ES Strategie

ES Strategie beratene Herausforderungen

28. September 2009 vorbei Raj Sheelvant

David Clark ist ein ehemaliger geschäftsführender geschäftsführenderer Gesellschafter für Gartner das BRITISCHE Beraten.  Vor dem ist er in den leitenden Positionen an einigen der anderen Beratungsunternehmen „der Reihe eine“ und des Paares des erfreulichen Pensums als ein CIO Positionen in der Industrie gewesen. Seine Karriereüberspannungen ungefähr 25 Jahre, währenddessen er herum fünfzehn geliefert hat, oder also hatte ES Strategien und vier „getan zu ihm“.  Es ist immer eine gute Idee, von jemand in den Gräben über Herausforderungen von IHM Strategie zu hören beraten anstatt Messwertwirtschaftsschule-Fallstudien.  Mein kurzes Schwätzchen mit David validiert dem.  Ich erlernte viel von meinen Gesprächen mit David und hoffe, daß Sie auch!

Raj: Jedes allgemeine Thema fanden Sie in Ihrem ES Strategie Beraten?

Dave: Was ich wieder gefunden immer wieder und bin habe, wieviel eine Strategie und ES Funktion alle zu häufig die Beschaffenheit des CIO widerspiegelt und beim Bewegen in Implementierung sie herauf das Kosten von Weise beenden kann mehr als, benötigt sie, wenn das CIO Ehrgeiz über ihren Taschen hinaus hat.  Jedes Beratungsunternehmen, unabhängig davon was irgendeine von ihnen Sagen Strategie in einer ziemlich ähnlichen Weise - und in die meisten ihnen sich nähert, kann zu einem ziemlich offensichtlichen und vernünftigen Resultat kommen.  Einige können es in einigen Wochen tun und einige spinnen es heraus für Ewigkeit.  Mein Punkt über die Beschaffenheit des CIOS ist, daß ich über den Jahren daß meistens die Strategie schließlich Torsionen und die Umdrehung in etwas beachtet habe, dem sie dann rationalisieren, um ihre eigenen ursprünglichen Gedanken zu passen.  Es sei denn selbstverständlich es Accenture ist, das ihn dann er liefert oder sie seien Sie vermutlich glücklich, das CIO zu bleiben.

Raj: So berechnen Sie das das Ego des CIOS handhabend sind auch Teil eines beratenen Jobs?

Dave: Ohne Frage obgleich ich nicht sicher bin, handhabt es sie oder erkennt sie einfach!  Ich denke die Sache, die ich gefunden habe, mehr, als noch etwas über den letzten fünfundzwanzig Jahren, ist, daß alles unten kocht, um Völker.  Sie konnte auf Oberflächenaussehen wie einer Technologieausgabe oder möglicherweise einem Prozeßproblem, aber ernsthaft - wenn Sie unten graben - 9mal aus 10 heraus ist es ein Leuteproblem.  Es kocht unten zu einer Mischung des Egos, Fähigkeit, Beschaffenheit, Fähigkeiten, Verhalten, die sich dann in aller Art von Weisen verkünden.  Ich kann lyrical auf diesem Stunden lang einwachsen - also versuche ich und stoppe mich. Es ist auch, was wirklich das interessierende Geschäft bildet, also ich nicht mich beschweren sollte!

Raj: What did you find out about CEOs and CMOs involvement during your IT Strategy Consultancy?  Are they interested in defining IT Strategy or do they delegate it to CIO?

Dave: Hmmm. I think this is a really interesting question about the other members of the exec. I think that the challenge around aligning the business, and I have to say I hate the term aligning with the business – how often do you hear that Sales is aligning with the business or HR is aligning with the business, sorry off on a tangent there, as I was saying all too often the business itself lacks a true strategy – I’ve often encountered companies who say they have a business strategy and don’t and then IT have to try and align to something that’s ill defined and often bland.  I’ll give you an example – we reviewed an IT strategy for a large commercial company – the business strategy was sell more services to more customer in more sectors, which in itself was hardly incisive and their IT Strategy: be more efficient, modularize and optimize.  Yea – sure – they don’t need IT Strategy Consultants to tell them that although they had actually had one of the tiers one firms in for quite a good few weeks before we got involved. Perhaps one day there will be a single integrated strategy for the business with IT as a thread within it – some companies are now doing this so hopefully it’ll catch on.

Raj: So the other ‘C’ level executives know what IT can do for their business strategy?

Dave: They think they know, or rather they have some ideas, which today is perfectly reasonable, as so many business have graying boards -  i.e. the CEO knows IT is important but he’s 55 years old and in many ways only “gets” a bit of what IT should mean to his company.  The COO often views IT as the function to blame when any operational issue occurs, or they can’t deliver in time.  The CFO will as ever be asking about costs and where savings can be made, etc etc… this scenario plays out time and in again in so many companies.  So the CIO has to mash all of this together and then deliver something interesting, engaging and compelling usually for less money that it really needs and in less time than he would ideally like.

Raj: So, what should CIO do to get the board interested in IT Strategy?

Dave: I think the CIO has to really create a highly visual and compelling story to try and engage his/her board – I’m a big fan of the story teller CIO – so for example in the case I mentioned earlier – we attempted to condense the IT Strategy into a compelling idea and then build the story around this – but in all honesty Raj this is really to try and get the attention of people who I personally think should pay attention in any case!  Over the next few years I think it will start to change as a generation hits the board room who have been raised on smart IT.  I find it difficult to imagine any of my children for instance needing to have the benefits of collaboration explained to them, or accepting it will takes eight months to introduce a new application….!?  As an aside collaboration and corporate are in many cases mutually exclusive, they weren’t built to collaborate – but that’s probably a topic for another day.

Raj: Moving on to a different topic… What do you think of SaaS and Cloud computing?

Dave: I’ve got very strong views on this so here goes…whilst the various consulting firms and technology vendors argue about definitions, security, total cost of ownership, transferability, cost per server, cloud, SaaS, PaaS, on-premise, off-premise what they seem to miss is whether they like it or not small and medium size companies are happily buying services over the internet.  For them it’s all down to cash flow, flexibility and scalability and these small and medium sized companies are just as important, if not more so to the economy than the industrial giants.

I often think therefore that the debates themselves tend to re-enforce the IT geek model.  However I do accept that for larger companies SaaS and cloud has quite a few more implications, but really it’s just another delivery model that the CIO can factor into his strategy and thinking. So, I’m not sure if you agree, but I think we are sitting at a really interesting point in IT – a sort of tectonic plate shifting time – eventually the whole SaaS/Cloud stuff will make a difference across the industry, regardless of all the debate and I personally think it’s going to cause some interesting shifts in the traditional Consulting/SI firms – which is good for the customer as well.  At least I hope so as I took the plunge of leaving Gartner to start a new consulting/SI type firm which is really founded on this new generation services that are starting to appear.  Sort of put your money where your mouth is approach!

Raj: So what’s your vision for your new consulting company?

Dave: Oh no the dreaded elevator pitch – here goes then…a business and technology firm formed from collaboration with many active members across the globe linked by great systems and sharing capabilities, knowledge and profits in an equitable and ethical manner.  I just don’t believe that it makes sense anymore to have 10,000 people on your books, in a hierarchical model, driving you to make decisions that are so often sub optimal for the client – and I know this is the case because in my time I’ve seen it happen – lots.  I described our company recently to a customer as “An efficient 21st century workers co-operative!”

Raj: All the best with your new endeavor.  Keep us posted.

Dave: Thanks Raj, likewise with the blog -it’s good fun and it makes me smile and think a bit – which is what it’s all about really.

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