations that could not afford them before. A small company can rent the best people management software or the best mobile device management software for a few dollars per user per month. This is going to create opportunities for millions of people in every country in the world. This will grow the world economy and improve the standard of living for many.
What surprised me was the lack of people involved in the whole operation. I could hardly see any people in the dock. I wondered what happened to all the longshoremen who loaded and unloaded the ships and the waterfront culture we have read about in stories and have seen in movies. The Oakland docs were a bit boring in my opinion.
 |
| Longshoremen at Noon by John George Brown. Courtesy : http://corcoran.org |
Mr. Levinson talks about the culture of the docks, which where in the middle of the great cities of the world like New York, San Francisco and Rotterdam. The longshoremen earned above average wages, even though work was dangerous and had unpredictable hours. They had to load and unload ships manually and the process was the most expensive part of the transportation cost.
The standardized container gradually eliminated this inefficiency and, after 20 years of legal and unions struggles, became the standard way to ship cargo around the world. This reduced shipping costs significantly, made goods cheaper, created jobs in many parts of the world and grew the world economy.
But at the same time, docks did not need as many longshoremen. Factories did not have to be located near ports. Ports moved away from city centers to cheaper locations and the culture of longshoremen was transformed from brawny risk takers to high skilled very well paid machine operators.
When I read the book, I could not help think about the many similarities between longshoremen and the millions of information technology workers in the world. The tasks of corporate information technology teams that spend most of their time, installing and maintaining software will be shifted to few data centers around the world and will be made significantly more efficient than today by cloud technology. Corporations will still need high skilled information technology workers. But their jobs will be to perform tasks that make a corporation competitive, not just keep the software running.
The cloud is not just making things efficient. It used to be that only large companies of the world could afford enterprise software because of the cost associated with it. Cloud software is changing that. Cloud software is making enterprise software affordable to millions of organizations that could not afford them before. A small company can rent the best people management software or the best mobile device management software for a few dollars per user per month. This is going to create opportunities for millions of people in every country in the world. This will grow the world economy and improve the standard of living for many.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
