Does the 'Cloud' Really Have a Silver Lining?

I’ve been really surprised in my recent 'nibbling' at various IT issues by the polarity of views about the Cloud.

It made me think of the quote ‘More sinned against than sinning’. I thought it was from Macbeth but it’s actually from King Lear - no wonder I failed English Literature!

The Cloud Debate

Getting back to polarity, however, here’s a snapshot of a recent debate in one of the LinkedIn Groups I follow. I've attempted to summarise this - with apologies to the contributors if I've mis-represented them!

It's appropriate to recognise that, as a recent IOD report identified (Big Picture: Connecting to growth: a business view of broadband), unimpeded and consistently good quality access to the Internet is not a given and  this inevitably colours views and perceptions of the value of the Cloud.

The Views For

The Views Against

Undoubtedly the Cloud is the future of IT provision. No upfront investment costs- pay as you need. IT needs outsourced Small businesses that make effective use of the "cloud" can benefit from enterprise grade systems and economies of scale while driving efficiency within their own business. Almost all consumer-based services are moving to the cloud, we all use cloud based services every day. Many SME's don't have the budget for internal main-frames any more (nor can afford the resource to manage them) so Cloud based service are the perfect answer - scalable and affordable. About the only enterprise that might not consider Cloud would be a bank or very large enterprise The Cloud,” with its ability to deliver digital power at low cost and in small increments, is not only changing the profile of corporate IT departments but also helping to spawn a range of new business models by shifting the economics of “rent versus buy” trade-offs for companies and consumers.

No internet connection - nothing. The vast majority of (SME's) don't have a server and are never likely to need one. All they want to do is write letters, send emails and, in a small number of cases, run an accounts package to meet government requirements. The Cloud' is the latest in a long series of sales opportunities that arise particularly when business is a little slow. The main danger is that businesses will be sold something not suitable by an over enthusiastic sales person. It is not t a universal panacea  but that is what it is being heavily sold as. Compare it to car repair centres or any other industry where you're relying on another human beings skill and experience. Where there is opportunity to bamboozle, confuse and take advantage - unscrupulous people will take advantage. Backup! That's usually with the same company so also off-air. Simply stated if you are running major business software off the net and you will not get reliable guaranteed service 9:00 to 17:00++ then the advice must be Don't Use The Cloud. One of the major difficulties is International Law. You and your data may be British but if your cloud segment is on an American Server or under American control you probably come under US Law.

What is the Cloud?

Just think of it as a foreign language and accept it for what it is -  one word for hombre, monsieur, человек.

Very simply put, it means that all your computer stuff is in a remote place - not in the pc you're probably sat at now - but  a server 'farm' in somewhere like the Arizona desert - google it and see what you get! So, the software becomes like a utility, like electricity, gas, or your telephone. Do you really need to know how it actually works?

So What do Users Say?

Source:   UK Study of SMEs by comScore  http://bit.ly/14COaN8

• More than 94 per cent of cloud users experienced security benefits.

• Most cloud users said the biggest benefits were that fewer internal IT resources were needed and  noted the time saved in managing IT.

• More than 68 per cent of cloud users said their levels of privacy protection increased by moving to the cloud and 45 per cent said they felt "very comfortable" with their cloud provider's ability to manage data privacy.

• More than half non-Cloud users expressed concerns about reliability, and 82 per  cent of cloud users said they experienced improved service availability since moving to the Cloud.

• Most Cloud users said they were confident their provider could restore services during an outage quickly and efficiently.

So, What's Needed?

In promoting the Cloud, and in my experience this applies to many IT issues, the best technical people tend not to be the best communicators. So, as a contributor to the debate asks:

 'Who do you put in front of a customer? The slick sales guy who's been hand fed "key selling points", buzz words and partner sales materials which he can't translate into a real customers requirements. So he sells what he's told to hit target and leaves the poor IT guys behind the scenes to deliver a square peg into a round hole'.

So,  for this issue as for many others, your challenge is to find a 'trusted advisor' who will work with you to find the best solution for your particular business needs.

The ‘Cappuccino Froth’ of Social Media

Note: This blog provides a narrative to the slides used for my recent Pecha Kucha presentation - you can find it on my LinkedIn profile and on Slideshare. I have added some extensions here which the time constraints (20 seconds for each of the 20 slides) prevented on the night!

30% Froth

 I’m told that an ideal cappuccino is typically 30% froth although I’ve never actually measured it. My hypothesis for this conversation is that social media at best represents just 30% of what digital technology can do to improve business performance.

 It’s just the froth on top of the 70% that really makes a difference.

