http://www.informationweek.comInformationWeeken-usCopyright 2012, UBM LLC.2013-04-17T22:53:00Zhttp://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/10/9836/Social-Networking-Collaboration/Research:-2013-Enterprise-Social-Networking-Survey.html?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cio2013-03-04T08:00:00ZCompanies must focus more on using social networking to build external ties to customers, suppliers and partners -- not just among employees.http://www.informationweek.com/software/productivity-applications/why-enterprise-social-networking-falls-s/240149712?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cio<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <!-- Mar. 4, 2013 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <div id="inlineGreenPromoTop"> <div class="greenBand"></div> <div class="inlineGreenPromoContent"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/030413?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1359/smallcov.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green - Mar. 4, 2013" title="InformationWeek Green - Mar. 4, 2013" align="left" class="greenIssueImage" /></a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/030413?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/graphics_library/misc/Green_leaf_88x88.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green" title="InformationWeek Green" align="right" class="greenLeaf" /></a><br /> <div class="greenPromoText"> <strong><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/030413?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the entire March 4, 2013, issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong>, distributed in an all-digital format (registration required).<br /><br /> </div> </div> <div class="greenBand"></div> </div> <!-- / Mar. 4, 2013 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <br /><!-- leave as a br to not interfere w/ the insights boxes --> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1359/359Coverart_flat_110.jpg" width="110" height="110" alt="Get Truly Social" title="Get Truly Social" width="110" height="110" class="artInlineTopImage" /> <P> Outside of work, we love social tools, which now account for 20% of all online activity, up from virtually zero five years ago, according to ComScore. Users mix and match dozens of different tools and options, from Facebook and Twitter to social file-sharing tools such as Dropbox and Google Docs.</p> <P> So have our widely deployed enterprise social networks ridden this wave of popularity, redefining how we do business? Not quite. Our <i>InformationWeek</i> 2013 Social Networking in the Enterprise Survey, our third such survey since 2010, paints a similar picture as in prior years: 85% of respondents say their organizations have some form of enterprise social networking in place, yet their results are mediocre. Only 18% of the IT pro respondents to our survey say their internal programs are a "great success," and a mere 10% characterize their external social networking initiatives that way. Non-IT respondents tend to be even less enthusiastic about their internal social networks but somewhat more optimistic about their external efforts.</p> <P> The lukewarm reception isn't for a lack of product options. The original leaders in enterprise email and collaboration, such as IBM and Microsoft, have kept improving their enterprise social software, and they're joined by specialists such as Jive, Telligent and Lithium. </p> <P> McKinsey &amp; Co. forecasts that $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in annual economic value is created through the use of social technologies, two-thirds of that coming from social collaboration between and within companies. The consultancy forecasts fabulous potential productivity gains of 20% to 30%, depending on the industry. </p> <P> Will that happen? No way, not if companies continue to approach enterprise social networking the way they are today. That's because business unit and technology teams aren't doing a good enough job of connecting business needs and technology capabilities. </p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <!-- inline Report Promo --> <div class="inlineReportPromo right"> <div class="reportHeader"><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/10/9836/Social-Networking-Collaboration/Research:-2013-Enterprise-Social-Networking-Survey.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20130305" target="_blank">Research: 2013 Enterprise Social Networking Survey</a> </div> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1359/359CSreportcover.jpg" width="175" height="112" alt="Report Cover" title="Report Cover" class="reportCover" /> <div class="reportInfo"> Our free research report on <a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/10/9836/Social-Networking-Collaboration/Research:-2013-Enterprise-Social-Networking-Survey.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20130305" target="_blank">enterprise social networking</a> has <strong>40</strong> charts from our survey of <strong>451</strong> business technology pros.<br /><br /> <center><strong><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/10/9836/Social-Networking-Collaboration/Research:-2013-Enterprise-Social-Networking-Survey.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20130305" target="_blank">Get This</a> And <a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center> </div> </div> <!-- / inline Report Promo --> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> We revamped our social networking survey to compare the thinking of these two groups: Of the 451 respondents, 286 are IT pros and 165 are business users, many of them with marketing in their titles. About two-thirds of those organizations have more than 1,000 employees.</p> <P> Our results show a disconnect between IT and business units. IT generally sees social networks as focused on employee collaboration and separate from external communications. Non-IT users put the focus on integrated and external systems, as they look to connect with customers and suppliers as well as colleagues, and also to study the competition. </p> <P> Bingo. We've found the crux of the problem. And it's largely IT that has to change to focus more of its social networking energy on customers, suppliers and even rivals.</p> <P> <strong>Opening Ranks</strong></p> <P> Less than one-third of organizations in our survey have a proper level of integration to allow external access to their social networks, let alone have policies on how to communicate with customers, employees and vendors in the social world. There's no need to scrap legacy collaboration systems -- email, network file sharing and internal social platforms such as IBM Notes/Domino, Microsoft SharePoint and Jive are solid foundations. But they must be readily accessible on tablet and other mobile devices, and the data flow from social collaboration systems needs to move as freely as email. It's that simple. </p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center><strong>To read the rest of the article,<br /><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/030413/?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">download the Mar. 4, 2013, issue of <em>InformationWeek</em> </a></strong></center><br clear="all" /></p> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE -->2012-12-18T02:40:00Zhttp://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/83/9475/IT-Business-Strategy/research-outlook-2013.html?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cio2012-12-13T00:33:00Zhttp://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/81/9081/Business-Intelligence-and-Information-Management/research-big-data-smart-data.html?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cio2012-12-10T08:00:00ZTech spending is looking up, but IT must focus more on customers and less on internal systems.http://www.informationweek.com/global-cio/interviews/outlook-2013-it-is-still-too-internally/240144005?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cio<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <!-- Dec. 10, 2012 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <div id="inlineGreenPromoTop"> <div class="greenBand"></div> <div class="inlineGreenPromoContent"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/121012/?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1353/smallcov.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green - Dec. 10, 2012" title="InformationWeek Green - Dec. 10, 2012" align="left" class="greenIssueImage" /></a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/121012/?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/graphics_library/misc/Green_leaf_88x88.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green" title="InformationWeek Green" align="right" class="greenLeaf" /></a> <div class="greenPromoText"> <strong><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/121012/?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the entire Dec. 10, 2012, issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong>, distributed in an all-digital format as part of our Green Initiative<br /> (Registration required.)<br /> <center><div class="innerGreenPromoText" align="center">We will plant a tree for each of the first 5,000 downloads.</div></center> </div> </div> <div class="greenBand"></div> </div> <!-- / Dec. 10, 2012 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <br /><!-- leave as a br to not interfere w/ the insights boxes --> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1353/353toc_Cover_art2_110.jpg" width="110" height="110" alt="Outlook 2013" title="Outlook 2013" width="110" height="110" class="artInlineTopImage" /> <P> Our <a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/83/9475/IT-Business-Strategy/research-outlook-2013.html" target="_blank">Outlook 2013</a> research identifies an unmistakable trend: IT demand and spending are continuing to rise from the recession years. Heading into 2010, less than half of companies in our survey were seeing rising demand for IT projects, about one in five was cutting IT staff and only 46% expected their IT budgets to increase. Today, 71% see rising demand for IT projects, just 8% are cutting IT staff and 60% expect higher IT budgets than in 2012. It's also promising that our 728 survey respondents say their companies are planning an average of 5.5 major IT initiatives for 2013.</p> <P> But therein also lies the problem. IT organizations' priority lists continue to trend toward IT-centric projects. Every year, their budgets and staffs are geared toward making IT more efficient versus addressing the changing customer and technology landscape. </p> <P> Two-thirds of projects planned for 2013, such as network infrastructure, security and storage, are decidedly IT-centric. About a fourth aren't focused on IT-centric efficiencies but are still internally focused, projects such as ERP and data quality. The remaining 11% of projects focus on customers -- building IT-led products, creating mobile apps for customers and improving big data programs, for instance. </p> <P> For all the talk about IT professionals being customer-centric -- that is, getting out of the cubicle and being the true innovators within the company -- for the most part, they're not. Infrastructure, security and storage improvements are indeed important, but their importance is dwarfed by technology trends happening outside of the IT department.</p> <P> In the same four-year period that IT spending and demand have clawed back from the recession, cloud computing has emerged as commonplace. Widespread use of smartphones and Web apps has made customers and fellow employees more tech-savvy and demanding. In that time frame, the iPad went from nonexistent to more than 100 million sold, and Facebook went from 300 million members to more than 1 billion. People are spending more time interacting online, and that carries over to business -- consumers shop, research and complain more online, and employees want to collaborate with colleagues more online. That interaction includes a steady migration of brick-and-mortar store sales to e-commerce sales.</p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <div style="float:right;padding-left:10px;"> <div style="width:210px; border:1px solid #000000;"> <div style="margin:0; padding:5px; background-color:#CC0000; text-align:center; font-size:1em; color:#ffffff; font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/83/9475/IT-Business-Strategy/research-outlook-2013.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20121210" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Research: Outlook 2013</a></div> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1353/353CSreportcover.jpg" width="175" height="114" style="margin:15px;"> <div style="font-size:.9em; margin:0px 1px 0px 10px;">Our full <a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/83/9475/IT-Business-Strategy/research-outlook-2013.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20121210" target="_blank">Outlook 2013</a> report is free with registration. The report includes all our survey data on IT project plans and expectations plus additional analysis.<br /><br /> <center><strong><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/83/9475/IT-Business-Strategy/research-outlook-2013.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20121210" target="_blank">Get This</a> And <a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center><br /></div> </div> </div> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> And our IT leaders' top priority for next year is infrastructure? When we asked survey takers to identify their company's top two IT projects, upgrading the network was cited most often (by 22%) -- far ahead of introducing IT-led products (13%) or creating mobile apps for customers (6%).</p> <P> Our Outlook 2013 Survey also asked IT pros how their companies view the IT organization. Only 15% say their companies view IT as a core part of their vision and strategy. Another 45% say it's part of the strategy, but not core. The rest say IT is relegated to tactical silos -- 14% of respondents think they're just keeping the lights on or they constantly face budget cuts.</p> <P> We need to see dramatically different results. To illustrate why, this article highlights four technology trends at the tipping point: consumerization, tablets, cloud computing and e-commerce. We'll look at why an IT organization will either ride these trends to growing importance or become obsolete. And we'll offer four slightly unconventional ideas for changing IT's place in the company. </p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center><strong>To read the rest of the article,<br /><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/121012/?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the Dec. 10, 2012, issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong></center><br clear="all" /></p> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <P>2012-10-31T08:00:00ZOur 2013 Big Data Survey shows we're not lacking facts, figures, or tools to wrangle them. So why do just 9% of respondents rate themselves as extremely effective users of data?http://www.informationweek.com/news/240009681?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cioTo paraphrase an old saying, if you torture data long enough, it'll tell you what you want to hear. And putting big data through that torture only lets us tell bigger lies. Marketing can justify crazy ad campaigns: "Sentiment analytics shows our latest campaign is actually a huge hit with the under-25-urban-vegan demo!" The supply chain team can use it to get more funding: "Our geolocation analysis shows if we invest in robotic warehouse automation, we'll reduce costs by 15%." Sales can explain why it missed its numbers: "We don't have an iOS app, and smartphone data shows that's what 87.4% of customers use. It's not our fault."</p> <P> Don't get us wrong. The ability to collect and analyze data is a core IT value proposition. Companies such as Wal-Mart, FedEx, and Southwest Airlines gained strategic advantage by digging into their core business data long before it was labeled "big." And there's no question that more data is available than ever before, especially information from the Web and smart mobile devices. Our beef, though, is that most businesses aren't good at using the data they have now. What are the odds they'll get better at analysis by adding volumes without changing their strategies? </p> <P> Our InformationWeek 2013 Big Data Survey shows that some companies are making progress. For example, most have built the required infrastructure and support various roles, in terms of primary data users; about one-third say they encourage wide access to information for business users. However, when it comes to data acquisition and use models, the wheels start to fall off. There are major gaps in data analysis, even for the most common types of information: transaction data, system logs, email, CRM, Web analytics. </p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <div style="float:right;padding-left:10px;"> <div style="width:210px; border:1px solid #000000;"> <div style="margin:0; padding:5px; background-color:#CC0000; text-align:center; font-size:1em; color:#ffffff; font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/81/9081/Business-Intelligence-and-Information-Management/research-big-data-smart-data.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20121105" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Research: Big Data, Smart Data</a></div> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1349/349F2reportcover.jpg" width="175" height="107" style="margin:15px;"> <center><strong>6 Big Data Lies</strong></center><br /> <div style="font-size:.9em; margin:0px 1px 0px 10px;">Get the <a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/81/9081/Business-Intelligence-and-Information-Management/research-big-data-smart-data.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20121105" target="_blank">2013 Big Data Survey full report</a> free with registration. <br /><br />This report includes 32 pages of action-oriented analysis, packed with 23 charts. What you'll find: <ul class="normalUL"><li>Outlook on use of cloud services for big data management</li> <li>Top 14 big data tools in use, from Excel to Exadata to EDW</li> </ul> <center><strong><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/81/9081/Business-Intelligence-and-Information-Management/research-big-data-smart-data.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20121105" target="_blank">Get This</a> And <a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center><br /></div> </div> </div> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> Worse, fewer than 10% of the respondents to our survey say that ideas for promising new data points are primarily driven by a collabo- rative or cross-functional team within their companies. The stats we gleaned from our survey suggest this percentage should be much higher: Nearly half of respondents have 500 terabytes of data or more under management; 13% have more than 10 petabytes.</p> <P> Surely there are untapped riches.</p> <P> IT organizations clearly know there's a problem, as only 9% of respondents rate their companies as extremely effective users of the data they have. However, just 4% admit they stink at putting their data to its best use. Fact is, many organizations are deluding themselves into thinking they're empowering their businesses. So before you buy more storage, upgrade your warehouse platform, or spin up a massive Hadoop instance, let's take a reality check. Here are six big data lies organizations tell themselves. How many have you heard lately?</p> <P> <strong>Lie 1: We understand how much data we have today</strong></p> <P> We asked in our survey which of seven key data sources are actively managed, hoping to see respondents widen their view beyond servers, storage arrays, and archives. Unfortunately, only 30% of respondents factor in their organization's cloud data, and just 11% include supply chain information. All that information zipping around on mobile devices? Considered by just 35% of survey respondents.</p> <P> If you don't include dynamic data sets, you're setting your analysis up for failure. How can you do vendor performance reviews without details on how well suppliers do getting the right goods to you at the right time for a competitive price? Likewise, if you're studying customer behavior, how can you get a true picture without Web or cloud-based CRM data? </p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1349/349F2_Chart3.jpg" width="585" height="335" alt="chart: Who are the primary users of your company's data?" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin-bottom:7px;" /><br /></center></p> <P><strong>Lie 2: The data we have is good</strong></p> <P> We'll bet money that most respondents' data sets are inaccurate, incomplete, and/or misaligned with one another. Do you really have a single source of truth? Do different groups slice data in different ways? Are you making decisions based on inaccurate or incomplete data? </p> <P> Case in point: 19% of companies in our survey use geolocation as part of their analysis strategy, pulling information from smart devices and Web visitors to understand behavior. However, Web location tracking is notoriously inaccurate when it comes to enterprise and institutional traffic. That's because most companies and government agencies work in private clouds with a limited number of egress points. If you're using Web location data to track the success of your sales and marketing programs by region, you're likely basing decisions on bad information. That big block of traffic from Boston may actually come from an enterprise with offices in the Midwest.</p> <P> Who's checking data quality? Just one in four respondents identified a dedicated business analyst group as one of the top two users of data within their company. It's simply amazing how many reports and graphs we see without sampling or accuracy notes. For example, almost every company does customer surveys, yet very few indicate confidence levels or bias results. Got 25,000 customers? Your customer service survey should have 1,843 respondents if you want a 99% confidence level with a plus or minus 3% margin of error. Furthermore, results should be biased by revenue level. Reality is, we just don't see that done with any type of data.</p> <P> <strong>Lie 3: Everything will be OK if we can just get more tools</strong></p> <P> A quarter of respondents plan to use more big data tools over the next 12 months. Now, we like Hadoop, NoSQL, Splunk, and the plethora of other big data options out there, but we recommend looking at what data sets are sitting idle before cutting a check. Given the low levels of use of the 20 internal and external data sets we asked about, it's clear the problem is related more to staffing than systems. </p> <P> Unfortunately, fewer respondents plan to invest in big data staff versus spending money on technology. Only 33% plan to grow their training and development programs; 9% are cutting back. Net new hiring ranked at the bottom of our list, with 17% growing staffing levels compared with 14% cutting.</p> <P> Nowhere is this "tools over people" focus more evident than in healthcare. The federal government's electronic records incentives have driven the industry to a new level of data collection and reporting. But now that healthcare providers have all this data, they're trying to figure out how to use it. "There is big money to be made in healthcare big data, so everyone and their brother was throwing up solutions," says Bill Gillis, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Physician Organization. But it's important to work with people who understand healthcare organizations and the complexity of their data, Gillis says. "The business need should drive the process," he says. "The tool alone will not change much. Finding a skilled hand that can effectively wield that tool will."</p> <P> <strong>Lie 4: There's an expertise shortage</strong></p> <P> Speaking of staff, an oft-quoted McKinsey &amp; Co. study estimates a shortfall of 140,000 to 190,000 people in "big data staffing" by 2018. Our own InformationWeek Staffing Survey shows that 18% of respondents focused on big data want to increase staff in this area by more than 30% in the next two years, but 53% say it will be difficult to find people with the right skills.</p> <P> Roll the clock back a few years and substitute the words "virtualization engineer" or "Cobol programmer" or even "webmaster" for "big data specialist" and you'll similarly find people predicting doom. Don't get sucked in again. You already have much of this talent within your organization; you just need to set it free. Consider that 39% of respondent organizations have department-level analysts as the main users of their information. Break those people out of their department silos and move them toward a more holistic view of data. </p> <P> For example, a U.S. retailer we worked with always had separate data teams aligned with various departments. The strongest team was within the catalog group, banging out circ plans, catalog yields, conversion rates, even profit per page. Great stuff, but that team was limited to using catalog and financial data. Siloed from the Web team, they were missing the transformation happening within the customer base. Separate departments, separate views of the truth.</p> <P> Don't blame the analysts. The company built the structure, and IT wasn't involved enough to identify the information gaps between departments. Our point is, IT not only has to understand the data itself, but it must also become an integral part of identifying and growing the centralized talent pool. That means putting more emphasis on training and talent development. Competitors will steal some of your more talented big data pros if you don't give them a reason to stick around.</p> <P> We scanned the online listings of the major hiring sites and found that the salary levels for data analysts still range from about $55,000 to low six figures. However, if you add "big data" to the standard titles, the average salary doubles. Expect everyone's LinkedIn titles to change in the next 12 months.</p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1349/349F2_Chart1.jpg" width="585" height="334" alt="chart: What's your company's approach to data analysis?" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin-bottom:7px;" /><br /></center></p> <P><strong>Lie 5: We know what data we need</strong></p> <P> In our survey, we asked about 10 internal and nine external data types. Internal sources include financial accounting applications, detailed sales and product data, CRM data, unstructured network data such as Office files and images, and unstructured data stored on end user devices. External sources include government statistics and other public records, geolocation data, data collected from sensors on company products and services, social network data (Facebook, Twitter), and unstructured data stored in the cloud (Office365, Google Docs).</p> <P> Clearly, there's a lot of information out there. But when we asked who's driving data analysis ideas, we were surprised to find that only 5% of respondents have a centralized team to drive big data strategy; an additional 3% use a looser collaborative effort.</p> <P> We're not the biggest fans of committees, but given the fact that the users of your data are likely spread far and wide, it makes sense to create a cross-functional group to identify new sources or elevate the importance of an existing stream. It's staggering to see some of the great data that's all but untouched. </p> <P> Take CRM, phone, email, and Web analytics. These four data points cover most of the communications relationship with your clients. Tying them together isn't rocket science, especially if you have decent baseline customer data to start with. Not only can you determine the number of conversations your company typically has with customers, but you can also understand how email relates to phone calls and Web traffic. If you have an outside sales force looping in, your CRM data gives you a profiling capability to model everything from product rollouts to customer service problems.</p> <P> All that intelligence exists today, yet few companies have this level of analysis integrated into their big data strategies. While 35% of survey respondents say their IT organizations include CRM in their integrated plans, only 29% include email, 22% Web analytics, and 14% phone logs.</p> <P> <strong>Lie 6: We do something with our analysis</strong></p> <P> There's nothing more frustrating for an analyst than to work for days or weeks on a project, present the findings, have a great meeting with execs, then watch those recommendations die on the vine. Everyone focuses on the positive aspects of data analysis--helping find new customers or discover more productive logistics routes. But the reality is that big data analysis will find some negative things--about your sales team's effectiveness, your online presence, your true costs of operations. The slow economy of the last four years has weakened multiple parts of most companies. Adding data sources and a more holistic analysis will help find and prioritize the problems you need to fix. </p> <P> <strong>IT Truth Tellers</strong></p> <P> Want to raise IT's profile as a business enabler? Step in and assume responsibility for data quality across the company. Here's a quick check of items IT should review today:</p> <P> 1. Is there a centralized data quality team? If not, set one up ASAP.</p> <P> 2. Does the team do regular or, at minimum, spot audits of various analyses? Does it regularly look to add new data sources?