Comments on: Lean and the CIO #BTF09 http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/ BPM, Enterprise 2.0 and technology trends in business. Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:15:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Scott Francis http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/comment-page-1/#comment-13001 Scott Francis Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:42:19 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/#comment-13001 sandy - i agree w.r.t. gmail vs. exchange - that wasn't the comparison i was making, however, because it is about the easiest thing to outsource of all the IT tech there is. sandy – i agree w.r.t. gmail vs. exchange – that wasn’t the comparison i was making, however, because it is about the easiest thing to outsource of all the IT tech there is.

]]> By: Sandy Kemsley http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/comment-page-1/#comment-12990 Sandy Kemsley Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:27:44 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/#comment-12990 I was thinking of cloud services in some cases, which is where I believe that commoditized outsourced software applications should be, but I agree that there are other types of outsourcing that aren't (just) cloud software. In many cases, they are going to need to make themselves more standardized and cloud-like, if not actually cloud-based, in order to compete in that space. Corporate IT outages are common, and in many cases just the day-to-day life for users. I've worked with large enterprise clients where they gave me an internal email account, and there were several notices *per week* about planned outages, usually around MS-Exchange. I'll take Google Apps' once-per-year outage over that. I was thinking of cloud services in some cases, which is where I believe that commoditized outsourced software applications should be, but I agree that there are other types of outsourcing that aren’t (just) cloud software. In many cases, they are going to need to make themselves more standardized and cloud-like, if not actually cloud-based, in order to compete in that space.

Corporate IT outages are common, and in many cases just the day-to-day life for users. I’ve worked with large enterprise clients where they gave me an internal email account, and there were several notices *per week* about planned outages, usually around MS-Exchange. I’ll take Google Apps’ once-per-year outage over that.

]]> By: Scott Francis http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/comment-page-1/#comment-12989 Scott Francis Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:13:31 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/#comment-12989 when you say "outsourced" you seem to only include "cloud" services - but there are LOTS of outsourced services that are performed by people, rather than clouds... And that is where I think a lot of the pain is - nonstandard software maintenance that is outsourced, IT support outsourced, etc. These are not services that Google provides, nor Amazon, nor Salesforce. And that type of outsourcing has really hurt a lot of companies, I think. (And, in the longer run, probably helped the cloud-based vendors by showing the value of going with more standard infrastructure, while simultaneously stripping companies of the necessary internal competencies to build big scalable architectures/solutions). Often things are mistaken for commodities that just aren't... (email actually is a commodity, I think :) re: pretending outages didn't happen. outsourced solutions pull this trick too - you notice your hosted site is down and file a ticket, and the vendor sends you a "resolved" ticket that your site was never, in fact, down. you recheck, and lo and behold the site is back up. Was it ever down? hard to prove unless you have the budget for external monitoring and third-party monitoring to prove your case. Not accusing Google of doing this, mind you, but it seems to be common practice in the hosting world. Some of it is human nature to CYA. when you say “outsourced” you seem to only include “cloud” services – but there are LOTS of outsourced services that are performed by people, rather than clouds… And that is where I think a lot of the pain is – nonstandard software maintenance that is outsourced, IT support outsourced, etc. These are not services that Google provides, nor Amazon, nor Salesforce. And that type of outsourcing has really hurt a lot of companies, I think. (And, in the longer run, probably helped the cloud-based vendors by showing the value of going with more standard infrastructure, while simultaneously stripping companies of the necessary internal competencies to build big scalable architectures/solutions). Often things are mistaken for commodities that just aren’t… (email actually is a commodity, I think :)

re: pretending outages didn’t happen. outsourced solutions pull this trick too – you notice your hosted site is down and file a ticket, and the vendor sends you a “resolved” ticket that your site was never, in fact, down. you recheck, and lo and behold the site is back up. Was it ever down? hard to prove unless you have the budget for external monitoring and third-party monitoring to prove your case. Not accusing Google of doing this, mind you, but it seems to be common practice in the hosting world. Some of it is human nature to CYA.

]]> By: Sandy Kemsley http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/comment-page-1/#comment-12969 Sandy Kemsley Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:35:21 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/#comment-12969 Outsourced solutions get a lot of bad press when they have outages, but that ignores the fact that internal IT solutions also have outages, they're just not publicized to everyone in the world. During Gmail's recent outage (which wasn't really an outage, just a failure of the web interface; if you use a POP or IMAP client like I do, you would not have noticed that they were down), no one pointed out that companies often have their own server failures that might cause email or other system outages -- it's as if corporate IT is pretending that internal outages just don't occur, which is nonsense. Outsourced solutions get a lot of bad press when they have outages, but that ignores the fact that internal IT solutions also have outages, they’re just not publicized to everyone in the world. During Gmail’s recent outage (which wasn’t really an outage, just a failure of the web interface; if you use a POP or IMAP client like I do, you would not have noticed that they were down), no one pointed out that companies often have their own server failures that might cause email or other system outages — it’s as if corporate IT is pretending that internal outages just don’t occur, which is nonsense.

