“This is the dawn of the mobile enterprise and as a result, digital strategists must think beyond the idea of a social business”. That’s a quote from a recent post titled Investing in the Mobile Enterprise, written by Brian Solis, a Principal at Altimeter Group. Mobile, much like social, is clearly a critical element of the future enterprise; but so are Big Data, Cloud Computing, and who knows what else in the coming years. One thing is clear: the future Enterprise will not resemble the current Enterprise, as we enter a very transformative period that promises to impact the very structure of our organizations.
Humanity
The CIO and the Future of Enterprise IT
The Big Four areas of innovation (Social, Cloud, Mobile, and Big Data) have generated much discussion about their transformative and disruptive nature. As I’ve described in a recent post, the future enterprise is a Digital Enterprise. In the last two months, I’ve been involved in several forums where the discussion centered on the future of Enterprise IT, and more specifically, the changing role of the CIO. While there are no clear answers, there are a lot of opinions and much speculation.
I’ve been on the side of this argument that believes significant change is coming to Enterprise IT – and for that matter – current organization structures. The big four have created an environment that can’t flourish in traditional command and control models. In a recent IBM CEO Study, CEOs emphasized the need for openness and collaboration. Openness has clear benefits, as empowered employees drive better results by generating ideas, bringing creativity to the innovation process, and delighting customers. But as the study points out, openness comes with risk. The open culture required for success will drive companies to align employee and company values in a way that encourages value-driven decision making – not control-driven. What this translates to in terms of organization design is anyone’s guess – but organizational change is coming to the Digital Enterprise.
2012 IBM CEO Study
The 2012 IBM CEO Study is now available: IBM CEO Study -2012. This study provides further evidence that the world is shifting to what Geoffrey Moore has termed “Systems of Engagement”. This quote from the report would indicate that CEOs see the writing on the wall:
“The view that technology is primarily a driver of efficiency is outdated; CEOs now see technology as an enabler of collaboration and relationships — those essential connections that fuel creativity and innovation. Simply put, technology is reinventing connections with — and among — employees, customers and partners.”
This study underscores my long time premise that collaboration and analytic excellence is required to be successful in this new systems of engagement era. Those that think this is just another cycle or a passing fad are greatly mistaken. We are at a unique point in history – driven by a perfect storm of innovation as highlighted by this quote:
“Today’s CEOs are in a position few of their predecessors have faced. Although there have been many eras of technology disruption in the past, several factors make this period different. First, a number of new technologies are rippling through society at the same time, and they’re being adopted much faster. In addition, disruptive technologies of previous eras almost always originated in business or government, and then spread to consumers. But recent advances are flowing in the reverse direction and are being absorbed more rapidly by the younger generation.”
The Digital Enterprise and New Ways of Thinking
This recent Article titled “Sayonara Sony” by Adam Hartung provides a great example of the dangers of not evolving as a business. I can’t help but think that this story will play out countless times over the next three to five years. In Sony’s case, it is a stubborn reliance on industrial age thinking that has driven their downward spiral. Those companies that won’t abandon their specific reliance on legacy practices will suffer the same fate. We’ve moved on from the industrial age. We are in the midst of an information age that requires completely new ways of thinking. Sustained innovation is the new mantra, and the emerging digital enterprise will not function on long standing management theory. Leaders need to realize this and adapt – or suffer the consequences. They need to embrace the characteristics of the new digital enterprise:
- Sustained innovation
- Engagement and insight-driven
- Mobile first
- Context-aware
- Business Technology NOT Information Technology
- Relationship-based
- Flexibility in operating & business models
- Experiential versus transactional
- Prescriptive
The best leaders can adapt – but we’ve never seen a time quite like this before. There is so much unchartered territory and things are changing very fast. Therefore, leaders need to be flexible, they need to be students of the disruptive forces that are driving change, and they need to be open to new ways of doing things. In short, they need to disrupt, before being disrupted. If not – it’s “Sayonara fill-in-the-blank”.