</p> <P> 3. Are critical external events annotated within your data warehouse or as part of your reporting process? For example, think about major system upgrades that would change the underlying data related to order flow.</p> <P> 4. Do you require statistical notes, including sampling statements?</p> <P> 5. When it comes to customer or vendor surveys, are sample sizes validated against your base customers or total market size to ensure accuracy? </p> <P> 6. Do you run regular "stress tests" for current data sets with cross-functional teams, challenging assumptions and sacred cows?</p> <P> 7. Do you look outward? Most respondents, 75%, report some public cloud use. Yet many companies aren't capturing associated data--think WebEx conferencing for customer behavior analysis or Google analytics for sales tracking.</p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1349/349F2_Chart2.jpg" width="585" height="413" alt="chart: How effective is your company at identifying critical data and using it to make decisions?" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin-bottom:7px;" /><br /></center></p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div id="printfeaturePDFpromo"><div class="printfeaturePDFCover"><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/81/9118/Business-Intelligence-and-Information-Management/informationweek-november-5-2012.html?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/1349/smallcov2.jpg" alt="InformationWeek: Nov 5, 2012 Issue" title="InformationWeek: Nov 5, 2012" /></a></div> <div class="printfeaturePDFCopy"><strong><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/81/9118/Business-Intelligence-and-Information-Management/informationweek-november-5-2012.html?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download a free PDF of <nobr><em>InformationWeek</em> magazine</nobr></a><br /> (registration required)</strong></div> <div class="clearBoth"></div> </div> </center> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <P>2012-07-27T19:27:00Zhttp://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/83/8838/IT-Business-Strategy/research-2012-consumerization-of-it-survey.html?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cio2012-03-21T08:00:00ZIT isn't doing enough to help drive revenue. Here's how it can become more relevant to the sales and marketing teams.http://www.informationweek.com/news/232602633?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cioFace it: IT and sales folks are very different. They're not natural allies. The deep recession should have been just the crisis to get the two groups working together. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened. </p> <P> IT organizations have been internally focused during the past three years, working on virtualization, data center security, and other projects that make IT more productive and cost-efficient. IT groups didn't embrace cloud computing and mobility until those two megatrends smacked them in the head. Let's be clear: IT didn't lead the cloud movement; lines of business did, often routing around the IT organizations to get jobs done faster. Same story with mobile--IT said "no, no, no" to Apple and Android smartphones and tablets until company employees finally said they'd been using the devices for many months and weren't going back.</p> <P> But sales teams haven't exactly been using technology to reinvent themselves. Just 35% of the 203 IT executives who responded to our <a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/83/8690/IT-Business-Strategy/research-global-cio-2012.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20120326"><i>InformationWeek</i> 2012 Global CIO Survey</a> say they have a major CRM implementation in place, though 38% plan one for this year or next. Here and there, companies are doing projects like sentiment analytics (to analyze what customers are saying about their products and brands on Facebook, blogs, and other mass media), but these tend to be isolated efforts led by a few data-minded marketers and aren't scaled out for everyday sales pros. And don't forget about all those e-commerce teams--orphaned groups rarely integrated with the rest of the sales team despite the business they're driving.</p> <P> The reality is that technology has become--or must become--critical to the sales process, and IT needs to grease the skids. Customers are researching and buying in entirely new ways, using in-person, Web, and social channels. The combination of mobile and cloud-based technology has created an opportunity to really change the information salespeople have in their hands and the kinds of decisions they can make. But before IT does any of that, it needs to change its mindset. </p> <P> In short, IT needs a sales quota. We're not talking about database admins making cold calls or security teams sweeping LinkedIn groups for prospects. Instead, your organization should assign a target sales goal as part of its overall IT objectives, focusing your team on increasing revenue hand in hand with the sales organization.</p> <P> How that quota works will depend on your relationship with the sales team. You might focus on increasing online sales. Or concentrate on expanding CRM reporting in ways that improve the rate at which sales prospects are converted to customers. Once you focus on these metrics, you'll start hearing from the sales folks about all the obstacles keeping them from selling even more, and then you can start clearing those barriers out of their way.</p> <P> No question, a sales quota is a big leap for IT. So before you announce one, consider these four steps to prepare your team for the demands ahead.</p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div id="inlineReportPromo"> <div class="inlineReportPromo_headline"><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/83/8690/IT-Business-Strategy/research-global-cio-2012.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20120326" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Data From Your CIO Peers</a></div> <div class="inlineReportPromo_inner"> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1328/328CSreportcover.jpg" width="175" height="106" style="float:right;"> <center><strong>Research: Global CIO 2012</strong></center><br /> All the data from our <a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/83/8690/IT-Business-Strategy/research-global-cio-2012.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20120326">Global CIO Survey</a> of 203 IT executives, including IT spending plans, is free with registration.<br /><br /> <center><strong><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/83/8690/IT-Business-Strategy/research-global-cio-2012.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20120326">Get This</a> And <a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center> </div> </div> </center></p><br clear="all"> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P><strong><span style="color:#cc0033;">Step 1</span> Admit it, IT just doesn't get sales</strong></p> <P> It's tough to admit you don't really get the sales process, but IT teams just don't have a ton of sales experience to build upon. Only 12% of the 6,381 IT managers who responded to our 2012 <i>InformationWeek</i> Salary Survey have held sales or marketing positions. And IT's relationship with marketing is weaker than most: 27% of the respondents to our Global CIO Survey describe the result they get working with marketing as poor to neutral, worse than their relationship with any other discipline (see chart, below). </p> <P> If you've never carried a bag, it's hard to understand the personal frustration and hardening of the soul that occur over years of chasing accounts. Understanding your company's sales process is essential if you're going to be of any help, in part because you'll uncover the many undocumented steps and tasks involved in the sales cycle. </p> <P> Start off by doing some field work: Shadow a salesperson on customer calls, work trade shows, even help write proposals and respond to RFPs. IT often makes these sorts of sales-related tasks low priority: Just 18% of the IT execs who responded to our Global CIO Survey say "meeting with external customers" is one of the top three areas where they spend their time. But if you don't think getting involved with sales is part of your IT job, you need to rethink your role.</p> <P> Case in point is Bob Grawien. The CIO of school products manufacturer School Specialty recently worked the booth at the company's national sales conference, talking to the company's field sale reps about everything from the economy and school budgets to CRM and e-commerce strategies. It wasn't a symbolic gesture. Grawien was there for the entire five-day show, getting direct feedback from sales reps, suppliers, and customers.</p> <P> "It's an invaluable data point," Grawien says. The bad economy has brutalized the education sector, but School Specialty has found pockets of growth, leveraging its e-commerce and growing online curriculum products. "We need to be in lockstep with the sales force, understanding what's working and what's hindering their progress," he says. "This type of interaction not only gives me on-the-street feedback, but it also helps me assess what role the larger sales force can play with all our technology expansion plans."</p> <P> One area you'll really want to get a grip on is the sales-conversion model. That is, to bag a sale, how many prospects does the sales team generally need, how many touch points, and how long does that process take? At many companies, this model is instinctively understood, but IT can help bring some rigor to it. Are we going to reach our sales goal mainly by reaching more prospects or closing a higher percentage of deals? This analysis can become a huge piece of work, especially for companies that sell to multiple customer sets. </p> <P> Sales-conversion models are typically done for one type of product and usually aren't created outside the sales organization. Getting involved with this effort will not only give you insight into the amount of work that goes into the sales relationship, but it also will help you identify where sales tools are lacking. To close more sales, does the sales team need better tablet-based tools that will let them present sales materials more effectively? You don't want to leap to the first tech solution that comes to mind. Take time to intimately understand the sales process and the frustrations your sales team is dealing with. </p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1328/328CS_chart1.jpg" width="550" height="348" alt="chart: Percentage of IT execs who describe their relationships with these departments as poor or neutral"></center> <P> <strong><span style="color:#cc0033;">Step 2</span> Assess how buyer behaviors have changed</strong></p> <P> Mobile and Web technologies have created new tools and platforms for more effective selling, but that's not all they've done: They've changed the very nature of the sales relationship with customers across all industries. </p> <P> Pew Internet Research finds that online activity has grown steadily across all age brackets and activities; more than 85% of adults are now online regularly. We know this, but we haven't re-evaluated our legacy sales processes to reflect the fact that people have integrated the Web into their daily lives. </p> <P> For companies that sell to consumers, the Web is no longer a discrete sales channel: 75% of consumers now do product research online, while 65% actually purchase online, Forrester Research says. So consumer companies must completely integrate their online and offline programs. </p> <P> Steve Schlecht, CEO of online and catalog retailer Duluth Trading Company, calls this "omni-channel" retailing. This retail megatrend is every bit as important as the emergence of discounters like Wal-Mart in the 1960s and big-box category killers like Circuit City and Staples in the 1970s and '80s. "This is total disruption in the way purchases are made," Schlecht said at the recent Fusion CEO-CIO conference in Madison, Wis.</p> <P> Business-to-business and service companies need a similar level of online-offline sales integration. B2B companies often assume that the complexity of their products means buyers still require an in-person sales force. But that's not always true. </p> <P> My research and product design firm, Yeoman Technology, worked with a medical device manufacturer that custom-built every one of its systems based on the design of the hospital or testing facility it was selling to. The company was convinced it didn't need to provide extensive details about its products online. "That's just not how it works," the president said. "We're a complex product, and people don't just Google it." </p> <P> But the company's IT team showed the president stats on search terms that proved prospects were Googling for insight. The tech team also discovered that competitors were providing ample details, specs, and pricing online. Even worse, there was information online from other sources about the company's products and pricing--wrong information. That's the reality today: Put the information online, or you'll be disqualified before you even realize it.</p> <P> Discovering what people are doing online and how it relates back to the sales process requires crossing a lot of traditional lines between sales, support, marketing, operations, and product management. The old way of doing things won't work.</p> <P> Brady, a midsize maker of precision electrical components, labels, and other specialized products, recently gave its CIO, Bentley Curran, an additional role: VP of digital business. Curran's job is now to identify every customer touch point and make sure Brady has the right platforms--online, offline, and mobile--for sales and customer support. And yes, this job comes with a quota to increase Brady's already sizable online sales.</p> <P> This type of role is perfect for IT, since it requires linking people, data, and processes across a company's organizational units. </p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1328/328CS_chart2.jpg" width="550" height="382" alt="chart: What steps have you taken to support digital marketing efforts?"></center> <P> <strong><span style="color:#cc0033;">Step 3</span> | Audit the tools you have</strong></p> <P> So once you have an understanding of the sales process and what has changed externally, you need to assess what works and what doesn't. Although it can be painful to hear what your salespeople have to say, this step isn't particularly difficult. Just ask.</p> <P> "Most sales reps aren't shy about opening up once they know you'll listen," says School Specialty's Grawien, who had plenty of talkers surrounding him at the national conference where he manned the sales booth. "The key point is you not only find out what they don't like, but you also get a true sense of what technologies and platforms they have the skill set to master."</p> <P> You must assess how well your company is doing at tracking communication and customer patterns. Can a rep easily access all pre- and post-sales activity related to a customer? That means emails, orders, quotes, website visits, and the like. Likewise, can the internal service and support staff see the sales team's input, especially emails and proposals? </p> <P> We're talking about a true customer-centric dashboard that puts all of the customer's information in one easy-to-use format. You'll have to leverage enterprise search more than you already do to access emails and documents, but that's not as hard as you might think. Pulling in website activity is a bit trickier, but the data is there if you can prove the value. </p> <P> If you have a CRM system, odds are it's underutilized. You'll want to tie sales rep activities to what's going on online. All sales force automation software allows this in ways that give reps far more than just a prospect's contact details. If a training event, catalog mailing, or email campaign that could touch a customer is happening, it should be right there for reps to see and reference. If there's a spike in activity around a product or problem on the website, reps should know so they can prepare for questions that come up in live discussions. Most companies never even try to address these links, but they're critical to sales success.</p> <P> <strong><span style="color:#cc0033;">Step 4</span> | Make improvements fast </strong></p> <P> Steps 1 through 3 will lead to dozens of tweaks, covering everything from email and CRM to service and reporting. Get right to work on that list.</p> <P> But first take this pledge: Add no new tools or resources until we better leverage the ones we have. The first step shouldn't be upgraded CRM apps, new business analytics software, or yet another dashboard. IT should be able to immediately impact sales by tweaking existing tools.</p> <P> When was the last time you sat with your salespeople and went step by step through how they use the CRM system? Chances are, there are fields they no longer use and steps they click past every time they use the system. If that functionality doesn't stand to serve your salespeople, get it out of their way.</p> <P> In communicating with clients and colleagues, do reps stay within the CRM app, or are they switching back and forth to email? (Hint: Everyone still lives on email.) Is there a way for you to integrate the two? Steps like slimming down CRM and integrating email can make a quick impact, win friends in sales, and prove that IT can move fast and deliver results. </p> <P> When IT integrates itself into the sales process in the right way, an interesting form of respect evolves. Neither IT nor sales quite understands the other's job, nor are they interested in swapping roles. But once they decide to team up, both groups will see advantages and start working together in new ways. </p> <P> If sales is struggling, IT must be one of the first places it turns for help--but IT also has to be ready to share the blame if sales quotas aren't met. And if the company blows past those goals, make sure IT shares the glory, because we all know that the sales team throws the best celebratory parties. </p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <!-- RECOMMENDED READING --> <a name="recommended"></a> <center> <div id="recommendedReadingPromo"> <div class="recommendedReadingPromoHeader"><strong>Read More</strong></div> <ul class="normalUL"> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/enterprise_apps/232602464">Unresponsive IT? CEO Must Share Blame</a></li> <li><a href="http://informationweek.com/news/global-cio/interviews/232602624">A CEO's View Of Analytics: Duluth Trading Company</a></li> <li><a href="http://informationweek.com/news/global-cio/interviews/232602019">IT Risks Irrelevance In Digital Marketing Revolution</a></li> </ul> </div> </center><br clear="all"> <!-- / RECOMMENDED READING --> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <em>Michael Healey is president of Yeoman Technology, an Internet research and product design firm. He still makes cold calls for practice and fun. Read more by him at <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/mikehealey">informationweek.com/mikehealey</a>. Write to us at <a href="mailto:iwletters@techweb.com">iwletters@techweb.com</a>.</em></p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div id="printfeaturePDFpromo"><div class="printfeaturePDFCover"><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/83/8725/IT-Business-Strategy/informationweek-march-26-2012.html?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/1328/smallcov.jpg" alt="InformationWeek: March 26, 2012 Issue" title="InformationWeek: Oct. 11, 2010 Issue" /></a></div> <div class="printfeaturePDFCopy"><strong><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/83/8725/IT-Business-Strategy/informationweek-march-26-2012.html?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download a free PDF of <nobr><em>InformationWeek</em> magazine</nobr></a><br /> (registration required)</strong></div> <div class="clearBoth"></div> </div> </center> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <P>2012-02-06T19:37:00Zhttp://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/5/8658/Cloud-Computing/research-2012-state-of-cloud-computing.html?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cio2012-02-06T08:00:00ZIT's jumping into cloud services with way too much custom code and way too little planning, our annual State of Cloud Computing Survey finds.http://www.informationweek.com/news/232600176?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cio <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <!-- Feb. 6, 2012 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <div id="inlineGreenPromoTop"> <div class="greenBand"></div> <div class="inlineGreenPromoContent"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/020612/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1323/smallcov.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green - Feb. 6, 2012" title="InformationWeek Green - Mar. 7, 2011" align="left" class="greenIssueImage" /></a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/020612/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/graphics_library/misc/Green_leaf_88x88.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green" title="InformationWeek Green" align="right" class="greenLeaf" /></a> <div class="greenPromoText"> <strong><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/020612/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the entire Feb. 6, 2012 issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong>, distributed in an all-digital format as part of our <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/green/">Green Initiative</a><br /> (Registration required.)<br /> <center><div class="innerGreenPromoText" align="center">We will plant a tree for each of the first 5,000 downloads.</div></center> </div> </div> <div class="greenBand"></div> </div> <!-- / Feb. 6, 2012 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <br /><!-- leave as a br to not interfere w/ the insights boxes --> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1323/323toccover_110.jpg" width="110" height="110" alt="Leap Of Cloud Faith" title="Leap Of Cloud Faith" width="110" height="110" class="artInlineTopImage" /> <P> Next time someone starts in about how "the cloud is going to change everything," feel free to point out that "everything" has already changed. So say the 511 business IT professionals responding to our <a href=""http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/5/8658/Cloud-Computing/research-2012-state-of-cloud-computing.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20120206"><i>InformationWeek</i> 2012 State of Cloud Computing Survey</a>. Adoption of public cloud services has been on an upswing for the past four years, since we began keeping track. Today, just 27% give a thumbs down. In our 2008 cloud survey, people couldn't even agree on a definition--21% agreed that cloud was "pretty much a marketing term used haphazardly."</p> <P> OK, so not everything has changed.</p> <P> Still, frustration with vendor hype aside, all types of public cloud services--software, infrastructure, and platform as a service--are gaining followers. A third of companies use cloud services, and an additional 40% have plans for or are considering it. So we've got this figured out, right? Not so fast. Among cloud users, we're seeing major gaps in how IT organizations are selecting, integrating, and monitoring the services their employees depend on. The bulk of cloud initiatives are reactive, in response to line-of-business requirements or demands. IT rarely has an overarching vision of how it all fits together. </p> <P> Don't believe us? Then explain why only 28% of IT organizations assess the potential impact of a cloud service on their internal architectures prior to going live--that's especially troubling given the upheaval our data centers are going through, as evidenced by the 71% of respondents to our IT Pro Ranking report on data center gear who are either in some stage of a network rearchitecture project or expect to be within 24 months. Or that 24% have no performance monitoring of cloud services.</p> <P> It gets worse. Almost half of companies have opted to custom code each cloud application into internal back-end systems, with only 9% leveraging cloud integration providers. That's an expensive strategy given the aforementioned rearchitecture and convergence projects, and it's not money we need to spend: Integrators large and small have ready-made online integration tools, which can help you conserve bandwidth, as we'll discuss. Combine this customization nightmare with the fact that 73% of cloud users already use multiple providers, and we foresee a future where performance and reliability are bound to suffer.</p> <P> Fortunately, only a minority are feeling the pain so far. Just 14% of respondents fired a cloud provider, with 22% of those saying it had a major or catastrophic impact on the business, while 81% think the performance of their cloud services is as good or better compared with what could be delivered in-house.</p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center><strong>To read the rest of the article,<br /><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/020612/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the Feb. 6, 2012 issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong></center><br clear="all" /> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div id="inlineReportPromo"> <div class="inlineReportPromo_headline"><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/5/8658/Cloud-Computing/research-2012-state-of-cloud-computing.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20120206" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Research: 2012 State of Cloud Computing</a></div> <div class="inlineReportPromo_inner"> <center><strong>The Cloud You Didn't Know You Had</strong></center><br /> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1323/323F2reportcover.jpg" width="175" height="107" style="float:right;"> Our full <a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/5/8658/Cloud-Computing/research-2012-state-of-cloud-computing.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20120206">2012 State Of Cloud Computing</a> report is free with registration.<br /><br /> This report includes <strong>29</strong> pages of action-oriented analysis, packed with <strong>20</strong> charts. What you'll find: <ul class="normalUL"><li>All cloud all the time? Check out our cost and ROI analysis</li> <li>Ratings of nine inhibitors to cloud adoption</li> </ul> <center><strong><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/5/8658/Cloud-Computing/research-2012-state-of-cloud-computing.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20120206">Get This</a> And <a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center> </div> </div> </center></p><br clear="all"> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE -->2012-01-30T08:00:00ZEnterprise social apps too often get a lukewarm reception, but there are steps IT can take to improve adoption and use.http://www.informationweek.com/news/232500086?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cioWhen it comes to social networking, most companies find themselves in a jam. While they're extending their brand presences on the ever-popular public social network sites--Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn--they're having a devil of a time getting employees to embrace their internal social networks.</p> <P> We asked business technology pros to assess their internal social networks, and the results skew downward: Only 13% say they're excellent, 25% good, with 37% average and 25% fair or poor. For a high-profile initiative that everyone from the CEO down is watching, a 62% chance of producing average or worse returns counts as a high-risk proposition. </p> <P> This comment from one survey respondent, a senior IT director with a large technology company, captures the mood: "We have tried for over four years to push social networking in the enterprise. People just view it as one more place to have to look to get information."</p> <P> Lackluster adoption is the biggest obstacle, cited by 35% of the 394 respondents to our Social Networking in the Enterprise Survey at companies using one or more internal social networking systems. That's exactly the same percentage as a year ago, even as Facebook grew its user base 50% to 750 million people. Facebook's expected public offering this year will only add to the pressure for companies to do more in-house with social networking. Vendor CEOs such as Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff, Yammer's David Sacks and Jive's Tony Zingale are pounding this drum, promoting their own social software platforms, yet it's clear that IT organizations must do more than ride the coattails of Facebook and Twitter. </p> <P> <i>InformationWeek</i> isn't the only one seeing employees slow to embrace social apps. Forrester's survey of 4,985 U.S. information workers, published last fall, found that only 28% of workers use any kind of social software at least monthly for work--and of those many are using only a public social site such as Facebook. Just 22% of social software users said the technology is vital to their jobs. The top reason people cited for using social software at work (39%) is that it's easy to learn to use and fills a job need. An almost equal percentage (38%) said it's the most efficient way to do their jobs. Ease of use and efficiency are much more important than the peer pressure of colleagues saying they prefer social collaboration, Forrester's TJ Keitt notes.