I spend a lot of time with customers, partners and prospects. Many of them represent the senior ranks of sizable IT organizations.
In turn, a lot internal EMC people (and our partners) sometimes turn to me to help them better understand -- what do senior IT leaders really want?
My answer is simple: they want to make a difference.
It's Fundamental
Most of us are the same when we get a Really Big Role. We take a look around, and ask ourselves -- how can we make a big difference here? And IT leaders -- at any level -- aren't that different.
Most IT leaders are faced with the same situation. IT is generally perceived as a cost center: expensive, complex, perhaps unresponsive, usually not in step with modern times. For example, you might ask yourself -- do your knowledge workers get a better IT experience at work, or at home?
So, as an IT leader, you start to ask yourself -- how do I re-engineer the organization to fundamentally change those perceptions?
Or, put differently, how do I change IT from being viewed as a cost center to being viewed as a value generator for the organization?
Getting The Infrastructure Right
The first wave of industry cloud-washing was primarly focused around cost reduction -- capex and opex. My answer to that is (a) yes, those cost savings are there, and (b) that's not your end goal, is it?
Imagine two senior business leaders sitting at the Big Table, reviewing what they've done for the business last year. The first one says "I gave $2 million back to the business". The second one says "I helped generate $20m in strategic new growth areas".
Decide for yourself which one gets the most brownie points.
The real value of private cloud (or whatever next-gen infrastructure tech+processes you'd like to call it) is in business agility -- IT infrastructure isn't the gating factor in new business initiatives.
Just about all of the new business initiatives I hear about from our customers involve some aspect of IT, hence some aspect of IT infrastructure. Agile infrastructure quickly becomes a business enabler, hence a value generator.
Getting Application Development Right
A significant amount of new business value comes from application development: new processes, new analytics, new collaborative workflows, new knowledge worker experiences.
Custom application development can be an extremely expensive undertaking. But many organizations have made the case that -- yes -- it's worth the investment.
To this day, I don't fully understand why application development teams frequently get short shrift from the core infrastructure IT teams. To me, it's painfully obvious. Someone made a huge business case that Application X could deliver Business Value Y. The game should now be -- how fast can we get to that Business Value we promised everyone?
Getting infrastructure right (e.g. private cloud) helps to accelerate that business value.
Getting The App Platform(s) Right
App tools, dev environment and associated methodologies matter as well. In the EMC world (including EMC IT), the logical answer is the Spring environment. Modern app deve tools that are surprisingly infrastructure, database, middleware and cloud agnostic.
Too many organizations appear to allow individual development teams to select their own tools, dev environment, methodology, runtime environment, etc. I'm not arguing for maniacal standardization, just a little less rampant diversity.
Each of the core application types will require supporting capability platforms that enable it.
Transactional applications are heading towards newer in-memory approaches, some of which can be found in the SpringSource stack. Analytical applications are heading towards a self-service, on-demand model, best exemplified in EMC's world by Greenplum. And collaborative workflows (usually based around content) are best exemplified by the xCP world within EMC.
Other good choices are out there, but it's clear that EMC is starting to make investments in areas beyond virtualized infrastructure and storage.
Getting The User Experience Right
To be honest, I now wince a bit when I hear IT people talk about "desktop virtualization" in a traditional sense. Sure, in many cases, there's a strong case to move from physical to logical presentation of desktop experiences for all the usual reasons: cost, productivity, security and GRC, etc.
But so many of the organizations I talk to have a special user population that really matters: knowledge workers, usually mobile. These are the highly-paid knowledge and information specialists that generate a disproportionate amount of value in many organizations.
These people usually aren't looking solely for a re-implementation of the familiar Windows experience on a different sort of device. They're now lusting over iPad-style applets that work the way they do -- one topic at a time vs. massive portals with hundreds of functions.
Indeed, as we look back, we'll probably point to the iPad as the device that fundamentally changed the way we think about user experiences for this new generation of mobile knowledge professionals.
Getting The Accountability Right
IT organizations are accountable for, well, being accountable. Delivering predictable service levels. Keeping costs under control, and providing transparency as to who's using what resources. Keeping important information secure, and meeting GRC requirements.
The opportunity here is to associate all of this with getting the infrastructure right -- moving responsibility away from applications and away from traditional silo disciplines, and baking it right into the next-gen infrastructure and processes.
Getting The Relationships Right
In one sense, organizations are nothing more than collections of people focused on a common set of priorities and goals. Relationships (and the resulting alignment) really, really matter -- at every level of the organization.
Building relationships is difficult to do in the midst of a formal program review, or a crisis management meeting.
It's far easier to do when you invest the time to seek key people out and just ask them -- what's going on in your world, and how can I help? Immediate answers to the second part of the question might not be immediately obvious, but the message is clear -- you're engaged, and you're trying to help.
Getting The People Right
Organizational transformation boils down to people: the right people with the right roles, skills and mental attitude. Indeed, leaders in every discipline (including IT) tell me consistently that this -- above all else -- is not only the most important aspect of making a difference, but inevitably the most difficult.
To my way of thinking, it's always best to start with the most difficult aspect of a problem -- because (a) it usually takes the longest, and (b) it usually makes the largest impact.
Success Is Achievable
Fortunately, I do get to meet IT organizations that used to be seen as cost centers, and now are widely perceived as value generators by the organizations they serve. Their journeys were not easy nor formulaic. They involved multiple leaders, working together as a team over a long time to achieve a significant and meaningful outcome.
They will privately admit that -- yes -- they made a difference.
I'm just hoping more IT organizations can get there sooner than later.
Comments