]]> By: Scott Francis http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/comment-page-1/#comment-12947 Scott Francis Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:26:29 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/#comment-12947 The question is which part is a commodity, and which part isn't. Those that have pushed the envelope have often been burned, sometimes reaped short term rewards (e.g. Dell), and in the longterm often pay the price (e.g. Dell). Even outsourcing commodities, talk to your customers and you'll hear them seriously complaining about turnaround for "real resolution" of performance issues, bugs, IT setup, server allocation, etc. And this is generally a comparison against their own internal staff that was shown the exits months or years earlier. They rarely say "wow, everything is so much faster/easier/better now..."... but that is how it was supposed to be in theory. I know there are exceptions to this, and the smaller your company, the more likely you need to rely on outside help for IT - for example outsourcing email to Google or some other hosting provider - outsourcing hosting to someone, etc. And these days it may be a critical part of your business plan to not have the capital outlays for hardware stack, etc - to go "in the cloud". But I still see lots of challenges in outsourcing stuff you *already* have people on staff to do (empirical data, not statistically significant, i'll warrant) The question is which part is a commodity, and which part isn’t. Those that have pushed the envelope have often been burned, sometimes reaped short term rewards (e.g. Dell), and in the longterm often pay the price (e.g. Dell).

Even outsourcing commodities, talk to your customers and you’ll hear them seriously complaining about turnaround for “real resolution” of performance issues, bugs, IT setup, server allocation, etc. And this is generally a comparison against their own internal staff that was shown the exits months or years earlier. They rarely say “wow, everything is so much faster/easier/better now…”… but that is how it was supposed to be in theory.

I know there are exceptions to this, and the smaller your company, the more likely you need to rely on outside help for IT – for example outsourcing email to Google or some other hosting provider – outsourcing hosting to someone, etc. And these days it may be a critical part of your business plan to not have the capital outlays for hardware stack, etc – to go “in the cloud”. But I still see lots of challenges in outsourcing stuff you *already* have people on staff to do (empirical data, not statistically significant, i’ll warrant)

]]> By: Sandy Kemsley http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/comment-page-1/#comment-12922 Sandy Kemsley Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:41:21 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/#comment-12922 There are parts of IT that are completely commoditized services, and can be outsourced without strategic impact: maintaining physical servers, for example, or email. For the parts of the technology that have a direct impact on the business' competitive differentiation, and hence are likely to be highly customized for that business environment, I agree that you really need to have IT that understands the business, and therefore more likely to be in-house. There are parts of IT that are completely commoditized services, and can be outsourced without strategic impact: maintaining physical servers, for example, or email. For the parts of the technology that have a direct impact on the business’ competitive differentiation, and hence are likely to be highly customized for that business environment, I agree that you really need to have IT that understands the business, and therefore more likely to be in-house.

]]> By: Scott Francis http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/comment-page-1/#comment-12807 Scott Francis Sat, 10 Oct 2009 06:52:47 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2009/10/lean-and-the-cio-btf09/#comment-12807 Just btw... this statement got my attention: "Questions from the audience included how to transition the current technology-focused IT teams to have more of a business focus: Hughes’s response is that some of them will never change, and won’t make the cut; others can benefit by being seconded to the business for a while." - if you offshore your IT department, or completely outsource it, you can't possibly have an IT team that is focused on the business. They'll be focused on managing huge outsourcing vendors that are holding the keys to the kingdom. Moreover, by offshoring/outsourcing, you've let your most valuable assets - your knowledge workers - leave the building - an investment of decades in organizational learning and knowledge of your business. Aflac's former CIO had a great interview on this subject in CIO magazine a few years back. IT departments at many organizations used to be more business focused - until they got boxed up and shipped outside the company. I think we're just now starting to see that companies that kept their expertise in-house are better positioned to compete in the long-run. IT was looked at as just a commoditized cost to the business (a problem both of IT's and Business' making) and not as a strategic asset. Just btw… this statement got my attention: “Questions from the audience included how to transition the current technology-focused IT teams to have more of a business focus: Hughes’s response is that some of them will never change, and won’t make the cut; others can benefit by being seconded to the business for a while.” – if you offshore your IT department, or completely outsource it, you can’t possibly have an IT team that is focused on the business. They’ll be focused on managing huge outsourcing vendors that are holding the keys to the kingdom.

Moreover, by offshoring/outsourcing, you’ve let your most valuable assets – your knowledge workers – leave the building – an investment of decades in organizational learning and knowledge of your business. Aflac’s former CIO had a great interview on this subject in CIO magazine a few years back. IT departments at many organizations used to be more business focused – until they got boxed up and shipped outside the company. I think we’re just now starting to see that companies that kept their expertise in-house are better positioned to compete in the long-run. IT was looked at as just a commoditized cost to the business (a problem both of IT’s and Business’ making) and not as a strategic asset.

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