</p> <P> Another research firm, the Corporate Executive Board, released a survey of 53 companies in September 2010 showing that user adoption of Enterprise 2.0 technologies lagged initial deployment by five to eight quarters. Gartner this year is predicting the social business software market will get tougher for small, independent vendors, as giants such as Microsoft, IBM, Google, VMware, and Oracle focus on it. </p> <P> So, is it time to write off corporate social networks as just another technology fad? No way. Social networking can pay off, but only if IT organizations take a stronger role in their companies' internal and external social networking efforts.</p> <P> Internally, this means leveraging the habits users are developing on public sites and bringing those habits inside the company. In some cases, companies just need to tweak their in-house social software, integrating it better with email, for instance. CIOs and other business leaders must also give users a reason to stay active on internal social networks, by keeping content fresh and relevant, by making it easy to access, and by providing links to people they might otherwise connect with.</p> <P> Most companies' marketing and support teams already are active on public social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Now IT organizations need to step up their role, providing guidance on everything from security and monitoring to the best way to share content outside the firewall. </p> <P> Our survey finds that in 54% of companies, marketing has taken ownership of social network monitoring tools, up 13 percentage points from just a year ago. That may seem like a good fit, but not if marketing isn't correctly setting up monitoring and coordinating activities with other groups like customer support. It's not hugely important who's in charge of those tools, but if IT is to have any role in how a company uses Facebook and other external social sites, it needs to fix its internal social networking projects first. And that may require a change of mindset.</p> <P> "People are trying to rationalize, police, and control the tool," says Chris Laping, CIO of the 30,000-employee Red Robin restaurant chain, which has started testing Yammer for enterprise social networking. "The power of information technology is sharing information. What we naturally do with systems is lock them down, which prevents us from sharing information."</p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div id="inlineReportPromo"> <div class="inlineReportPromo_headline"><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/10/8596/Social+Networking-Collaboration/rebooting-the-antisocial-network.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20120130" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Rebooting The Antisocial Network</a></div> <div class="inlineReportPromo_inner"> <center><strong>Get Our Social Networking Report</strong></center><br /> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1322/322CSreportcover.jpg" width="175" height="106" style="float:right;"> Our <a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/10/8596/Social+Networking-Collaboration/rebooting-the-antisocial-network.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20120130"> full report</a> with the complete data set and additional analysis is free with registration.<br /><br /> <strong>Read More On The BrainYard:</strong><br /> <a href="http://informationweek.com/thebrainyard/">The BrainYard.com</a> covers social business, such as <ul class="normalUL"><li>Articles on social app use by Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Best Buy, Best Western, and others</li> <li>10 enterprise social networking obstacles</li> </ul> <center><strong><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/10/8596/Social+Networking-Collaboration/rebooting-the-antisocial-network.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20120130">Get This</a> And <a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center> </div> </div> </center></p> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P><strong>Crunch The Numbers</strong></p> <P> Even though companies have widely deployed enterprise social networking over the last couple of years, it's not at the core of how most of them collaborate, our survey finds. Eighty-seven percent of the companies in our survey have some form of internal social network (a blog, wiki, or portal, for instance), and the majority have had these systems in place less than three years. </p> <P> But usage is lagging. Only one social networking feature--online profiles--is in heavy or moderate use at more than half of the companies (53%) in our survey. Wikis, discussion forums, and blogs trail far behind--more than 20% of survey respondents say these features are in place but rarely used. </p> <P> When it comes to social platforms, Microsoft SharePoint continues to lead the pack--63% of respondents use its social functions, our survey finds, though that's down from the 71% who did last year. SharePoint's dominance may be slipping as companies adopt cloud applications such as Google Sites (19%) and Salesforce.com Chatter (11%) or build their own (18%). Most companies still host their social networking platforms internally (65%), but this percentage dropped 7 points from a year ago, as businesses move to cloud options.</p> <P> One bright spot in this year's survey is a notable drop in the percentage of respondents who say IT must explain social networking's role to the company--down to 15% from 21% a year ago. That finding is important, because IT will need the support of company executives as well as the rank-and-file to make social networking a vital part of employees' lives.</p> <P> When it comes to interacting on public social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, most companies still fall down when it comes to monitoring, security, and even responsiveness to customer complaints. For instance, the percentage of companies in our survey that monitor social networks for discussions about their own or competing businesses actually dipped 2 points this year, to 36%, while the percentage of companies with an official or unofficial presence on social sites rose considerably--Facebook presence is up 11 points, to 66%, while Twitter presence is up 8 points to 53%. So put your company's message out there, but don't bother to track how it's being received?</p> <P> Internally, most companies use the basic tools of social networking: online directories, forums, and wikis. But those tools are just the beginning of a vibrant social platform. This year we see a slight rise in the percentage of companies using more advanced social networking tools, such as social bookmarking and tagging. Still, only 23% of respondents use them heavily or moderately.</p> <P> Social bookmarking includes features such as Facebook's "like" button, a simple way for people to indicate their preferences for particular content. On an internal social network, bookmarking can help useful or interesting content get noticed. You might follow your boss, a colleague, or a project group, so you're alerted anytime one f them tags something and thus might find a relevant discussion or document. Tagging is similar to bookmarking but also lets people add a keyword or two to provide more context. </p> <P> Chances are good that your existing social networking platform has social bookmarking and tagging features. If it doesn't, many open source and commercial plug-ins are available, as is integration with LinkedIn and Facebook "likes."</p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1322/322CS_SocialNetwork_chart2.jpg" width="500" height="412" alt="Which of these social networking systems does your company make moderate or heavy use of for collaboration?" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin-bottom:7px;" /><br /></center></p> <P><strong>Set Social Free</strong></p> <P> Red Robin, a chain of more than 450 burger joints, shows how companies often ease into social networking with small-scale experiments. CIO Laping, who's also the company's senior VP of business transformation, sees the world migrating away from email and collaboration portals like SharePoint and toward texting and social networking. He says he wants to "let team members collaborate in a manner that more reflects the way they are working outside the office."</p> <P> Laping wanted a tool that would let people upload and share files, do status updates, and create conversations. He wanted polling to ask employees about ideas, and he wanted to be able to set up workgroups for small project teams. About a year ago, Laping decided to try Yammer, a cloud-based social software platform that competes with the likes of Chatter and Jive. </p> <P> "We didn't want to send out a memo and tell people we had a new tool," Laping says. "Instead, we wanted to see how viral it was and how little user training we could do to drive adoption." The first month, 20 to 25 employees stumbled upon it and invited others. People started asking about it, and Laping's team filled them in and gave them the green light. Usage is now up to about 400 users. "There isn't an overwhelming amount of usage of the system," he says. "People are still dipping their toes into the water."</p> <P> Normally, Red Robin is hard nosed about metrics, but "this is a bit of an exception because the cost of entry is so low," Laping says. Long term, he would like to reduce the company's dependence on email. </p> <P> He's also watching to see how the use of Yammer will affect Red Robin's SharePoint usage. Today, Red Robin completes about 95% of IT projects using SharePoint project workspaces, but a few early Yammer adopters are trying to organize their projects on the social platform. It would be cheaper to use Yammer, Laping figures, and he says it's "more in tune with how people collaborate."</p> <P> Red Robin has a long way to go from its few hundred users on Yammer to its 30,000 employees, including people like restaurant managers and cooks who might use the platform to offer feedback on new uniforms, menu changes, and staff policies. Laping admits that such huge scale is "me dreaming the dream" at this point. But he's convinced that if IT puts the tools out there and offers some basic guidance, Yammer will take hold. "Users and employees are told every day to do this, do that," he says. "Give people some freedom to roam on this one."</p> <P> <strong>What Do Users Want?</strong></p> <P> All of the comments and numbers in our survey boil down to a few takeaways: Employees want simplicity, usability, and integration.</p> <P> Enterprise social platforms need to have essentially the same functionality and layout as Facebook and LinkedIn.They must let users search, recommend or like content, follow discussions or people, embed content such as photographs and videos, categorize information with tags, and share documents. </p> <P> Ensuring that your social platform is easy for employees to use starts with single sign-on, which two-thirds of companies in our survey offer--that means a third of companies still require separate logins.</p> <P> Social software won't be easy to use without tight email integration. Facebook and LinkedIn let individuals link those sites to a person's email, and that creates the expectation. Yet 42% of the companies in our survey don't offer email integration of their internal social networks. Such integration can simply be email alerts to new posts, but it also can include the ability to link directly from an email message to the social site without an extra login, and the ability to respond to a comment or post a comment from email and have it show up in the discussion string. Email is still the most prevalent enterprise communications tool, so this level of integration will help keep the social site in front of employees. If your company has deployed unified communications, integrate social networking as well. </p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1322/322CS_SocialNetwork_chart9.jpg" width="500" height="377" alt="how would you rate the success of your internal social networking system?" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin-bottom:7px;" /><br /></center></p> <P><strong>Social Networking Gone Wrong</strong></p> <P> For an example of how not to do enterprise social networking, consider a $1 billion manufacturer's launch of an internal site in 2009 for sales and marketing collaboration. More than two years later, the site still existed, but it was rarely updated and used. Of the 500 employees who had access, fewer than 2% visited the site each month in 2011. IT and sales staffers complained about the time it took to manage the site. To get work done, the manufacturer's sales team went back to phone calls, email, and live meetings. There was talk of scrapping the entire platform.</p> <P> When new management came into the company (which asked not to be identified) in 2011, it decided to revitalize the platform. The software didn't offer an Outlook plug-in, but IT was able to configure it so updates and replies could be made via email. The IT team added "follow" and "recommend" capabilities for posts and comments, which bolstered collaboration. The company doesn't have an instant messaging platform, but it added a simple cloud-based chat app to the site. Sales assistants who usually took phone calls from salespeople in the field looking for presentations or documents started doing those exchanges on live chat, turning them into promoters of the social system. </p> <P> Adding a file-sharing option to the social platform instantly became a hit, as it let salespeople get around the company's unpopular size limit on email attachments. Don't think employees care about such limits? Enterprise usage of Google Docs and file-sharing site Dropbox (which claims to have 45 million users) is exploding because they offer a cheap and easy way to share big files. File sharing on your social platform takes that activity back inside the company domain.</p> <P> But the manufacturing company didn't just spruce up its social platform. It also set specific goals as part of the site relaunch:</p> <P> &gt;&gt; 70% user participation;</p> <P> &gt;&gt; Daily login by users;</p> <P> &gt;&gt; 30% cut in calls to sales admins;</p> <P> &gt;&gt; 100% distribution of marketing content via the social portal;</p> <P> &gt;&gt; Active postings by topic leaders.</p> <P> That last goal was a big one. If companies don't provide meaningful content and a compelling reason to use a platform, people won't. You may have to break employees of longstanding habits, like emailing PDFs to one another. </p> <P> Once the goals were set, IT created weekly snapshots using site analytics to provide executives with updates on the progress, so that they can brandish the stick should usage trail off.</p> <P> Case in point: Site usage rose steadily after the relaunch, with 60% of employees logging in daily after 60 days. But then site visits dropped by 25% over the next few weeks--average daily page views declined 22% and on-site time fell 36%.</p> <P> The culprit was stale content. The required regular updates from marketing and regional leaders slipped as people were pulled into different projects. Chat, document sharing, and several other site areas remained strong, but because marketing and regional updates were standard parts of users' customized home pages, their absence quickly made the site look stale.</p> <P> Key to getting the site back on track was having the company's top execs hold the marketing and regional leaders accountable--much more effective than having IT leaders nag them. Traffic rebounded as teams refocused, but a challenge emerged that still lingers today: Certain top execs persist in sending mass emails rather than use the social networking portal.</p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1322/322CS_SocialNetwork_chart10.jpg" width="500" height="285" alt="Do you track analytics of your internal social network?" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin-bottom:7px;" /><br /></center></p> <P><strong>Get The Data On Social Efforts</strong></p> <P> The above example points to the need for hard data on how social networking sites are being used. In our survey, 61% of companies still don't have analytics capabilities for their social sites. Of those that do, only 8% have enough analytics detail to understand participation and behavioral changes. IT professionals must be the champions of social data analytics, especially for initiatives related to the fuzzy world of user productivity.</p> <P> Fortunately, there are dozens of analytics tools that you can drop into social applications, including SharePoint, to track usage. You can even use Google Analytics on a secure site for free. Analytics and reporting tools let IT teams know which features are and aren't being used so that they can make certain ones easier to use or add ones that are more relevant. </p> <P> The growth of social networking is bittersweet for many IT veterans. Users fawn over Facebook and LinkedIn, while the pioneer social collaboration platforms--the likes of Lotus Notes, Novell GroupWise, and FirstClass--have lost their luster. IT organizations have been preaching social for years; they just couldn't get it quite right.</p> <P> Use to your advantage the fact that Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have done the hardest work for IT--they've trained people to think in a social context. But now IT has to do its part. It needs to assert itself when it comes to use of public social networks, pushing to get monitoring, security, and posting guidelines in place. On in-house social networks, creating metrics will be essential to monitoring what people are doing, so IT can react and better content and features can be added if activity falters. Working with business unit partners, this can revitalize a moribund internal social networking platform and get the benefits you always expected. However, IT needs to get involved to make it happen. <em>-- With Andrew Conry-Murray</em></p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1322/322CS_SocialNetwork_chart12.jpg" width="500" height="361" alt="What's your greatest internal social network challenge?" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin-bottom:7px;" /><br /></center></p> <P> <center><strong>Continue to the sidebar:</strong><br> <b><a href="http://informationweek.com/thebrainyard/news/232400374/what-enterprise-social-success-stories-have-in-common">What Enterprise Social Success Stories Have In Common</a></b><br> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div id="printfeaturePDFpromo"><div class="printfeaturePDFCover"><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/7/8657/Enterprise-Software/informationweek-january-30-2012.html?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/1322/smallcov.jpg" alt="InformationWeek: Jan. 30, 2012 Issue" title="InformationWeek: Jan. 30, 2012 Issue" /></a></div> <div class="printfeaturePDFCopy"><strong><a href="http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/7/8657/Enterprise-Software/informationweek-january-30-2012.html?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download a free PDF of <nobr><em>InformationWeek</em> magazine</nobr></a><br /> (registration required)</strong></div> <div class="clearBoth"></div> </div> </center> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <P>2011-07-11T08:00:00ZWith operating systems from Microsoft, Apple, Google, RIM, HP, and more inside most companies, IT can't just hope it gets better. http://www.informationweek.com/news/231000728?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cioThe help desk must be a miserable place to work these days. According to our <i>InformationWeek Analytics</i> OS Wars Survey, nearly every company supports Windows, half of those polled officially support Apple devices, and three in 10 support Linux or Android operating systems. Two-thirds of companies let employees connect their personal gadgets to the network with little or no guidance as to what devices and operating systems they can use or whether IT's supposed to help them. If anything goes wrong, you know who gets the call. </p> <P> Welcome to the OS mess. </p> <P> Windows still dominates, showing up in 99% of responses, but that dominance masks a huge change in the number of operating systems IT is dealing with. Eighty-five percent of IT organizations officially support more than one OS; the average company supports three different ones. Smartphones are a major force, ushering in Apple's iOS and the Linux-based Android on a large scale. But our research shows broadening OS support across all hardware platforms, including servers, desktops, laptops, tablets, thin clients, and smartphones.</p> <P> And that's just the official count. Sixty-five percent of IT organizations also allow one or more additional platforms that aren't officially supported. What a splendid idea--give a wink and nod to an incredibly powerful operating system like Apple's OS X or Linux, and somehow hope the people using it are keeping up on patches and security reviews. And hope they don't use one of the smartphone app stores to download a rogue application, introducing it on your network. Earlier this year, a scoundrel who goes by the name Myournet posted 21 malware-carrying apps on the Android marketplace before Google took them down.</p> <P> This mess will only get worse. While more than two-thirds of the IT organizations we surveyed let employees connect to the company network with their personal devices, most don't enforce standards around antivirus, patches, and device selection. It's no wonder 78% of the IT pros who responded to our survey are worried about this trend, citing security, management, and support as the main problems.</p> <P> So what are we doing to clean this mess up? Not much.</p> <P> Most IT organizations evaluate their operating systems by device type or line of business. That misses an opportunity to tap OS knowledge from, say, the server team that might benefit the desktop team, and the chance to exploit functionality across components. Even worse is the management of the devices. Most companies have antivirus and patch management on their desktops and laptops, but less than 18% have antivirus, remote support, or patch management for tablets, thin terminals, and smartphones. </p> <div style="margin:0; padding: 0 0 10px 10px; width:279px; float:right; text-align:center;"> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1305/305CSchart1.jpg" width="269" height="358" alt="IT Supported OS Platforms" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" /> </div> <P> The operating system vendors are in a full-court press to expand their presence inside your company. In a recent interview with InformationWeek, Terry Myerson, Microsoft's VP of Windows Phone engineering, made it clear that Microsoft expects Windows Phone 7 to come into companies mostly through the back door, winning over consumers who then bring the smartphones to work. That's how the iPhone and iPad established themselves in the enterprise, and the server version of Apple's forthcoming Lion OS will give companies improved desktop management and storage options.</p> <P> Research In Motion now has a tablet (BlackBerry PlayBook) based on the QNX operating system it acquired, and myriad other OEMs have rolled out or plan their own tablets, most of them based on the Android. Hewlett-Packard CEO L&eacute;o Apotheker said in March that HP could ship 100 million WebOS-connected devices a year, including printers, PCs, and upcoming tablets. </p> <P> Google offers to sell enterprises Chrome OS-based netbook for $28 per unit per month. It's a hybrid of software and hardware as a service. The sales pitch is that you don't have to worry about maintaining the operating system, since upgrades are done online and the applications are Web based. Google claims that model will eliminate support problems, but the system has limited functionality if it's not online and Google doesn't offer remote desktop or phone support. Who will employees call if they can't figure something out? Add another OS to the help desk's list. </p> <P> Cleaning up this mess is so daunting, IT teams may not know where to start. Here are five steps--none of them easy: </p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div id="inlineReportPromo"> <div class="inlineReportPromo_headline"><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/7/7697/Enterprise-Software/research-the-os-mess.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20110711" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Research: The OS Mess</a></div> <div class="inlineReportPromo_inner"> <center><strong>5 Ways to Clean Up the OS Mess</strong></center><br /> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1305/305CS_reportcover_110.jpg" width="110" height="107" class="report110" /> Become an <strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/7/7697/Enterprise-Software/research-the-os-mess.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20110711"><i>InformationWeek Analytics</i> subscriber</a></strong> and get our full report.<br /> <br /> This report includes exclusive research and analysis on operation systems policy, including data on: <ul class="normalUL"> <li>Which operating systems are supported across devices, broken out by desktop, laptop, netbook, tablet, smartphone, server, and thin client</li> <li>How companies support various operating systems, and which run without support</li> <li>More data and additional analysis broken down by operating system and vendor</li> </ul> <center><strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/7/7697/Enterprise-Software/research-the-os-mess.html?cid=pub_analyt__iwk_20110711">Get This</a> And <a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center> </div> </div> </center></p><br clear="all"> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P><strong>Step 1: Remember OS Discipline--It's All About Apps</strong></p> <P> It's refreshing to see in our survey that support for existing applications is the top criterion when companies are considering a new operating system--cited by 52% of respondents. This needs to remain one of the top priorities, regardless of what kind of device the OS is running. </p> <P> And it's not just about checking whether your email or ERP software will run. IT needs to do a full assessment of what an operating system can support. For example, iOS doesn't support Flash. Flash isn't just for Web movies; it pops up on everything from CAD applications to executive dashboards. Will support for Flash be important to employees?</p> <P> Yet having the right selection criteria helps only if a decision is actually being made about an operating system--rather than letting any OS waltz through the door. Bring the discipline that you bring to a decision like a Windows 7 upgrade to other OS decisions, considering compatability, budgets, performance, and the like. We've seen multiple instances where helping an exec connect an iPad quickly morphed into a pilot program to add iPads for sales, engineering, and support. As we noted, even Microsoft sees the consumer-centric back door as the road into the enterprise. </p> <P> IT needs to take a stand. It's not that it will dictate whether an operating system gets in or not, but there must be some criteria the business considers relevant. There must be a decision made on the level of support expected, and the resources needed to provide it. </p> <P> Then, companies must make sure they're using the right criteria. Support for new applications is a priority for only 21% of companies in our survey, and support for virtualized applications is a priority for only 8%. That's just shortsighted. If IT isn't looking at whether the operating system can handle new apps being written for HTML5 or virtual apps, for example, it isn't building in the longer-term compatibility needs. Windows is the de facto standard for application compatibility, and any new OS should be measured against it.</p> <P> Speaking of Windows: While companies are bringing in all kinds of new operating systems, they're a long way from kicking Windows XP out. This warhorse still accounts for a median 80% of all desktops and laptops at the companies represented in our survey, despite the fact that Microsoft cut off mainstream support for the OS more than a year ago. Moan all you want about XP, but people understand it, it's paid for, and it works. (The median share of desktops still using Windows Vista is 2% at the companies we surveyed.)</p> <P> Expect the pressure to upgrade to Windows 7 to increase, though. Windows XP does support Office 2010, but Microsoft says that will be the last version. Microsoft already dropped XP support for Internet Explorer 9 and Windows Media Player 12. Hardware manufacturers still provide some XP drivers for their new devices, but expect that support to stop within a year. Windows 7 is making inroads; the median company in our survey has 15% of desktops on Win 7.</p> <P> With all this looming pressure, you'd think IT teams would be looking at these complicated operating system decisions holistically. You'd think. </p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1305/305CSchart2.jpg" width="500" height="344" alt="chart: OS Platforms allowed by not supported" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin-bottom:7px;" /><br /></center></p> <P><strong>Step 2: Break Silos Of Selection</strong></p> <P> IT teams should be looking at operating system selection at a policy level, one that incorporates application planning, security, and management as part of a framework that considers all the various devices. </p> <P> But less than a third of the IT organizations we surveyed have a centralized team that evaluates operating systems in the context of the overall organization and its platforms. The rest leave that evaluation to teams based on the device or some other factor. A significant 14% have no standardized process at all for picking operating systems or devices.