deal architect

Of Serendipity

I recently met with a group for the first time and one of them said “ Good to meet a fellow Foreigner fan”. To my puzzled look, he pulled out a copy of my book and pointed out I had invoked their hit, Jukebox Hero in the preface. The next guy told me he loved the sax solo in their number Urgent.

So, I told him a bit of folklore around the song.  The band was recording in New York in late 70s when they heard the famous Junior Walker was performing that night a few blocks from the recording studio. Junior had never heard of Foreigner, but the group promised a pretty good payday for one song. They played the raw track for him and asked him to improvise a solo. After a single listening, he amazed the group by cutting one of the most memorable sax solos in rock history in one take....

In the namesake movie, the Kate Beckinsale character defines serendipity as a “fortunate accident”. That chance meeting revived Junior’s career and rocketed Foreigner to rock stardom.

Nothing fortunate about the accident in Japan, but as I interview a number of companies for my next book, I am hearing tech supply chain executives scramble to minimize disruption – Japanese suppliers provide an amazing array of electronics and other parts - to their businesses. The adrenalin is palpable in their voices. It gives them a chance to rethink parts, suppliers – innovate in new directions.

Last year during another accident I wrote  “The mysteries of physics at the bottom of the ocean should attract another group of brave scientists. Environmentalists say this is a wake up call. As an engineer, from a very different perspective, I say yes it is - for a new world of discovery.”  Indeed, I blogged later about BP’s use of satellite imagery, wave gliders, asset tracking sensors during the spill.

In our text books, supply chains are perfectly synchronized. Our forecasts are pretty darned accurate. The reality is how we react to bumps in the road – fortunate and unfortunate – is increasingly where we earn our paychecks.

Helps to fine tune those serendipity sensors!

The mature cloud

I had a chance to catch up with the Workday team about their integration cloud. What impressed me the most was they could have been hyping the middleware technology they acquired with Cape Clear 3 years ago, but waited for sufficient customer and partner adoption to announce it .

I caught up with a vertical SaaS vendor focused on financial services. The President was describing his 7 year journey.

I read the announcement that one-third of the companies that made JMP Securities’ Hot 100 Best  Privately Held Software Companies list are using NetSuite to run their key business processes.

I hear excitement from plenty of vendors which are about to introduce a cloud offering. I hear from others the same old FUD – not secure, not ready for prime time.

To me, it is so much more interesting to hear from the pioneers who have been quietly toiling for years serving customers – and are finally seeing adoption rates skyrocket.

BTW – two years ago I ran a guest column series from many executives at the cloud pioneers. Skim through those columns and you will feel even better about how the cloud is maturing.

What keeps you grounded?

I enjoy catching up with Chris Jablonski who writes about emerging technology at ZDNet. In a recent conversation, the thoughts drifted to the relentless barrage of PR both of us get about “innovative” new start up products. Just this week I unsubscribed to emails from 20+ PR firms. None had checked with me if I was interested – or likely checked what my interests are. It’s a constant pruning process.

When it comes to larger vendors, I shared with him a growing concern of mine that way too many analysts, bloggers and journalists seem to be getting the majority of their material at vendor events. The live tweeting, the product announcements etc. have become the proxy for technology reporting in the industry. Little of what happens before and after the event (i.e. 97% of rest of year) at the vendor, its competitors, partners and most importantly its customers gets analyzed or reported. We talked about 2 very widely reported recent products from large tech vendors that with some diligence would show the underlying enabling technology was not theirs – appropriately licensed but in their marketing zeal they had not been giving much credit to.  I have also been hearing from my Enterprise Irregular colleagues of a “review before publish” policy a large vendor is requiring of analysts which cover it. Not fact-check, review. Talk about believing your own marketing – and making sure no one interprets it any other way.

Rick Bullotta has a term for it on his blog which expresses similar concerns  – he calls it the “technology-media-industrial complex”

So, I asked Chris during our conversation: what keeps you grounded?

His response – “my contacts in academia”. He profiles on his blog plenty of  the “R” in R&D – stuff from campuses and journals which is years ahead of the “D” most vendors deliver. I think that is a darned good filter to evaluate what vendors pitch him all the time.

I told him my filter was my consulting with technology buyers (though admittedly many of them blindingly keep sending checks to the complex Rick talks about). How they apply technology for their process and product innovation is what I find really interesting. And my book research – including the new one I have embarked on gives me a chance to reach out to all kinds of enterprises and talk to them about their technology enabled innovation.

Readers, what’s your filter? What keeps you grounded in our world of relentless, breathless technology hype?  

More New Renaissance

on the innovation blog

The EPA RadNet

Robonaut2

Color Labs: Turning strangers into friends?

“Goldilocks” Mid-sized Solar Projects

Microsoft search engine for human body

Insurance innovations

SAP Sustainability and customer revenues

I got excited when I saw Dennis Howlett’s post about SAP Sustainability hints at revenue growth. For my next book I am cataloging all kinds of companies which are embedding tech to create “smart products” for their sectors and for a moment I thought customers were similarly embedding SAP tech in sustainable products to generate revenue.

Not close. He quotes Peter Graf  of SAP

“It is proven in so much of the research that when the performance and price is similar, people tend to choose the product that is more sustainable if it is marketed credibly.”

 

I wish SAP software would get closer to such sustainable products. Last year I wrote “But while its tools help companies report carbon data, to my knowledge none of its functionality has helped any customer reduce that carbon. For an enterprise wide vendor like SAP with access to the shop floor, to the data center, to the logistics supply chain, that is a huge opportunity it needs to step up and take advantage of.”

That opportunity still exists and when it does it can say it had role in helping companies create sustainable products. And then maybe claim some credit for some of that revenue.

