Digital Transformation Reality Check

When last week the CEO of the world largest software company is said “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months”, it had me wondering about digital transformation (DT) and my understanding of this wonderful term. As a student of technology based transformations and a practitioner of IT led business success, my reading of DT was fairly simple and shared by a large number of CIOs, CDOs, and CXOs across companies and industries. While many vendors and partners pitched their wares as the means to get to the ultimate nirvana state of digitally enabling the business, they were largely a cog in the wheel and not the whole wheel or a major part of it.

Many would have seen an image that in jest points to the cause of forced digital transformation not being the CIO, CDO, CTO, CEO, or for that matter any person, but a virus; the same virus that has changed the way of working for the entire world bringing business’ down, forcing everyone to stay at home to stay unaffected and alive. Almost everywhere work from home became the only way to continue basic operations and run whatever remained of their business. In a struggle for survival, the need for connectivity and basic tools exploded. The inertia for the adoption of collaboration tools was replaced by enthusiasm and across corporate layers people started embracing these.

Many small and large technology providers took advantage of the situation to proclaim their role in digitally enabling their customers. Their offerings ranged from cloud based software solutions, mobile enabled applications, applications for managing appointments, note taking, digital publishing and not to forget the collaboration tools for voice, video, chat, conferencing, editing and sharing documents, workflows, the list is endless ! Almost every enterprise that had some ongoing operations and dialogues probably had most of these deployed; the scale at which it was now required needed additional subscriptions and deployments.

So I went back to my library to refresh my memory and found 2 definitions that resonated with the majority and the foundation of my discussions with people and companies in the past. They are:

1.      Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, fundamentally changing how you operate and deliver value to customers. It’s also a cultural change that requires organizations to continually challenge the status quo, experiment, and get comfortable with failure.

                                                            And

2.      Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to create new — or modify existing — business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements. This reimagining of business in the digital age is digital transformation.

The lockdown over the last 2 months and more brought about the New Abnormal. Companies attempted to enable as many people as feasible with tools to continue working. Sales calls continued on video/voice calls, meetings conducted on collaboration platforms, data moved to the cloud for access by the teams that needed it, and access to core applications controlled to the WFH enabled. All of this did fundamentally create a change in existing business process, culture, customer experience and probably a long lasting one. It is unlikely that the situation will revert to normal any time soon. So if you take the literal meaning of the definitions above, the answer would be yes there was digital transformation.

But, isn’t digital transformation planned with a step by step review of process, people, technology and consideration over impact – to customers and internal stakeholders – and change that needs to be managed. Does it not require endless meetings and buy-in from teams to the new way of working and automation that improves outcomes? Should not legacy and status quo be challenged to discover the optimal digital footprint for the enterprise? What about the investment and budgets and ROI, impact on operating expenses? Who will drive the change and create a sustainable model? Is this digital transformation or a digital reaction to the new abnormal necessary for survival and a semblance of continuity?

I believe that the new abnormal has triggered a wave that does away with the conventional decision making cycle and metrics for technology tools and solutions that enabled the enterprise to function even if with reduced operation and manpower. The elephant in the room that needs confrontation is the continuity of the current once business starts moving again and the normal as everyone knew and understood makes a comeback. Will the additional investments, ad-hoc changes and approvals for access, implications on licensing and more, the mountain to climb would be the shift back or keep the new way of working as the new normal. There is no one way to go, it would be dependent on the company, industry, geography and the amount of cash in the bank.

The seeds of digital transformation have been sowed – grudgingly or forcibly imposed with no choice; it is up to the enterprise to build on top of this after strengthening the potentially shaky foundation. And the answer is yes, what would have taken 2 years has taken 2 months, though it may not be sustainable as it is and will require a lot of rework.

That’s another story !

Negotiations during lockdown

From my earlier post “The new abnormal”, one of the points that connected with the majority of IT leaders was “If not already initiated, renegotiate – licenses, maintenance contracts, and third party and outsourced manpower requirements”. Individually almost none could get the attention of their partners who were always there to discuss more licenses, services, or audits for difficult customers. Dropping all their inhibitions, personal rivalries, and competitive distancing, the CIOs organized themselves into a collective group to take on the big and small software and service providers. The mission of these groups, which represented a reasonable spend for the industry, to seek the true spirit of partnership in difficult times.

In the good old days the engagement with the IT fraternity was all about being partners in success, starting from engagements to identify use cases, define financial models for calculating returns, scale up and scale out, digitalization and digital transformation, month and quarter end license deals. When the going got tough for some of the software providers, they decided to scan through lists comprising existing customers who were growing, old customers who did not buy anything after the initial set of licenses, and those who were suspected of using unlicensed versions of COTS (Commercial-Off-The-Shelf) solutions. Not very amiable discussions these, some of them did hit pay dirt for the partners.

For everyone business has come to a grinding halt, the WFH addresses administrative tasks and virtual meetings; it does little for the broken supply chain or halted production. While a few online players continue to reap some benefit, their overall business activity is down to less than half (there are always a handful who can be called out as exceptions). With no revenue, the crying need is to find ways to manage the costs associated with IT. The CIO collective decided to partition themselves by vendor (not a partner anymore), to bring some weight behind their quest for relief. The ask was not unreasonable by any stretch:

1. Surrender unused or excess licenses that were taken for planned growth
2. Deferment of annual renewals of SaaS licenses and AMC due at the beginning of the financial year (April to March in India)
3. Reduction in service fees with reduced scope of work, or reduced load factor for IaaS, or network fees
4. Extension of timelines for pending payments and payment in instalments
5. Furlough contracted workforce until the situation starts coming back to normal

Thus started the long arduous journey; the group tweeted their angst tagging the vendors local and global leadership teams, sent emails which hundreds of CIOs forwarded for effect; reminders and follow up with reversed rigor – typically seen from vendor sales teams and management to close signing a deal. There was some hope among the group that they would be able to create some impact that everyone could benefit from. The list was quite impressive representing marquee names and many aspirants. Reversed reality if there was one, the turned tables evinced only couple of acknowledgements as if the rest went down a black hole.

