Unleashing Capital for Innovation

Jacqueline de Rojas — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 16:44:00 GMT

"We're in a double-dip recession; I have cut thousands of heads out of my IT organisation and slashed the budget by tens of millions. Now I am being asked by the business to deliver even more services. What I need is your help to continue to deliver against the business agenda when there is an ever increasing reliance on technology".

It's a comment which is familiar inside these tough economic times. Austerity is the new normal, flat is the new growth and survival is now a feature on the competitive landscape that lies ahead. Organisations must recognise that austerity measures alone are not enough and in order to survive they need to adopt smart technology.

With no end in sight to the challenging economic climate, one of the most important decisions to make is where to place the emphasis on budgets in the balance sheet. Clearly there are lots of options but our customers tell us that they are voting for spending on innovation, automation and ‘pay as you use' options.

Consider, for example, the emergence of tablets and smartphones and what this means to information access in the workplace. Or how 'pay as you use' models are transforming today's business environment. Not to mention the new meaning that social networking is giving to collaboration and leverage with our customers. Cutting the technology budget can be like handing customers over to a competitor on a plate.

So how can organisations unleash capital for innovation? Take savings made elsewhere in the business and channel them into innovation investment?

One of the best places to start is by taking a fresh look at the way you manage IT. Move away from simply maintaining your technology towards delivering innovation. The first step is to speed up the pace of your IT, accelerate your ‘plan-build-run' lifecycle, prioritise investments wisely and embrace new technology like cloud, social, and mobile-into new services.

Just recently I was speaking to a large U.K. retailer, whose bricks and mortar business was challenged to compete with the agility shown by the big online businesses. The simple answer for the retail giant is to get their offerings to market faster than the competition. This is something CA Technologies is very experienced at and can provide the ability to outsmart the competition at a considerably lower cost. This money can then be channelled straight back into the business.

Step two is to transform your IT. Most companies I speak to are looking to transform their technology environment to free up resources, budget and capacity to innovate-while maintaining the best possible experience and value from their existing investments. Here, automation can help eliminate manual processes, reducing errors, delays and costs in one move; while service assurance delivers better services faster.

All of the organisations I speak to in the U.K. also put security as one of their top priorities-especially in light of today's complex hybrid IT systems, end-user devices, and external cloud services. Here again, the right security strategy can free up those vital resources needed for innovation. BT, for example, saved more than £15 million and improved customer service by implementing reusable authentication and single-sign on. They eliminated the need for 80 point solutions of user authentication and are performing 36 million transactions per day.

IDC recently reported* 67% of CIOs surveyed tell IDC they "see the role as evolving to Chief Innovation Officer". However, CIOs must not only innovate for the business but also create a culture of innovation within both their IT organisation and the business. Many companies are now realising that they need to plug the digital literacy gap on their boards, so that they can navigate the minefield of which technology they should or should not invest in; what will give them a return and what will enable them to survive these difficult times.

By getting more out of what you have today, you'll have more to spend on what's important tomorrow.

* IDC "Worldwide CIO Agenda, Predications 2012", #232816, Dec. 2011

Consumer Driven IT in Review, 8th edition

Jackie Kahle — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:03:00 GMT

I was inspired this week to learn about Paul Cheesbrough, CIO of News International who has set up an Apple-like "genius bar" in his company for employees to get help setting up their own devices (see Buyer's guide to IT consumerization - rewriting the rulebook by Cliff Saran via ComputerWeekly.com).

At the risk of stating the obvious, what a genius of an idea! Too often one hears of IT managers respond to IT consumerization by saying "fine, you can use your own device, but you're on your own" or who point employees to a set of cryptic self-help FAQs to figure it out. Cheesbrough understands that a key objective to enabling employees to use their own devices is employee productivity, and what better way to achieve this than with a friendly, walk-up true help desk. It's a great example of borrowing another concept from the consumer or retail world and applying it to the enterprise.

Contrast this approach to handling BYOD with one that is principally focused on cost savings (see How to screw up a BYOD deployment by Galen Gruman via InfoWorld). Gruman shows how problems abound when the motivation is to save money but not increase employee productivity.

