You are here:Blogs » Frank Buytendijk's blog
Frank Buytendijk's blog
Apologies... blog moving again
I promise! I'll stay with my channel on the B-EYE-Network for the time being, but I will be stopping with this blog. Please have a look at The Machiavellian CIO - Strategy, Analytics, Philosophy and More.
If you are also interested in my work blog, please check out Be Informed - The Business Process Platform.
Best regards,
frank
Gartner Symposium, Opening Keynote
After Andy Kyte's presentation on application overhaul it was time for the opening keynote, that was scheduled in the afternoon this time.
Gartner Symposium, Andy Kyte on Application Overhaul
Andy started by describing the current state of things. He pointed out that today's core applications do things they weren't designed to do. That despite all the application consolidation having been done, and budget cuts, there is still a bloated IT portfolio, fitting together in an "accidental architecture". As Andy said: "please don't tell me that how your IT landscape looks like, is by design".
And now comes the hard part. Most of the consolidation that took place was in infrastructure, where no one cares. But now you are touching people's application...
But something has to be done. The life cycle portfolio of applications in most organizations doesn't look like a neat bell curve. Stuff is still wheeled in all the time, in a disproportionate pace, while there is another large part of applications that are zombies, the living dead. They should've been eliminated a long time ago. 50% of all applications in existence today should be eliminated.
Organizations have an IT debt, Andy argues. IT debt is the deferred maintenance on their applications, because of the IT budget cuts of the last years. Gartner estimates the world-wide IT debt to be about $500 billion, and growing to $1 trillion.
Harvard Business Review case study
I've just learned that a paper that was written by Pietro Micheli (Cranfield U), Toby Hatch (Oracle) and myself is now available as a case study on hbr.org. You can find it here.
frank
New Book Teaches Business Executives and Anyone Struggling with Dilemmas How to Turn an Unknown into an Advantage
My latest book has just come out, I've been writing about it before in this blog. Here's my best short description of it...
Every day, the news reports on difficult dilemmas in business and public sector:
• In difficult economic times, the government needs to stimulate the economy, yet save costs. Should the government invest in infrastructural projects leading to new jobs, or cut deep in expenditures?
• A banking regulator sees problems at a small bank. If the regulator moves quickly, her actions become a self-fulfilling prophecy, harming the business. However, if the regulator moves too slow, the risk increases. What should the regulator do?
• A bank is confronted with professionals demanding high bonuses. Should it risk public outcry, or defecting professionals?
• How far can you go in interrogating a criminal suspect in order to prevent more crimes or an imminent attack?
• In difficult economic times, the government needs to stimulate the economy, yet save costs. Should the government invest in infrastructural projects leading to new jobs, or cut deep in expenditures?
• A banking regulator sees problems at a small bank. If the regulator moves quickly, her actions become a self-fulfilling prophecy, harming the business. However, if the regulator moves too slow, the risk increases. What should the regulator do?
• A bank is confronted with professionals demanding high bonuses. Should it risk public outcry, or defecting professionals?
• How far can you go in interrogating a criminal suspect in order to prevent more crimes or an imminent attack?
Book review
... and in the series of videoblogs: reviewing a few really good books I recently read. Access the videoblog here. More on www.youtube.com/frankbuytendijk.
frank
Business and IT alignment
I recently received a promotional email for a "masterclass" on business and IT alignment. The training promised answers on the following questions: "how do you know your IT strategy is aligned with your business strategy?", "how can you put together a governance model that ensures IT follows the business?" and "Pitfalls and success factors".
Creating options
An important measure of the success of an IT strategy and architecture is its ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
• CIOs are faced with long investment cycles, while technology lifecycles are only getting shorter. IT needs to be ready for trends and requirements that are completely unknown when the investments are made.
• A good part of IT innovation that drives new business opportunities comes from consumer IT, and CIOs need to be ready to link in. Today this comprises the 2.0 world: Trends on the horizon include augmented reality and sensor technology, for example. Analyst company IDC predicts unstructured data will grow at twice the rate of conventional data. Already by 2010, unstructured data will make up the majority of all enterprise data.
• Many businesses are investing in value chain integration, requiring processes and systems to link to a wide variety of processes and systems owned by customers, partners, suppliers, and other stakeholders.
IT offers an infinite range of alternatives and unlimited choice in how to tackle these challenges. Winnowing down a wide range of technology choices requires discipline. CIOs can demonstrate the required leadership by turning unlimited choice into a set of directed options.
• CIOs are faced with long investment cycles, while technology lifecycles are only getting shorter. IT needs to be ready for trends and requirements that are completely unknown when the investments are made.
• A good part of IT innovation that drives new business opportunities comes from consumer IT, and CIOs need to be ready to link in. Today this comprises the 2.0 world: Trends on the horizon include augmented reality and sensor technology, for example. Analyst company IDC predicts unstructured data will grow at twice the rate of conventional data. Already by 2010, unstructured data will make up the majority of all enterprise data.
• Many businesses are investing in value chain integration, requiring processes and systems to link to a wide variety of processes and systems owned by customers, partners, suppliers, and other stakeholders.
IT offers an infinite range of alternatives and unlimited choice in how to tackle these challenges. Winnowing down a wide range of technology choices requires discipline. CIOs can demonstrate the required leadership by turning unlimited choice into a set of directed options.
BBQ = BPM + CRM + EPM + ERM
This summer I bought one of those fancy outdoor kitchens, and it runs on gas bottles. I got one bottle as part of the BBQ, and off we went. After a while the bottle was empty, and I wanted to exchange it, getting my 55 euro deposit back. I found a garden center in the neighborhood that sells that brand. My wife was surprised to see me come back to the car with two bottles: a full one and an empty one. I had not been successful in trading it in. The garden center explained to me I needed a special deposit form, and the original receipt. The special deposit form could be obtained by sending in yet another form to the supplier's headquarters, and they would send the deposit form back. Within. Three. Weeks. Excuse me? 21st century?