So what transpired? Among the dozen odd vendors to whom the communication was sent, barely a couple decided to respond to the flood created by the CIOs. The rest had probably a dam large enough to prevent the water from carrying through to the management teams; don’t worry, we will take care of this – so I heard from a couple of account managers talking to their CEOs. It is also likely that they did receive the mails but ignored the content or intent behind the chain mails. The situation will not last forever and given enough time, the noise will die, only to be forgotten in the activity that would follow the return to the new abnormal. As for the respondents who respected the community of customers, there were the following threads which did not necessarily please the protagonist CIOs.

The first one acknowledged the communication by the group and reiterated the difficult times that have befallen everyone. Difficult times when new business has died away and existing receivables are tending towards bad debt with significant rise in days of outstanding. Difficult times that have necessitated the creation of additional investments in infrastructure or services for their customers to support WFH and related issues. Difficult times with the teams working longer hours to ensure that quality of service is not compromised. And in such difficult times the question of any reduction in prices or renegotiations does not arise whatsoever. With piling inventory and ceased production, we are equally concerned about the financial viability of our services.

Interestingly the second admonished the group for creating a rift in the relationships that have been built with so much effort, give and take, and nurtured with ample doses of support. Ups and downs should not be construed as an opportunity to question the foundations on which the partnership has been laid. There cannot be an overarching policy or decision that would apply to all relationships with a reduction or deferment of payables; it decapitates our business and our ability to provide continued support. We too have fixed costs which we need to service; renegotiations are a no-no, you already have the best of prices for what you buy and consume. Please talk to your respective relationship managers to review what we can do for you.

We are equally hit versus divide and break, both strategies fail to address the problem at hand for CIOs thus creating a permanent crack as everyone fights for survival. What will be the final outcome, we wait and watch.

Latest! A very large global IT vendor refused the premature surrender of partial licenses from a marquee customer stating that the licensing terms have no provision for early termination.

The New Abnormal

Varying stages of lockdown – voluntary and forced – created stress for CIOs and tech teams globally; Work-From-Home (WFH) became another 3-letter acronym that everyone embraced willingly and only a rare organization had capacity that could scale up and cater to the large swaths of workers who suddenly fell in love with their laptops. Those who shunned webinars, web conferences, and electronic tools of collaboration were all now talking about scheduling online meetings with all and sundry. IT organizations flooded with calls on VPN connectivity challenges, access to applications, and capacity of collaboration tools, managed to scrape through by the skin of their collective teeth.

As weeks turned double digit and the tunnel appeared to be endless with no visible light, speculation started on, what CIOs need to focus on and what the future foretells for the tech industry as a whole, whenever the end comes. Webinars aplenty with CIOs, academicians, vendors, consultants and self-proclaimed experts, who discussed and debated actions that IT organizations will need to take. Strategies and plans were bandied around for the hapless and the informed, confusing more than bringing clarity. It was reminiscent of what happened during the financial meltdown a decade or so back and probably Y2K and dotcom bust, the events that remain firmly imprinted on the industry. The joke going around is that the current abnormal accelerated digital transformation faster than what the collective might could achieve in the past.

Everyone now acknowledges that the new abnormal will continue and what we all knew as normal would be the good old days of nostalgia. Social distancing brought virtual closeness and it has already become the norm for meetings, events and getting together with digital engagement a preferred option; it is evident that human behaviour will not be the same in the foreseeable future. After grudgingly accepting the new abnormal, leadership teams have now started (thinking of in some cases) planning for the resumption of life; everyone accepts that it would be slow progress and life may never come back to the good old days. As workers go back to manufacturing facilities and services start operating again, the reopening will require enormous effort. So what is the real impact for technology teams?

The discussions and debates between the folks above provided for aspirations that largely assumed that they can set aside the elapsed time and go back to life as usual. Some talked about bringing back paused projects, restart of digital transformation and automation, aggressive deployment of mobility, and focus on cloud with variable models. It took a couple of the weather-beaten members to bring them back to reality; revenue and cash flow, review of office spaces with everyone not required to work from a central location anymore, or a push for automation to reduce costs, and finally positions that need to be extinguished with a smaller business. So the 10 recommendations were:

1.      Address the ad-hoc that was created to manage the extraordinary demand for WFH; whether it is connectivity solutions, exceptions to policies around access to applications and other products used for collaboration and conferencing.

2.      Manage licenses required going forward for solutions that some functions or individuals may have procured or downloaded free versions of.

3.      Ascertain the impact these may have created on the cybersecurity or compliance requirements and remediate.

4.      If not already initiated, renegotiate – licenses, maintenance contracts, and third party and outsourced manpower requirements.

5.      Relook at the roles and staffing within your function; roles that can be let go with the resultant impact being managed. Hiring freeze, exception only if critical resources exit.

6.      Wear a business hat and challenge other functions assumptions on solutions and costs; shave 20% or more costs across the board. Automate, automate and automate.

7.      Consumer behaviour has changed permanently; enable seamless customer engagement across channels – applies equally to both B2B and B2C.

8.      Create information visibility across layers for effective decision making without significant additional investment in tools and technologies.

9.      Defer payments to manage cash flows and match incoming revenue; critically review suspended projects and ones that were waiting to take off. The lens for evaluation is no longer the usual strategic intent and ROI (Return on Investment), it is about what is necessary for survival. The building of new capabilities and applications can wait for another time when there is money in the bank.

10.   Watch industry trends and benchmark efforts to ensure that we don’t lose relevance with the market or to our customers.