Over the late bank holiday I went on a cycling tour visiting vineyards in Sussex and Kent - it’s a start up business I’m mentoring (see www.winerides.co.uk). So, I thought I’d use a vineyard as an illustrative way of anchoring the three technological, socioeconomic and cultural revolutions to significantly impact these shores.

Note: The pictures are of the CarrTaylor vineyard at Westfield, East Sussex (www.carr-taylor.co.uk).

The Three Revolutions

·         The First Revolution was the Agricultural Revolution which moved food production from small self-reliant cottage industries to communities to fuel a rapidly expanding population.

This had the effect of concentrating power and wealth

in the hands of the landowners.

·         The Second Revolution was the Industrial Revolution fuelled by new materials, new sources of energy and new machines. This moved people en-mass from the countryside to the cities (the attraction and growth of cities is a continuing phenomenon and mega-trend).

This had the effect of concentrating power and wealth

in the hands of the factory owners.

·         Now we have the Third Revolution - the Digital Revolution - fuelled by the Internet.

 (By the way satellite technology is used to determine where the vines are planted to optimise exposure to the sun and is also used to determine when the grapes should be harvested based on their sugar content).

This Third Revolution may well have democratised influence and power but, in my opinion, has done precious little to equalise the distribution of wealth.

The Current State

This democratisation has been facilitated by social media tools such as Facebook, Google, LinkedIn et al which I’m sure you’re only too familiar with. The comfortable and reasonably predictable old P’s of marketing Product/Price/Promotion and Place, which informed my approach to marketing, have been ‘Googalised’ so we now have Penguin/Panda & Phantom to deal with - still P’s I notice!

The current state is an increasingly noisy and disruptive world where nothing stands still and where the pace of disruption is arguably accelerated by the behaviour of the business owners of these major ecosystems as well.

So, now we have the connected world - multiple cobwebs of communities that defy simple categorisation. From this comes the notion of ‘Six degrees of Separation’ although I’m sure there must be a more recent figure than this?

And the perpetrators?

Generation Y, the born digital, the digital natives. They don’t think technology, they just do it! These people are allergic to command and control. They’re not starry eyed either. Recent research suggests they don’t have much time for the institutional shibboleths of the NHS or the Welfare State.

The collective granular outcome of all this activity is the so-called ‘firehose of data’ Now, I could have talked about Gartner’s 3 V’s here - Volume/Velocity/Variety - with a suitable slide. But, I liked some IBM language I came across calling it the ‘data of desire’ so I used a visual of a humongous yellow truck.

 Well, boys and their toys!

I Changed my Mind

I used to view acceptance of social media and the digital world as a sort of marmite test - you either love it or you hate it. But, quite frankly that just won’t do, it’s just an easy way out for a lazy mind.

As John Maynard Keynes famously said:

‘When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’

So, I’ve recognised that Social and Digital are not going to go away. People (the so-called Digital Immigrants) and businesses cannot afford to be disenfranchised in this way if they want to understand and be part of the communities and global marketplace that we are all now in.

There’s a lot of data that supports the view that businesses that embrace digital and social technology grow exponentially. The performance gap is widening and accelerating. Businesses that don’t adopt social media and digital technology will flat line and will end up in the elephant’s graveyard.

Note: you will have recognised that this is not a forensically data based blog!

So, now there’s ample evidence of the voracious appetite of the digital monster. Look at how established industries and businesses have been eviscerated - Jessops, HMV and Clinton Cards to name but a few. Consultants call this process ‘disintermediation’ because they can charge more for it!

Put simply it means cutting out the middleman.

Have you or your clients thought about where they sit in the supply chain of value delivery, whether it’s B2B or B2C and the associated risks of ignoring the digital and social revolution?

A Different Business Mindset

Let’s be absolutely clear. It’s not about technology. Technology is a servant not a master. It’s merely a means to and end and has to meet the needs of the business.

The real challenge is more fundamental. My belief is that at the root of this is the need for a changed mindset.

From	To
Institutional Thinking	Network Thinking
·         Closed (C)	·         Open (O)
·         Selective (S)	·         Random (R)
·         Controlling (C)	·         Supportive (S)

As Thomas Power who is the creator of the LeadORS indicator which measures this state of mind says, this shift presents a real challenge for executives in both large and small organisations. No approach is absolutely right and a blended strategy is often required depending on the industry and context.

Note: If you want to know more about your own profile then visit http://www.leadors.co/

From the Corporate Brand to the Personal Brand

It’s always been true that people buy from people. This perspective has been sharpened by the decline of authority institutions and authority figures - for some real data see http://www.edelman.com and look for their Trust Barometer. It’s fascinating reading.