</p> <P> Most IT organizations have a server team, desktop team, and telecom team, and each is responsible if things go wrong in its arena. It's time for more collaboration.</p> <P> The operating system vendors have moved in this direction, rethinking how they approach OS development and support. Microsoft unified its Windows server and desktop development teams about eight years ago. Apple is considering integrating its OS X and iOS dev teams. With open source, it's not as neat and tidy, but multiple vendors do offer software up and down the stack, so it's possible to build out a nice Linux-based model that covers servers, desktops, and mobile devices. Your teams need to think about the OS as an entire platform suite not tied to a device category. </p> <P> Breaking the IT silos separating servers, desktops, and mobile devices won't necessarily come easy. We're talking about creating a team that crosses historical boundaries to review all potential operating systems within the context of functionality, support, and management. We're not suggesting the server team should support desktops or the telco folks provision servers. Instead, the teams need to create a common vision of what a base OS will provide, what its risks are, and what will be the common platform to manage it all.</p> <P> How can you drive such change? By showing how improving the operating system selection process provides the foundation to tackle your bigger problem: management and security.</p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1305/305CSchart3.jpg" width="550" height="345" alt="chart: Does IT support Personal devices on Company network?" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin-bottom:7px;" /><br /></center></p><strong>Step 3: Invest In Management</strong></p> <P> IT historically has been bad at managing desktops and laptops, satisfied if it kept on top of antivirus and basic patch management. Few shops ever complete the implementation of an Altiris or System Center desktop management system. We're keeping this poor management tradition alive when it comes to sprawling OS platforms. </p> <P> At first glance, there are big numbers around desktop management: 95% of respondents to our survey say they have an antivirus management system for PCs; 81% provide remote support for desktops and laptops; and 78% have a centralized patch management and software deployment system.</p> <P> However, the big numbers can be deceiving, and don't necessarily prove a deep commitment to desktop management. Windows Update is the most common tool, cited by 70% of survey respondents, and BlackBerry Enterprise Server is next, cited by 43%. These are very specific tools.</p> <P> Broader enterprise management software is used less often, with Symantec/Altiris, McAfee Enterprise, and Microsoft Systems Center software each cited by 35% or fewer survey respondents. And even the shops that have invested in such systems generally short change devices other than laptops and desktops. Use of the mobile add-ons for these enterprise management systems drops off to around 5%. </p> <P> When it comes to tablets, thin terminals, and smartphones, less than 20% of the companies we surveyed have antivirus, remote support, and patch management. Wake up. Most of these devices aren't very new. </p> <P> Apple desktops and laptops have been around as long as PCs, and they have a solid management and remote support platform built in. However, most survey respondents don't bother to use it for their Macs, let alone pay for iPhone or iPad management software. The recent MacDefender malware should put the "Apples don't need antivirus software" myth to rest once and for all. All devices need protection from viruses and malware.</p> <P> All that effort costs time and money, so it's not surprising that some IT folks would like to believe they could just virtualize everything and wouldn't have to worry much about what operating system's in use.</p> <P><strong>Step 4: Beware The Magic Bullet Called VDI</strong></p> <P> Here's a surprisingly high number: 44% of IT organizations represented in our survey are evaluating virtual desktop infrastructure, testing it, or using it in production. Of those, more than half cite replacing existing PCs or locally installed applications as an objective. A plucky 20% are looking to add virtualized apps for their mobile devices. The simplest use case for VDI is to replace legacy terminal servers, but that accounts for only 30% of the VDI activity.</p> <P> Before buying VDI as a magic bullet, step back. Eighty-five percent of those companies using, testing, or evaluating VDI have major concerns about cost, user acceptance, and performance, and about whether they can get their applications to work on it.</p> <P> The dream of VDI and application virtualization is that it'll slash support problems because IT will be able to handle problems centrally, since the operating system and apps are running on central servers. But we've heard that before with thin clients, PC blades, and countless other permutations that sought to centrally control everything. Those all failed to dramatically change the business desktop for most employees, because users weren't satisfied with the result. IT must look at VDI/application virtualization as fixing a small part of its problem with operating systems, probably for a small number of its users. Start by looking at the terminal server you're using, which likely could stand an upgrade.</p> <P> VDI is worlds better than conventional thin client, server-based options, since it offers a much more flexible user experience that more closely mimics desktop performance. However, it's not a replacement for most desktops. For one thing, it simply costs more up front in terms of licensing, hardware, and infrastructure. You can build all the ROI models you want that prove it may be cheaper in the long run, but it's all about cash flow: It's hard to get money for capital investments these days. That's one reason some businesses may consider the Google Chromebook model, with its monthly subscription fee. </p> <P> A better option than looking to replace a swath of desktops is to focus desktop virtualization on specific applications, removing them from local devices regardless of the operating system. This can be a big win for particularly tricky or fat applications. It still takes up-front investment, but if IT can virtualize a critical application and deliver it across devices and OS platforms, companies may buy in.</p><strong>Step 5: Get A Grip On Remote Connections</strong></p> <P> A few years ago, remote access to the network was a perk that only select execs (and IT) got. Today, it's the norm. Sixty-nine percent of firms we surveyed let employees access company resources from their personally owned computers; 63% allow access from personal mobile devices or tablets.</p> <P> This is how smartphone operating systems barge into companies. There's no reason to think companies will reverse course, and IT shouldn't bother fighting such access (mostly to email). Instead, IT must push for a rational policy on remote connections.</p> <P> While remote access from personal devices is great for productivity and employees, it's lousy for IT if handled incorrectly. Only 28% of companies in our survey have strict rules for mobile device access that includes operating system, device, and security requirements. Don't blame this lax compliance on the smartphone and tablet being relatively new; only 35% of companies have these rules for desktops or laptops.</p> <P> The lack of device management opens up the firm to a host of problems. Only 18% of companies allowing employees to connect personal devices have invested in monitoring remote devices with a system that includes intrusion detection, antivirus protection, and patch management. Forty-five percent do just basic monitoring for security and software status in terms of updates, and a shocking 37% do no monitoring at all. </p> <P> <div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; width:210px; float:right;"> <div style="border:1px solid #000000; padding:0;"> <div style="margin:0; padding:4px; font-size:1.4em; text-align:center; color:#ffffff; background-color:#000000;"> <strong>Top Criteria When Picking An OS</strong> </div> <div style="margin:0; padding:4px; font-size:1.2em; text-align:center; color:#ffffff; background-color:#CC0000;"> <strong></strong> </div> <div style="margin:0; padding:8px;"> <span style="font-weight:bold; font-size:1.1em; color:#CC0000;">52% </span>Support for our existing applications <div style="margin:10px 0 10px 0; padding 0; border-bottom:solid 1px #666666;"></div> <span style="font-weight:bold; font-size:1.1em; color:#CC0000;">51%</span> Security of operating system <div style="margin:10px 0 10px 0; padding 0; border-bottom:solid 1px #666666;"></div> <span style="font-weight:bold; font-size:1.1em; color:#CC0000;">49% </span>Specific funtionality of device and OS <div style="margin:10px 0 10px 0; padding 0; border-bottom:solid 1px #666666;"></div> <span style="font-weight:bold; font-size:1.1em; color:#CC0000;">26%</span> Integration with our existing security and management tools <div style="margin:10px 0 10px 0; padding 0; border-bottom:solid 1px #666666;"></div> <span style="font-size:.7em;">Data: <i>InformaationWeek Analytics</i> OS Wars Survey of 441 business tech pros, May 2011</span> </div> </div> </div> <P> Not only does this laissez-faire approach create security problems, but it usually leaves the IT support team swinging in the breeze. Of those companies allowing connectivity from personal devices, only 14% officially offer support, and 16% have the guts to tell users they're on their own and then enforce it. The other 70% leave the support team in a special kind of purgatory, hoping users won't call expecting the help desk to answer questions about operating systems and devices the support staff isn't trained to know about. </p> <P> Get a grip on this problem. It's another aspect of the discipline companies need around operating systems. Spend the time to create and update a detailed list of approved operating systems and remote devices. At the same time, invest in more than a basic firewall, and use the modern monitoring and management options available from the likes of Cisco, Juniper, and Fortinet, including cloud-based offerings. These investments give IT the tools and authority to block unsupported operating systems and browsers, and enforce a common antivirus app. </p> <P> We realize that these recommendations won't be popular. But IT must take these steps, as the speed and scale of this operating system proliferation is alarming. IT can't just say no to new devices. There's no going back to an orderly Windows-centric world. But IT must take smart steps now to make sure that what replaces that order is something less than a mess. </p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div id="printfeaturePDFpromo"><div class="printfeaturePDFCover"><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/20/7718/Network-Systems-Management/informationweek-full-issue-july-11-2011.html?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/1305/smallcov.jpg" alt="InformationWeek: July 11, 2010 Issue" title="InformationWeek: July 11, 2010 Issue" /></a></div> <div class="printfeaturePDFCopy"><strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/20/7718/Network-Systems-Management/informationweek-full-issue-july-11-2011.html?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download a free PDF of <nobr><em>InformationWeek</em> magazine</nobr></a><br /> (registration required)</strong></div> <div class="clearBoth"></div> </div> </center> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P>2011-06-03T00:00:00ZEmployees have more ways to communicate, but until the mishmash of tools gets integrated, productivity will suffer.http://www.informationweek.com/thebrainyard/news/229900076?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cio<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <!-- Jun. 6, 2011 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <div id="inlineGreenPromoTop"> <div class="greenBand"></div> <div class="inlineGreenPromoContent"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/060611/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_oss"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1302/smallcov3.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green - June 6, 2011" title="InformationWeek Green - June 6, 2011" align="left" class="greenIssueImage" /></a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/060611/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/graphics_library/misc/Green_leaf_88x88.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green" title="InformationWeek Green" align="right" class="greenLeaf" /></a> <div class="greenPromoText"> <strong><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/060611/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the entire Jun. 6, 2011 issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong>, distributed in an all-digital format as part of our <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/green/">Green Initiative</a><br /> (Registration required.)<br /> <center><div class="innerGreenPromoText" align="center">We will plant a tree for each of the first 5,000 downloads.</div></center> </div> </div> <div class="greenBand"></div> </div> <!-- / Jun. 6, 2011 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <br /><!-- leave as a br to not interfere w/ the insights boxes --> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1302/302CS_art_110.jpg" width="110" height="110" alt="Why Collaboration Should Center Around Email" title="Why Collaboration Should Center Around Email" width="110" height="110" class="artInlineTopImage" /> Almost 90% of companies use some form of social networking, whether it's an internal blog, an online forum, a wiki, or a hybrid platform such as Microsoft SharePoint, the <em>InformationWeek Analytics</em> Social Networking in the Enterprise Survey shows. However, a paltry 10% consider that effort a success. And we know one of the big reasons.</p> <P> Only 26% of our survey respondents have direct email integration with their social systems. In other words, companies expect employees to break away from their email, check the "social" system, collaborate, and then go back to their email. Fuggedaboutit.</p> <P> Collaboration technology presents the ultimate irony of the modern IT age. Hundreds of apps, platforms, and devices are designed to help us work together better. They all promise to make us more productive. Yet almost none of these tools plugs easily into the others. </p> <P> Vendors touting "unified communications" haven't come close to solving this problem. All present their visions of how their platforms will revolutionize the worker's life, but fail to mention what they don't provide. Microsoft Lync has no iPhone or Android option. Cisco's unified communications suite offers limited Exchange integration. Avaya's new Flare doesn't support Microsoft Office. And none of them has sufficient plug-ins for the growing number of software-as-a-service collaboration options, such as Salesforce.com's Chatter.</p> <P> The cloud vendors are no better, preferring to push their own visions as the only way to go. You're a big fan of Google enterprise email? Too bad, if you're a SharePoint or Notes shop. Google has integration tools for Outlook and Notes client software, but it doesn't include Notes databases or SharePoint sites.</p> <P> It's time for a reset. IT organizations have 11 major choices today when it comes to technology-assisted communication and collaboration<!-- (see box, right)-->. Some are old and boring, like the phone and fax, while others--like telepresence rooms -- make you feel like a Jetson.</p> <P> IT teams need to assess each based on whether they support six critical integration points, three interoperability benchmarks, and three user requirements<!-- (see box, p. 16)-->. View this as a checklist for success--or a harbinger of the troubles ahead if they're ignored. And they all start with email.</p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center><strong>To read the rest of the article,<br /><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/060611/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the Jun. 6, 2011 issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong></center><br clear="all" /></p> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div id="inlineReportPromo"> <div class="inlineReportPromo_headline"><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/7/5715/Enterprise-Software/research-enterprise-search.html" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Research: Enterprise Search</a></div> <div class="inlineReportPromo_inner"> <center><strong>Is It Time to Go Rogue?</strong></center><br /> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1302/302CD_reportcover.jpg" width="175" height="174"class="report110" /> Become an <strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/7/5715/Enterprise-Software/research-enterprise-search.html"><i>InformationWeek Analytics</i> subscriber</a></strong> and get our full report on enterprise search.<br /> <br /> This report includes <strong>38</strong> pages of action-oriented analysis packed with <strong>26</strong> charts. What you'll find: <ul class="normalUL"> <li>Our three-step plan to make enterprise-wide search a reality</li> <li>Top vendors in this space (hint: Google should be worried)</li> <li>A guide to calculating the true cost of a search initiative</li> </ul> <center><strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/7/5715/Enterprise-Software/research-enterprise-search.html">Get This</a> And <a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center> </div> </div> </center></p><br clear="all"> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE -->2011-06-03T00:00:00ZEmployees have more ways to communicate, but until the mishmash of tools gets integrated, productivity will suffer.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229900080?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cioAlmost 90% of companies use some form of social networking, whether it's an internal blog, an online forum, a wiki, or a hybrid platform such as Microsoft SharePoint, the InformationWeek Analytics Social Networking in the Enterprise Survey shows. However, a paltry 10% consider that effort a success. And we know one of the big reasons.</p> <P> Only 26% of our survey respondents have direct email integration with their social systems. In other words, companies expect employees to break away from their email, check the "social" system, collaborate, and then go back to their email. Fuggedaboutit.</p> <P> Collaboration technology presents the ultimate irony of the modern IT age. Hundreds of apps, platforms, and devices are designed to help us work together better. They all promise to make us more productive. Yet almost none of these tools plugs easily into the others.</p> <P> Vendors touting "unified communications" haven't come close to solving this problem. All present their visions of how their platforms will revolutionize the worker's life, but fail to mention what they don't provide. Microsoft Lyncs has no iPhone or Android option. Cisco's unified communications suite offers limited Exchange integration. Avaya's new Flare doesn't support Microsoft Office. And none of them has sufficient plug-ins for the growing number of software-as-a-service collaboration options, such as Salesforce.com's Chatter.</p> <P> The cloud vendors are no better, preferring to push their own visions as the only way to go. You're a big fan of Google enterprise email? Too bad, if you're a SharePoint or Notes shop. Google has integration tools for Outlook and Notes client software, but it doesn't include Notes databases or SharePoint sites.</p> <P> It's time for a reset. IT organizations have 11 major choices today when it comes to technology-assisted communication and collaboration (see box, "11 Major Options"). Some are old and boring, like the phone and fax, while others -- like telepresence rooms -- make you feel like a Jetson.</p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1302/302critical.jpg" alt="11 major options" title="11 major options" width="349" height="414"></center></p> <P> IT teams need to assess each based on whether they support six critical integration points, three interoperability benchmarks, and three user requirements (see box, below). View this as a checklist for success -- or a harbinger of the troubles ahead if they're ignored. And they all start with email.</p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1302/302CS_chart.gif" width="550" height="172" alt="How are internal social networking systems embedded into your email app?" title="How are internal social networking systems embedded into your email app?" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin-bottom:7px;" /><br /></center></p> <P> <strong>Get Your Email House In Order</strong></p> <P> Email remains the dominant form of enterprise communications: 100% market acceptance, 100% user acceptance. Period.</p> <P> Modern email systems provide a manageable and centralized point for four of the six integration requirements -- contacts, calendars, tasks, and actual messages. However, enterprise IT teams stink at exploiting email's potential beyond the in-box, and they pretend that personal folders and to-do lists, as well as lightly shared calendars, pass for a rich collaborative environment. We're missing a tremendous opportunity.</p> <P> Sixty-one percent of companies don't integrate their email with their accounting, CRM, or ERP systems, finds our InformationWeek Analytics State of Enterprise Messaging Survey. Instead, people are left to cook up their own approaches for managing the information around projects, meetings, customer interactions, and the like. Often, they end up just stuffing emails into folders. The result is that any communication string involving more than two people -- be it with another colleague or a customer or vendor -- gets fragmented. That typically means a meeting to piece together a story and take action.</p> <P> Here's an example of how integrating email and a project management system would be powerful. Chances are project managers are using some type of system to track their work -- whether it's a module inside the ERP or CRM system or a separate app, such as the cloud-based Basecamp. Email communication is crucial to any project, providing status updates, meeting notices, and follow-up notes. Project managers are well-organized data junkies who'll happily send their updates from within the project app, creating a record and resource. The rest of the project team? Forget it. They'll just use email, often forgetting to cc: the project manager. Retrain the users? No way. It's much easier to integrate email with the project management system, so sending an email with an associated project code is automatically noted in the project software.</p> <P> Sound like a monster custom coding job? Not really. The best way to accomplish this integration is to leverage some rules-based logic at the server or gateway, similar to the conventional transaction logging used for compliance. Delivery into the application itself can be done via SMTP or whatever API the vendor provides. It does require your application staff to understand the message flow and development options and inject the logic to pull out email strings that contain a project identifier, match a customer name, or meet a certain rule set.</p> <P> So why don't companies do this? In part it's because of the enthusiasm for new collaboration technology. Email works, so why would you spend developer time on that rather than on implementing a new collaboration tool, like telepresence? Yes, companies should think about such emerging options, but they also must consider how any new tools fit with the tried and true.</p> <P> Another reason is fear -- employees don't like it when IT messes with their email. But IT teams need to remember that just because employees depend on an email front end doesn't mean a company is tied to the back-end server software. People care about the Outlook client, not Exchange on the servers. Users love (or hate) Notes, not Domino. One of the reasons Google has been able to jump-start its Gmail for the enterprise has been its Outlook integration client and back-end API. Gmail has been able to do basic email via Outlook for years, and contact and calendar integration has come more recently. When Google added a feature to sync its calendar with Outlook 2010 last year, the company described that as its "top feature request."</p> <P> The lesson is there's an opportunity to build features and improve integration around the email client you have.</p> <P> <strong>Adding On To Email</strong></p> <P> So hopefully you're convinced that adding IM, video, texting, or full-blown collaboration systems that aren't integrated within an existing email system is just plain silly. But don't assume that vendors are going to make it easy on you.</p> <P> Google is a great example of a provider that really understands some of the integration needed to succeed over the long term. However, it also falls short of the level of integration needed to expand its capabilities beyond email. Google Talk instant messaging doesn't work with Outlook or Notes, for example. Thus, it's hardly surprising that the bulk of Google enterprise app growth has been driven by email, and not by instant messaging or Docs, which have more limited integration options.</p> <P> At a minimum, your integration goal must include having all contact, calendar, task, and message information integrated back into centralized repositories. A bigger undertaking is to integrate messages -- whether via chat, video, or email -- into a CRM, project management, customer support, or ERP system. Nice goal, but sadly, most enterprise applications don't even get contacts and calendars right.</p> <P> Here's an example. Web conferencing is fairly commonplace. Cisco WebEx, Citrix GoToMeeting, and Microsoft Live Meeting all have integration options, but their client support is limited, and they provide only plug-ins to send appointments and invitations.</p> <P> That's OK if your Web conferencing usage is 100% driven from email invitations, but if someone gets the message forwarded, or signs up online, where does that contact record go? If the event is part of customer or vendor activities, is the fact that it took place noted in the CRM or ERP system? Lastly, most of these systems can record sessions, but are the sessions stored with your other logs?</p> <P> The point is, these integrations are difficult for vendors and, frankly, aren't their top priority. So when you're going to add a new tool, make sure to consider how you will integrate it with other tools.</p> <P> Even when vendors make a solid effort, there can be complications. Case in point, Google Apps and Salesforce. If you've ditched your Exchange email service and internal CRM and headed for the cloud, you may be in for a nasty surprise. Both Google and Salesforce have nice options to sync with individual email clients, including Outlook. But we've seen them bomb for companies running both sync options at once on an Outlook client. Plus, neither Salesforce nor Google offers a way to integrate its respective talk and chat apps.</p> <P> Even a seemingly simple integration like capturing and logging messages for security purposes can slip by existing setups. BlackBerry Enterprise Server is the standard for most companies' mobile connectivity. IT organizations usually end up enabling SMS texting after the sales team or executives deems it critical. However, many don't realize that BlackBerry's SMS text logging is turned off by default and is probably not logging the messages their users have enabled.</p> <P> <strong>Three Levels Of Interoperability</strong></p> <P> When planning to integrate collaboration applications, think in terms of three levels of interoperability. The first, as we've noted, is email. The push of late to create "enterprise social networks" is making this more critical, since these social networks create a whole new silo.</p> <P> And no, setting up an email alert of social networking activity isn't enough. In fact, it may even make matters worse to generate a generic message that says something like, "Bill Jones commented on your product idea. Click here." That's not integration, it's noise. If the details of Bill's message were there, and you could reply to and comment on those messages right from your in-box, that would be integration. If you could check if Bill were online and maybe chat with him right then, that would be even better. However, as we noted, only 26% of companies integrate their systems with email, and only 31% enable online presence indicators. The rest? They expect people to hop back and forth between email and social collaboration apps.</p> <P> The second level of interoperability is with mobile devices. IT needs to identify the options for all devices, even those it doesn't currently support. If your company adds video capabilities, chances are employees will expect to be able to use that video from their iPhones or Android-based smartphones.</p> <P> Establish a clear standard for email connections and clients for every device option. Do you expect iPhone users to use iMap, SMTP POP, or the Outlook client? And we mean every device -- Windows, Mac, Linux, desktop, laptop, tablet, stone tablet, smoke signal, you name it. Lay out the options and configuration ranges for all of 'em.</p> <P> Why? Because if you don't, people will connect on their own, based on what they believe is the correct or just the easiest way. For example, iPhones have an Exchange connector that is amazingly simple to use. If you have basic remote Exchange access set up, chances are you have iPhones getting mail and you don't even know it. Help your employees, or they'll help themselves.