Oh I am sure that given some more time and deliberation, a distinct list of another 10 can be created and that would be equally relevant. The abnormal reality is that there is no normal now for which we can prepare and sustain; depending on the industry, the actions will be different and all actions will not work for everyone. The playbook will have to be rewritten by every company and it will remain a living document even in the short-term. Tech will be in the forefront of every decision; after all tech is what allowed some semblance of normalcy and continuity of operations.

It would be foolish to relegate tech at this time; having said that some organizations will and some tech leaders will fail to rise to the opportunity. After all, everyone does not like history !

No predictions for the New Year 2016, just a list of unhappenings !

At an event in a large gathering of CIOs and vendors, many were interested in the future, some attempted to predict it, a few thought that they can create it, while the rest barring the uninterested wondered what the New Year holds for them. The debate thus started, took interesting turns with the usual set of trends around SMAC dominating the discussion. Digital was a given with finally convergence of definitions and interpretation. Everyone loves to make predictions, good, bad, they catch attention for whatever they are worth.

When a group approached me, I was caught unawares, but decided to play the game; so I challenged them on the efficacy of making predictions at the beginning of a calendar year. Was it because of convenience so that they can be labeled and catalogued by the year number ? Or did they make sense since the majority probably received new budgets to invest/spend and thus fueled the innovation furnace ? Or that people come back from an extended holiday fresh to get started and thus need some markers.

Either way, everyone has lists of all kinds for the year, resolutions, tips for a better life, predictions and goals they want to achieve. Technology providers push their new products with aggression portraying them as new trends; Consultants attempt to predict what will happen, rarely going back to review whatever brand of snake oil they promoted; Economists and other professionals oscillate between doomsday and optimism while the cautious lot stays non-committal taking a safe path and cynics raise eyebrows at everything.

The first time I attempted to predict the future was in 2004 which I revisited in end 2013; the last time I made technology or technology impact to CIOs and business predictions was almost 4 years back; then in the beginning of last year my participation in many discussions – online, offline, in conferences, with some of the self-proclaimed consulting type futurists – they nudged me hard enough to issue a rebuttal to their claim that the CIO shall perish which was followed by a viewpoint and tips on thriving in the new world.

I am taking a different path and putting my neck out with a contrarian view of the world as I see it. The list is not definitive, but representative of broader trends that I see impacting individuals, IT, CIOs, Enterprises and the ecosystem that supports technology led business outcomes. There are many predictions of what may happen and that is why I choose to create one that attempts to wean people of the hype curve or whichever quadrant or wave enamors business and IT decision makers and influences their actions.

1.      Death of monolithic ERP: it shall survive all attempts of appification sustaining core business

2.      Demise of email: enterprises and individuals will continue to use email for formal communication

3.      Blockchain adoption: interesting use cases, lots of investments, few real life implementations

4.      End of laptops: touch will become standard, tablets aspire to replace them, corporate workforce will not let them go

5.      (Free) Mobile Internet: will continue to struggle with disconnects and seamless, consistent speed of access for meaningful engagement or work.

6.      Cloud domination: remains a desire, enterprises, governments and hardware providers will find ways of retaining data centers

7.      Value versus cost: majority will tilt towards cost rather than value as tactical savings attract pat on the back for a job well done with budgets remaining flat

8.      Talent retention: big challenge for everyone with head hunters going aggressive on anyone who has demonstrated success (real or perceived)

9.      Big Data insights: investments will continue, insights will elude most

10.   Insecure enterprises: Cybersecurity will demand attention and budgets, breaches will increase

11.   BYOD: will be controlled with containers, boundaries, restrictive solutions, employees will accept the new way of working

12.   Internet of Things: keep talking, discussing, debating until internet access (point 5) is solved

13.   Individual privacy: personal data will keep popping up surprising individuals of their vulnerability

14.   Technology treadmill: people and companies will get off and not run after the next new device, release or trend will diminishing returns making it unattractive

That is my list for now, take it for what it is worth; during the year or maybe the end you may turn around and find that none of these happened in your life. That is quite possible though I believe that the trends will play out in a large section of people across geographies. I promise that at the end of the year I will review the reality as it happened. Until then all the best !

Selling to CIOs is a difficult process and getting tougher

He reached out to the CIO with resolute frequency almost like clockwork; his connects were based on the timeline given by the CIO on when to reconnect for the decision on the solution. The CIO on his part never closed the loop, kept him lingering in the background with a hope that he will someday be successful in getting the order. This continued for almost a year with distractions in the form of small activity that he had to engage in with the IT team to validate a use case or elaborate on technology integration, scalability, etc.

His organization was running out of patience with the prolonged engagement which for most of the year continued to remain in the active pipeline but failing to convert. The management wondered on the investments made over the year with the lure of a referenceable customer with high value business. The story was beginning to look like a stretch of belief with a growing feeling that the CIO will not be able to convince internally. It was a tricky situation where reaching out to the CEO could potentially make or break the deal, the relationship with the CIO would have anyway broken.

On his part the CIO – a veteran of years – would keep finding new clarifications or actions in every meeting, each sounding logical and never really answering the question on what will result in closure. The vendor systematically addressing each and every query, his team finally signed off the pilot and put the ball back in the CIOs court. The CIO sought help to present the solution to the Management which was promptly provided as time continued to slide. The vendor CEO cracked the whip and demanded closure either way in a defined timeline.

Agreeing with the direction set forth, the salesperson confronted the CIO and pleaded for closure citing helplessness in offering the enviable deal beyond the timeline. He hoped against hope that the fish will bite and was seemingly rewarded with an opening that promised closure with a foot in the door and conditional commitment to scale up should the initial engagement deliver to promise. This was taken in the spirit of partnership but he was cautious in his pronouncements internally. The wait appeared to have been worth the efforts invested.

The ordained time came and went; the order continued to elude him, the message from the CIO was that the powers that be wanted further evaluation of options. It was quite evident that the business was not really coming to fruition in the near foreseeable future. The inability of the CIO to push internally was quite apparent, in hindsight his demeanor was always defensive, lacking assertiveness required to push through a decision. With lost credibility the salesperson had nowhere to go except to grin and bear it and keep the CIO humored.