For example:

65% of people are likely to trust a person like yourself

50% of people are likely to trust a regular employee

The comparative trust figures for a CEO are 33% and Government 29%. 

So, how do you build this personal brand?

WelI, can’t give the game away here but I can direct you to ‘Know Me, Like Me, Follow Me: What Online Social Networking Means for You and Your Business’ authored by Penny Power.

But I can remind you of the old adage - ‘hire for attitude, train for skill’ - its never been more appropriate.

Unlocking Potential

I see my personal core purpose as ‘unlocking potential’ which why in my more energised moments I describe myself as a ‘digital activist’.

Frontier’s vision is to help businesses and people transition in to the Digital Age.

Why?

Because we passionately believe that going ‘Digital’ can unlock:

·         Productivity - faster to market, shortened sales funnel, easier ‘one stop solutions;

·         Revenue - improving margins and sales volumes;

·         Potential - unleashing the full potential of your business assets - people, customers, suppliers and as importantly today social responsibility.

The outcome is a new form of business capital - which includes knowledge, money of course, and communities.

Why should this be of interest?

Well, for example, if you were building your business to exit then digital technology can improve your exit multiples across a number of dimensions - have look at what our business  partners which include Darren Shirlaw have to say - www.shirlawscoaching.co.uk/.

Boiling Frogs

After all of this you may decide you don’t want to do anything,

Well fine.

So I’ll just think of you as a boiling frog - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog if you need to know more.

#Frontier @chrisfarrance www.frontiercoaching.com chrisfarrance@frontiercoaching.com 46

STOP PRESS Frontier is running a ‘Digital Discovery Day’ on the 18th July in Richmond. For more information, please contact Frontier at hello@frontiercoaching.com or call 01959 522082 now!

The Suitor Scorned - Welcome to the Digital World!

Act 1: When the Brand is Everything

It used to be enough for businesses to have an inside/out view of what customers wanted. Put bluntly, what this meant is that as a customer you could only have what we’ve got and on our terms. There might be a bit of lip-gloss on customer service but not a lot. For many businesses, the view was also UK centric. Of course, there were global brands, but they were in the Premier League - remote and unobtainable.

It really didn’t matter what was happening around the business - we were the immutable ice breaking ship - confident in our absolute right to skew the terms of business totally in our favour. Competitive analysis was an over the shoulder glance - what on earth would those guys (as opposed to mates) know that we didn’t? This was the era of big brands, big spends, showy promotional activity and crude marketing subject to the 50% rule - as in 50% wasted.

As an aside, wasn’t ‘command and control’ and silos absolutely the right way to run a business?

I know because I was part of that world as a senior marketing guy for a Retail Bank. Yep, I contributed to the debt crisis too - magic mushroom lending margins that are still around! And, I still shudder at the forced bell curve distribution of the annual performance reviews.

Act 2: When the Brand is Nothing

And now?

Well it’s a bit of a ‘Countdown’ scenario isn’t it?

In summary:

·         External events - like rampant technology - are shaping events more than businesses or their owners would like to admit;

·         New competitors spring up who won’t play the game according to your rules and they could come from anywhere (as in global);

·         Customers won’t be spoon-fed any more - they use a myriad of reference points (the ZMOT model) where a corporate brand based ‘push’ is largely irrelevant;

·         Employees who would be expected to subsume their individuality to the collective corporate will are just plain bolshie - they have their own rules;

·         The old model of leadership is, quite simply, not fit for purpose.

Actually this was a bit of a ‘marmite’ test for me - you know, you either like it or hate it? It challenged all my thinking and experience based on a successful career with a major corporate. I decided I wanted to stay in touch so if nothing else I would have some appreciation of the environment my grandchildren are growing up in and the challenges facing clients.

Act 3: When the People are Everything

Welcome to the Digital World!

Digital, as I understand it, is just a super-efficient way of transmitting information. It’s transformational power lies in the low cost and immediate way in which people can connect using mobile devices (anytime, anywhere) like the smart phone and tablets - and who knows what going forward?

Technology might well be anathema to you, but if you want your business to survive beyond the 2013/14 Premier League and not be relegated then you need to get take control. It’s not just the mechanics of technology. It’s destructive potency is that it’s causing people - your customers and your staff - to think and do things differently. They might go elsewhere.

So, until you build a business model that recognises these challenges, your business is at risk too.

Are you ready to become part of the Digital Revolution?

e: chrisfarrance@frontiercoaching.com

m: 07770 465 560

w: www.frontiercoaching.com

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