And of those who are actually leading a large-scale IT transformation, there are few as insightful and articulate as our own Jon Peirce, VP of Global Infrastructure for EMC IT.
If you're a frequent reader of this blog, the name should be familiar -- he's basically the star in popular posts such as "From Silos To Services".
Jon has now taken pen in hand, so to speak, and authored a compelling post on his personal perspectives regarding IT transformation to an "as a service" model.
And, boy, are there are some powerful insights that are worth elaborating on.
Are Heroes Born ... Or Made?
Jon's first career was in manufacturing, during which time he witnessed the complete transformation and restructuring of the industry to today's modern and streamlined model. I'm sure he didn't realize at the time he'd be seeing another version of the same story, only this time played out in a large-scale IT setting.
Not only is Jon leading the complete transformation of EMC's global IT infrastructure landscape, he spends an amazing amount of time in front of IT audiences who are beginning to wrestle with many of the same challenges he's faced and tackled.
One interesting side effect -- the more time you spend talking about your experiences, the more focused your opinions become, and that's what I've seen in Jon, as exemplified by this post.
Go ahead, please take a moment to read it. That's OK, I'll wait.
(pause here)
The Rationale For IT Transformation
Jon makes it brutally clear -- from his perspective, the advent of low-cost, high-quality and extremely convenient external IT services (e.g. the public cloud), means that the traditional IT monopoly is essentially doomed: IT must be prepared to compete or suffer the consequences.
Darwinian capitalism at work :)
He shares the fundamental truth: successful business people are all about solving problems and getting results, and if they can't get what they need from internal sources, they won't hesitate to go outside.
Case closed.
I compare and contrast that with my usual talk track which is a bit more aspirational: through transformation, IT groups have potential to reposition themselves from cost centers to value generators.
I think we're both right: he sees the threat, I see the opportunity.
Together, we make a half-decent carrot-and-stick.
The New Mindset: Winning The Business
Business leaders thrive on competing for the business. You become the best at giving your customers what they want, or they will most certainly go elsewhere.
Jon's key insight is that the lack of this "competing for the business" is the essential mindset and capability is what is responsible for holding back IT transformation.
He believes (and I agree) this simple but powerful perspective shift is what completely changes how you organize IT -- more like a modern service provider, less like a traditional project-oriented physical IT shop.
He argues persuasively that the exact same technology and processes used by successful external service providers is available to any IT organization operating at meaningful scale.
There is no magic involved here.
All that appears to be lacking is the will to use the tools at hand.
Going farther, I'd add that one of the keys to competing effectively is understanding your customers' requirements better than anyone else. In that regard, shouldn't IT organizations be best positioned to compete for internal IT business?
Separating Production And Consumption
If IT aspires to be the internal service provider of choice for an enterprise, they need to get really good at producing (i.e. delivering) IT services. Jon makes the point that IT should be held accountable for competitive unit costs for service delivery, and exposing those back to the business so intelligent optimization decisions can be made -- decisions made by the business, and not IT.
He is quite correct in pointing out that IT should not be held accountable for aggregate consumption of IT services, which is so often the case in today's traditional IT world.
If you think about it, don't business leaders make intelligent choices on what they spend on in an effort to deliver objectives -- if they decide to spend more on IT because they see the value, isn't that a *desirable* state of affairs?
And I wholeheartedly agree with Jon that if IT sees itself in the "IT rationing business", well, the long-term outcomes of that mindset should be obvious.
Who Controls Aggregate Consumption of IT In A Cloud World?
So, in a modern enterprise, this brings up an interesting question -- who controls aggregate IT consumption? The likely answer is devestatingly simple: the CFO.
In most modern organizations, an effective CFO team controls aggregate consumption (e.g. expenses) for a wide variety of other non-IT economic inputs: travel expenses, facilities, personnel, R+D, etc. etc.
In this world, aggregate IT consumption is just one more expense item -- if unit costs are known and measured. And, if your career experience is anything like mine, this is something that CFOs know how to do very well indeed :)
Indeed, I meet many customers where the real battlelines for IT transformation are outside IT itself -- it's working with the finance team to transition from a "per project" IT funding model to a "shared and variable services" IT funding model.
Once again, the required tools and frameworks have existed for a while; what's lacking is the will to apply them to the challenge at hand.
The End State
In our free-market economy, we all survive and thrive through competition. Our companies compete, our internal organizations compete, and -- as individuals -- we compete daily. Through competition, we get better at what we do, or suffer the consequences.
For me, the whole cloud and IT transformation discussion has evolved to 10% technology, and 90% organizational mindset change.