Why do CIOs not come clean on the need, process, decision making hierarchy and metrics, timeline, urgency, and finally the budget upfront before engaging the partner ecosystem ? What keeps them opaque to the external world, at times even to their teams ? Is it power that they enjoy or they try to hide their insecurities behind the bravado and resultant activity with occasional outcomes ? Are their successes random occurrences of chance or the teams’ hard work that happens because or despite the CIOs interventions ? The broad brush that I paint applies to a large cross-section !

Why don’t vendors ask tough questions on the need, the timeline in which the decision will get taken and allocation of budgets ? I know some who do and some CIOs who give straight answers; in many cases the sales teams hear but don’t listen in their desperation to close a sale driven by period end pressures and targets indulging in wishful thinking, running towards a mirage. Then there are CIOs who are uncomfortable elucidating a clear and crisp no thereby resulting in long periods of courtship and eventual breakup.

For the vicious circle to break it requires change on both sides; the change begins from sales leadership who need to be ruthless in their pipeline management moving off when they don’t see traction. They push sales teams hard resulting in wasted efforts. Internal and external expert facilitated sales training and mentoring are required to imbibe and sustain the sales process using experiential training rather than templated workshops. Changing your customer is going to take a long time and then again it may not happen.

My sales pitch: Workshops on “Don’t sell – help your customers buy” available to the interested !

Your company has been acquired, what should you do !

If this is the first time you are involved in one, it is a feeling of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt); what will happen next ? Will the acquirer dictate their will or take rational or unilateral decisions ? Culturally we are so different; how will we work together ? There are so many parallel roles between the two companies, what will happen to the combined team ? What will be the future of my team ? What will happen to me ? They talked about synergies ! If you have been in an acquisition before, you think you know what will happen.

If you are an acquiring company, the feeling is similar to having won a war even if you were not on the field playing an active role and came to know of the event from an internal announcement or the newspapers; by association you believe that you now have the ability to change the destiny of the acquired group. You have already started thinking about the extended team, the tasks that lie ahead in integrating their systems. As the dominant partner you want to get them to your level, irrespective of comparative benefits.

But there is a lot more at stake in the first case as it deals with FUD; for many it is like appearing for a new job interview, a job that you desperately want because it is yours to begin with. You also want to ensure that your team also gets their jobs and don’t become a casualty to synergies between the two enterprises where overlapping roles see one go; it’s rarely the person from the acquirer impacted. The uncertainty is directly proportional to your place in the hierarchy; higher you are, it’s more likely that you will be collateral damage. Consider:

A.     The CIO was a leader in his own right having grown through the ranks over the years; his projects were well regarded and awarded by the industry, one becoming a case study in a premier B-school. He met the CEO and CIO of the big brother, sharing information and providing a view of their journey and success, though on a smaller scale. His confidence and positive approach ensured that he had a role in the new entity even before the integration process actually began. He became a critical part of the integration team. His team was not that fortunate, most did not make the grade.

B.     In another case, from the outside the deal did not appear to make any sense; the companies were fierce competitors in a crowded but growing market. Barring a few differences and branding, they operated in exactly the same space; acquisition added to scale but did not complement each other. When the integration started, both teams knew that the commonness will be a bane for many; but then the technologies even though being the same delivered very different results to the respective companies. The debate continued almost forever and as a result many left for greener pastures.

C.     Just before the announcement became public, the CIO had quit leaving a leadership vacuum at the targeted company. The acquirer known for ruthlessness and sharp business acumen created – what else – FUD within the team. The deal ran into roadblocks dragging for a long time and market rumor continued to fuel doubts on future strategy. When it did get started, heads rolled quickly, especially cruel from the top downwards. Remnants of IT leadership was not seen competent enough to manage the combined entity; they hired from outside !

Is there a magic formula that can help you survive or become the leader for the combined entity ? Or should you start actively seeking opportunities outside immediately after the announcement ? In most cases the tilt of balance is based on criticality of the role in the merged organization; if your exit were to create significant business disruption, then you will be retained for sure. If you are a high professional and add value to the enterprise, stay if the terms are good for you; it would not be difficult for you to find alternatives.

In the rest of the cases and I am not counting the politically savvy who survive in all kinds of situations, put your best foot forward and be prepared for the worst. Have an open conversation with your new manager to understand the new role being offered; warning: it may not be as juicy as your earlier one. If you decide to part ways, whatever happens, don’t burn bridges; it will come back and bite you sooner or later. Help your team as a friend and coach, give them the advice and solace required in difficult times, keep them cohesive.

Finally if you are the decision maker, be candid and kind, it’s a small world after all. 

The 80% solution

It had been a long project with missed timelines and scope creep, the kind of projects that everyone dreads as they create difficult conversations in every review meeting while meetings are being conducted. The vendor was as frustrated as IT; the management wanted to stop funding to the project and treat it as a learning experience. The users wanted the project bad enough and managed to keep it afloat citing business need, efficiency gain and cost saving “when we go-live”. So the project survived despite odds.

Every enterprise had at some time or the other witnessed similar stories or projects that became unviable with all metrics: time, cost, resources and business value being busted; not necessarily software projects, but even hardware deployment, network upgrades, storage capacity enhancements or something as simple as the new projector for the boardroom. It is neither incompetence nor lack of rigor that causes such situations, everyone is committed to delivering the best result and that is where the problem starts.

Technophiles, well-meaning and conscientious team members want to provide the best solution which leaves no room for any kind of discussion or debate. They like to get the perfect solution in place that will win awards, accolades or in many cases just simple satisfaction of having done the best. The quest for the best keeps them busy exploring all angles including ones that don’t matter. They love debates on technology standards, finer aspects of architecture, the last exception condition the software will ever face, leading to frustration.

