All my children

Can there be too much innovation? This week as I wrote a column on innovation for sandhill.com and as I read this Phil Wainewright post about CIO skepticism about SaaS, I had that sinking feeling that we may have too much technology innovation chasing too few available dollars and too few attention cycles.

Web 2.0, Office 2.0, SaaS, SOA, Open Source, Third Party Maintenance, systems management innovations - just in the software space so many new products and vendors are screaming from CIO attention. Then there are mobility, sensor, VoIP, blades, utility computing, global delivery, BPO, project based outsourcing innovations...

All these children - how do we pamper them all? And when we do not give them attention, will they not pout and complain about how the parents just don't get it or are playing favorites? Is this the tech version of the remake of "Cheaper by the Dozen" with food fights and sibling rivalries?

The reality is with total IT budgets only growing 2 to 3% budgets and compliance budgets expanding rapidly in the last couple of years, funding for innovation has to come from squeezing utility spend (KTLO - keep the lights on)on incumbent outsourcing, software maintenance, hardware leases, telecom contracts etc.

So younger companies - do not just look at your peers as competition. Your biggest competition is the established vendors and their baked in budgets. IBM, HP, Verizon, ATT, Microsoft, EDS, Accenture, Oracle  - just those 8 vendors soak up over $ 400 billion in annual technology spend  And other younger players from other categories are your competitors too - both for the dollars, and in this day and age, attention....

Food foght time. Not in fun - but to feed the ever growing table.

Comments

[Dennis Howlett]

This is a very narrow view Vinnie though I fully understand what you mean following our discussion the other evening.

Here's another way of looking at it. We're just at the beginning but I'm starting to see enterprise class apps being offered on consumer terms ie - try before you buy. That's free in terms of acquisition cost. OK - so there are other costs.

Someone has to take ownership, do things blah blah. But what would be the cost of having an individual tasked to review and create tiny pilots? $100K pa? In the world you occupy, I'm sure you'd agree that's the equivalent of petty cash.

Is it that hard to find $100K in a $1-10bn company? Would a CIO not see that as a useful investment where at least he/she is not firefighting or attempting to manage the clamour for 'new?'

Or is it a case of 'read my blog?' and get a 2 minute outline for free as well and still have no say at the innovation table?

[James Governor]

of course. haven't you heard the phrase "innovation glut"? its hard to consume all this disruption.

[viinnie mirchandani]

James, sorry the glut is in the utility spend. Too much fat, not enough fibre.

Dennis, I think all the CIO should be doing is focused on innovation - using tech to improve biz processes. Can he find 100K - sure but 100K times 20 innovation areas times multiple years requires analysis - and is it not time time he found that from existing waste rather than go ask for more?

It's like a large family in a bind. The older kids have to take out less or contribute more.

[Dennis Howlett]

Oh sure -- I was merely thinking that for a given level of spend, CIO types could assign a person/small team to work through innovations with promise. I do know of one case where the total budget to bring 5K people on board with possible Notes replacement was $41K and by the time they got to proven pilot they were only looking at $8K. That's before factoring back the $00'sK to support Notes. No brainer. There must be plenty examples out there where you're not trimming the utility spend but replacing and reducing it.

[Boondoggie]

This is yet another reason the trend of consolidation is here to stay. It is extremely diffcult for a small company with a better mousetrap to get mindshare. The glut of innovation also means an extremely diverse ecosystem in the IT environment. That makes it difficult to bring in the new whizbang tool or application -- a lot of IT's time is spent stringing all this stuff together with duct tape and baling twine. CIOs are looking to simplify their ecosystems, not diversify. So even if you've got a disruptive technology that is 300% better than what IBM, Oracle, and SAP offer, it's very hard to get your snout in the trough when you're trying to push these behemoths aside.