</p> <P> The third level of interoperability is with other companies--suppliers, partners, customers -- and their different collaboration software platforms. This requires a hard reality check on what will ever be a standard. We know we can send email or text, or make a phone call, to almost anyone, regardless of that person's hardware or device--that's universal interoperability.</p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1302/303_11major.jpg" alt="critical elements for success" width="353" height="346"></center></p> <P> But some platform options won't be interoperable. Ever. A prime example: Hosted Web and video conferencing services like Cisco WebEx, Google Talk, ooVoo, Ojo, and others have no incentive to allow easy interoperability with their systems. The vendors' logic: A user can "just load and go," so it's no big deal for the party you're looking to collaborate with to add that vendor's software. If you go with one of these options, you'd better have high enough usage rates among your employee base to make it worthwhile, because you can't guarantee that outsiders will be able or willing to get on board.</p> <P> With desktop-centric applications, Skype shows some similarities. For the most part, you've needed Skype software on your desktop to use it. The company has a few partners that offer gateway access to voice and PBX systems, but Skype has never heavily promoted this option--and that's worked out OK. Skype provides a basic set of tools to integrate with almost every mail and Web client, and thanks to a clean interface, easy chat capabilities, and pretty decent video, the company claims 125 million active users. Seventy percent are in Europe or the Middle East, and using the service has meant huge cost savings for people doing international business.</p> <P> Now that Microsoft is buying Skype for $8.5 billion, the question becomes, What kind of priority will there be on integration? Clearly, any interoperability efforts will focus on Microsoft products first. Will Skype support competing systems from Avaya, Cisco, Google, and others? Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer went to great pains when announcing the deal to say that Microsoft would keep Skype accessible from other platforms.</p> <P> But Microsoft's interoperability track record is mediocre. The company has struggled for years with its messaging and video platforms, offering poor consumer products, and a series of attempts at creating a UC platform for Exchange. The Lync rebranding effort promises new UC capabilities, but there's no native support for Apple or Android devices. That omission explains why people worry about the long-term future of Skype for the iPhone, despite Ballmer's assurance Skype will support Apple products: 45% of respondents to a recent InformationWeek survey agree with the statement that Microsoft will deprioritize Skype's multiplatform support, while 21% disagree.</p> <P> IT's best hope for better interoperability lies with the bridge and gateway options noted earlier. That way, your future is at least somewhat in your own hands. But let's be clear: This strategy does require development chops, including understanding the APIs and standards used for each platform. Any talk of "universally accepted standards" must be prefaced by the same warning that comes with every spec, from virtualization to IP numbers to cloud computing. Creating standards is a painfully slow process, and the market keeps moving faster and faster.</p> <P> For systems that have limited interoperability, assume that situation will continue, and then figure out if you'll get enough use by employees -- and key customers or suppliers -- to make it worth your while.</p> <P> <strong>We Built It, So Where Are They?</strong></p> <P> It should be easy to figure out what users want most from collaboration, but unfortunately, IT doesn't always make the effort. We've made our case that connecting collaboration tools, with email at the center, is vital. But two other needs are high on the list. One is enabling universal search of the information generated in these collaborative apps. The other is formal training in how best to use collaborative apps. Neither area tends to get IT leaders fired up.</p> <P> Enterprise search has languished as a potential business productivity breakthrough for years. There are 50+ vendors that offer software that can crawl and index an entire range of applications, including email, IM, documents, and even group collaboration systems like wikis. Granted, letting people search colleagues' in-boxes is a leap of transparency few will ever make, but the software should at least offer functions like tying results from an in-box search to documents stored on the network. Most companies leave it underused, focusing search on just one or two apps and forfeiting the benefit of giving their employees a search vision that starts with their email stores as only one of several primary sources.</p> <P> Enterprise search fits neatly with this discussion--if you've forced integration and interoperability, pulling it all together with a centralized search is technically easy and provides big results. It can quickly help an employee sort out communication details, contact updates, and problem histories. Without enterprise search? Try remembering who OK'd that proposal last year, and whether the discussion was in email, IM, or a WebEx meeting, or via Salesforce.</p> <P> Bringing all these communication tools together, and adding search to them, does create one very big obligation for IT: A focus on training. Yes, real training that IT customizes based on the toolset it has built and the company's culture. We're not talking about walking through the tech features and demonstrating the various pull-down menus. We're talking about best practices training. What type of communication is best for quick updates? What's the proper format for a Web conference? Heck, what's the right way to change a subject line when you respond to an email?</p> <P> This level of education simply isn't done. Less than 18% of all those responding to our most recent State of Enterprise Messaging Survey say their companies provide an overall training program on how to use communication tools.</p> <P> The reason? IT assumes people already know the fine points, and that using the right tool well is just common sense. Wrong. Email itself has been a mainstream communication platform for only 15 or so years, and it still isn't part of the writing curriculum taught in most U.S. schools. Video, SMS, and IM education? Doesn't happen.</p> <P> Part of this training should be providing guidance on which medium a person should use and when. Left alone, people will default to the option that fits their personal behavior, not necessarily the right choice for business-level communications. IM and texting are good examples of where quick status check-ins work in a personal setting--"running late Mom, pick me up at 5, can I go to Jenny's"--but become annoying and downright intrusive when done wrong by a co-worker.</p> <P> IT relies on the power of a competitive and open technology market, constantly bringing new products and ideas to the fore. Collaboration vendors are delivering those new ideas, and IT should explore what's available. However, most companies have reached a breaking point with communications and put their IT teams in a predicament--what chess players call zugzwang: They have to make a move, but any move might make things worse. As we add more options and more devices, we actually make our other systems less efficient and ultimately more confused and confusing.</p> <P> However, we don't necessarily have the choice to say "no." As people accept new communication methods, businesses must adapt to stay competitive. Attempting to standardize on a single platform means making the fatal assumption that one vendor can provide and connect all needed channels, or that it's even possible to connect all relevant platforms. By focusing on email as a core starting point, companies can build on email's success to help create a cohesive plan for rolling in the rest of the communications suite.</p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div id="inlineReportPromo"> <div class="inlineReportPromo_headline"><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/7/5715/Enterprise-Software/research-enterprise-search.html" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Research: Enterprise Search</a></div> <div class="inlineReportPromo_inner"> <center><strong>Is It Time to Go Rogue?</strong></center><br /> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1302/302CD_reportcover.jpg" width="175" height="174"class="report110" /> Become an <strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/7/5715/Enterprise-Software/research-enterprise-search.html"><i>InformationWeek Analytics</i> subscriber</a></strong> and get our full report on enterprise search.<br /> <br /> This report includes <strong>38</strong> pages of action-oriented analysis packed with <strong>26</strong> charts. What you'll find: <ul class="normalUL"> <li>Our three-step plan to make enterprise-wide search a reality</li> <li>Top vendors in this space (hint: Google should be worried)</li> <li>A guide to calculating the true cost of a search initiative</li> </ul> <center><strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/7/5715/Enterprise-Software/research-enterprise-search.html">Get This</a> And <a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center> </div> </div> </center></p><br clear="all"> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <em>Michael Healey is president of Yeoman Technology Group, an engineering and research firm focused on maximizing technology investments. Write to us at iwletters@techweb.com.</em></p>2011-05-06T08:00:00ZLearn how to make the consumerization of IT work for you at Interop, where we'll discuss how to balance the needs of the business against maintaining a happy workforce.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229402900?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cioRemember the first time you beat your father at a sport? Chances are, dad looked at you with a mix of pride in your achievement and sadness at the passing of his peak. If you work in IT today, you're probably no stranger to that look; we see it all the time from end users as they bring their own (better) gear into the workplace. <P> However, for most IT teams I work with, there's no sense of excitement or a desire to make the most of what's out there. Usually it's quite the opposite, with IT in the role of fighter pilot trainer/masochistic parent Lt. Col. Bull Meechum from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Santini">The Great Santini</a>: "Are you gonna cry if they take your iPad, big shot tech man? Are you?" Security crackdowns, policy edicts from on high, firings of staff who use social networking at work--Gitmo's got nothing on you. <P> If you're chuckling right now, you're part of the problem. This is a golden opportunity to redefine the user experience, not by forcing users into our vision, but by making them part of the solution. Consumer-driven technology <em>can</em> work for most organizations. And anyway, tech vendors have a new secret weapon. <P> Case in point: tablets. We all have older versions of these devices sitting around the gear closet. Hell, even Moses had two. Everyone from HP, Dell, and IBM to Symbol and Grid Pad has put one out. Their mistake, though, was trying to get them into enterprise users' hands from the top down. Didn't work. <P> Why is the iPad different? First, it's a slick, elegant piece of technology. Second, Apple didn't bother trying to promote it via IT, it went straight to the user. Watch a few <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9KTnsGsd_0">iPad commercials</a>; pitches for healthcare, publishing, and manufacturing are all mixed in right next to e-books and Angry Birds. Jobs went around us. <P> This was a stroke of marketing genius, one I fully expect all tech vendors to emulate. And not just for gear. It's part of the cloud/Web 2.0 trend that's given everyone a whole range of technology to work with. Tiny email allotment? Gmail. Server share full? <a href="http://www.dropbox.com/">Dropbox</a>. Suddenly Debbie from HR can set herself up with a multi-device, single-sign-on system. Cobble together any combination of HootSuite, Google Docs, Skype, and <a href="http://www.eetimes.com/design/embedded/4007587/The-practical-realities-of-802-11n-in-home-networking-applications">an 11n home network</a>, access it all via a smartphone, netbook, and slick laptop, and for less than two grand she can track all levels of her information systems with a full 360-degree view. From anywhere. <P> Can she do that with your systems? <P> You may say, "Of course not, but &#8230;" and rifle off a litany of excuses from compliance and scalability to fault tolerance, but you're talking to the wrong guy. Tell it to your end users. You may say, "They don't get the big picture," and you're probably right. That's your fault. Chances are you haven't given them a roadmap since you upgraded from Windows 98. <P> Try this instead: Lay out your IT strategy, but be respectful of their new technology comfort level. For example, put the context of the corporate security policy in the framework of the information folks unwittingly agree to when they accept FaceBook's default. You'll do two things: 1. Show them you really do understand the big picture, and 2. scare the hell out of them when they understand what they're sharing, thus making them more amenable to those security policies. <P> At my <a href=" http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/ ">Interop</a> session, <a href="http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/conference/information-week-analytics-live.php"> Making the Consumerization of IT Work for You,</a> I&#8217;ll lay out some tips for applying processes that balance the needs of the business against a happy workforce. My co-presenters, <a href="http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/2011/speaker-list/?speaker=michael-davis">Mike Davis</a> and <a href="http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/2011/speaker-list/?speaker=jonathan-feldman"> Jonathan Feldman,</a> will add security and governance perspectives. <P> Hey, no one said you can't still lay down some rules. But you can't be drill sergeant dad anymore. <P> <a href="http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/2011/speaker-list/?speaker=michael-healey">Mike Healey</a> <em>is the president of Yeoman Technology Group, an engineering and research firm focusing on maximizing technology investments for organizations, and an InformationWeek Analytics contributor. He has more than 23 years experience in technology and software integration.</em> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <!-- RECOMMENDED READING --> <a name="recommended"></a> <center> <div id="recommendedReadingPromo"> <div class="recommendedReadingPromoHeader"><strong>Recommended Reading:</strong></div> <ul class="normalUL"> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/hardware_software/229300907">The Benefits Of Consumerization For SMBs</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/187200535?">Businesses Advised To Embrace Consumer Technology: Gartner</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/security/229400341">Consumerization Of IT: Security Is No Excuse</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/messaging/229400295">Consumerization Of IT: How To Make It Work For You</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/handheld/229400348">Tablets, Web Apps Lead 'Consumerization' Of IT</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/messaging/229400350">Consumerization Of IT: How To Support All These Gadgets</a></li> <li class="last-li"><a href="http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/">See more on Interop</a></li> </ul> </div> </center><br clear="all"> <!-- / RECOMMENDED READING --> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE -->2011-04-23T00:00:00ZOur data shows savings, quality, and smooth project delivery can be elusive.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229401611?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cioEven as the economy improves, the reality of IT service delivery is less positive: We're not willing to fight to hire talent, opting instead to outsource more and more, yet not investing in vital management tools and skills. </p> <P> Worse, quality is too often an afterthought. </p> <P> Our second annual <i>InformationWeek Analytics</i> State of IT Outsourcing Survey shows an increase in the number of respondents using service providers, and the vast majority plan to increase their outsourcing activities across all categories--hardware, telco, data center, software development, and public cloud and software as a service. That enthusiasm is despite ongoing concerns about value and just how much time and money we're really saving. Respondents say they're three times more likely to be able to engage a contractor than to bring on staff.</p> <P> Let that settle in for a minute. In the past 32 months, we've been through brutal recession, uneasy recovery, and dramatic technology change. That's more than two and a half years of turmoil and transformation in your business. Not only have IT operations had to morph based on business realities, we've had to adapt to expanded virtualization options, data center convergence, increasing storage volumes, and the rise of mobile devices and consumerization, as well as shifting compliance standards for everything from credit card payments to Web security. </p> <P> Given a whole new set of strategic variables plus fewer resources, it's no wonder IT is looking for help. But we're not figuring out how to apply outside talent as a means to deliver quality IT. We're still just chasing fast and cheap, and that's no way to excel.</p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div id="inlineReportPromo"> <div class="inlineReportPromo_headline"><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/13/6295/Outsourcing-Services/research-2011-outsourcing-survey.html" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Research: 2011 Outsourcing Survey</a></div> <div class="inlineReportPromo_inner"> <center><strong>The Incredible Shrinking IT Team</strong></center><br /> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1298/298F2_reportcover_110.jpg" width="110" height="110" class="report110" /> Become an <strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/13/6295/Outsourcing-Services/research-2011-outsourcing-survey.html"><i>InformationWeek Analytics</i> subscriber</a></strong> and get our full report on the state of outsourcing.<br /> <br /> This report includes <strong>53</strong> pages of action-oriented analysis packed with <strong>44</strong> charts. What you'll find: <ul class="normalUL"> <li>IT staff perception of outsourcing: Less threat, more relief</li> <li>Six keys to dealing with a rapidly morphing IT budget</li> <li>Top areas being outsourced: data center ops back in-house, end user support out</li> <li>Deep data on performance perceptions vs. usage rates</li> </ul> <center><strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/13/6295/Outsourcing-Services/research-2011-outsourcing-survey.html">Get This</a> And <a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center> </div> </div> </center></p><br clear="all"> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <P><strong>What's On The Rise?</strong></p> <P> Cloud and software development outsourcing lead the way, with 76% of respondents to our March 2011 survey now in the public cloud--a 10-point increase over February 2010. We saw growth in almost every category, from SaaS versions of human resources apps to raw storage. Forty-five percent of those already employing cloud services plan to increase use. However, it's not all rosy: Just 30% of respondents say their cloud services provide better quality at lower cost, down from 37% last year. Delivering that benefit is the benchmark for any outsourcer's value.</p> <P> The primary benefits cited year over year are freeing up staff for more strategic initiatives, gaining access to industry-specific expertise, and delivering projects that wouldn't have been possible without external help. </p> <P> However, we saw a discouraging lack of investment in technology to manage these new outsourced networks: 49% lack automated RFP and bid management, 43% are without vendor time-management systems, and a whopping 62% don't monitor their cloud application performance. These gaps steadily eat away at gains made by outsourcing and can even cast us into a pernicious kind of IT hell. For every respondent who talks about the benefits of outsourcing, another complains bitterly about being "trapped" or "held hostage" by providers.</p> <P> That said, use of all forms of outsourcing will continue to grow for the next few years. Why? Because hiring is a nonstarter at many companies. We asked, when it comes to staffing and support, is it easier to bring in an outside contractor or a full-time employee, or is it a wash? A mere 15% say they find in-house hiring the most likely route. This confirms a trend we cited in our recent InformationWeek Analytics IT Budget Survey report: Companies are moving away from long-term IT investments, whether for capital equipment or staff.</p> <P> Are we mortgaging the future by pushing technical chops out the door? A number of respondents sound this alarm. "Core and tribal knowledge has to be maintained internally," says one. "If this transfers out of the organization, this is a major contributor to increased cost."</p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1298/298F2chart2.jpg" width="550" height="301" alt="chart: How great a concern are these factors when outsourcing?" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin-bottom:7px;" /><br /></center></p> <P><strong>Hunters Being Hunted</strong> </p> <P> In our consulting practice, we're seeing a sharp rise in the use of "gig" contractors--individuals brought in on a long-term basis to perform key tasks. This term, coined by Daily Beast editor Tina Brown in 2009, describes the growing number of independent workers who survive project to project as freelancers, relying on their contacts, social networks, and online tools to find work. IT has always had its go-to experts, gurus you bring in to fight fires or implement complex systems, but we've seen a marked rise in companies relying on these independents vs. larger consulting firms. Seventy-two percent of our survey respondents use gig workers, with a surprising 45% saying it's a new approach for their companies.</p> <P> It's interesting--big outsourcing firms, such as IBM's or HP's services arms or Tata, that once pecked away at internal IT are now competing more against nimbler, hungrier startups and pros working through individual marketplaces, at least for project work.</p> <P> While the gig economy may bring companies entrepreneurial talent, it has downsides. For starters, it makes addressing the gaps in outsourcing management even more crucial. If you have a 20-person IT staff and hire even a half-dozen contractors quarterly for key activities, you need automated project and contact management, vendor time tracking, and performance surveys of end users or customers to ensure you're getting the quality you're paying for. Our advice is to engage the HR people in the process of hiring contractors. They're experts on tracking, performance evaluations, and monitoring. Involving HR also covers you as you navigate the slippery turf of contractors vs. staff, a distinction that's getting foggier. </p> <P> In addition, these IT mercenaries are often former employees of a hiring company, or just working for themselves; they don't come with an established managed services firm behind them to provide escalation paths, compliance checks, or defined quality controls. In that sense, there's something to be said for the big vendors of the world.</p> <P> Still, among respondents leaving comments in our survey, we see a strong preference for on-shore and particularly local providers. "We do not use generic outsourcing," says a respondent. "We have specific vendors, experienced in our industry, to handle each of our application areas. All vendors we currently utilize are based locally--within 300 miles."</p> <P> The personal touch is nice, but don't get complacent. We know of a senior IT engineer who voluntarily left a high-level position to strike out on his own. He was the go-to guy for some critical tasks, and when he left, the CIO didn't bother to get much documentation--she was going to hire him back as a contractor anyway. </p> <P> Can you say "knowledge hostage"?</p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1298/298F2chart1.jpg" width="450" height="415" alt="chart: To what degree have these benefits been realized through your company's use of outsourcing?" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin-bottom:7px;" /><br /></center></p><strong>What Are We Gaining?</strong></p> <P> Outsourcing has always been an integral part of IT, from the day we set up our first WAN links. Now, anything from end user support (done by 33% of companies) to data center ops (38%) to development of internal and external applications (45% and 68%, respectively) is fair game. </p> <P> Why do we love outsourcing so? The No. 1 benefit last year was the venerable "freeing staff for strategic projects." But this year, that's tied for top spot with access to industry-specific expertise and ability to deliver on projects that couldn't be done with in-house staff. In fact, we're seeing an increase in specialization. The ability to deliver projects more quickly was close behind.</p> <P> In dead last: Gaining a better quality product.</p> <P> In fact, year-over-year quality opinions are down across all categories, with a marked dip in the quality of end user support. A staggering 57% of respondents cite lower-quality results, regardless of cost, with 20% admitting to paying more for inferior outsourced end user support.</p> <P> Think that will mean a mass exodus from these services? Nope. Just more than 3% plan to scale back on use. On the contrary, most respondents plan to maintain or increase use of all outsourcing--regardless of opinions about quality. </p> <P> And, presumably, hiding from their underserved co-workers. </p> <P> We're not just suffering on the caliber of services; unplanned costs, time spent managing providers, and communication problems also dominate concerns around outsourcing. However, the intensity (measured on a 1-to-5 scale of problem significance) dropped versus last year. </p> <P> All this presents an interesting scenario: We're less happy with quality, but more on board with outsourcing in general. That means either: A, we're actively managing our outsourcers and doing what we need to internally to shore up quality and avoid negatively impacting the business; or B, we're simply pushing whatever we can off our plates and hoping quality will magically improve before the masses revolt.</p> <P> We're thinking it's B. </p> <P> To minimize problems, start being more selective when picking partners.</p> <P><strong>Good Hires Avoid Bad Fires</strong></p> <P> Almost one-quarter of respondents fired a vendor in the past year, with 65% citing an impact on their businesses; 10% say it was a major blow. This is consistent with 2010 results. </p> <P> To avoid that fate, don't follow our respondents' lead on the initial review and award process. Most rely on manually pitching an RFP to handpicked vendors. When you combine this narrow focus with the fact that almost no one uses automated systems to manage the RFP/bid process, it's no surprise we get off on the wrong foot.</p> <P> There is some good news. We see a rise in the number of respondents expanding their sourcing options, especially via online soliciting of RFPs. And contractor marketplaces like Elance, Guru, oDesk, and OnForce continue to see their traffic jump as companies look to get broader benches of talent. </p> <P> The other side of the oversight coin is monitoring external service-level agreements. Unfortunately, companies using cloud computing are particularly prone to throwing the concept of oversight to the wind. We asked respondents whether they directly monitor the performance and uptime of their cloud applications. Last year, 59% said no, they rely on the vendor to police itself. This year, that number actually went up to 62%.</p> <P> Come on, people. All the major monitoring tools now have capabilities to track services, and there are dozens of cloud providers up and down the stack that do nothing but monitoring. Make sure you get what you pay for.</p> <P> Compliance is another concern, as one-third of respondents say they rely on vendors to verify that they conform to company policies and rules. That's a big red flag for auditors. If you have HIPAA, PCI, or SOX compliance requirements, you need to manage those vendors. If you run afoul of regulators, it's your business on the line. Now, we realize monitoring takes time and costs money and cuts into why you're outsourcing in the first place. Only PCI has real teeth, with fines that can hurt the business. So in many cases, turning a blind eye is a calculated gamble. However, email marketing vendor Epsilon swears that its recent breach wasn't caused by internal staff, but mysterious outside attackers. No mention of the number of outsourced partners that have access to its systems.</p> <P> <strong>Lessons From Software Land</strong></p> <P> If there's one area that fires up the outsourcing debate it's software development. Nightmare stories abound, from disappearing vendors to language barriers that threaten to topple critical projects entrusted to overseas providers.