Searching for the best solution is indeed important for long-term success of any solution; after all you do not want your creation to be flayed within a short time. So try casting an eye over the 5-10 year horizon and postulate the future of the solution, technology, and the company. Shouldn’t the source code be in escrow or buyback of hardware at every refresh at predefined values ? How can we be sure of your wanting to continue with this line of business ? The questions get quite interesting as everyone wants to look good forgetting the adverse impact of sliding timelines.

Users living in a paper dominated manual or inefficient solution world want to make sure their problems are addressed down to every imaginable scenario. The evolving solution landscape wants to ensure the least change and the highest level of customization which unfortunately vendors are willing to acquiesce to; thus IT becomes the bad guys attempting to prevent the massacre of the solution. Trying to get it 100% right has become the nemesis of many projects and solutions; teams struggle unable to imbibe past learning.

Agile methodologies applied to software development provided a process for iterative evolutionary development where good enough is deemed acceptable to be refined over a period of time. It recognizes the impact of time on any project or need thus finding many business teams wanting to adapt to quick wins. The 80% mark is not cast in stone; the baseline is notional and varies by project. I believe that this can also be applied to hardware procurement or other IT disciplines with variations to the design.

The starting point for such a paradigm shift is the alignment of all leaders and managers to the new way of working. Don’t expect a solution that does everything of what the business wants and you can have it up and running in say 30-60 days. Refinement can continue over a period of time by the operational team working with part of the project team. Business can start using the solution to fulfill their need and everyone is happy. Off course this cannot be applied to ERP type projects which have different levels of complexity.

A good decision in time is worth more than the best decision if delayed; this maxim applies to the world of IT, IT project management, software development, and in many cases to hardware deployments too. Consensus is desirable but not critical unless the primary stakeholder is not aligned. If you have not moved ahead in your journey, then activity is of no consequence. So stop debating if you have all the data to make a decision, if you believe you have all the critical data, take a decision; that may separate you from being a manager or a leader !

The Perennially Dissatisfied User

This laptop is quite heavy; it gives me a pain in the neck and shoulder, I need something sleeker and lighter. Also the battery life should be at least 5 hours if not longer and minimum 1 TB of storage. You know an i7 processor would be great ! Why cannot we shift to the new Windows tablets which are so much lighter and also have a touch interface which makes life so easy ? I would love a larger screen but I am willing to compromise on the screen size if the tablet offers a full HD experience. Did you get what I want ?

This application is so antiquated ! Look at the user interface, this is really Jurassic; it would require a rocket scientist to use it. Why cannot the human machine interface be more like the social media sites which anyone can start using intuitively ? You missed the following key dimensions while capturing the data on the customer ! Where do you expect me to get so much data from ? I am required to sell and not just gather data about customers ! Why do reports take so much time to generate ? Can I see them on my mobile ? Is there an app for this ?

CIOs, software engineers, business analysts, hardware specialists, enterprise architects, for that matter if you are in IT and work with customers – internal more than external – every IT professional faces such questions every day; the above is just a sample of the discussions and challenges that get thrown in almost every interaction. It would appear that whatever you do, it never meets expectations. One interesting observation is that the critique increases with the age of the person and decreases with the tenure within the company.

Typically in the case of software solutions, when you approach your colleagues for inputs on what they want, they would normally start with a broad outline of what they require. You create something, go back for inputs, hoping to get closer to the end point; after multiple iterations you are either going round in circles or far removed from where you started. Do users of technology not know what they want or IT fail to connect to the need ? Every IT guy would vehemently say YES and the requesters would lament that IT guys don’t understand what we want.

Even if we assume that there is a chasm to bridge here, how can the same be extended to a simple request for hardware; can that be so complex ? A piece of hardware is a piece of hardware; differences between devices that organization endorses to the aspirational consumer devices incompatible with conventional corporate legacy systems exist for budgetary reasons more than any other. Mandate, as IT budgets are going up, buy cheaper devices. Yes off course, but why can we not get better battery life and bigger or better screens ?

Diagnosis attempted by wise and sundry professed theories that created industries to remedy the lacunae. Later and not sooner after spending inordinate budgets everyone realised that maybe there was no merit in the models. Evidently it had nothing to do with alignment between business and IT or the fact that the language spoken by the opposing parties has been classified to be incompatible. Then again, the efforts towards change have largely been lopsided. It is neither art nor science; it is to do with the unknown alien characteristic of IT users that IT professionals have been unable to master.

From Hollerith cards to Phablets and wearable technology, the pace of evolution has kept everyone guessing on the next shift. Unsettling yet consistent, the change has created an expectation that does not accept what is, but wants the unreasonable until it becomes reality. Shifting targets keeps everyone running only to find that they haven’t moved much. I do not believe that the game will change in the near foreseeable future. Users will keep asking for the moon, while actually meaning the light bulb and the description matches that of a CFL.

Keep playing the game while you can, sometimes you may hit the target in the dark !

Talent Magnets

Seasons’ Greetings and a Happy New Year 2014 !

Last week I met with two old friends who I had not met for a long time; one for more than a decade, the other a little less than that. The first was a successful technology entrepreneur; the second had made a successful global sales career. After the nostalgia was behind us, the dinner conversations ended up exchanging notes on attracting and retaining good talent. Across different geographies and specialties, both berated the fact that finding good people had become even more difficult with passing years.

We agreed that the situation had deteriorated with increased competition and changing aspirations of the newer generation. Not too many were thinking of long-term careers, most worked like mercenaries willing to change allegiance for an additional few pieces of silver amongst other things. The new talent pool does not want to wait for grass to turn green; they look at the other side and whenever the grass appears greener, with no thought except of them, off they go gallivanting leaving their companies in a lurch.

Ruminating over these thoughts it also occurred to me that there are a few individuals in the industry who are never short of talent and are able to retain their teams with ease. They took on existing teams changed a few ingredients, added some fresh blood and within no time had a great team working like Swiss clockwork and delivering to promise. Whenever they needed resources, skills or expertise, magically they found the right people. In almost all cases, attrition within their direct reports was tending to zero.

