Flexible or efficient ?

When the going gets tough, the tough don’t get going anymore because companies cut cost. In the last 4-5 years the economic, governance, and policy uncertainties across geographies, markets, industries and sentiment in general, have had an overall negative bias. We saw recessionary trends that never really went away; an after taste remains even today. Companies that have globalized continue to see challenges in some situations every day thus keeping the teams on their toes.

Cost cutting or management has become a way of life; we have all been through these cycles or what management types call S-curve of investments and cuts; the corporate strategy and agenda oscillates between cutting costs and creating efficiency when lead indicators of performance reveal that growth is stunted and profitability is taking a hit. The onus of efficiency many a times rests with the CIO who has a micro view of every process. Sooner or later the process reaches a break point within the constraints.

Green shoots that bring promise of the era of growth has most companies scrambling to invest again; with the herd mentality everyone then wants agility, process flexibility, and an ability to respond to the market faster than equally ill-prepared competitors. Why are you unable to deliver new functionality faster ? Market will not wait for us to build systems at leisure; IT is not aligned to business reality, they do not understand business priorities and how to deliver to them.

The CIO retaliates and cites budget cuts in the past when the going was slow; when IT and business teams had some spare time, we decided to fine tune efficient processes rather than building new capability that could have helped retain market leadership. All good things take time to build and deliver; now putting more men on the job does not solve the problem. If you (Business) continue to look for the perfect solution, we might not complete before the next recessionary cycle making all the effort pointless.

This tug-of-war is played across many enterprises with no learning applied from past cycles of cuts and investments. It is like a knee jerk reaction to external factors that throws strategy out of the window and the company to the mercy of fickle minds and men. The short-term prevailing over the long-term takes away the flexibility to respond to market shifts with no latitude to adapt. Thus benefits available with sustained investments thus continue to stay elusive.

Can organizations and CIOs create a balance between the efficiency and flexibility agenda ? Is such a position desirable and achievable ? Can IT help the cause ? I asked these questions to a few learned CIOs; everyone nodded unanimously to the fact that cost containment drives every few years has taken away a lot of energy. The yo-yo keeps them and their business folks running to stay in the same place. Discretionary budgets not being available now, the tussle for flexibility is an uphill journey.

Turning to a consultant amidst the group for wisdom of the ages, there was no solace in what she offered as advice. She propounded the obvious: stop investing and cutting cost in spurts. Don’t lose sight of your direction; focus on your customers, explore cloud, analytics…. With no real input coming from this quarter, we decided to brainstorm the issue. The nemesis was universal and thus participation eager; while we did not solve world hunger problems, an outline emerged that offered some promise.

The new engagement model with outcome based payments holds a lot of promise; as CIOs engage with the partner ecosystem to link outflow to projects delivering to business metrics, two things will change. Firstly business will have to define outcomes and their commitment upfront; this will impact discipline of execution and the ability to stay focused. The second change will be the acknowledgement of the role of IT in business excellence putting the CIO in the driver’s seat should s/he choose to take on the opportunity.

Are you ready ?

Whine, Wine, Win a deal

I don’t know how I stumbled across this blog and hundreds of comments but it had me thinking with a gaping and wide open mouth. Not that the scenario I read about does not play itself ever so often in the corporate circles; it was an open discussion on strategies to entrap the CIO to meet the next target, to close a deal, to shorten the sales cycle. There were experiences shared, discussed, fortunately no names mentioned of the vendors or the CIOs. I did pick up some good recommendations on fine dining though.

Trappings of power bring with it responsibility; with large budgets and the ability to decide in favour of one against the other, the CIO sits in a position where every vendor big or small attempts to find the winning formula to gain a good book and business. The exalted chair is expected to make a fair decision (the loser may think otherwise) to award business to the deserving and not be swayed by the drama or influenced by ill means. CIOs I know across this globe practice unshakeable integrity in decision making.

From time immemorial those wielding financial power have been sought after for favours. In the old days, after the technical evaluation, the purchase executive could turn down a decision and no one could challenge that. The power of veto was a feared weapon. Over time driven by trust and increasing penetration of IT, a shift occurred with the CIO empowered to work independently. Economic cycles shifted the decision making to where the monies lie, and the elastic nature swinging it back and forth to equilibrium quickly.

So as I read through post after post, it was an uneasy feeling to see tips and trick that have worked to snare a deal. Golf course priority bookings, tickets to matches, free vacations, gourmet dining, you name it, they had tried it. Some more than others, they found what works for whom not leaving many who resisted all temptation. Feeling queasy about this, I called a few old colleagues to chat and discussing this with them, one toppled my wine by adding anecdotes of his own.

Are decisions so easily facilitated with the lineage and vintage of wine determining the steps and time required to close the deal ? Is this working at the conscious level or the sub-conscious even when there is no coercion ? Is it wider in its reach and influence than we believe it to be ? Are we becoming slaves to a system without realizing it ? Or have we become immune to the system and now factor it in to our decision making criteria ?