Taking this one step further, IT organizations also need to be thinking about these issues as they support and service their external customers. More than just BYOD, Consumer Driven IT is also about creatively using consumer technologies such as social networks and online communities to drive new ways to support your customers. Back in 2010 I wrote a blog post entitled User Communities: Not Just for Networking Anymore which highlighted the extent to which customers view peer-to-peer forums as a viable (and sometimes superior) alternative to vendor-provided support. Sure, having customers rely on their peers may result in fewer support calls (and hence lower costs), but the bigger payoff is happy, satisfied customers.

Here's what else was in the IT consumerization news the last few weeks:

January 18: Which data do people really care about keeping private online? by Liz Gannes via All Things D

No huge surprises, but very cool infographic based on recent Forrester research.

January 17: Employees three times more active on social networking apps than previous year press release on new research from Palo Alto Networks

Not only is Twitter use exploding, but there is indication of the widespread use of file sharing sites going undetected on corporate networks.

Top 10 mobile apps in the enterprise by Tony Rizzo via Mobile Enterprise

Very thorough article actually looking at the Top 20 apps - 10 used internally to support employees and 10 used externally with customers; article looks at both top implementations in 2011 and projections for 2012. Note that Business-to-Business apps will be tops in 2012, re-enforcing that enterprises do indeed now view mobility as a key strategic business asset and go to market strategy.

January 16: The service desk can help improve business relationship management by Adam Holtby via Ovum

What does the Help Desk have to do with consumer driven IT? These days, with increasing user demands brought on by IT consumerization, the mantra is "know your customer" and your own service desk personnel are the front line of understanding customer needs.

January 15: Why you business should take social media as seriously as Intel by Ricky Rebeiro via BizTech

Intel was an aggressive and early user of social media, and this post provides a link to a fuller Intel post by Chris Peters and link to a useful article from the Harvard Business Review Blog Network on The true so-what of social media, co-authored by Anthony Bradley and Mark McDonald from Gartner - Mark will be one of the key panelists in the upcoming event Consumer Driven IT: Thriving in the New Normal

January 13: Consumerization of IT changes PR from the inside, out by Janet Tyler via PRSay

Traditional B-B companies and consumer companies both need to change, and PR can help

January 12: SoLoMo: the newest trend you need to pay attention to by Kurt Finch via CIO

What the collision of social media, local search and mobile search will mean to your business and what you need to do.

January 11: Consumerization of IT on full display at CES by David Needle via TabTimes

More and more products are addressing both sides of the consumer and enterprise markets.

January 10^th: IT's Consumerization Challenge by Fred Knight via NoJitter

This highlights social media and networking as a key component of IT Consumerization, with links to some interesting case studies. Also provides information about an upcoming session at Enterprise Connect 2012 (see Sheila McGee Smith's Social Networking's Role Within the Contact Center) on brining social media into contact/call centers for customer support.

In praise of IT Directors: Why expertise still matters by Meghann Wooster via Laserfiche

As Meghann says "Ideas are cheap. Execution is everything. And organizations aren't going to be able to effect truly wide-ranging technological transformation without leadership from the CIO." This continues to re-enforce our view that IT consumerization offers a transformational opportunity for IT.

CES news that IT folks should care about by Colin Steele via Searchconsumerization

Why IT can't afford to ignore the International Consumer Electronics Show anymore.

January 9th: Android arrives: Consumerization of IT gets muddy by Tom Kaneshige via CIO

The iPhone may have started it all, but Android devices are kicking it into high gear. IT managers are applauding the shift, but are their expectations for control misguided?

Also NEW this week from CA Technologies

One of our cloud evangelists, George Hulme has written an interesting post about enterprise app stores - see post on Cloud Commons.
Another interesting post from Mike Sargent (General Manager of the Service Assurance Customer Solutions Unit at CA Technologies) on Service Assurances in a Consumer Driven World.

CA Technologies Corporate Blog: Perspectives : Though Leadership

Unleashing Capital for Innovation

Consumer Driven IT in Review, 8th edition