Reinventing IT in the Digital Enterprise

PWC has launched a New IT Platform which has 5 key components:

• IT Mandate
• Process
• Architecture
• Organization
• Governance

When it comes to the New IT Platform Architecture, PWC calls for an Integration Fabric. It’s a term I hear more and more from forward-thinking enterprise IT leaders who are looking for increased agility and the ability to rapidly connect data, applications and APIs.

This video features Mike Pearl, Principal from PwC’s Silicon Valley Practice, providing a good summary of the changing role of the CIO in today’s marketplace.

Netflix CIO: 8 Ways for IT to Fix Its Reputation

Check out this great CXO talk featuring Netflix CIO Mike Kail. As summarized by Vala Afshar on the HuffPost Tech Blog, Mike outlines eight ways Information Technology organizations can fix their reputation. I find #7 to be the most disruptive, yet perhaps the most obvious in the best-of-breed SaaS-centric world of Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud (SMAC).

1. Focus on cloud wherever possible
2. Hire talented people that think differently
3. IT’s charter is to improve business efficiency
4. Support “UAD” (Use Any Device)
5. Try to remove friction wherever possible
6. Communicate deep context for change
7. Embrace “shadow IT”
8. Partner with line-of-business

I’m curious how many other CIOs out there have embraced “shadow IT“ and what the implications are for the traditional command and control enterprise IT model.

I’ve embedded the video below. Thanks for another great CXO interview @ValaAfshar and @mkrigsman. Great guiding principles and advice for other IT leaders @mdkail.

Gaurav Dhillon: Integration at Cloud Speed

In this video, SnapLogic CEO (and co-founder of Informatica) Gaurav Dhillon talks about the mission of his company and what’s changed in the data integration market.

Related articles

• SnapLogic Ramps Up with Support for Tableau Software’s Online Launch (hispanicbusiness.com)
• How will we integrate all these enterprise cloud apps? (pandodaily.com)
• The top 10 ‘arms merchants’ of the cloud (venturebeat.com)

Cloud Integration in the Third Platform Era

I moderated a webinar last week that featured featured Robert Mahowald, IDC Research VP, Worldwide SaaS and Cloud Services Research, and Doug Menefee, CIO at Schumacher Group.  Actually moderated is not really the right word, as these are two cloud gurus who had a lot of great insights to share. I provided a brief introduction to Informatica Cloud at the end of the discussion. A few key points from the discussion that I thought were worth sharing:

• IDC defines a new “Third Platform” for IT industry growth that is emerging, with public cloud as its foundation
• External cloud services represent a transfer of responsibility (SLA), a transfer in location (outsourcing), and a shift in risk from business, to provider
• 74% of companies using cloud expect to increase cloud spend in 2012 by > 20%
• Even with SaaS spending growing by 105% between 2011-2015, >80% of Global 2000 will still have >50% of IT onsite in 2020
• Integration becomes critical to 80%+ of buyer organizations, according to IDC survey research

The Schumacher Group case study is a great example of early cloud adoption that has resulted in long-term business agility and success. I’ve embedded the entire presentation below. Enjoy!

Related articles

• Five Ways Your Cloud Go-to-Market Better Be Above Average (cloudcomputing.sys-con.com)
• 5 SaaS Myths Busted (bootstraptoday.com)
• 5 Reasons Cloud Computing Is Key To Business Success (datacenterknowledge.com)

The Role of IT in 2011: Just Saying No is Not an Option

I’ve been working on my 2011 cloud integration predictions and came across this fantastic interview on the Salesforce blog between John Taschek and Gartner’s Daryl Plummer. The provocative post is called, “IT: Become Relevant or Die.” Here’s the interview…be sure to have pen and paper ready for note taking (yes, I’m old school).

 

Related Articles

• Finally! The CRM 2011 Watchlist Part I (enterpriseirregulars.com)
• Debating failure and the cloud (enterpriseirregulars.com)
• Dreamforce 2010: Excitement, Kool-Aid, iPad (customerthink.com)

Cloud and SaaS will Have the Greatest Impact on IT

Just as many retailers have already rolled out the Christmas cheer, it seems that industry prediction season has started early this year. Check out this summary of Forrester’s 15 Technologies to Watch Out For. According to the report:

“Cloud and SaaS will also have the greatest impact on IT  as executives determine where to invest resources, adopt new application support practices for SaaS, and re-evaluate capacity issues and architecture standards.”

And according to Forrester analyst Gene Leganza, enterprises should “think outside the box, and enable employees to do so, by evaluating the key technology trends driving empowered technologies”. He went on to share more details of the report on his blog. Here’s an interesting table summarizing his research:

I predict we have not seen the last of Cloud/SaaS-centric predictions…and I tend to agree!

Integration as a Cloud Bridge

I heard this line from a CIO today:

“The cloud has been a destination for us. Integration is now the key to connecting our clouds to the rest of the enterprise.”

So if cloud is your destination, better start investing in the right short, medium, and long-term bridge…

7 Criteria for Evaluating Cloud Solutions

I had a conversation today with an IT director at a very large company who listed these 7 criteria as essential when evaluating a cloud-based application, platform or infrastructure:

1. Security Compliance
2. Cost
3. Ownership of Data (Privacy)
4. Performance
5. Integration
6. Extra Capacity (Scalability)
7. Disaster Recovery

I thought it was a pretty good list. Not too different from the Forrester research on SaaS concerns.

Do you agree with the list? How would you prioritize it? What’s missing?

Ten Things a CEO Should Know About Cloud Computing

Deloitte put out a press release today called, “10 Things a CEO Should know About Cloud Computing.” While I’m not so sure a CEO needs to know all of this (a CIO definitely does), I thought #8 was particularly strong:

Integration with the cloud

According to Forrester, integration is one of the top concerns people have about cloud computing. Therefore it is going to be one of the main drivers of user adoption of the cloud. Integration cost and duration, integrating software as a service (SaaS) and traditional applications and managing and monitoring interfaces are key challenges around integration.

To respond to the integration challenges underlying most implementations, cloud vendors are now proposing SaaS integration solutions that offer an easy way to integrate systems compared to traditional approaches.

SaaS FUD: Security and Integration Top the List (Again)

Security and integration concerns top the list (again) of software as service fear, uncertainty and doubt, according to a recent Forrester survey:

This CIO.com article provides a good overview of the research report, with lots of quotes from analyst Liz Herbert. Here’s a good one:

“Some tools make it possible for non-IT roles to manage ongoing integration points (within reason), which appeals to business populations that are attracted to SaaS to gain independence from IT. However, sourcing and IT professionals should typically get involved to make sure that the integrations are cost-effective and avoid duplicating integration work being done elsewhere in the organization.”

Agreed.

The article also links to a thought-provoking article by Brian Sommer called, “9 Questions every SaaS vendor needs to be able to answer.” It’s a great summary of what’s on the minds of large enterprise CIOs when it comes to SaaS.