• Natan Aronshtam, Partner, Global Managing Director – R&D and Government Incentives, Deloitte & Touche LLP
• Kenny Rosenblatt, Co-founder and CEO, Arkadium
• Fabrice Sergent, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Cellfish

The panelists represented entrepreneurs, investors and established companies. The discussion therefore brought to the fore different aspects that make Canada such a great place to do business. We covered topics ranging from Government incentives, immigration policies, and work-life balance to the innovation culture that exists today.

The event in New York attracted 100-150 senior execs from across the energy, banking and technology sectors in Canada and the United States. It was a great opportunity to talk to others in the North American community and hear perspectives from both government and business leaders about the opportunities in Canada.

Whilst listening to the conversations, it struck me how much has changed in the past few years. The enterprise is a vastly different place than even just five years ago. Trends like big data, cloud computing and the consumerization of IT have dramatically altered business and opened up new opportunities to drive value.

For example, mobile and consumer technologies are transforming how work and business is done. In Canada, this trend is very prominent across multiple industries. We recently worked with a Canadian manufacturing company to create a mobile app based on Windows 8 technology that provides real-time access to shop floor incidents to decrease downtime in the production process.

This is a prime example of the opportunities we see today. In the consulting business, staying focused on the needs of our customers (e.g., improving the production process), while at the same time, continuing to innovate and stay ahead of the curve on technology trends (e.g., mobility and Windows 8), is paramount. Technology innovation needs to happen fairly quickly, and we have worked to hone our skills to make us more agile.

At Avanade, this culture of customer-centricity and innovation is a core function of our business and remains one of the reasons why I enjoy working for Avanade. I look forward to seeing what the next few years hold.

But what are the leadership characteristics of a CDO? Reflecting at what I’ve seen at some of my customers, I have observed some commonalities for the most successful ones:

1. Intellectual horsepower and curiosity. They think in fresh and different ways with the intent of breaking new ground. They have the ability to share, explain and “sell” their thoughts, processes, ideas and opinions, even outside their own span of control.
2. They are able to navigate internal and partner organizational landscape, successfully negotiate political scenarios, but are careful not to be overly ambitious or to “pull rank.”
3. They embrace change and have a strong competitive edge. They enable and encourage innovation from all levels of the organization, including establishing the mechanisms and rewards to facilitate innovation. They make use of this innovation to consistently challenge accepted paradigms and implement new business models.
4. They recognize that the ability to think “fresh” can come by embracing the diversity which comes with their team’s mix of perspective, working and thinking styles, and background.
5. Energy, Conviction and Courage. They have an ability to consistently display an infectious positive energy and an optimistic outlook for their business.
6. They have a burning passion for technology. ‘Nuff said.

Informationweek’s article, Goodbye IT, Hello Digital Business has some nice real-world example of IT leaders which have embraced this change agent-, and external-facing role. When thinking about those who still sit on the sidelines, the words of John D. Rockefeller spring to mind, “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”

While I’m not (yet?) a digital hero on par with the ones featured in the film, I nevertheless thought I’d share  three personal thoughts and tips to those who are embarking on the journey to master the superpower of computing

1. Being a “superhero” will require a broader set of skills compared to the past. Getting started is easy, but there are many computer technologists out there. There are fewer good ones, and the truly great ones are those who manage to combine deep computing skills with a broader interest in other areas such as economics, psychology, medicine, marketing, project management, statistics, agriculture, design, foreign languages & cultures, and so forth and who manage to creatively mix the skills to build things that don’t currently exist.
2. Never stop learning. As Alfred Toffler put it, “The future belongs to those who are willing to learn, unlearn and relearn.” The pace of change is relentless and (r) evolution happens every day. I can guarantee that the “hot” products and tools you are learning to use today will become legacy in a few years’ time, but if you stay curious, keep an open open-minded attitude and combine past experience with re-learning, you will succeed.
3. Make your choice for the right reason. Yes, getting  to chill out with music and free food  is fun, and I’ve certainly enjoyed my fair share of nice perks, but the thing which still motivates me after all these years is knowing that the things I do positively touch and impact the lives of millions of people every day.  It can be small things like a new funky application for booking train travel, big things like designing how millions of people connect with their local government, or sometimes topics of life-and-death (one of Avanade’s recent solutions is for a children’s hospital, which is using Cloud to help fight cancer by automating and speeding pattern recognition and early detection in medical images)

I hope you join me in signing up at code.org. And, if you’re interested in starting your superpower-journey with us professionally, visit our career pages.

Some organizations seem to be getting better and better at using innovation to pull these technologies together and are building things that don’t currently exist to catapult their businesses ahead of the competition. However, some IT departments seem to struggle more and more with this evolution. On one hand, they try to balance the realities of cost reductions, managing risk, maintaining talent, and “keeping the lights on,” while the other hand is focused on being a valued partner to the business, which is getting evermore demanding, innovative, inpatient and empowered. These four tech trends are becoming a transformational platform almost as fundamental as the Internet wave was several years ago.