</p> <P> However, we found a very interesting data point here: In our survey, more than two-thirds of the companies that develop software for external customers rely on some level of outsourcing for their development. Call it subsourcing. And this group has significantly higher opinions about quality compared with all other outsourcing categories. In fact, outsourced development for customer-facing applications has the highest percent of respondents citing higher quality and lower cost than all other categories, including the cloud.</p> <P> Why? These people are willing to get tough when they aren't happy. Nine percent even intend to decrease their use of outside development this year. While they're naturally more inclined to invest in tools for software development, they're also more likely to use tools for managing vendor evaluation, compliance, and performance.</p> <P> There's a simple reason for this no-nonsense stance--app dev results are visible to the entire company, not just IT. </p> <P> Ask yourself this: Does anyone outside of IT understand exactly what's outsourced? Does accounting know you don't own the servers that run the billing system? Does your CEO ask about SaaS vendor evaluation reports or the RFP process when evaluating a new telco partner? Not likely. But if a new e-commerce application is buggy, everyone notices.</p> <P><strong>Think Different With Cloud</strong></p> <P> The cloud presents not only a new set of outsourcing options, it creates a rare opportunity to rethink your approach to staffing the entire IT organization. It moves the classic outsourcing model beyond a help desk or smart virtualization engineer to include almost every aspect of IT, powered by a new generation of consulting and cloud alternatives. </p> <P> However, just chasing lower capital costs drowns out the very real requirements for investments in time, staff, and systems to support this expanding base. If we continue our march to the public cloud, most CIOs will need radically different skill sets in a few years. Internal teams will need to become managers and directors of resources and have core business process and information architecture skills. Simply being a great engineer won't cut it. Nor will trying to manage it all with an Excel spreadsheet and a hodgepodge of partners you can call on in a pinch.</p> <P> We already mentioned bringing in HR, particularly for monitoring gig workers. In addition, invite the security pros to lunch and get them dialed in to vendor compliance. Chances are they'll find multiple gaps staring you right in the face without even trying. Stop with the "cloud is easy" b.s. and start saying, "We need to invest in monitoring, integration, and staff so we can take advantage of all the cloud can offer."</p> <P> Hear this: "You cannot outsource your responsibility," says Steve Ward, IT manager at Montgomery Bank. "Everything is a trade-off. The gain has to be weighed against the cost." Exactly.</p> <P> <em>Michael Healey is president of Yeoman Technology Group, an engineering and research firm focused on maximizing technology investments. </em> </P> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div id="printfeaturePDFpromo"><div class="printfeaturePDFCover"><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/166/6655/Professional+Development+and+Salary+Data/informationweek-full-issue-april-25-2011.html"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/1298/smallcov2.jpg" alt="InformationWeek: April 25, 2011 Issue" title="InformationWeek: April 25, 2011 Issue" /></a></div> <div class="printfeaturePDFCopy"><strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/166/6655/Professional+Development+and+Salary+Data/informationweek-full-issue-april-25-2011.html">Download a free PDF of <nobr><em>InformationWeek</em> magazine</nobr></a><br /> (registration required)</strong></div> <div class="clearBoth"></div> </div> </center> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <P>2011-04-02T00:00:00ZThere's no stopping this stuff, so IT might as well make the most of it.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229400295?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cioThe 21-year-old intern didn't mean to set off an email tornado. She simply asked the executive VP at a billion-dollar-a-year company why the e-commerce site didn't work on an iPhone. The executive VP is the type of non-IT exec your staff fears: tech junkie who loves gadgets, from iPhone to Xbox to Xoom to Internet TV.</p> <P> He didn't have a good answer, especially since the company had been doing some major e-commerce upgrades over the last few years. You can guess what happened next--a frenzy of emails, phone calls, and quick meetings to find out exactly where IT's head was at for not iPhone-enabling the e-commerce site. A classic firestorm.</p> <P> And a great opportunity for the company.</p> <P> The truth is, the company's IT leaders didn't factor mobile devices into their upgrade plan. That decision, or nondecision, wasn't based upon market research or any data analysis; it just wasn't on their radar. They had bigger fish to fry and hadn't really thought about mobility. Not good.</p> <P> But rather than come up with a half-baked fix, the company's IT leaders took a serious look at the opportunity. They started by analyzing existing customer buying patterns and interactions. Less than 1% of visits came from mobile devices, they learned. But that could be a chicken-and-egg problem; the company doesn't have mobile visitors because the site isn't mobile-friendly. So the team dug deeper. </p> <P> The company has an active email marketing program, so IT looked at what devices customers use to open the email it sends. Less than 1% of the emails were opened on mobile devices. Day of the week or time of day didn't matter. Customers just weren't using mobile devices as part of their relationships with the company.</p> <P> This finding told IT it didn't have to go into panic mode, but it also created a benchmark data point to watch--if the company sees more people opening emails with mobile devices, a mobile site should move up the priority list. It also provided a golden opportunity for the company's IT leaders to discuss customer data analytics with the executive team. They were already talking about the need for key performance indicators beyond just sales figures. and this led them to integrate stats such as Web activity, phone calls, and email volumes into analysis of customer behavior. Executives knew there were some big gaps in the data warehouse and business intelligence tools they needed to do that analysis, and this discussion helped get that software funded.</p> <P> What would your company have done? Rush to implement a makeshift iPhone solution? Try to discount the intern as a kid who doesn't know the business? Play the "security card" and walk away? Or would you have stopped with the basic analytics that showed low mobile usage and not dug any deeper? </p> <P> Too many discussions around the consumerization of IT focus on how to defend against it, or how to minimize the damage. The consumerization of IT isn't wrong; it isn't a threat. It's an evolution that's more about the growth of technology in society, and not particularly about your IT department. An intern with an iPhone shouldn't set the tech priorities for a business, but consumerization of IT does mean you need to be open to great tech ideas coming from employees throughout the company.</p> <P> The reality is that some of the brightest tech minds aren't in IT anymore. They're not just "digital natives." We now have users spanning all age groups who understand, accept, and are proficient with a much wider range of technologies than IT could ever shepherd. These people not only have the potential to bring in new ideas, but they can also become the drivers of adoption and supporters of budget increases.</p> <P> <strong>IT Must Bring The Pieces Together</strong></p> <P> However, just because they're smart and use technology at home doesn't make them IT pros. Like the intern, they're aware of the technology options that can help the business but lack an understanding of how it all fits together.</p> <P> This is where IT is falling down--big time. Too many IT pros have stopped talking to end users about how they use technology to do their jobs. Sure, we still do road maps for governance or finance groups, but when was the last time your IT organization did any documentation, training, or presentation for the entire company? When was the last time it solicited ideas across the company on how to leverage technology for competitive advantage? When was the last time the security team laid out the actual security threat, rather than just saying no? </p> <P> Years ago, the end users just didn't get it, and we were the experts. Ten years ago, around 55% of U.S. adults were online; now it's around 80%. Usage of technology has gone up in every age level and across every category for the last decade, according to the latest data from the Pew Research Center. Think of the rise of iPads, iPhones, and other doodads as just the market reacting to this growing comfort and understanding of what technology can do. And think of yourself as having the same opportunity inside your business. IT isn't a department anymore; it pervades the entire company. </p> <P> But tapping into tech innovation from around the company requires IT to give up some control and let others in on decisions IT would rather own exclusively. Device selection, application interface design, and new technology analysis are the three biggest decisions that spring to mind. Opening these to a broader discussion not only brings in fresh ideas, but it also ensures that the entire company understands and accepts the final selections.</p> <P> The good news is this approach also means you get to push other groups to take more responsibility for their technology domains. HR will now need to own, monitor, and enforce policies on social networking and public comments about the company (once it gets around to writing those policies). Finance can take over PCI compliance, since credit card processing really is part of its function.</p> <P> We're not suggesting you begin a radical reorganization but, rather, take a fresh look at how you operate. Consumer tech is bringing more people closer to IT. You can defend, block, or ignore it for now, but the next email tornado is going to come anyway. </P> <P> <bio><em>Michael Healey is president of consulting firm Yeoman Technologies. Write to us at iwletters@techweb.com.M/em></bio> </p>2011-04-02T00:00:00ZThere's no stopping this stuff, so IT might as well make the most of it.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229400336?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cio<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <!-- Apr. 4, 2011, InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <div id="inlineGreenPromoTop"> <div class="greenBand"></div> <div class="inlineGreenPromoContent"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/040411/?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1296/smallcov3.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green - Apr. 4, 2011" title="InformationWeek Green - Apr. 4, 2011" align="left" class="greenIssueImage" /></a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/040411/?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/graphics_library/misc/Green_leaf_88x88.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green" title="InformationWeek Green" align="right" class="greenLeaf" /></a> <div class="greenPromoText"> <strong><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/0404711/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the entire Apr. 4, 2011 issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong>, distributed in an all-digital format as part of our <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/green/">Green Initiative</a><br /> (Registration required.)<br /> <center><div class="innerGreenPromoText" align="center">We will plant a tree for each of the first 5,000 downloads.</div></center> </div> </div> <div class="greenBand"></div> </div> <!-- / Apr. 4, 2011 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <br /><!-- leave as a br to not interfere w/ the insights boxes --> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1296/296CSart_flat3_110.jpg" width="110" height="110" alt="Consumerization Of IT: How To Make It Work For You" title="Consumerization Of IT: How To Make It Work For You" width="110" height="110" class="artInlineTopImage" /> <P> The 21-year-old intern didn't mean to set off an email tornado. She simply asked the executive VP at a billion-dollar-a-year company why the e-commerce site didn't work on an iPhone. The executive VP is the type of non-IT exec your staff fears: tech junkie who loves gadgets, from iPhone to Xbox to Xoom to Internet TV.</p> <P> He didn't have a good answer, especially since the company had been doing some major e-commerce upgrades over the last few years. You can guess what happened next--a frenzy of emails, phone calls, and quick meetings to find out exactly where IT's head was at for not iPhone-enabling the e-commerce site. A classic firestorm.</p> <P> And a great opportunity for the company.</p> <P> The truth is, the company's IT leaders didn't factor mobile devices into their upgrade plan. That decision, or nondecision, wasn't based upon market research or any data analysis; it just wasn't on their radar. They had bigger fish to fry and hadn't really thought about mobility. Not good.</p> <P> But rather than come up with a half-baked fix, the company's IT leaders took a serious look at the opportunity. They started by analyzing existing customer buying patterns and interactions. Less than 1% of visits came from mobile devices, they learned. But that could be a chicken-and-egg problem; the company doesn't have mobile visitors because the site isn't mobile-friendly. So the team dug deeper. </p> <P> The company has an active email marketing program, so IT looked at what devices customers use to open the email it sends. Less than 1% of the emails were opened on mobile devices. Day of the week or time of day didn't matter. Customers just weren't using mobile devices as part of their relationships with the company.</p> <P> This finding told IT it didn't have to go into panic mode, but it also created a benchmark data point to watch--if the company sees more people opening emails with mobile devices, a mobile site should move up the priority list. It also provided a golden opportunity for the company's IT leaders to discuss customer data analytics with the executive team. They were already talking about the need for key performance indicators beyond just sales figures. and this led them to integrate stats such as Web activity, phone calls, and email volumes into analysis of customer behavior. Executives knew there were some big gaps in the data warehouse and business intelligence tools they needed to do that analysis, and this discussion helped get that software funded.</p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center><strong>To read the rest of the article,<br /><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/040411/?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the Apr. 4, 2011 issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong></center><br clear="all" /></p> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div id="inlineReportPromo"> <div class="inlineReportPromo_headline"><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/83/5695/IT-Business-Strategy/research-2011-global-cio-report.html" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Research: 2011 Global CIO Report</a></div> <div class="inlineReportPromo_inner"> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1296/296CS_reportcover_110.jpg" class="report110" /> Become an <strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/83/5695/IT-Business-Strategy/research-2011-global-cio-report.html"><i>InformationWeek Analytics</i> subscriber</a></strong> and get our full IT Must Create: 2011 Global CIO report.<br /> <br /> This report includes <strong>32</strong> pages of action-oriented analysis packed with <strong>16</strong> charts. What you'll find: <ul class="normalUL"> <li>IT project plans and priorities in 14 tech categories</li> <li>IT spending, project plans, and hiring expectations.</li> <li>What the biggest drivers of innovation are in IT organizations</li> </ul> <center><strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/83/5695/IT-Business-Strategy/research-2011-global-cio-report.html">Get This</a> And <a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center> </div> </div> </center></p><br clear="all"> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P>2011-03-12T00:00:00ZSearch is one of the most unappreciated technologies. Here are three stealthy ways to build momentum and slip it into your company.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229300066?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cio Enterprise search is one of the most powerful but underused technologies available to IT. Many companies aren't buying search at all, and many that do have it aren't implementing it on a broad scale. </p> <P> It isn't the fault of the technology or the companies that sell it. The products for the most part work. What's getting in the way are internal politics, understaffing, and an unwillingness on IT's part to tackle the bigger requirements that could truly change how employees find information across a company. Too often, enterprise search technology ends up pigeonholed in a single department or used on a single data set--a big but underutilized investment. </p> <P> That's exactly what happened to one U.S. high-tech manufacturer that two years ago started using SharePoint as the central hub for its product documentation, discussions, and collaboration. The approach caught on with pilot users, but they had problems finding information that was split between the SharePoint portal and the network.</p> <P> The company deployed Google Search Appliance, which could search SharePoint and other systems. It was a nice fit, and the pilot was expanded to include main databases, file shares, and e-mail.</p> <P> Flash forward to today: SharePoint never caught on at the company beyond the initial group, and neither did enterprise search, which now helps only 5% of possible users search about 10% of the systems they use. This happened despite the fact that the company has the technology and licenses it needs to expand search to the entire company.</p> <P> Is this an oddball case of a project gone bad? Hardly. </p> <P> Here's why enterprise search usually fails, and a three-step approach to making search succeed.</p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1294/294F2chart1.gif" width="517" height="228" alt="chart: hat's the top benefit of enterprise search?" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin-bottom:7px;" /><br /></center></p> <P><strong>Who's To Blame?</strong></p> <P> Despite more than a decade of product development aimed at helping companies find information across their networks, a paltry 22% of the 433 business technology professionals polled in InformationWeek Analytics' Search 2011 survey have purchased the technology. That's down from 24% in our 2008 survey.</p> <P> Search technology also is underutilized, with less than 10% of the 2011 respondents using it searching more than four data sources. The 2008 survey results were similar. Enterprise search can be a six-figure investment for a midsize company; talk about buying a Lamborghini but only driving it in the city.</p> <P> Unlike the case with many emerging technologies, you can't blame the vendors here. More than 35 companies are making viable enterprise search products that can search major data stores. Most of them are more than 5 years old and relatively stable, and they have real--albeit small--customer bases. They range from specialists including Attivio, Coveo, DieselPoint, dtSearch, Endeca, Exalead, Infofinder, SLI Systems, and Vivisimo to megaplayers such as Autonomy, Google, IBM, and Microsoft. Lucene/Soir is a strong open source alternative.</p> <P> Reacting to the narrow approach by end users, many of these vendors have stopped pushing the bigger enterprise search vision and instead are focusing on point products. This year alone, several have narrowed their messages to products for supply chain, e-commerce, e-discovery, and other niches. </p> <P> <strong>The Role Of Users</strong></p> <P> The typical worker isn't clamoring for enterprise search. Most employees can search their own e-mail, can find what they need within a program, and are more than capable of searching online. When we propose centralized search, they complain it's not as good as Internet search, and they don't want people searching their e-mail, anyway.</p> <P> This is where enterprise search projects die for many companies, with user dissatisfaction and internal bickering over what should be searched by whom. </p> <P> Instead, search is being brought in just within the confines of lines of business, with business unit leaders, not IT, driving search purchases. "They can identify a core business issue that's caused by a search gap between a few different systems they work with on a regular basis," says Raul Valdes-Perez, Vivisimo's executive chairman.</p> <P> A business unit usually can get a search product that meets its needs, but this approach ignores the big picture. If IT doesn't provide insight and a road map to get beyond the initial investment, there's no overall driver to build out the search platform. </p> <P><strong>How IT Figures In</strong></p> <P> IT generally doesn't think it has a search problem. Only 9% of 337 respondents to our survey who don't use enterprise search say they're "very interested" in it. Fifty-six percent rank search at the bottom third of their project lists.</p> <P> However, data overload is a real problem that isn't going away. Every company has some level of the four core data sources: e-mail, file shares, intranets, and structured databases such as ERP and CRM. Throw in local desktops, mobile devices, and the Internet, and you've got more than a half-dozen data sources. Very few companies are doing a complete job searching all these data silos.</p> <P> If IT continues to do nothing, enterprise search won't materialize. Business units won't push for broader systems, and they'll deploy fragmented systems that solve just one group's problem. </p> <P> Rather than accept that, IT should instead use those niche areas where search is flourishing to "trick" the company into expecting better search. Take a page from the shadow IT movements that regularly usurp even the best governance processes, and essentially let enterprise search go rogue. Here's how you can do it.</p> <P> <strong>&gt;&gt; Step One: Find A Small, Loud Group With A Problem</strong></p> <P> From our experience with companies that use some level of enterprise search, they're generally happy with it. Despite the fact that they're underutilizing their systems' capabilities, they cite higher productivity and faster access to data than their searchless counterparts.</p> <P> This is a great starting point. Find a user group with a straightforward problem and fix it with a scalable product.</p> <P> The best groups are senior execs, finance, and sales. IT has to pay a lot of attention to these folks anyway. If you give them a simple search product, you'll get the needed buy-in, and they'll ask for more. Remember, it doesn't have to be everyone in the group, just those who complain the loudest.</p> <P> You also must pick a search product that can scale beyond the starter group.One good bet is desktop search. Your company likely is already using it, so you're probably already supporting it. Desktop search shows users familiar information on their local drives and in e-mail. And you can instantly improve the results by adding in a critical area, like a shared folder or a small subset of the customer database. It's also cheaper than a full search system and introduces your IT staff to the basics of managing search. </p> <P> Mobile devices are another good place to start, adding search that links back to the enterprise. Providing enterprise search for SharePoint can be particularly helpful to departments and certain lines of business. And using search to bridge gaps between CRM and billing systems can produce big results for sales groups. </p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1294/294F2chart2.gif" width="515" height="302" alt="chart: What's the top drawback on enterprise search?" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin-bottom:7px;" /><br /></center></p> <P><strong>&gt;&gt; Step Two: Bring In More Users</strong></p> <P> People doing shadow IT don't broadcast their successes. Stealth is key. Keep a low profile, but add in employees and groups that catch wind of the project and think it could help them. </p> <P> Revisit the list of potential starter groups. If finance wasn't included, bring it in, even if it's only a few people. You're likely paying by the user or document, so scaling up won't break the bank.</p> <P> Continue to focus on a single problem. It will get you more buy-in and give you time to plan and staff up for the last step.</p> <P> <strong>&gt;&gt; Step Three: Paint The Big Picture</strong></p> <P> If you've been successful with the initial groups, move ahead with the big strategy. Create a budget and governance plan. Make it broad, and be sure it shows the full potential of search.</p> <P> Dig into the details of how you'll expand search, looking at each type of data and user group. Include every silo and every user type. It may feel like you're boiling the ocean, but it's critical not only to assess the benefit of search, but also to provide a realistic timeline and budget that forces the company to properly fund a bigger rollout.</p> <P> This approach must include addressing one of the major issues: adding staff to support search.</p> <P> "No matter what technology you choose, you have to manage the system, get feedback from users, and adjust the user interface and queries as needed," says Charlie Hull, managing director of Flax, a U.K. search consulting firm. That overhead is more than most people realize. "Enterprise search takes care and feeding, it doesn't just happen," Hull says.</p> <P> A true enterprise search system sits in a new world between end-user applications and IT resources. It isn't a finished application like accounting and CRM that can be dropped into place and where the expertise becomes part of the line of business. Nor is it like virtualization, where IT can develop a team that correlates directly to the investment's effectiveness and you can point out exactly how the head count has helped IT.</p> <P> The team you set up for search will focus on refining a system that has no direct impact on IT, yet the end users won't be able to clearly see the benefits of their efforts. This situation is similar to that of the team that manages data integration and EDI--another underappreciated and underfunded group. </p> <P> Most people don't know what the EDI team does on a daily basis, but if the EDI link ever goes down, they suddenly remember that team's value. It's a bit different with the search team. The company can't live without electronic data sharing. But live without search? We already do. </p> <P> Once you've created a larger road map for enterprise search, it's time to turn to the internal group of search supporters you built with your starter projects. Having a group of users on your side can do more to sell the concept than any Visio diagram, especially if those advocates are part of a department--like sales or finance--that typically gets what it wants.</p> <P> Bottom line, lack of search is quietly sapping productivity, and that problem could get worse. So now that we've offered an action plan, we'll leave you with this point: The real problem with enterprise search isn't the technology or the end users; it's IT's willingness to tackle the issue.</p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div style="margin:0; padding:8px; border:solid 1px #cc0000; width:460px; text-align:left;"> <div style="margin:0; padding:5px; background-color:#CC0000; text-align:center; font-size:1.3em; color:#ffffff; font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/81/5715/Business-Intelligence-and-Information-Management/research-enterprise-search-is-it-time-to-go-rogue*.html" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Research: Enterprise Search</a></div> <div style="margin:8px;"> <center><strong>Is It Time to Go Rogue?</strong></center><br /> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1294/294F2_reportcover_110.jpg" width="110" height="110" hspace="0" vspace="29" border="0" align="right" style="margin:8px 0 9px 9px;" /> Become an <strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/81/5715/Business-Intelligence-and-Information-Management/research-enterprise-search-is-it-time-to-go-rogue*.html"><i>InformationWeek Analytics</i> subscriber</a></strong> and get our full report on "Enterprise Search: Trick Your Company Into Being More Productive"<br /> <br /> This report includes <strong>36</strong> pages of action-oriented analysis packed with <strong>26</strong> charts. What you'll find: <ul class="normalUL" style="margin:24px;"> <li>All the data from our 2011 Search Survey</li> <li>A detailed look at the more than 35 vendors in the enterprise search industry</li> </ul> <center><strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/81/5715/Business-Intelligence-and-Information-Management/research-enterprise-search-is-it-time-to-go-rogue*.html">Get This</a> And <a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center> </div> </div> </center></p> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div style="margin:0; border:solid 1px #cc0000; background-color:#e1e1e1; width:300px; height:104px;"><div style="float:left; padding:10px;"><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/issue/2043/informationweek-full-issue-march-14-2011.html"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/1294/smallcov.jpg" alt="InformationWeek: Mar. 14, 2011 Issue" title="InformationWeek: Mar. 14, 2011 Issue" width="65" height="88" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" /></a> </div><div style="margin-top:19px;"><strong> <a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/issue/2043/informationweek-full-issue-march-14-2011.html">Download a free PDF of <nobr><em>InformationWeek</em> magazine</nobr></a><br /> (registration required)</strong> </div> </div> </center> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P>2011-02-12T00:00:00Z*Even if it means eventually putting yourself out of a job.