I love my red wine and some good food to go with it; I have enjoyed many evenings out with friends and family. Occasionally vendors seek relaxed meetings “outside of workplace”; I know many have been careful to take a few colleagues along for comfort and keep the meeting a strict business one. It keeps the discussions easier and the environment lighter with no obligations being created on either side. A few CIOs also pick up the tab rather than leave even an iota of doubt. I would assume that each vendor would have classified data on what works and what does not for every tagged CIO.

The play now is universal; every vendor uses some leverage or other to go beyond the normal decision making cycle. Direct or indirect, these influences are here to stay as long as there are multiple vendors offering similar solutions or products. Wine and dine is part of corporate culture, the CIO and for that matter other CXOs have to work the fine line between undue influence and socially acceptable behaviour keeping their personal and corporate values above everything else.

Long tail of IT apps

For most companies that got started with their IT journey in the era of the mainframe, their journey through the evolution of technology created problem of the plenty. Client-server was a favourite for department apps, and the browser made proliferation easier beyond the department. With X-base it was easy to create small specific purpose apps; even users could churn some code that soon turned mission critical. The ERP attempted to consolidate all processes and apps, but most survived the onslaught citing unaligned ERP processes or mission critical status. The cloud now adds to the complexity by making it easier for new apps to flourish.

Every company thus maintains consultants (sometimes ex-employees who developed the apps or maintained them before retiring), vendor relationships, or deadweight to sustain the process these apps enable. Esoteric technologies requiring some antiquated infrastructure continually escapes the axe whenever renewal is discussed. Proportionately, larger the company, bigger the number of apps it has. Examples that I have observed include more than 40 instances of core ERP; another proclaimed build-up of 8000 apps over a 25 year legacy. Many did the same thing for different people using different technologies, but neither wanted to change to the other.

How do these apps defy all attempts at eradication and survive even the strongest attempt to weed them out ? Their patron saints are strongly entrenched in the corporate labyrinth and any change is touted as disruptive to the business. The CIO after a few attempts gives up in favour of bigger battles to fight with higher business impact thus leaving the long tail of applications wagging the IT function more often than pleasant. Thus many people within the enterprise continue to exist to keep the machinery chugging despite options of a better way of life.

An interesting phenomenon was recently narrated to me by a much acclaimed CIO of a well-known and progressive company when his users started defending a not so good a system. This app was a sore point with the functional owner as well as the IT folks with an unusable interface and complex execution of processes. Everyone hated it and it attracted jest and ire in every management meeting. With no change being pushed from the function, the CIO finally decided to do something about it and started an initiative to replace the solution. This is despite the fact the new app offering a significantly superior experience and ease of administration.

Is this only about change management or is the issue much larger ? I believe that the CIO should task some of his/her team members to systemically go behind the hidden long tail apps to wipe them off. When they are working, no one is complaining; they give sleepless nights to IT when they fail. Is there an easy way out ? No, so keep on pushing, nothing good came out of staying put and maintaining status quo. Change is always difficult, but change is the only constant.

If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.

Rotten Eggs

The craze for new gadgets and devices appears to be growing day by day. Emotions run high for some iconic devices and brands where people are willing to endure cold nights and mornings waiting for the store to open. The queues are visible across countries, so it is a global epidemic. These are normal consumers vying with the technophiles to be the first to own the product !

I own multiple devices including a few from the company in discussion, but never stood in queues to be amongst the first, though I know a few who did. I have always waited for a couple of revisions or generations to pass by before acquiring the new iconic device; the primary purpose seems to be to be seen displaying it prominently or announcing it by the footer in the email.

I get carried away; this is not about new devices or the long queues, but about rotten eggs. In China, fans threw rotten eggs at the stores when the company announced to teeming crowds who queued up for long hours that they will not be selling the much awaited device; for the security of their customers who turned up in large numbers, proclaimed the announcement. Did they come armed with eggs waiting for the store to open ?

The incident triggered many wild thoughts. Is the idea extensible to other irritating behaviors from say IT vendors who take the community for a ride ? What if every time there is a breach of trust, can I shower the vendor sales or support teams with choicest tomatoes (I am vegetarian you know) ? Is this a feat worth emulating when projects do not meet timelines or when basic requirement misunderstanding by ignorant consultants becomes a change request ?

It does have finality to the statement it makes. If I don’t like the outcome I am going to demonstrate my ire.  Sil-vouz plait, it may aggravate the situation, but it does create a warm, fuzzy and a lighter feeling to have vented out the frustration and anger. Will the slinging match create a better relationship between the CIO and the other parties ?

Last week, working on a post contract changes to some service delivery benchmarks, I had an urge to pelt a lot of stuff on the negotiating party. My primal fantasy had to be suppressed to stay within defined corporate behavior and work on the issues step by step steering it towards desired outcomes. Civilized acceptable behavior does not provide latitude to hurl objects when events do not take the turn we desire; even when the consumerization of devices brings unwelcome distractions.

Relationships are built over a period of time, but they can be strained for a long time in an unguarded moment. This applies to any relationship, peers, bosses, team, vendors, family, and friends. CIOs forge relationships possibly with a larger set in comparison to some of their peers. Success is highly dependent on setting and managing realistic expectations. Service delivery and change management are key tenets of the IT agenda.  

After all we don’t want to be at the receiving end of the rotten eggs.