What makes these individuals better leaders equipped with an ability to create success oftener ? Why are people willing to join their teams leaving behind whatever shade of green their grass was ? How do they keep their teams motivated as to not look for alternatives ? Their teams consistently deliver and are seen as a cohesive unit which knows where they are going. Do they do things differently that the team is always charged and willing to stretch ? What is it that makes them talent magnets ?

Talking to many such motivated team members over the years I found the big difference was the aura of credibility these leaders had carefully developed around themselves. They were themselves highly motivated, principle-centred and self-driven. Across companies they were able to engage CXOs in meaningful discussions around outcomes and then disseminate the messages within their teams. The resultant momentum between their peers and teams rarely found budget challenges or reluctant users.

The team members were coached and mentored by the leaders with continuous feedback and feed forward connecting them to the vision, the goal and the tasks. With freedom to take risks and fail, the teams found themselves pushing their performance with rigor that they did not know they possessed. Thus they found success more often with lesser bottlenecks because they knew that their leader would always stand alongside. They respected their leader’s ability to help them find answers when they needed.

Their ability to sell a vision and the direction they were taking the company and the function was unparalleled; they created excitement with their stories; industry case studies validated the fact that these were not fiction. The message that I got consistently was that they were passionate about what they did and the passion was infectious. I was surprised by the commitment levels and connect with what the team members were doing and the fact that without exception they looked up to their leaders as role models.

Can this be emulated ? I believe so as many such team members have risen to become leaders in their own right and practice the same principles that they were subjected to. The multiplier effect is not yet high; the roots are taking shape and they are themselves becoming talent magnets. Picking some of these learning I have been fortunate to find hidden reserves within teams and attract talent from outside over the years. I hope that the force of attraction and cohesion is stronger than another force applied by someone else.

Working on Vacation

I switched on my laptop to check on my holiday resort reservation and a message popped on my screen, an accusing one at that: “What are you doing online on vacation ? Checking email or responding to some crisis that requires your intervention ? Or just that you cannot get work out of your veins ?”. I tried to justify to her that I was not checking mails, nor facing anxiety or withdrawal symptom disconnected from my mail. I was just checking on my bookings and that’s that. “Then why is your corporate IM on ?” she chided.

It’s that time of the year when everyone, well almost everyone (travel and hospitality industries excluded) is on vacation. Whichever part of the world you look at, across cultures, companies, industries, everyone is on vacation as evidenced by their “Out Of Office” messages. It’s like the entire world shuts down for a period of 2-3 weeks going out on trips, spending time together with family and/or friends, enjoying snow or the sun, and to that extent business for most comes to grinding slow motion if not fully shut.

Over the years OOO (Out of office) messages have increased during festive seasons and less frequent for rest of the year. Immediate conclusion would be that people are working harder through the year and then taking a good long well deserved vacation. It could also imply that irrespective of travel, vacation, weekend or time of the day, everyone gets their hands on their mobile devices and feel gratification giving attention to whatever came in or responding to mail, or just checking out or updating social status.

Our need to constantly check our smartphones has resulted in a situation that we compulsively want to stay connected all the time. It is now psychological and nothing to do with work or life or the balance that was a discussion in the past. To check my hypothesis I sent messages to about 600+ people in my list; CEOs, Head of business, friends, relatives, and loads of business acquaintances. I received about 200 odd out of office messages telling me that they were on vacation and not likely to respond to messages.

The subject line clearly indicated “Seasons’ Greeting” and thus was not urgent, important, a crisis or life threatening to merit immediate attention or response. Despite this, within 24 hours I received about 70 responses to my messages from those who had set OOO status ! Most messages carried a “Sent from a …..” footer. Was it an acknowledgement of the greeting or my hypothesis that we have become slaves to technology ? I now know which smartphones they use or service provider they have subscribed to.

There was a time when I would respond to every message that needed a response or I had a view on as soon as it landed in my inbox. Everyone loved it and commended my quick response; I was on 24 hour clock, not that it helped my life at home, I was thumb happy. Is it more to do with the way the stimulus response is changing rather than just work or life ? Are there any remedies available beyond old and simple willpower ? Is there a way out for the corporate bonded labourers armed with technology that keeps them in chains ?

Reality is that this is self-imposed nemesis of time, energy and expectations; if anything indeed merits response, do it, in most cases the urgent or critical will not land in your inbox, people will call you. Messages with scores in “To” or “cc”, rarely require critical review or immediate attention. A 24 hour cooling period is equally good in most cases and works well enough. Exceptions could be individually marked messages that may come to you from your Boss or a peer CXO for information or action.

Driving back from a vacation with the family comprising two teenaged kids, I noticed that both were constantly glued onto the small screen with rapid thumb movements and fleeting expressions as they deftly switched from screen to screen and application to application. There was little communication between us as I manoeuvred the traffic and they sent updates ad infinitum. I wonder how the new generation would behave during their vacations or work; would it be in anyway separable for them ?

Enterprise projects versus Government projects

“Did you know that the government is the largest adopter of cloud computing ?” asked a cloud service provider trying to provoke the group into a discussion on why enterprises are not embracing his solution. One amongst the group of CIOs retorted back, “Do they know what they are doing ? And with no budget pressures or ROI to demonstrate, how do you equate their reality with ours ?”. Before it became a slugfest between the vendor and the CIOs, the convener intervened; but that had me thinking about context really being different ?

Over the years I had the fortune to meet many people from many countries who headed government projects. Some of them were qualified bureaucrats, some with backgrounds similar to current CIOs or project managers, and a few with no formal IT backgrounds. Their responsibilities were comparable to the enterprise equivalents and the only differentiator in most cases was the scale of operation. The projects they worked on were in many ways similar and quite different at the same time.

