March 2014 – ManageWithoutThem

Internet of Things to revolutionise industry: GE – city, Internet of Things, cisco, ge, Rockwell Automation, internet of everything, Sense-T, mining – Computerworld

On March 20, 2014

Another example of “information-enabled products”:

Internet of Things to revolutionise industry: GE – city, Internet of Things, cisco, ge, Rockwell Automation, internet of everything, Sense-T, mining – Computerworld: “‘For the most part, that install base of machines we’ve sold over the years is essentially just metal that’s out there, and for us we see this as an opportunity of enabling that technology to work completely differently,’ Sheppard said.

‘If we could optimise that equipment just by 1 per cent – so just get 1 per cent more efficiency out of that equipment that’s out there today – we could deliver $20 billion in productivity to our customer base.’”

Analytic teams need their own IT… but should they?

By mdegeorge

On March 18, 2014

In Analytics, Capability Engineering, Collaboration Architectures, IT Management

As per linchpin project #9 (“Project 9. IT federation: shrinking corporate IT and embracing shadow IT”) we need to view our success in terms of capabilities not functions – and remove any roadblocks to maturing our capabilities.

So this is happening:

Big data: Why IT departments mustn’t be a drag on analytics | ZDNet: “‘Technology functions are still finding it difficult to keep up with business demands. Working in analytics and being responsible for analytics, I can’t let that happen,’ said RBS chief analytics officer, Customer Solutions Group, Alan Grogan.

‘I can’t turn around to my CEO or to my customers — or even just if I want to retain staff — to say ‘I’m sorry, we just don’t have the scalability, the flexibility or the control on the domain’.'”

At the same time, there are efficiencies in building a federated IT capability. When Analytics teams need to manage their own IT they aren’t evolving the IT function. And when Analytics teams manage their own IT the IT function has to evolve. There is a joint responsibility to manage this process.

Full Stack Startups… Re-intermediation(!)

By mdegeorge

On March 16, 2014

In Uncategorized

This is a significant trend:

Andreessen Horowitz: “Suppose you develop a new technology that is valuable to some industry. The old approach was to sell or license your technology to the existing companies in that industry. The new approach is to build a complete, end-to-end product or service that bypasses existing companies.”

Remember the old “disintermediation” view of how the Internet would change industries? Well that absolutely happened. And it happened with exactly the impact on customer focus on which it was predicted.

But now this! Rather than disintermediation of industries you get the situation where a new entrant can create a “stacked” entry and apply an end-to-end service.

This reminds me of the first question that popped into my head at a recent Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) financial services event on “systems of engagement”:

Is it easier to build systems of engagement on top of an organisation with good systems of record, or to build (or aquire) systems of record for an organisation with good systems of engagement?

So, does this mean this?