Emerging solutions

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Cloud computing what have you done for me lately?


Cloud computing is a technology only parallel to the Internet itself. Building on the foundation of the Internet it has changed industries, market competition and the way we work and play every day.

What we need to consider is that cloud computing transforms the way we will use data information to conduct personal and business in the future. Therefore, to gain a good understanding we should clarify:

  • What is Cloud Computing
  • Key Trends and Highlights
  • Benefits and adoption considerations

Cloud computing is defined as a standardized IT capability (services, software, or infrastructure) delivered via Internet technologies in a pay-per-use, self-service way. Cloud computing will impact the $2.5 trillion dollar Internet, Communication and Telecommunications industrymarkets spend that will:

  • Change the way businesses and IT solutions are deployed
  • Transform traditional separate hardware and software providers into service platforms

Some familiar cloud computing provided services include: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Google, Amazon and Salesforce.com, to name a few. While there are many cloud computing trends that are pointed out in the media, I am highlighting four key trends in this post. Research shows that cloud computing will:

  1. Impact the valuation models investors use to appraise organizations and its effect on disrupting vertical industries. Cloud computing enables organizations to reinvent themselves and simultaneously creating new entrants.  (i.e. Apple and how it transformed the music industry onto iPOD and iTunes)
  2. The business impact of social computing has overlapped the professional and personal boundaries. These services allow one access to individuals across and between organizations that will result in an increase in personal productivity and add to economic growth (i.e. Services like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin that allow for collaboration)
  3. Context aware technologies (wireless technologies and intelligent devices such as tablets, notebooks etc.) deliver location-based services that track patterns of behavior that will change the way business is conducted (i.e. Integration of GPS and maps that has created a variety of location-based services).
  4. Pattern based technologies that utilize sophisticated algorithms that seek out patterns from information sources to model their impact and adapt to a scenario based on the need or impact of the emergent pattern.

Organizations cite several benefits by adopting cloud computing the highest noted is speeding up application delivery.  Additional benefits include organization cost savings and a focus on core competencies for IT organizations. However, there are many items to consider before adopting cloud-based technologies. Below I highlight three that may not be as clearly understood and create a bit of industry debate:

  1. Lack of visibility into cloud providers infrastructure creates a need for security, privacy and availability to ensure desired practices are in place to protect the buyer and it’s consumers
  2. Demonstrate regulatory compliance requires access to detail information that may be restricted by providers and not shared or mined for business intelligence
  3. Legal and contractual clarity for liability and ownership of damages due to information and Intellectual property breeches

Good luck on harnessing the exploits of cloud computing and it’s impact on how we work in play in the future. The potential for cloud computing impact on society is as high as the sky.

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B.Y.O.D. deteriorates best practices and increases risks!


Today leaders have dealt with some of the key service values that customers and employees have risen up regarding their perspectives of wireless access.

Leaders, caught in between these two stakeholder groups, vacillate between the customer demand for wireless alternatives to gain access to products and services while employees who want wireless access to gain productivity enhancements. In the latter case, to meet employees’ perceptions, organizations defined a mobile policy that outlined entitlements, device selections and preferred supplier rate plans. This plan is generally managed by small disparate internal teams who cull together in an effort to develop best practices. Many strides were made to mature best practices to control this pattern of business activity by standardizing the variable devices, rates and plan choices.

Employees continue to have a strong desire to determine the selection criteria for mobile devices which has led IT to relinquish a B.Y.O.D. program – Bring Your Own Device.

This program has been quickly hailed as part of IT’s value to embark on the “consumerization” of IT. Basically, employees can bring their personal computing devices, predominately smartphones, to the workplace and have the device connected to the corporate network.

Yet, leaders have not evaluated the many risks associated with B.Y.O.D. programs. To create new best practices leaders must assess their current approaches and mitigate the implications to corporate policy, service delivery capabilities and supplier management.

While corporate leaders face challenges in gaining consensus on a mobile policy and a governance model to ensure strategic alignment, they have inadvertently added more complexities that lead to increased risks. Some observations on risks include clarifying:

    • What mobile ownership option will employees be required to subscribe, personal or corporate liability
    • What types of devices will be authorized and who determines who is entitled to gain access to the B.Y.O.D. program
    • What needs to be done to maintain legal and regulatory compliance for retention related functions such as, legal hold notifications, clinical trial data and other types of corporate information
    • What is the security control when a device is lost or stolen and the wipe feature is used to erase personal information

Service delivery organizations may see B.Y.O.D. as a function of a few team members across several functional groups that can be marshaled quickly to execute a mobile deployment. IT leaders should consider how B.Y.O.D. fits into the service portfolio and address the service management of B.Y.O.D. that include:

    • What is the architecture platform to be designed to align the organization’s policy and the it’s expected business outcomes
    • What applications will be required to be customized to enable mobile CRM, ERP or productivity tools
    • What are the mobile OS criteria to determine between iOS or Android
    • What is the investment required to support the wireless infrastructure
    • What is the organizational structure required to support a mobile service delivery model

Sourcing and procurement management leaders need to determine the implications of the service value and the provisioning requirements to manage B.Y.O.D.

    • What is the supplier capability required to provision a reliable service with a level of assurance to meet the geographic, security, availability and compliance need of the organization.
    • What Service Level Agreements can be used to ensure contract management and performance expectations for the offered service.
    • What are the best practices for expense and audit controls of wireless cost management to drive budget transparency. In many cases, wireless expenses outpace traditional voice and data expenses. This expense is usually part of individual departments T&E budgets. These expenses go unnoticed at the aggregate level and are not evaluated as part of the IT cost index.

Lastly, leaders need to determine if the B.Y.O.D. program is too internally focused on the employee needs and does not support the strategic objectives of the organization. 

Leaders should be careful not to tout B.Y.O.D. as an employee productivity enhancement that may provide intangible benefits that is weighed down by new business risks that invariably lead to increased operating efforts.

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Image Reference : http://www.rainkingonline.com/blog/market-insights/insights-on-byod/
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Telecom Expense Management


Ain’t Life Fun!

On the one hand, the massive mergers of voice and data carriers (traditional telecom providers) and wireless providers over the past five years have been a boon to overstressed IT managers trying to make sense of ever-increasing service offerings from suppliers.

On the other, the demand for more and better, faster and cheaper never lets up so telecom expense managers (usually some poor guy down in IT with too few staff and too many performance expectations) means telecom is becoming ever more pervasive throughout businesses of all sizes.

This is a summary of an article that I contributed to that was printed in CIO Update. Follow the title link to the full article

Regards,

Peter

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Essential Business Technology – Software At Your Service


Essential Business Technology

SaaS could save your business time & hassles. If you’re a business owner, it’s likely you’ve run across the term SaaS (software as a service). As a way to save your business time and money, it’s a name you might want to get acquainted with.

This is a summary of an article that I contributed to that was printed in PC Today. Follow the title link to the full article

Regards,

Peter

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If you are considering Cloud Computing or SaaS read this!


Keep Eyes Wide Open When Considering SaaS

Organizations today rely heavily on their IT software to drive the business objectives to meet the needs of the market. There are a number of sophisticated software applications that have grown in demand and complexity to support an organization’s value chain such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and, conversely, the back office, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). In the traditional model, to meet the needs of the organization the IT department designs software, hosts applications, codified software and manages the operational functions to distribute the internal software packages to customers.

This is a summary of an article that I authored to that was printed in Cloud Computing Journal and reprinted in others. Follow the title link to the full article

Regards,

Peter

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