CTO Blog
In the last few weeks on my usual rounds of meeting clients I have been expecting that the topic of the credit crunch would be a major item in each discussion. Amazingly not so, other then for some personal chat about the world going mad. Why? Because they feel they can do very little to reduce their own costs further regardless of what the business may demand, AND, they don’t feel that the enterprise they work for has much cost cutting it can do either, other than straight forward shutting down of capacity.
In the words of one CIO; ‘we feel that we are going to have to trade our way out of this’. My question in return was; ‘What does that translate to in the form of actions?’. The reply involved a number of specific areas, but generically could be describing as ‘do things faster’, and the role of the CIO was either to be seen as the chief enabler of supporting rapid change, or to be seen as the person/department that was holding everyone else back. This particular point finished with the observation that if he could not be the enabler then they would ‘find some one else to be CIO’.
This point, and one other, the speed with which the use of web based tools is occurring at the edge of the business in an unsanctioned manner were the two most common themes. I will come back to what I call ‘safely enabling the edge’ another day, and this time I want to focus on the increasing interest (some would say again) in development tools and methods to solve the first point; quicker faster development of small high impact projects.
It’s at this stage you expect that I will raise Agile Development as the answer, and well it may be for a new generation of requirements, but no, the more immediate challenge is around existing systems. The maintenance of these is an ongoing problem over the years, and that is my point, have you looked at the updated development tools all the major vendors have been pushing out over the last year? Mostly the case for updating is not on the front of the list, but as a productivity enhancer towards both cost cutting and supporting the Business this may be the time to take a look at this issue. However adding or changing development tools is not something to undertake lightly, but you might be surprised to see how much good – unbiased – advice is around to help.
I was first struck by this point following a review of what was on offer at SAP TechEd but in the case of SAP there is also a focus on process design which will be an important part of all the changes coming up for sure at their developer’s site. SAP are really trying hard to bring everyone together using the best of the web 2.0 for communities approach and there is much on offer beyond the old world of web 1.0 lists of the tools and their listed features. Actually I also like the very candid information available at a private site called SimplySAP which is rather chaotic, but contains some interesting discussions and feedback as well as even some objects and code for shared downloads.
Microsoft during their Professional Developers conference made all the announcements, but once again it’s their developer’s network – whose site is a model of clarity for navigation incidentally – that will provide some real help even including blogs from the leading Microsofties working on development tools.
Oracle also has a private site devoted to shared experiences called the Oracle Development Tools Users Group for the interactive candid views on what to do in addition to their own more formally structured site. I am not going to work through a whole list of the industry, but just visiting these sites should show you the two points that I would like to make. First there are a lot if serious improvements to tools to help speed up development; second the past difficulties in assessment and the learning curve in how to really gain the benefit are less of a barrier today.
Funny really when you think about it; Web 2.0 and social communities are helping us to cope with the older generation of technology!
About the author
Capgemini Global Chief Technology Officer, Andy is a member of the Capgemini Group management board and advises on all aspects of technology-driven market changes, together with being a member of the Policy Board for the British Computer Society. Andy is the author of many white papers, and the co-author three books that have charted the current changes in technology and its use by business starting in 2006 with ‘Mashup Corporations’ detailing how enterprises could make use of Web 2.0 to develop new go to market propositions. This was followed in May 2008 by Mesh Collaboration focussing on the impact of Web 2.0 on the enterprise front office and its working techniques, then in 2010 “Enterprise Cloud Computing: A Strategy Guide for Business and Technology leaders” co-authored with well-known academic Peter Fingar and one of the leading authorities on business process, John Pyke. The book describes the wider business implications of Cloud Computing with the promise of on-demand business innovation. It looks at how businesses trade differently on the web using mash-ups but also the challenges in managing more frequent change through social tools, and what happens when cloud comes into play in fully fledged operations. Andy was voted one of the top 25 most influential CTOs in the world in 2009 by InfoWorld and is grateful to readers of Computing Weekly who voted the Capgemini CTOblog the best Blog for Business Managers and CIOs each year for the last three years.
It’s ironic then, that many web2.0/social community sites are blocked by the “net nanny” software used by most corporations, including the one we both work for. Perhaps “Web 2.0 and social communities are helping us to cope with the older generation of technology” – but they are causing a real headache for older generation of technology governance.
On the note about Agile Development above: From a business perspective Agile is like open source. i.e No direct link to Revenue or cost savings. While there certainly is a link but the quantification of it varies on each situation and instance and hence I think it is considered experimental or falls under the category of “best practice”
link here:
http://www.gandalf-lab.com/blog/2008/10/let-real-test-of-open-source-business.html
IMHO: The recession will realize the vision of
1. Cloud Computing and
2. Collaboration (Enterprise 2.0 , telepresence) – productivity as a result of technology.
as there is a direct , measurable link between cost savings and us of these technologies.
It is sad , but it does take a recession for people to really change the way they make their decisions. Remember the way offshoring boomed after the last recession.
This time it is going to be Capital Investments that will get hit and cloud computing takes it out as a expense.
It is highly ironic as you say that the very tools and even the access to the advice is outside the firewall and therefore inaccessible. BUT I believe by drawing attention to the mainstream vendors and their use of the Web this is one clear way to propose that there should be a relaxation of the policy as there is a clear – and understandable by even non technical managers – gain that needs to be achieved.
The recession driving change through necessity is what in the early nineties led to the adoption of the PC which before that was once again a user adopted device against the wishes of the computing services manager of the day! The need to work smarter and better had to be faced up to, and sadly it seems that will once again be the driving force.