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229200267?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cioLike Gordon Gekko in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, merger and acquisition activity is back. In 2010, deals were up 24% compared with 2009, according to Mergermarket. In fact, just about every sector showed an increase since the low point of the recession, across all deal sizes. </p> <P> This is a good thing, right? Not always. In a well-known study, Boston Consulting Group looked at 14 years' worth of M&amp;As and found that 58% of them ultimately reduced the value of the acquiring company. Name your favorite letdown: AOL-Time Warner, Quaker Oats-Snapple, HP-Compaq, Daimler-Chrysler--the list is endless. Not surprisingly, there are countless books, MBA courses, and consulting firms dedicated to explaining the root causes of M&amp;A failures. You can blame misaligned cultures, talent defections, customer resentment, communications breakdowns, or just a poor all-around fit. Everyone has an opinion.</p> <P> Us? We blame IT. Technology is now the core of any operation, and merging two platforms into a harmonious whole requires a unique skill set that, frankly, few CIOs possess. Buying or selling a business only gives you a potential upside. Integrating the businesses is where you make or break results.</p> <P> When leading up to and working through a merger, the entire IT organization must take on a new role, whether your company is buying or selling. We're talking about leading the charge, not simply documenting and programming. Follow our eight steps to make sure your purchase or sale works out. And remember that M&amp;A work starts before there's even a deal on the horizon.</p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <div style="float:right;"> <div style="margin:0; padding:8px; border:solid 1px #cc0000; width:360px; text-align:left;"> <div style="margin:0; padding:5px; background-color:#CC0000; text-align:center; font-size:1.3em; color:#ffffff; font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/83/4914/IT-Business-Strategy/research-outlook-2011-it-trends-to-watch.html" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Research: Outlook 2011</a></div> <div style="margin:8px;"> <center><strong>IT Trends to Watch</strong></center><br /> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1291/291F2_report_cover_110.jpg" width="110" height="110" hspace="0" vspace="29" border="0" align="right" style="margin:8px 0 9px 9px;" /> Become an <strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/83/4914/IT-Business-Strategy/research-outlook-2011-it-trends-to-watch.html"><i>InformationWeek Analytics</i> subscriber</a></strong> and get our Outlook 2011 report.<br /> <br /> This report includes <strong>28</strong> pages of analysis packed with <strong>18</strong> charts. What you'll find: <ul class="normalUL" style="margin:24px;"> <li>IT spending plans for 552 business technology professionals, from a range of industries</li> <li>Employment projections for tech pros</li> <li>The outlook for tablets in the enterprise (and it's likely not what you expect)</li> <li>Where IT stands when it comes time to allocate budget</li> </ul> <center><strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/83/4914/IT-Business-Strategy/research-outlook-2011-it-trends-to-watch.html">Get This</a> And <a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center> </div> </div> </div></p> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --><br clear="all"><strong>1. Get In Early</strong></p> <P> As much as business executives pay lip service to the integral role of IT in all aspects of operations, their actions show it's not a priority. A potential M&amp;A deal without the CFO's participation from the get-go? Never. A done deal dropped in the CIO's lap? Commonplace.</p> <P> "CIOs are typically late in the game whenever there's any type of M&amp;A activity," says Julian E. Lange, a professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College. "All too often the CIO is brought in after a letter of intent and has to catch up quickly." Lange should know--he's been involved with dozens of transactions over his 40-year career, starting way back when he was CEO of Software Arts, which created VisiCalc.</p> <P> "If a CIO is getting shut out of the process, he needs to take a hard look at his core business skills, beyond being a great technologist," Lange says. "Get out there and prove IT's worth. Be creative, and actually help find deals. Don't wait to be asked."</p> <P> For technology-centric firms, the link between M&amp;A and IT is obvious. These companies live and die by their tech investments, which are often a core part of their development plans. For Simon Howell, director of business development at e-commerce vendor Ariba, IT plays a pivotal role. "We bring in our technology teams very early, including the initial identification of targets," says Howell. Ariba has completed eight acquisitions in the past 10 years and recently announced plans to buy supply chain vendor Quadrem.</p> <P> But most of us aren't working at tech firms. Banking, manufacturing, retail, and a whole host of other industries account for the bulk of all M&amp;A transactions (see a breakdown in the chart below). IT-centric deals made up less than 10% of global M&amp;As in 2010.</p> <P> Companies that aren't used to tapping their technologists for business insights need to realize that the entire IT team, not just the CIO, can play a pivotal role in identifying buyers or sellers in any industry. That's because IT pros tend to move within a particular vertical market, giving them unique insights into the operations of potential acquisition targets. Technologists regularly share strategies with industry peers, opening another avenue for scouting.</p> <P> Of course, a major part of the pre-deal process will depend on the drivers for a sale or acquisition. Adding a new service or product to your company's portfolio often requires adopting some of the target company's technology. However, if the sale or acquisition is more about increasing market share, expanding sales, or gaining nontechnology engineering talent, you'll have to ask yourself this hard question: Just how much value does your IT platform bring to the equation?</p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1291/291F2_M&A_chart1.gif" width="500" height="411" alt="chart: 2010 Global M&A Activity By Sector" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" /></center></p><strong>2. Admit Your Baby May Be Ugly</strong></p> <P> Are you ready to make a brutally honest assessment of the value of IT assets, both your own and those of acquisition targets? Internal assessments aren't important only when it's your company on the block. You also need to know if an acquisition has superior systems; more on that later.</p> <P> On the buy side, many components make up the true value of an acquisition: customer base, market share, cash flow, profitability, location, contracts, intellectual and physical property, and technology. One of the most important exercises any CIO can undertake is determining what the value of the company's IT platform would be if it were acquired. This is different from a run-of-the-mill SWOT analysis. We're also not talking about CIOs in the software startups that get snapped up like Pez from a kindergarten floor. Rather, know whether any of your IT assets should enhance the company's purchase price, and if so, don't be shy about it.</p> <P> In our experience, this is a sobering exercise. A well-run IT infrastructure is a source of pride, especially if it helps win business and deliver quality analytic data. There's no doubt solid IT adds value to the company, but the question is, do the systems themselves stay or get adopted by an acquirer? Does technology control a unique workflow or function that's intrinsic to creating value for the company? </p> <P> Sorry, a great SAP installation isn't a value-add to a buyer, no matter how hard you worked on it. It may even get chucked if you're picked up by an Oracle shop. Think unique.</p> <P> If your company is being sold and your systems are in fact part of the value equation, your focus then needs to be on maintaining great documentation. We're not just talking about license counts, but a comprehensive data model that explains workflows, data paths, and relationships among all systems. Your servers may still be scrapped, but if you can present the acquirer with this level of information, you'll facilitate the deal.</p> <P> If your company is acquiring, this exercise is just as important. Often, buyers don't even consider scrapping their internal systems in favor of those of the acquired company--a shortsighted decision that could have disastrous results. About 10 years ago, a large U.S.-based distributor did a classic rollup, buying up a string of smaller regional competitors. The acquiring company had very strong core systems, but in almost every case, the e-commerce platforms of the acquired companies were stronger--yet were scrapped. Today, the distributor struggles with its online presence while many of its competitors use technology created by the acquirer's departed IT personnel. Don't assume you do everything better.</p> <P> <P><strong>3. Manage The Entire Project, Not Just The IT Angle</strong></p> <P> Don't stop at overseeing the technology part of the deal. Offer up project management for the entire transition. Think about it: IT teams are in a great spot to project manage the deal because they tend to have the most--sometimes the only--experience with project management systems, and they have a central view of all activity across the company.</p> <P> "Adding a solid formal project management process is one of the most critical success factors for any acquisition," says Dan Abushanab, CIO of technology firm ATG, who has been part of four acquisitions during his tenure. ATG was itself acquired late last year by Oracle. For Oracle, ATG was the latest in a string of more than 75 acquisitions; the company has built up dedicated teams and processes over the years. ATG's acquisitions were on a smaller scale, but Abushanab says his structured methodologies and approaches were critical to their success.</p> <P> Many CIOs will feel a bit queasy at the idea of offering up their project management teams to assist finance, human resources, even-gasp-sales, but it's a logical move. Even if some or all of those groups employ project managers, they will inevitably focus on their specific areas. Having a central project management team is key to finding hidden problems early, and finding and solving problems is what CIOs do.</p> <P> IT is also comfortable dealing with outside vendors. More than 60% of us are already managing some level of outsourced talent, according to our most recent InformationWeek Analytics Outsourcing Survey. Finance and HR may work with the occasional auditor or consultant, but it's unlikely they have day-to-day experience with complex integrations that cover multiple vendors. Throw them a lifeline.</p> <P> <strong>4. Think Virtual</strong></p> <P> Virtualization is your secret weapon. After the ink dries on an acquisition deal, there's normally a major project launched to consolidate data centers. If your company has already virtualized its systems, you have a significant integration advantage. Rather than dealing with the nasty task of moving servers, you have all the fluidity and flexibility of a virtual stack.</p> <P> A recent acquisition by a U.S. insurance company took advantage of just this situation. Rather than attempt to move the acquired data center, the CIO deployed a team to create virtualized instances of core systems and bring them back to the main data center. The integration teams then worked on the virtualized servers while the legacy physical servers remained running. The final data cutover was done to the virtual servers, and the legacy center was shut down. No muss, no fuss.</p> <P> Double bonus if the acquired company has virtualized as well.</p> <strong>5. Don't Put Off Till Tomorrow ...</strong></p> <P> System documentation is IT's version of a cluttered attic. Sure, we know we should get it organized, but there's always something better to do.</p> <P> If M&amp;As are in your company's strategic plan, find the time to get documentation in order. We can't recall a CEO who proclaimed a merger a success because of the great documentation IT had maintained over the years, but we know plenty who'll curse the lack of it when an integration goes south.</p> <P> Never is information about your systems more critical than during the initial due diligence. Not only does it validate the value of the transaction, but it also brings you to the decisive point in time when you should be planning how to integrate operations.</p> <P> For the buyer or the seller, there are two key actions. First, gather all the system documentation from your counterpart as soon as you're allowed. Second, schedule and implement a full network scan for systems and other IT assets. Identify every major asset picked up by the scan and match that list against the documentation inventory. This process may be unreasonable for a very large enterprise, but attention can be focused on a major site or data center. Not only does this process validate the claim of the acquired company's physical assets, it also checks the accuracy of the documentation provided by the seller.</p> <P> These two steps combine to produce the final documentation. The benefit of the "new set" is that it should match the formatting of both companies' documentation, right down to correlating applications, workflows, field names and definitions, and relationships among data and systems.</p> <P> This is also an effective way to identify data elements or processes that don't fit into your existing business operations. Once you have a common footprint, you can discover how information and systems are used--before tossing anything out (see item No. 2). Too often, organizations want to jump ahead in the process and redesign workflows, teams, and systems. Go bottom up and avoid missing, or mismanaging, a system or data set in a way you'll regret later.</p><strong>6. Plug The Leaks</strong></p> <P> Scanning the acquired company's network also gives you the first piece of the security puzzle. Your security team must be queued up to audit the seller's systems for all regulatory and other mandates you're governed by--but give this team an extra assignment first. That is, prevent word about the deal from slipping out. </p> <P> Justin Bieber's phone number isn't the only thing to be leaked on Facebook. Ever-present access to technology makes it exceptionally easy to shoot an e-mail, text, or tweet about corporate activities. We did a quick tweet check of the phrase "company being sold." We had to weed through a lot of ramblings, but eventually a tweet stating "just found out my company is being sold" caught our eye. We followed the snappy user name to the tweeter's blog, figured out the blogger's real name, checked where he worked on LinkedIn, and bingo. Guess what? The deal hasn't been publicly announced--and it involves a publicly traded company. Whoops.</p> <P> If this is how the rank and file get wind of an acquisition, you can expect to hear the electronic zipping of files, contact records, source code, and anything else those anticipating being "made redundant" want to take with them to their next gigs. If you haven't invested in data loss prevention, this may be an opportune time.</p> <P> <center><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1291/291F2_M&A_chart2.gif" width="500" height="260" alt="chart: IT Vs. Other Investments" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" /></center></p><strong>7. Be The Great Communicator</strong></p> <P> Never is the potential for data loss and staff flight more severe than on an IT team at a company that's being bought or sold. Salespeople might bolt with company lists, but a high-level IT administrator has much broader access. </p> <P> Even if layoffs aren't planned, you've still got work to do. Upbeat speeches, meetings, and information packets will be undone as soon as your staff leaves the office. Everyone has a friend, spouse, or relative with a horror story about an acquisition gone south. </p> <P> This will spook your staff, especially if you're on the sell side. The flash point for all this angst inevitably becomes IT. When a deal goes bad, it's often IT that gets blamed--IT is likely to be on the tail end of integration efforts and end up inheriting missteps the CEO, CFO, HR, and every other division made along the way. </p> <P> "I just couldn't take the work environment," says one top engineer who went through what he saw as an ill- advised deal. "I take pride in my work, but this merger was just a cluster that kept me up at night."</p> <P> It may seem odd to use the word "passion" when you're talking about technologists, but for many IT professionals, especially developers and architects, the systems they've built represent their lives' work. For all the talk about synergies and organizational fit, many acquisitions are simply about buying market share that a company couldn't get organically. And that can leave all that IT blood, sweat, and tears on the floor for what looks like a cold corporate decision.</p> <P> Don't write off staffers' complaints. Maybe there really are problems upper management doesn't see. When a valued IT pro speaks up, listen, and where appropriate, refocus your efforts.</p> <P> If you're on the buy side, get to the selling company's IT staff fast; don't assume that CIO is any good at communications. Not only does this communication enable you to jump-start the documentation process, it's also an opportunity to ease some fears and get a sense of the level of staff flight you could be facing.</p><strong>8. Be Ready To Move Fast</strong></p> <P> In December, the Federal Trade Commission ruled that battery manufacturer Polypore International must divest itself of a company it acquired back in 2008, and it must do so within six months to an FTC-approved buyer.</p> <P> Bankruptcies, divestitures, deaths of founders--a host of events can suddenly drop a sweet deal like this into the CEO's lap. </p> <P> How fast can you move? A great exercise to build up your M&amp;A skills is to create a timeline for the entire buying and selling process, including due diligence, integration, training, and anything else we've mentioned. </p> <P> ATG's Abushanab built such a playbook, complete with checklist and workflows--very handy for ATG's four acquisitions, and useful in understanding the process from the other side with Oracle.</p> <P> The notion of IT leading the charge, actively seeking out buyers or sellers, may seem odd. But who better? We've found that a well-run IT system is the best indicator of the overall health of any company, and if there's one thing CIOs can spot, it's good IT.</p> <P> "If a CIO considers her role too narrowly, it's a mistake," says Babson's Lange. "A chief leads, doesn't follow, and is innovative." </p> <P> Of course, if the CEO's goal is to sell the company, that often means the CIO will be putting himself out of a job. </p> <P> "Understand if you're out, and get over it," says ATG's Abushanab, who will be transitioning his duties as CIO of ATG over to the Oracle team later this year. "You have to be able to get over the perceived insult and think of it as the nature of the position. Any person at the top of an organization needs to work with this reality. Focus on making the transition as streamlined as you can for your staff and colleagues." </p> <P> <center>Continue to the sidebar:<br> <b><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/interviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200268">M&A Case Study: CUNA Mutual</a></b></center></p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div style="margin:0; border:solid 1px #cc0000; background-color:#e1e1e1; width:300px; height:100px;"><div style="float:left; padding:10px;"><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/issue/1883/informationweek-full-issue-february-14-2011.html"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/1291/smallcov.jpg" alt="InformationWeek: Feb. 14, 2011 Issue" title="InformationWeek: Feb. 14, 2011 Issue" width="65" height="88" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" /></a> </div><div style="margin-top:19px;"><strong> <a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/issue/1883/informationweek-full-issue-february-14-2011.html">Download a free PDF of <nobr><em>InformationWeek</em> magazine</nobr></a><br /> (registration required)</strong> </div> </div> </center> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE -->2011-01-15T00:00:00ZMigrating to the cloud for pure cost savings? Be honest about the true budget picture--positive or negative.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229000680?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cioThe cloud computing hype machine is in full throttle. Even some rational CIOs we talk with predict that 20% of companies won't own their IT systems in five years. From their perspective, what better way to get off the hook for high capital costs and poor system performance than to outsource? It's the ultimate in blame avoidance.</p> <P> We're not buying that rapid change rate, but two things are clear from our annual InformationWeek Analytics State of Cloud Computing Survey and from the targeted Cloud ROI Survey we fielded in April. First, the movement toward adopting some level of cloud services is close to achieving critical mass. Second, there are gaps in how we're architecting, budgeting for, and engineering the services we buy.</p> <P> Think your company isn't jumping in blindly? Don't be so sure.</p> <P> Forty-three percent of our 607 respondents are either using or plan to use some type of cloud service within 12 months. That's up from 27% in our last survey. However, 71% say they have no idea whether that "cheap" cloud service will end up costing a fortune. They're making cloud decisions in a vacuum, bypassing the review that would, as a matter of course, happen for an internal IT initiative. Yes, we're talking about the checklist gauntlet: How much does it cost up front? How much to maintain? How does it connect? How do we monitor it? How do we back it up? How do we secure it? How does it impact everything else? What do we do if it goes down?</p> <P> "The driving factor for many cloud decisions is cash flow," says Jeff Solomon, head of the emerging technology group at CPA firm Levine, Katz, and Solomon. "For many industries, the capital limitations are so dire they're willing to move to the cloud based on a cash flow comparison alone. They simply aren't doing a proper ROI analysis."</p> <P> The up-front cost differences between cloud and in-house are so dramatic on rudimentary analysis that businesses are lulled into feeling savings are inevitable; it's the "truthiness" factor, if you will.</p> <P> As we discuss in more depth in our full 2011 State of Cloud Computing report, it's not that we don't like the cloud; in many cases, providers can deliver a superior-quality service for less money. That said, you don't have to look back too far to see an example of how poor financial justifications hamper long-term initiatives. A case in point is virtualization. The 2006 pitches to CFOs were based on a pure hardware vs. virtual platform analysis and left out the cost of staff retraining and systems management software. And let's be honest: Those omissions weren't just because neither area was fully developed yet. Including them would have weakened the savings argument.</p> <P> Flash forward to 2011, and many companies are struggling to manage complex mixed physical and virtual data centers because they lack the funds to get the management tools and staff training they need. Integrating cloud services into your enterprise has an even more knotty set of challenges. Simply comparing the recurring monthly operating expenditures vs. capital expenditures with some net present value thrown in for good measure will bite you in the long run.</p> <P> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1288/288F3_chart1.gif" width="502" height="198"> <P> <strong>Crunch The Numbers</strong></p> <P> Before approving a plan to run any IT service in the cloud, there are 11 areas where you need to calculate costs. We delve into those more in our customizable spreadsheet, but start with a five-year baseline of comparison. Yes, this may seem like a long time frame--especially when considering hardware costs--but we think it's fair. Not only does it give a more accurate representation of the true average life of hardware and software, but it also forces you to address longer-term investments in bandwidth, monitoring, and failover. Every comparison needs to include the following:</p> <P> &gt; Hardware: Include router or WAN appliance upgrades vs. server or storage hardware purchases.</p> <P> &gt; Software: Not usually a factor on the cloud side of the ledger, but internally, include upgrade costs.</p> <P> &gt; Recurring licensing and maintenance: Typically monthly for cloud, yearly internally.</p> <P> &gt; Bandwidth: In the cloud column, assess a portion of your current Internet charges plus planned upgrades.</p> <P> &gt; Staffing allocation: Even cloud-centric shops require some staff for ongoing administration and engineering. It's likely to be a rough estimation, but include operations and application development allocations.</p> <P> &gt; Monitoring: In-house apps typically get a no-additional-chargeback status, if you've invested in enterprise monitoring. Cloud initiatives probably will require an expansion of your monitoring system, most likely adding Web triggers or purchasing a third-party cloud app.</p> <P> &gt; Backup and archiving: A major miss for many--you need a plan for backing up and archiving data stored in the cloud. This may end up being an additional cloud provider for storage, but it needs to be included.</p> <P> &gt; Failover and redundancy: Your business continuity plan should have an allocation formula for various systems. If the service becomes unavailable, what is your alternative? Figure it out and budget for it. Period.</p> <P> &gt; Security audit and compliance: Budget time and resources for adding the cloud initiative to the compliance officer's stack of auditable items. Make no mistake: Sensitive data in the cloud is still your responsibility.</p> <P> &gt; Integration: This is especially critical for software-as-a-service and core database initiatives. Calculate development, maintenance, and licensing as separate line items.</p> <P> &gt; Training: Yes, you need to factor in training, regardless of whether you're adding software, infrastructure, or platform as a service. The claim that a service is "self-explanatory" is almost always bogus.</p> <P> Finally, we suggest you add one other factor into the equation: speed to implementation. What's it worth to be able to add and integrate a project management system in 120 days, not 220? Is there a competitive value you can place on off-loading batch processing jobs to the cloud in three weeks? Chances are you'll end up with an arbitrary number, but the exercise forces the business--not IT--to place a dollar value on speed.</p> <P> Even if your five-year numbers favor in-house, you may still opt for the cloud due to cash flow constraints. But at least you'll have the longer-term costs laid out for the CFO. Even if cash flow isn't an issue, there's still a benefit: licensing discounts from cloud vendors of up to 30% for paying on an annual basis. "The entire tech industry is transitioning to or adding a cloud-based revenue model," says Solomon, from Levine, Katz, and Solomon. "They need cash, too." </P> <P>2011-01-15T00:00:00ZOur latest survey shows double-digit increases in cloud adoption. But ignore integration, security, connectivity, and three other factors at your peril.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229000679?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cioOur 2011 InformationWeek Analytics State of Cloud Computing Survey shows a 67% increase in the number of companies using cloud services, up from 18% in February 2009 and 30% in October 2010. IT now has a choice: Grab ownership of what's poised to be a core part of the enterprise technology toolset, or shortchange key functions and set ourselves up for disaster.</p> <P> This shouldn't be a hard call, yet over and over we see CIOs underfund or ignore six major areas: integration, security, connectivity, monitoring, continuity planning, and long-term staffing. Only 29% of companies using or planning to use the cloud have evaluated its impact on their architectures. Just 20% implement monitoring of applications and throughput; 40% don't have any monitoring in place. Talk about blind trust.