Revenue from technology, baby!

I was talking to Chris Murphy at InformationWeek recently about the theme of my next book. He talks to CIOs all the time and is on top of most mega trends in the industry. He agreed most industries are looking at “smart products” for their sector but most IT does not view product development as a top priority- yet. It still is primarily focused on process efficiency as his column of March 12 shows. I agreed with him in several companies, R&D or Product Engineering has the lead for technology embedded in products not IT.  Daimler, for example has over 1,000 software engineers in R&D, as different from those in corporate IT.

Chris and I both came to the same thought almost simultaneously – by God, here is the chance for IT to finally deliver strategic advantage after decades talking about it, but it is not stepping up or not being allowed to. And I do mean talking about it for decades.

When I started my tech career in the 80s, everyone worshipped American Airlines and its Sabre reservations system and American Hospital Supply’s electronic order system for hospitals to use. They defined competitive advantage and revenue impact. Then, gradually IT was pushed more and more into back office and compliance roles. When Nick Carr pointed that out in his “IT doesn’t matter” article in 2003, we challenged and mocked him but the reality is little of IT was delivering strategic advantage and much of it was in empty calories – overpriced software maintenance, project overruns, outrageously priced printer cartridges and mobile roaming charges.

Even today, the excitement is about clouds, mobile and social technology. True the stuff is far more interesting that what IT spent trillions on for years prior. But it is still not about creating unique products and related revenue and competitive advantage. CRM advocates will often say customer centric technology enhances revenues. Really? Do customers tangibly pay you more or less because they are impressed/unimpressed with your Siebel or SocialCRM system?

Someone recently said the introduction of the iPad finally woke up many CEOs to the fact that Apple had been missing from their IT budgets for a long time. But that was 2010.

By 2012, CEOs will no longer want us drooling over every new feature Apple or Google or Facebook delivers. They will be asking where is OUR smarter infusion system, furniture, apparel and more for the Apple, Google and Facebook educated customer.

That is the big opportunity – and challenge for all of us. Revenue from technology enabled products. Exciting times.

Next Book Project: The Technology Switch-Hitter

While baseball spring training games beckon, over the last few weeks I have been conducting early research and interviews with some really smart folks around my next book which looks at the exciting convergence of technology consumption and production models:

“Their zip codes are far from Silicon Valley. Their SIC codes show retail, automobile or banking. But industry after industry is waking up to the opportunity of “smart products” for their increasingly tech-savvy customers. Traditionally technology buyers, they are learning to embed technology in their products and become technology vendors.

In turn, traditional vendors are increasingly aware that the successes at peers like Apple, Google, Facebook are not just about innovative products but their embrace of “industrialization of technology” – global manufacturing efficiencies, supply chain optimization, partner ecosystem management. Technology vendors are adopting best practices from far-flung industries.

This convergence of technology buyer-vendor roles is opening up new opportunities – and competitive landscapes. It calls for new skillsets, attitudes, even business models. It calls for a “switch-hitter” – enterprises and executives equally comfortable buying and selling, consuming and producing technology products.”

If you work for/know of a company which is building cool “smart products” for its sector or tech vendors which are pushing the envelope when it comes to scale/efficiencies or have an interesting perspective on the themes, love to talk to you as I continue my book research. Also, I will be periodically excerpting from the book/profiling some standout examples on this blog.

BYOT – Bring your own technology – to work?

Last week I wrote “After Sunday night with home based technologies, it is quite a let down to go in to work technologies on Monday morning.”

This week I read about a Unisys poll about bringing the Sunday night experience to Monday morning.

“Nearly three-quarters of the 141 information workers responding to a recent Unisys Corporation online poll indicated that they would be willing to pay at least part of the cost for productivity-enhancing technology for work if they could choose it themselves.”

Read more here

The idea is not new. I had a client seriously consider it with laptops 5 years ago, but did not move forward due to security concerns. The idea is  being tried out more widely today with, of course, a much wider range of devices.

May give Monday morning quarterback a whole new meaning!

More New Florence

on the innovation blog

Hotel Guest Room Technology Innovations

Technology at the Strawberry Festival

Singapore MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART)

Alcatel-Lucent’s Tiny Cell Tower

The Adidas virtual shoe wall

Cognizant Community: a model industry event

I ran into Don Tapscott, the best selling author, in the hallways. He had just finished a presentation at the Community event in Orlando yesterday. I shared power outlets and exchanged small talk with someone who turned out to be CIO of a major healthcare company. I sat at a dinner table with IT leadership of a major pharma – and the conversation varied from SAP HANA to global HR strategies to what “innovation” means in their culture. I moderated a panel on next-gen BPO with executives from a large telco, a large financial services company, a specialty pharma and a healthcare organization. The discussion covered everything from the “future of work” to the utility/futility of SLAs in outsourcing.

The event agenda included presentations on emerging technology – Douglas Merrill talking about the Google culture, Pranav Mistry talking about SixthSense and gestural UIs-  and more traditional technology: Charlie Feld about IT leadership for the future, Bruce Rogow talking about various CIO surveys and interviews he continually conducts. Various industry breakouts most with customer panels. Non-technology, exhilarating exploration perspectives from David Hempleman-Adams.

See the pattern here? Very few Cognizant sales pitches. But a very wide agenda and a relaxed atmosphere for its clients to learn and mingle with peers. I have been fortunate to be invited to the event for a few years now, and the agenda and mood has been similar, so this year is not an aberration.

It’s so different from the average user conference/customer event which is usually filled with demos, vendor executive pitches, plenty of salespeople and partner parties.

I wish more user conferences followed this pattern. There is plenty of time rest of year to sell. Have confidence in your customers. Give them a couple of days to sit and think – yes even about the North Pole.