G projects especially that revolve around governance are humungous by nature as they impact a very large population (number of users); the complexity varies depending on the process or function. You could draw parallel with large enterprise CRM projects or for that matter self-service application deployed by Banks or telecom service providers. On the other hand there are also conventional automation projects akin to what every CIO and enterprise does as a routine with a view to create operational efficiency.

Enterprise IT drivers and critical success factors comprise on-time, within budget, business functionality and/or benefit and nowadays usability across platforms; corporate project governance keeps everyone on their toes. I am sure that G projects too have somewhat similar drivers and accountability to internal stakeholders. Circumstantial evidence would however point to the fact that the percentage of G projects meeting the success criteria is far lower than corporate. To the taxpayer who funds these, there is limited visibility.

One project lead narrated an incident where the ministers kept changing through the project leading to significant change in scope and timelines. The said project finally went live with 100% time overrun; he did not divulge the budgetary impact. Many years later it is cited as one of the major success stories though it still remains challenged for the masses that use it. Change management is more complex with multiple stakeholders who are required to sign-off and by the time they do, a new set of stakeholders emerges.

Some may argue that an IT project is an IT project and requires the same level of discipline of execution irrespective of where it is done. It is public knowledge that almost all G projects undergo severe review and the bidding process favours the most economical; at least for the initial bid, change requests is another matter. The corporate world is unkind to this flexibility though price war is getting messy for everyone. With different contexts then is it then fair to compare an apple to a pineapple ?

Multi-year projects are passé now though most G projects are that way; maybe they now factor in their unique reality and thus allow for higher latitude than available to a CIO. Project governance, reporting and transparency is not common to all; not too long ago a high profile G CIO was shunted out as he was making many uncomfortable with his open to all reports. He took a leaf from acceptable good practices but the plans, ideas and governance were not acceptable to the well-entrenched way of working.

While we acknowledge the differences in context and realities, I believe that the comparisons are unfair to both. Corporate business entities will always be more aggressive in their approach to capture the first mover advantage or adapt technology for sustenance and survival. They seek market share, profitability, growth and much more. Most Government projects on the other hand do not have a timeline that is critical and therein lays the difference. I wonder if G projects were to be run like corporate projects what would happen !

Clouded judgment, slip in the rain

He was one proud adopter of cloud technologies and had moved almost all applications to the public cloud. It was a case study written about and discussed in forums and publications. He was hosted, flown across cities by the provider to talk about his experience and give advice on why everyone should consider the cloud. His stature had grown and he advocated the use of clouds for scalability, lower TCO, variability of cost, almost like the poster boy that the industry was looking for and had found one in him.

I met the CEO of that company last week and engaged him in some small talk on the business and how my cloudy CIO friend was doing ? The CIO had reverted all applications back to the on-premise data centre in a hurry. One fine day the cloud provider declared an outage and it just happened to be the day when the load was high; the revenue impact was substantial. The CEO had then warned the CIO to take care of such eventualities. Then of all things the hosted gate pass application stopped working.

Last week was one with unseasonal rain which surprised everyone with every falling drop. Across multiple discussions with different groups in formal and informal settings, adoption of cloud was omnipresent. How many of you have adopted the cloud for your workloads ? Which apps would you move to the cloud in the future ? Why is manufacturing so averse to adopting the cloud ? Even ERP is now available on the cloud ! Vendors in some discussions offered to conduct a “Cloud readiness assessment”.

On the table were many views on all kinds of cloud: highly virtualized data centres masquerading as private clouds, to Infrastructure, Platform and Applications as a service. All flavours of solutions and orchestration engines including a couple which promised to manage hybrid clouds. Voices raised incidents of hybrids not working effectively or seamlessly, leading to clouds not working with random and frequent outages, leaving the CIO smarting with no real recovery option except to wait it out.

In a discussion, taking examples from Sales Force Automation and some ecommerce applications doing well, CIOs from manufacturing were challenged to find business cases within their industries and organizations. None forthcoming, the vendors provoked the group to stop hugging servers and let go. Chastened the group retaliated and one CIO raised a question to a hardware vendor: “Have you move your ERP that runs your factory and supply chain to your Cloud ?” Sheepishly the answer came “no”.

Many vendors will sell the cloud with financial metrics that belie any rational thought; cost of variable fractional CPU saved and hundreds of MB of storage across 17 applications adds up to some cost, or the additional hour spent by the engineer over a weekend to ensure that the full backup was successful. Do we really pay that way such that we can apply microeconomics to calculate real savings ? I have yet to come across anyone who did and saved big bucks. Decision between capital investment and operating expense is a CFO call.

Coming back to the gate pass application, why is it such a critical application ? Entry and exit of every person, vehicle and goods from the factory premises depends on it. It was the most innocuous and the most critical application for continued operation of the factory. Amidst the lot of hue and cry, the CIO had no option but to come down to terra firma. He admitted that he should have been pragmatic in his approach and not moved everything to the cloud. DR to the cloud was not envisaged and there too laid his folly.

Everyone is experimenting and exploring the cloud in some shape, form or avatar. Many have moved non-critical workloads or external apps; not many references of other kinds of legacy or ERP type apps for largely centralized enterprises. Hybrids remain experimental for now while start-ups are enjoying the benefit of no upfront investments. Pure play technology companies find clouds viable, the rest of the old and large businesses continue to tread cautiously and take a step-by-step approach to the cloud.

You don’t slip in the rain that way !

Annual Appraisals and Feedback

He came out of the room fully drained from the marathon discussion with his team member; the appraisal had lasted more than five hours. His team was watching from the sides of their eyes trying to guess who won. It was not the first time an appraisal had taken that long with the appraisee. The demeanour suggested that the CIO had not been able to prevail and had to concede some ground. The victor emerged later beaming that he had the ratings he wanted in his appraisal.