IT landscapes are nothing more than the product of the people who build and operate them.
Change the people model, change the IT model.
No silver bullet technology on the planet is going to do that for you.
And I think, based on Jon's comments, he'd tend to agree.
By: Chuck Hollis
Jon's first career was in manufacturing, during which time he witnessed the complete transformation and restructuring of the industry to today's modern and streamlined model. I'm sure he didn't realize at the time he'd be seeing another version of the same story, only this time played out in a large-scale IT setting.
Not only is Jon leading the complete transformation of EMC's global IT infrastructure landscape, he spends an amazing amount of time in front of IT audiences who are beginning to wrestle with many of the same challenges he's faced and tackled.
One interesting side effect -- the more time you spend talking about your experiences, the more focused your opinions become, and that's what I've seen in Jon, as exemplified by this post.
Go ahead, please take a moment to read it. That's OK, I'll wait.
(pause here)
The Rationale For IT Transformation
Jon makes it brutally clear -- from his perspective, the advent of low-cost, high-quality and extremely convenient external IT services (e.g. the public cloud), means that the traditional IT monopoly is essentially doomed: IT must be prepared to compete or suffer the consequences.
Darwinian capitalism at work :)
He shares the fundamental truth: successful business people are all about solving problems and getting results, and if they can't get what they need from internal sources, they won't hesitate to go outside.
Case closed.
I compare and contrast that with my usual talk track which is a bit more aspirational: through transformation, IT groups have potential to reposition themselves from cost centers to value generators.
I think we're both right: he sees the threat, I see the opportunity.
Together, we make a half-decent carrot-and-stick.
The New Mindset: Winning The Business
Business leaders thrive on competing for the business. You become the best at giving your customers what they want, or they will most certainly go elsewhere.
Jon's key insight is that the lack of this "competing for the business" is the essential mindset and capability is what is responsible for holding back IT transformation.
He believes (and I agree) this simple but powerful perspective shift is what completely changes how you organize IT -- more like a modern service provider, less like a traditional project-oriented physical IT shop.
He argues persuasively that the exact same technology and processes used by successful external service providers is available to any IT organization operating at meaningful scale.
There is no magic involved here.
All that appears to be lacking is the will to use the tools at hand.
Going farther, I'd add that one of the keys to competing effectively is understanding your customers' requirements better than anyone else. In that regard, shouldn't IT organizations be best positioned to compete for internal IT business?
Separating Production And Consumption
If IT aspires to be the internal service provider of choice for an enterprise, they need to get really good at producing (i.e. delivering) IT services. Jon makes the point that IT should be held accountable for competitive unit costs for service delivery, and exposing those back to the business so intelligent optimization decisions can be made -- decisions made by the business, and not IT.
He is quite correct in pointing out that IT should not be held accountable for aggregate consumption of IT services, which is so often the case in today's traditional IT world.
If you think about it, don't business leaders make intelligent choices on what they spend on in an effort to deliver objectives -- if they decide to spend more on IT because they see the value, isn't that a *desirable* state of affairs?
And I wholeheartedly agree with Jon that if IT sees itself in the "IT rationing business", well, the long-term outcomes of that mindset should be obvious.
Who Controls Aggregate Consumption of IT In A Cloud World?
So, in a modern enterprise, this brings up an interesting question -- who controls aggregate IT consumption? The likely answer is devestatingly simple: the CFO.
In most modern organizations, an effective CFO team controls aggregate consumption (e.g. expenses) for a wide variety of other non-IT economic inputs: travel expenses, facilities, personnel, R+D, etc. etc.
In this world, aggregate IT consumption is just one more expense item -- if unit costs are known and measured. And, if your career experience is anything like mine, this is something that CFOs know how to do very well indeed :)
Indeed, I meet many customers where the real battlelines for IT transformation are outside IT itself -- it's working with the finance team to transition from a "per project" IT funding model to a "shared and variable services" IT funding model.
Once again, the required tools and frameworks have existed for a while; what's lacking is the will to apply them to the challenge at hand.
The End State
In our free-market economy, we all survive and thrive through competition. Our companies compete, our internal organizations compete, and -- as individuals -- we compete daily. Through competition, we get better at what we do, or suffer the consequences.
For me, the whole cloud and IT transformation discussion has evolved to 10% technology, and 90% organizational mindset change.
IT landscapes are nothing more than the product of the people who build and operate them.
Change the people model, change the IT model.
No silver bullet technology on the planet is going to do that for you.
And I think, based on Jon's comments, he'd tend to agree.
By: Chuck Hollis
