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The Vision Thing
on August 26, 2010
©
shoothead
If you're getting the idea from all this cloud/outsourcing/agile jibber-jabber that IT as you knew it is screwed, Vinnie Mirchandani helpfully points out six ways this is happening from the other side of the fence... maybe all the same deep, dark reasons you have been harboring through the long sleepless nights lately as you've laid awake pondering your future as a CIO. The interesting thing to me, and perhaps a more common perspective that I should address more in my own writing on these subjects, is how Mirchandani and others allow these facts to take on such a negative, and indeed inescapable, cast. The facts being discussed are undisputed; the conclusions as to their implications are simply conventional wisdom. Ironically, the subject is supposed to be innovation.
We are dangerously dependent in IT on an external supply chain
Sure; just as we are dangerously dependent in electricity on an external supply chain, or transportation infrastructure, or a thousand other things. External supply chains are only dangerous, or I should say unacceptably dangerous, if your organization has the resources to cost-effectively replace them internally. You can't do that with electricity in the modern era, though it once was possible (and may become so again); you are coming to a point where you won't be able to do it with IT, either. It's only a catastrophe if you choose to look at it that way.
The IT buyer-vendor equilibrium is way off kilter
There is a bit more truth to this, but Mirchandani takes as given some things that are well within the buyer's control, and overlooks some things that have become, once again, conventional wisdom, but that make little sense in today's IT environment. The rapid upgrade cycle in IT makes this factor far less static than is implied, and the fact that, if they were able to pull their heads out of the sand, buyers might realize that the cycle itself is entirely within their control and that software does not degrade and hardware, much less services, do so far more gradually than is generally credited.
The bigger IT vendors have not been innovating much
Nor have they ever; although corporate R&D budgets may indeed have shrunk, real innovation in the industry has traditionally come from small upstarts, which may or may not be acquired by the bigger players, and their ranks are swelling as some of the same factors mentioned elsewhere in the post decrease their startup costs.
I have no bones to pick with Mirchandani's last two points, that IT is not often strategic and that CIOs are more focused on compliance than innovation, but on the other hand, those may not be conventional wisdom. Certainly CIOs would prefer not to think so. And that may be why those things don't sound good to you right now. Conventional wisdom is comforting.
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CIO
on August 25, 2010
©
FriaLOve
It's sunrise, your first day as a new CIO. What's your plan?
If all else fails, turn to Geek and Poke: Be Visionary and Decisive.
I don't think anyone would argue with visionary and decisive as critical CIO skills to exhibit on the first day anymore. The days of being conservative and cautious are probably well out the window. Delegation may, however, be a little over-valued right now. Sending subordinates off with a thumbnail sketch of your vision, and you're probably going to get back something of their vision, which undoubtedly looks a lot like the status quo. Change is threatening; when you ask people to change themselves and their environment, you may get something with a new acronym, but probably nothing substantially different.
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Market Perturbations
on August 11, 2010
I guess it depends on what you were expecting, though, doesn't it? I wasn't expecting all that much, as I've been watching my portfolio yo-yo and seen the market, a market comprised largely of the captains of industry, react fearfully to almost every bit of economic data coming down the pipe. Gartner wasn't expecting all that much, either, a 4.1 percent increase, but they have now downgraded that to 2.9 percent instead. I suppose one of the benefits of having low expectations is that even when they get lower, there really isn't room for them to get a lot lower.
It's hard not to be glum, but it also means there is a continuing opportunity in IT organizations, now that they find they aren't going to be showered with money during a full-blown recovery that isn't going to happen immediately, to seek and find a legitimate new normal. Hard as it may seem to credit, many organizations have been scrimping and saving, chopping headcount, making things run on a shoestring, for the past two years instead of genuinely looking at radical opportunities to restructure and permanently reduce headcounts and costs. Indeed, I have been predicting, entirely inaccurately as it happens, that this would happen prior to the recovery, that as a recovery, it wouldn't look like previous IT industry bounces because organizations wouldn't need to hire and spend as they had in the past to realize normal operations and new efficiencies.
They're getting to that point, but it's been slower than I would have thought. On the other hand, the recovery is pretty slow, too. So maybe we'll get there yet.
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Enterprise Software
on August 4, 2010
Even as proprietary software gears up for the fight of its life against cloud-based and free, open-source alternatives, is one of the big remaining advantages it holds in the battle evaporating in the face of recessionary pressures?
TechFlash is reporting that among the hardest hit personnel areas in last years layoffs were in product support and consulting services... the two arms of the company that have the most interaction with customers in need of assistance. This comes even as the company's support policies were being tightened in recent years, slimming down from free phone support and moving more toward online self-help and paid phone support services.
It's too soon to say what effect the layoffs have had in long-term customer care, and it's also worth noting that even as support services have become a smaller and smaller area of focus for major software manufacturers, part of the reason is simply that they have become better at turning out software that generates fewer support cases. Say what you will about Windows 7, it's simply more reliable and easier to use than its predecessors... meaning that perhaps support cuts are due regardless of financial state.
Nonetheless, it's harder and harder for big software makers to claim that their leverage over FOSS alternatives is their degree of support when they continue to trim their own support offerings.
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CIO
on July 29, 2010
©
hyku
If you were looking for some ammo to get your budget increased for the coming fiscal year, Forrester has got your back with arguments why CEOs should stop limiting their IT budget allocations.
The gist of the argument is that putting CIOs under budget pressure forces them to spend on maintaining current operations rather than helping to grow the business. This isn't a particularly universal argument; there are a lot of shops where IT really doesn't have any clear or positive ROI avenues to contribute to business growth. The idea that new initiatives can contribute to efficiency and stability, though, can be easily substituted.
But the real problem with the Forrester argument is that they are probably advancing ideas that CEOs are already familiar with, and have rejected. More than once I have come across CEOs that squeeze IT budgets explicitly to prevent growth... growth in IT, at least. That is, after all, what they most frequently get for their invested IT dollars... new systems, more ongoing maintenance costs. There is no faster way to exist the CEO's office than to come to him presenting as a positive something he has already mentally adjusted to as a negative.
A better way to go about it might be to get ahead of those assumptions before you go in. Look for budget increases, certainly; but promise reduced headcount or other efficiencies before doing it. Provide reassurance you're not digging into another morass that will require increased budget for years to come. Make the value the sale.
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