For many this time of the year – December – brings appraisal time when the annual game begins with everyone attempting to be on their best behaviours; keep smiling, look good, don’t upset the boss, don’t make mistakes, say all the nice things, tolerate quirkiness that makes all bosses a pain. This time of the year (some companies have different year ends and some countries like India have financial year end in March) brings butterflies even to the strongest stomach, irrespective of how well or badly they may have done.

Every company has an annual appraisal cycle, some do it more often with a mid-term check, and few have also adopted a quarterly discussion. Appraisals review performance against set objectives in most cases and others review consistent productivity and quality (e.g. production workers or financial back office or for that matter within IT the helpdesk and system/database administrators). Mistakes are frowned upon and may bring the score down. It matters since in almost all cases the increments are linked to appraisals.

On top of this exercise that forces managers to have a courageous conversation with their team, many companies use bell curve to force fit performance within a function, location or the entire company. The resultant pushbacks, disagreements, and angst have been accepted with a hypothesis that bell curves take away sub-optimal talent raising the performance bar. Statistically bell curves have had no impact on corporate performance, profitability or relative growth in the industry. Recent announcement by one of the tech bellwether companies discarding the bell curve had many celebrating.

The CIO who had aspirations to grow into a HR role was discussing how to manage the employee in question who always managed to stay one up on him. Listening to the story, I found myself at the edge of the seat with multiple questions and answers. I could visualise the situations and his helplessness which arose due to his inherent nature and behaviour. He was a good person and had done well over his 25 odd years of work life. He always drove decisions by consensus and avoided conflict or confrontation.

Managing recalcitrant behaviour does require a firm demeanour; his ability to remain on top of the situation failed him many times when he was required to be assertive, take a stand or give bad news. People took advantage of this and he a backseat most of the time. The appraisal discussion was no different with the employee using all instances to his advantage where he had raised the issue with the CIO and not received feedback. The CIO was reluctant and did not know how to give candid feedback.

Annual appraisals are not the only opportunity to give feedback to a person in the team. It should be continuous tactically and periodically planned discussion to review progress, consider challenges, explore opportunities for improvement, and overall development. Restricting this to once in a year takes away the context and relevance or focuses only on the recent past. Performance review and appraisal is an art and a science which is easily mastered, giving factual especially negative feedback is an act of courage for many.

Many years later I happened to meet the “difficult” employee; I found him knowledgeable with an inherent need to talk and discuss throwing challenges to the other side as if to test the other persons’ expertise. I enjoyed the conversation as he gradually backed off and focused on the discussion at hand. I could see why he would be a difficult person to manage if not held with a firm reign. He received the suggestions and worked upon them. Today he has matured and manages a team having himself survived multiple managers in the same company.

If CIOs became Tech company CEOs

Before the turn of the millennium there was a trend with many conglomerate and large corporates wanting to hive off their IT departments to become independent companies. Some of the companies scaled up well and grew to become fairly sizable and tech services or product providers in their own right. Few retained their niche and did well for a while; in most cases the Head of IT or CIO equivalent became the CEO of the start-up. Then the CIO moved on and the reins were taken over by typical IT sales persons from the outside.

The past decade saw the economy on a roller-coaster ride triggered by black swan events; technology hype drove irrational behavior; acquisitions saw the small and mid-size companies being gobbled up. Quite a few leaders of the past too struggled to survive and sought white knights; in M&A most of them lost their identity, some went off into oblivion. The CIO typically the customer was challenged to keep balancing contracts and budget escalations triggered by the larger company wanting to improve bottom line.

With competition heating up and start-up companies innovating to gain market share, the companies of yore created Customer Advisory Boards (CAB) to seek input from CIOs towards the product road-map. They used these forums to stay connected to their customers which did not necessarily always impact their ability to squeeze every cent they legally could from the same customers; product engineering and development was far detached from commercial and sales divisions.

Through challenging times, quite a few tech companies saw CEOs being fired, sales structures redrawn, and alignments change from products to industry to logical groups to key account management, and many more. Consulting companies reformulated strategies to sustain market share and retain customers; beyond tactical results this did not deliver to promise. All through the process, customer frustration continued its organic growth faster than the growth realized by the tech company.

So companies hired domain experts across industries and sometimes also across roles within a function; for example a Warehouse Management Solution company hired warehousing experts who would be the users of the solution. Similarly across Retail, Pharmaceuticals, Banking, Finance and Insurance, or for that matter depending on the industry focus, it was deemed important to have subject matter experts to connect with the CIO and other CXOs to facilitate the sales and adoption cycles.

I often wondered as to why CIOs rarely joined technology companies ? There have been rare instances where a CIO transitioned and started selling products or services. These individuals were CIOs representing their past industries or a specific solution set; I remember one instance where the only thing such a CIO wanted to talk about is how her company had implemented a specific technology and she had lead the team towards creating the success story. She was not very successful in her pitch but told her story wherever she went.

Why is it that companies never think of taking on a powerful or marque CIO as their CEO ? Wouldn't it be better to have someone who uses their solution or service and knows how to take advantage of the technology also drive the company ? Aren't CIOs adept at selling technology internally to their users, management and the Board ? They also have their eyes and ears to the ground and connect to strong social groups within the industry where some influence opinions and drive adoption.

Discussing this trend with a few friends I realized that most CIOs love their position of power over the vendors; they do not see themselves in the same position where they normally end up putting their tech partners. The game has gone on too long now with boundaries being defined and roles cast. Their cynicism coupled with reputation of some vendors does not make this an attractive value proposition for CIOs who would rather join consulting companies or take up academic roles; join a tech vendor ? No way !

I personally believe that IT companies would immensely benefit from such a move; who knows the pains, opportunities and challenges of CIOs better than CIOs themselves. Sales cycles nowadays follow a predictable pattern of technology analysis and negotiation linked to period end. I think that while the broad design may not change, there would definitely be higher traction based on mutual empathy. Maybe this is the trend for the future; taking CIOs as independent directors on the Board could be a starting point.