Thursday, October 25, 2007

Change in CIO

Today, our CIO has addressed a townhall meeting...

Some of the key take aways are:

1. CIOs have started to realize the potential of Enterprise Architecture and Service Oriented Architecture.
2. CIOs understand that it should be from their sponsorships EA and SOA initiatives have to be funded.
3. Change Management is the key for strategic initiatives. Why dont we use HR practices of organizational change management while introducing Technological change or EA change?. Very interesting perspective. I am going to hunt for HR management practices that talk about change management.
4. In a company where metrix management is heavy, there are multiple bosses, organizational re-alignment is the order of the year, the leaders come and go, How would an investment such as SAP implementation cope up with that?. Very Good question.
5. The answer is SAP implementation is rigorous and anything and everything that gets implemented should be meticulously planned.
6. Run IT like a business - Not necessarily towards making profits...But atleast it should start by getting recognition from business for the value that is delivered by IT. That by itself, is an achievement.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Competetive Differentiation

Of late, I have become more curious and interested in learning the developments happening in DW/BI analytics area.

When the products are really becoming commodities, services are outsourced, what would be the true differentiation for a company?

A tough question, right?...

As I learn, the only remaining space for making competitive differentiation is the innovation in business processes that sorrounding the products and services. So, How do we innovate?. We innovate on what we understand very well. We innovate on the landscape that is closer to us and when we are able to spot the opportunities in the existing business processes.

So, thats where the analytics comes on, the company that collects information on every business function, gathers insights and identifies potential opportunities for optimization/differentiation, is going to be the winner in long term.

I see this is one of the few areas where Business-IT alignment is the Key and the involvement of Business is critical to the success of BI programs

Next-Gen Technology for the Poor

If you have read CK. Prahalad's book on 'Bottom of Pyramid', you can guess what am I talking about...

Today, I read another article in Times of India that states that most of the BoP initiatives that are started by corporates are aimed at exploiting the poor than benefiting them. So, the need for BoP 2.0 arrives. In BoP 2.0, it is not just required to understand the underserved, but to truly partner with them to provide solutions that would serve them.

As we all know, the traditional markets are over-served and they carry the "legacy" baggage. So, it is diffult to introduce any new technology or product into their markets, as it would call for a 'change'. I know, how difficult it would be to introduce a 'technology change' in the enterprises.

But, the BoP market is just opposite to the capitalist market. They dont carry any legacy technology platforms that need to be dealt with. Groundbreaking/Breakthrough innovations can happen without much interruptions in that BoP markets only. So, Keep watching for the arrival of next generation of technology from the BoP markets.