Digital Governance
Governance is a rapidly growing area of interest. Although social media is driving most of this discussion, broader digital initiatives are just as important. Without governance across all digital initiatives, companies will fail to achieve the most critical objectives facing them: rapid and better innovation, re-inventing customer relationships, and operating dexterity. Because of these stakes, digital governance must have teeth. Companies cannot let their efforts remain fragmented and must address what some at Forrester have called “Distributed Chaos”. Personalization is just a pipe dream if data cannot be lifted from silos to create a comprehensive view of the customer. Today, the Marketing and Communication function is a common place to find some element of digital governance, and some companies may elect to leave it there. However, the current digital expansion is cross functional and much broader than Marketing and Communication.
More Thoughts on Digital Strategy
While reflecting on recent dialog with executives, I’ve realized that although the growth of digital represents opportunity, the speed at which we are reacting could actually be working against us. Technology advancements and their broad consumer adoption are driving initiatives in isolation. We see tremendous opportunity in riding the social media, location and mobility waves, but when pursued in isolation, there could be unintended consequences. For example, several companies have been noted for their social media prowess, but the possible side effects of this prowess are reflected in some key statistics:
- Coca Cola’s website traffic is down more than 40% in just 12 months
- Nabisco’s traffic has dropped nearly 74% in just one year
- The average decrease in unique visitors for Fortune 100 websites is 24%
The Hottest Trends in Analytics
In this recent video, Eric Siegel, PhD, Conference Chair for Predictive Analytics World and Text Analytics World, discusses three innovative advanced analytics trends.
These trends build upon the growing focus on social data and text analytics. The three areas covered are:
- Using social data to improve predictive models
- Applying text analytics unstructured data to better predict customer behavior
- Using net-lift modeling to determine which customers will be receptive to retention offers.
It’s a brief five minute video that is well worth the look.
The Evolving Role of Business Analytics
Business Analytics refers to the skills, technologies, applications and practices for the continuous exploration of data to gain insight that drive business decisions. Business Analytics is multi-faceted. It combines multiple forms of analytics and applies the right method to deliver expected results. It focuses on developing new insights using techniques including, data mining, predictive analytics, natural language processing, artificial intelligence, statistical analysis and quantitative analysis. In addition, domain knowledge is a key component of the business analytics portfolio. Business Analytics can then be viewed as the combination of domain knowledge and all forms of analytics in a way that creates analytic applications focused on enabling specific business outcomes.
Machine Versus Jeopardy
Craig Rhinehart leads the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Archive / Governance and Content Analytics lines of business for IBM’s Software Group – I’ve worked with Craig in the past. In a recent Blog Post titled “What is Content Analytics? Alex”, he provides a perspective on the technology behind IBM Watson and the future of data management and analytics. Watson is taking on two former Jeopardy champions in an upcoming episode.
There is skepticism in some of the comments left by readers. As Craig responds, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Having seen first-hand what content analytics can do, Craig is not overstating the potential for this technology. In fact, he just scratched the surface of the many business applications that will benefit from this technology. Insight uncovered by this technology will drive better decisions, deliver better and faster innovation, and help companies reach new levels of operational excellence.
I recommend this very well written Blog post.
Saving America’s Cities with Analytics
In this article by Stanley S. Litow titled How to Save America’s Cities with Data Analytics, Mr. Litow describes a very interesting scenario: Companies and civic agencies developing innovative partnerships with city leaders that leverage data to make better decisions and address the greater good.
Mr. Litow touches on the growing reality that billions of transistors will be embedded in everything from police records to parking meters. City leaders can analyze the resulting data tsunami to gain new insights, and perhaps find ways to make their cities work better. This perspective underscores the notion that data from an ever growing number of sources represents a pathway to better decisions – and it’s not just limited to corporations.
Analyzing Data in Motion
In his “Building a Smarter Planet” Blog, Steve Hamm talks about Analyzing Data in Motion to save stroke victims. There is no better way to appreciate the power of emerging analytic technology than viewing it in the context of life saving applications. This example combines very powerful stream computing technology with predictive analytics and data mining. This combination enables high speed, scalable and complex analytics of data streams in motion. As the author describes, they are using this technology to look for patterns in data that could help them identify patients who are experiencing a severe complication to ruptured brain aneurysms.
Gartner’s views on ROI and 2011
In this great Blog post by Robert Mitchell titled ROI fading fast as measure of IT success, Mr. Mitchell discusses the key messages planned for this weeks Gartner Symposium/ITxpo. I walk away with several key messages:
Reimagining the Future 