</p> <P> There's a misperception that it's smaller companies driving the cloud usage upswing. But don't write off management shortfalls as an SMB problem; we saw almost the same rates of use and planned use regardless of company size, once we delved into the data. There are now viable cloud options for almost every layer of the technology stack--from raw computing, storage, databases, and utilities to e-mail to the spectrum of enterprise applications, all with a "point, click, go" functionality that has maverick business units everywhere rejoicing. Ignore management at your peril.</p> <P> <strong>Integration: New Twists</strong></p> <P> Cloud vendors Boomi, Cast Iron, and Jitterbit are focused solely on offering integration services for less money and in less time, and they're shaking up established firms like Informatica and Oracle-SAP as well as EDI players like Ariba, Hubspan, and Sterling Commerce. Boomi and Cast Iron have been acquired by Dell and IBM, respectively. Both buyers cited the benefits of offering streamlined integration connections across the enterprise. Earlier last year, IBM, acknowledging gaps in its cloud integration, also bought Sterling, one of the larger EDI players.</p> <P> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1288/288F2_chart1.gif" width="440" height="201"> <P> This is a new twist to interoperability that is available only within the cloud. Previously, there just wasn't scale to build multitenant integration services. But now, integration services have become clouds themselves--middleware as a service, if you will. The more options and connections they have, the more competitive they become and the more monthly subscriptions they get. Will they make it? Yes. There's a fortune in margins in integration, especially if you have scale, and the financial performance of these vendors is impressive.</p> <P> <strong>Security: Safety First</strong></p> <P> "We won't be involving our security team in this project until the last possible moment, because the answer will be 'no.'" That from a VP at one of the largest retailers in the world. He's evaluating a cloud-centric initiative that could dramatically improve the company's operations and went on to say that bringing the CISO in without building the entire plan beforehand is a death knell for any project.</p> <P> Think this isn't going on in your shop? Keep sipping the happy juice. This VP guaranteed that end runs are standard practice among his peers. And the standard mantra of "it's against compliance rules" won't only make you seem out of touch--you may well be wrong. PCI 2.0, the rules that govern the security of credit and debit card data, was just released and has little specific guidance for cloud computing per se, but it does lay out clearer rules relating to off-premises transactions. In addition, Amazon recently announced that its Elastic Compute Cloud is certified for conducting Level 1 transactions; the company will begin offering that service this year. The next official PCI standard will likely have in-depth rules for cloud computing, but it won't be released until 2013. </p> <P> Security teams take note: There's a new set of guidelines, and a major cloud vendor has a platform certified for some level of transactions that are subject to PCI rules. If you think saying "Wait until 2013" is a good move for your business, consider polishing up your resum&eacute;. </p> <P> The better answer is providing forward-thinking security and connectivity guidelines that people outside IT can understand and use. Make sure your guide covers all the policies you've established and explains the outside compliance areas you're forced to adhere to. We discuss the seven key areas that must be included in a cloud policy in our full Analytics Report.</p> <P> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1288/288F2_chart2.gif" width="440" height="352"> <P> <strong>Connectivity: The Right Connections</strong></p> <P> Just 29% of those using or planning to use a cloud service have scoped out the architectural impact on their Internet infrastructures. You should be running these numbers before engaging any cloud provider. </p> <P> "It's the biggest miss we see," says Tom Elowson, president of virtualization cloud provider Acxess. "We have the bandwidth conversation with potential clients every day. If they haven't analyzed their existing usage and started to calculate the potential impact, we usually push back." </p> <P> Start with the outbound volume to reach the resource, and take into account back-end traffic to update data. Bandwidth calculations also need to factor in data and user growth over a five-year period, same as ROI calculations. Get solid trending stats on usage and volume over the course of several weeks. If you don't, you could be looking at a major fumble. </p> <P> <strong>Monitoring: Watch And Learn</strong></p> <P> Thirty-nine percent of poll respondents say they don't monitor their cloud vendors, while an additional 40% rely on basic "up/down" tools that are no better than a periodic ping. The latter group's sole advantage is they'll have a 30-second warning before the complaints start rolling in.</p> <P> How to stay on track? First, invest in data flow monitoring internally. Less than 15% of respondents have systems in place that monitor application and transactional throughput. Basic status alerting is nice, but you need to be watching your network data flows and have established performance levels for every application before you add an external cloud. </p> <P> Once your house is in order, connect with your bandwidth provider and establish ground rules around monitoring of traffic, your lines, and how you share data. Set up remote monitoring points outside of your main office. Assemble a set of cloud-based monitoring tools. Yes, a cloud app to watch your cloud apps. Go beyond the basic utilities that Amazon, GoGrid, Google, and others provide to add overall monitoring of all Internet traffic. </p> <P> <strong>Continuity: Get Backup</strong></p> <P> All companies ask their cloud vendors, "Do you back up our data?" The answer is always some variant of yes. However, the majority of cloud designs focus on backup and point-in-time failover--not archiving.</p> <P> Always establish a cloud service backup and archiving schedule the same way you would for any internal resource. Start with your current vendor. Many, like CommVault and Symantec, are working to establish options for extending internal backup and archiving systems to manage cloud-based data. </p> <P> All systems have outages, whether they're in house or in the cloud. Focus on what vendors will agree to in their service-level agreements vs. what your internal teams will commit to for their in-house SLAs. The "five-nines" mantra (99.999%) that dominates discussion among Tier 1 data vendors simply isn't heard in the cloud. At best, your uptime will be between 99.9% and 99.95%. Decide: What is the plan for the business if there's an outage? When do you implement the failover plan? Who makes the call? These are all familiar themes to business continuity pros, but with an external twist.</p> <P> Software as a service should have, at minimum, manual processes documented for users. In the case of a CRM or project management application, you may want a separate cloud or in-house system that could be activated in the event of a major failure. For high-volume services, such as e-mail or EDI transactions, design a system that not only queues ongoing transactions for short outages but has the ability to fail over completely. These aren't small projects; plan to devote engineering time and funding.</p> <P> <strong>Staffing: Build Your Bench</strong></p> <P> IT as a profession is at a turning point. While the cloud may be hot, there hasn't been a boom in hiring by these vendors, according to the most recent U.S. Department of Labor stats. Cloud and related hosting services companies have had flat job growth for the past year. Blame economies of scale. But just because the quantity of jobs is down doesn't mean you'll easily find IT pros who can deftly manage vendor relationships, not just technology platforms. </p> <P> Our 2010 State of Outsourcing Survey showed that nearly six of 10 IT shops outsource some critical function--management, engineering, or development. So you can see the staffing challenge CIOs face. This is a major gap that won't necessarily go away through market forces attracting additional talent to meet your needs. You need to start building your own talent bench. </p> <P> Get ready for a wild ride. Capital expenditures used to provide a brake, regulating the pace of internal service adoption. That's come off with the cloud, so IT teams need to build new policies and platform models that will protect the company as business activity gets rolling. That's because, once cloud apps become part of the fabric, there'll be no slowing down to make adjustments. </P> <P> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1288/288F2_chart3.gif" width="440" height="239"> <P> <P> <bio>Michael Healey is president of consulting firm Yeoman Technologies. Write to us at iwletters@techweb.com.</bio> </P>2011-01-15T00:00:00ZOur latest survey shows double-digit increases in cloud adoption. But ignore integration, security, connectivity, and three other factors at your peril.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229000684?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cio<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <!-- January 17, 2011 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <div style="margin:0; padding:0; border-top:dotted 2px #56a643;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/011711/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/1288/smallcov.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green - January 17, 2011" width="65" height="88" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" align="left" style="margin:22px 3px 8px 15px;" /></a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/011711/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/graphics_library/misc/Green_leaf_88x88.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green" width="88" height="88" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" align="right" style="margin:8px 10px 8px 10px;" /></a> <div style="margin:10px 0 0 0; font-size:1.1em;" align="center"> <strong><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/011711/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the entire Jan. 17, 2011, issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong>, distributed in an all-digital format as part of our <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/green/">Green Initiative</a><br /> (Registration required.)<br /> <div style="margin:6px 0 0 0; color:#56a643; font-weight:bold; font-size:1em;">We will plant a tree<br />for each of the first 5,000 downloads.</div> </div> </div> <div style="clear:both; margin:0; padding:0 0 0 0; border-bottom:dotted 2px #56a643;"></div> <!-- / January 17, 2011 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <br /><!-- leave as a br to not interfere w/ the insights boxes --> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1288/288F2art_110.jpg" width="110" height="110" alt="6 Ways To Fail" title="6 Ways To Fail" width="110" height="110" hspace="0" vspace="0" align="right" style="margin:0 0 10px 10px" /> Our 2011 <i>InformationWeek Analytics</i> State of Cloud Computing Survey shows a 67% increase in the number of companies using cloud services, up from 18% in February 2009 and 30% in October 2010. IT now has a choice: Grab ownership of what's poised to be a core part of the enterprise technology toolset, or shortchange key functions and set ourselves up for disaster.</p> <P> This shouldn't be a hard call, yet over and over we see CIOs underfund or ignore six major areas: integration, security, connectivity, monitoring, continuity planning, and long-term staffing. Only 29% of companies using or planning to use the cloud have evaluated its impact on their architectures. Just 20% implement monitoring of applications and throughput; 40% don't have any monitoring in place. Talk about blind trust.</p> <P> There's a misperception that it's smaller companies driving the cloud usage upswing. But don't write off management shortfalls as an SMB problem; we saw almost the same rates of use and planned use regardless of company size, once we delved into the data. There are now viable cloud options for almost every layer of the technology stack--from raw computing, storage, databases, and utilities to e-mail to the spectrum of enterprise applications, all with a "point, click, go" functionality that has maverick business units everywhere rejoicing. Ignore management at your peril.</p> <P> <strong>Integration: New Twists</strong></p> <P> Cloud vendors Boomi, Cast Iron, and Jitterbit are focused solely on offering integration services for less money and in less time, and they're shaking up established firms like Informatica and Oracle-SAP as well as EDI players like Ariba, Hubspan, and Sterling Commerce. Boomi and Cast Iron have been acquired by Dell and IBM, respectively. Both buyers cited the benefits of offering streamlined integration connections across the enterprise. Earlier last year, IBM, acknowledging gaps in its cloud integration, also bought Sterling, one of the larger EDI players.</p> <P> This is a new twist to interoperability that is available only within the cloud. Previously, there just wasn't scale to build multitenant integration services. But now, integration services have become clouds themselves--middleware as a service, if you will. The more options and connections they have, the more competitive they become and the more monthly subscriptions they get. Will they make it? Yes. There's a fortune in margins in integration, especially if you have scale, and the financial performance of these vendors is impressive.</p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center><strong>To read the rest of the article,<br /><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/011711/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the Jan. 17, 2011 issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong></center><br clear="all" /></p> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div style="margin:0; padding:8px; border:solid 1px #cc0000; width:460px; text-align:left;"> <div style="margin:0; padding:5px; background-color:#CC0000; text-align:center; font-size:1.3em; color:#ffffff; font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/5/5116/Cloud-Computing/research-2011-state-of-cloud.html" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Research: 2011 State of Cloud</a></div> <div style="margin:8px;"> <center><strong>PLUS: Cloud ROI Worksheet</strong></center><br /> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1288/288F2_report_cover_110.jpg" width="110" height="110" hspace="0" vspace="29" border="0" align="right" style="margin:8px 0 9px 9px;" />Become an <i>InformationWeek Analytics </i><strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/5/5116/Cloud-Computing/research-2011-state-of-cloud.html">subscriber</a></strong> and get our full report on the cloud in 2011. This report includes <strong>37</strong> pages of action-oriented analysis, packed with <strong>17</strong> charts. What you'll find: <ul class="normalUL" style="margin:24px;"> <li>7 areas that must be included in your cloud-usage policy</li> <li>Special section on calculating cloud ROI, including a customizable worksheet</li> </ul> <center><strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/5/5116/Cloud-Computing/research-2011-state-of-cloud.html">Get This</a> And <a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center> </div> </div> </center></p> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --><br clear="all"> <P> <P>2011-01-15T00:00:00ZMigrating to the cloud for pure cost savings? Be honest about the true budget picture--positive or negative.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229000687?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cio<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <!-- January 17, 2011 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <div style="margin:0; padding:0; border-top:dotted 2px #56a643;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/011711/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/1288/smallcov.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green - January 17, 2011" width="65" height="88" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" align="left" style="margin:22px 3px 8px 15px;" /></a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/011711/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/graphics_library/misc/Green_leaf_88x88.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green" width="88" height="88" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" align="right" style="margin:8px 10px 8px 10px;" /></a> <div style="margin:10px 0 0 0; font-size:1.1em;" align="center"> <strong><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/011711/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the entire Jan. 17, 2011, issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong>, distributed in an all-digital format as part of our <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/green/">Green Initiative</a><br /> (Registration required.)<br /> <div style="margin:6px 0 0 0; color:#56a643; font-weight:bold; font-size:1em;">We will plant a tree<br />for each of the first 5,000 downloads.</div> </div> </div> <div style="clear:both; margin:0; padding:0 0 0 0; border-bottom:dotted 2px #56a643;"></div> <!-- / January 17, 2011 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <br /><!-- leave as a br to not interfere w/ the insights boxes --> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1288/288coverart2_110.jpg" width="110" height="110" alt="6 Ways To Fail" title="6 Ways To Fail" width="110" height="110" hspace="0" vspace="0" align="right" style="margin:0 0 10px 10px" /> The cloud computing hype machine is in full throttle. Even some rational CIOs we talk with predict that 20% of companies won't own their IT systems in five years. From their perspective, what better way to get off the hook for high capital costs and poor system performance than to outsource? It's the ultimate in blame avoidance.</p> <P> We're not buying that rapid change rate, but two things are clear from our annual InformationWeek Analytics State of Cloud Computing Survey and from the targeted Cloud ROI Survey we fielded in April. First, the movement toward adopting some level of cloud services is close to achieving critical mass. Second, there are gaps in how we're architecting, budgeting for, and engineering the services we buy.</p> <P> Think your company isn't jumping in blindly? Don't be so sure.</p> <P> Forty-three percent of our 607 respondents are either using or plan to use some type of cloud service within 12 months. That's up from 27% in our last survey. However, 71% say they have no idea whether that "cheap" cloud service will end up costing a fortune. They're making cloud decisions in a vacuum, bypassing the review that would, as a matter of course, happen for an internal IT initiative. Yes, we're talking about the checklist gauntlet: How much does it cost up front? How much to maintain? How does it connect? How do we monitor it? How do we back it up? How do we secure it? How does it impact everything else? What do we do if it goes down?</p> <P> "The driving factor for many cloud decisions is cash flow," says Jeff Solomon, head of the emerging technology group at CPA firm Levine, Katz, and Solomon. "For many industries, the capital limitations are so dire they're willing to move to the cloud based on a cash flow comparison alone. They simply aren't doing a proper ROI analysis."</p> <P> The up-front cost differences between cloud and in-house are so dramatic on rudimentary analysis that businesses are lulled into feeling savings are inevitable; it's the "truthiness" factor, if you will.</p> <P> As we discuss in more depth in our full 2011 State of Cloud Computing report, it's not that we don't like the cloud; in many cases, providers can deliver a superior-quality service for less money. That said, you don't have to look back too far to see an example of how poor financial justifications hamper long-term initiatives. A case in point is virtualization. The 2006 pitches to CFOs were based on a pure hardware vs. virtual platform analysis and left out the cost of staff retraining and systems management software. And let's be honest: Those omissions weren't just because neither area was fully developed yet. Including them would have weakened the savings argument.</p> <P> Flash forward to 2011, and many companies are struggling to manage complex mixed physical and virtual data centers because they lack the funds to get the management tools and staff training they need. Integrating cloud services into your enterprise has an even more knotty set of challenges. Simply comparing the recurring monthly operating expenditures vs. capital expenditures with some net present value thrown in for good measure will bite you in the long run.</p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center><strong>To read the rest of the article,<br /><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/011711/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the Jan. 17, 2011 issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong></center><br clear="all" /></p> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div style="margin:0; padding:8px; border:solid 1px #cc0000; width:460px; text-align:left;"> <div style="margin:0; padding:5px; background-color:#CC0000; text-align:center; font-size:1.3em; color:#ffffff; font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/5/5116/Cloud-Computing/research-2011-state-of-cloud.html" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Research: 2011 State of Cloud</a></div> <div style="margin:8px;"> <center><strong>PLUS: Cloud ROI Worksheet</strong></center><br /> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1288/288F2_report_cover_110.jpg" width="110" height="110" hspace="0" vspace="29" border="0" align="right" style="margin:8px 0 9px 9px;" />Become an <i>InformationWeek Analytics </i><strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/5/5116/Cloud-Computing/research-2011-state-of-cloud.html">subscriber</a></strong> and get our full report on the cloud in 2011. This report includes <strong>37</strong> pages of action-oriented analysis, packed with <strong>17</strong> charts. What you'll find: <ul class="normalUL" style="margin:24px;"> <li>7 areas that must be included in your cloud-usage policy</li> <li>Special section on calculating cloud ROI, including a customizable worksheet</li> </ul> <center><strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/5/5116/Cloud-Computing/research-2011-state-of-cloud.html">Get This</a> And <a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center> </div> </div> </center></p> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --><br clear="all"> <P>2010-11-06T00:00:00ZIn the rush to serve customer needs, companies have created a hodgepodge of sites. IT can lead to a coordinated strategy by driving best practices.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228200246?cid=SBX_iwk_related_news_Executive_insights/interviews_global_cio<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <!-- November 8, 2010 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <div style="margin:0; padding:0; border-top:dotted 2px #56a643;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/110810/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/1285/smallcov.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green - November 8, 2010" width="65" height="87" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" align="left" style="margin:12px 33px 8px 15px;" /></a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/110810/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os"><img src="http://twimgs.com/infoweek/graphics_library/misc/Green_leaf_88x88.jpg" alt="InformationWeek Green" width="88" height="88" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" align="right" style="margin:8px 10px 8px 10px;" /></a> <div style="margin:10px 0 0 0; font-size:1.1em;" align="center"> <strong><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/110810/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the entire Nov. 8, 2010, issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong>, distributed in an all-digital format as part of our <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/green/">Green Initiative</a><br /> (Registration required.)<br /> <div style="margin:6px 0 0 0; color:#56a643; font-weight:bold; font-size:1em;">We will plant a tree<br />for each of the first 5,000 downloads.</div> </div> </div> <div style="clear:both; margin:0; padding:0 0 0 0; border-bottom:dotted 2px #56a643;"></div> <!-- / November 8, 2010 InformationWeek Digital Issue--> <br /><!-- leave as a br to not interfere w/ the insights boxes --> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1285/285F2_Art_110.jpg" alt="Clean Up That Web Mess!" title="Clean Up That Web Mess!" width="110" height="110" hspace="0" vspace="0" align="right" style="margin:0 0 10px 10px" /> How many Web sites does your company operate, and how well are those sites coordinated in terms of navigation, search, and security? If you answered "too many" and "not well," join the crowd. Forty-four percent of the 326 business technology professionals who responded to the InformationWeek Analytics 2010 Corporate Web Presence Survey run more than five separate online sites; 14% manage more than 50 sites. </p> <P> Unfortunately, we don't seem to be very good at it; only 39% of respondents at companies with customer-facing Web services provide customers an integrated system for navigation and search across their various sites, and 56% offer them single sign-on.</p> <P> Most businesses have rushed to patch together their Web interfaces over the past decade or so, ending up with disparate systems for sales, support, vendors, marketing, and employees. The problems extend deep into the company--different business units and departments rarely meet to review an overall vision for a company's Web presence. </p> <P> It's tough enough to get a new site or system up and running; pulling all the sites or systems together is much tougher. Companies always talk about being "best in class," but only 13% of poll respondents give their customer-facing online efforts top marks; 20% rate them fair or poor. </p> <P> IT can fill a real need here. An Internet-facing presence is arguably one of the least expensive investments a company can make, compared with sales reps, customer support staff, printed catalogs, and so on. But a poor Web presence can cost you customers, prospects, business partners, and more. IT needs to help encourage online growth while protecting the company and providing stewardship of the user experience online. The goal must be a comprehensive and well-integrated Web presence.</p> <P> <strong>The Customer Doesn't Always Come First</strong> </p> <P> It's rare to find a company today that can't transfer phone calls between divisions. Call the wrong office and, generally, someone there looks up the right number and transfers your call. So why haven't companies pushed this ability to the Web? The majority of respondents with customer-facing Web services don't provide a common portal for customers; 44% acknowledge they have some work to do to improve usability. </p> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center><strong>To read the rest of the article,<br /><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/gogreen/110810/index.jhtml?k=axxe&cid=article_axxe_os">Download the November 8, 2010 issue of <em>InformationWeek</em></a></strong></center><br clear="all" /></p> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <center> <div style="margin:0; padding:8px; border:solid 1px #cc0000; width:460px; text-align:left;"> <div style="margin:0; padding:5px; background-color:#CC0000; text-align:center; font-size:1.3em; color:#ffffff; font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/83/4474/IT-Business-Strategy/research-well-integrated-web-presence.html" target="_blank" style="color:#ffffff;">Research: Well-Integrated Web Presence</a></div> <div style="margin:8px;"> <center><strong><nobr>Strategies and Practices to Create</nobr><br />Cohesive Consumer-Facing Online Sites</strong></center><br /> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/1285/285F2_Webreport_110.jpg" width="110" height="110" hspace="0" vspace="29" border="0" align="right" style="margin:8px 0 9px 9px;" /> Become an InformationWeek Analytics subscriber: $99 per person per month, multiseat discounts available.<br /> <br /> <strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/83/4474/IT-Business-Strategy/research-well-integrated-web-presence.html">Subscribe</a></strong> and get our full report on creating a cohesive customer-facing Web presence. This report includes <strong>35</strong> pages of action-oriented analysis and <strong>24</strong> research charts. What you'll find: <ul class="normalUL" style="margin:24px;"> <li>An impact assessment comparing the risks and rewards of developing an integrated online strategy</li> <li>A best-practices framework to guide you in developing practices and policies that advance your coordinated Web vision</li> </ul> <center><strong><a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/83/4474/IT-Business-Strategy/research-well-integrated-web-presence.html">Get This</a> And <a href="http://analytics.informationweek.com/">All Our Reports</a></strong></center> </div> </div> </center></p> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --><br clear="all"> <P>