In December, my colleague Gavin Williams addressed four tech trends impacting the enterprise in 2013 in his blog post. I want to pick up on his points as I see the trends he called out – BYOD, Mobility, CoIT and Cloud – accelerating and having a major impact on business. I believe that 2013 will see an acceleration of this transformation.  The four tech trends are not only converging, they are starting to form a self-enforcing amplifying loop:

• Ubiquitous Broadband attracts and enables billions of new devices to join the Internet (many of which are m2m) , driving a need and demand for more mobility.
• Mobility is moving more and more in the direction of “Connected Devices & Continuous Services” predicted by Ray Ozzie a few years ago. (“Connected Devices” are pervasive appliances with a consistent experience: instantly usable, interchangeable, and trivially replaceable. They feed on data which is streamed, cached or synchronized and work based on “Continuous Service,” which are always available, constantly assimilating and analyzing data, and constantly being refined and improved.)
• Cloud is thus becoming the “über-OS” running these Continuous Services required by Mobility.
• As a result, Cloud is also serving as the “exhaust pipe” of growing data volumes with higher velocity and variety.
• Cloud allows cost-effective and timely smart Analytics to be performed on BigData.
• Analytics provide insight that can generate better (social) computing experiences.
• This creates new end-user expectations, which in turn drive new behaviors that require even more broadband.

Exciting and challenging times ahead!

Below is my POV on the 2013 tech trends that we’ll be focused on in the coming year and how they relate to each other.

• Bring Your Own Device (BYOD): Since 2008, there have been more “things” connected to the internet than individuals.  People have multiple devices and want to work on the device of their choice at any given time.  Historically, the problem was governing people doing personal things on their work device, but now the problem is governing people doing work on their personal devices.

• Mobility: The traveling executive is more connected that ever before. Mobility as support for laptops has completely been redefined and has already crash-merged with BYOD into the following credo.  “Internet is available everywhere. My physical location and device should be irrelevant to my ability to work, and in fact should enable new ways of working.”

• Consumerisation of IT (COIT): It’s incorrect to assume that this is synonymous with BYOD (or Mobility), as it covers *two* major trends.
• Firstly, we live in an age of instant gratification, (immediate music from iTunes, or anything else from Amazon delivered and waiting for you when you wake up the following morning).  This consumer experience has travelled across to work, where business leads expect the same level of agility from their Enterprise IT that their consumers/customers expect from them, and have very little patience with anything else.
• Secondly, to paraphrase, “the consumer is always right.”  Business leads and their employees have an expectation of being able to do the work they need to do in their way, without monolithic constraints on vehicle or volume.

• Social Collaboration: The social side of computing has matured from a distraction to siloed workers to the concept of achieving results through genuine real-time collaboration.  The demand for speed of business coupled with the enabling possibilities of technology have made this a key priority for all companies who expect the value of the whole of their employees/partners ecosystem to be greater than the sum of their parts.

• Cloud:  It’s here, it’s real, and it’s living up to the hype.   Computing and software services are now available everywhere there is a network, at massive scale, a fantastic price-point, and on true pay-per-use basis.  The defining characteristic is the low cost of rapid and effective action.

Even a cursory examination of the trends there will show that each one of them is powerful in isolation, but each one of them layers and accelerates more when combined with the other.  We are no longer poised at the tipping point of a revolution of the historical scale as the Industrial Revolution… we have already tipped… and the accelerating changes are happening now.

What does this mean for us in Enterprise IT?

1. Technology has enabled business processes to be much more agile and optimised at lower cost, but demand has already adapted to this new efficiency.
2. Our employees and business leads expect to be able to pursue new opportunities in non-traditional ways
3. Our customers expect to be able to transact with us through new channels and processes.

Fundamentally, business as usual… isn’t!

Around the same time, Microsoft made a similarly huge bet on mobility – overhauling its mobile software to create a unified desktop, tablet and smartphone experience; striking new partnerships; and developing an entirely new category of mobile devices.

We’re now seeing the culmination of these efforts. In a period of a month, Microsoft launched some of the biggest products in its history: Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Microsoft Surface – all designed with consistent experience across the device coupled with cloud services. In fact, just a few days ago in late November Ballmer went so far as to say that Microsoft was a “Devices and Services” business, calling it a new era for the company.

Windows 8 – phone, tablet and PC– is designed at the intersection of cloud and mobility, as online services are built into the operating system. The interface is designed around touch. Hardware companies are using the software to build new form factors that blur the line between tablets and laptops. New form factors will play a pivotal role in helping companies evaluate how to help employees more effectively do their jobs and serve customers better. I am using one of Dell’s new XPS devices and it’s certainly allowing me to experience both the world of my traditional work style (PCs) with new, touch-enabled applications (tablets) very effectively. I firmly believe we are only at the beginning of discovering how these new styles of work will emerge.

Avanade is working with a number of large companies to develop proof of concepts for Windows 8 mobility and seeing exciting opportunities around line-of-business application. One example is BMW, an Avanade customer that we worked with to develop an app that helps sales representatives at auto dealerships better serve their customers, right at the point of sale. The app provides immediate information to buyers on types of car features so they can configure the vehicle the way they want. This changes how the sales person interacts with the customer, and improves the customer experience.

Another good example is a major U.S. drugstore retailer we’re working with to utilize Windows 8 tablets that allow mobile bedside delivery and consultation for medication prescriptions. This deployment will help reduce pharmacy costs and create a personalized, more convenient patient experience. New work processes that take advantage of new technology to deliver better results. I urge you to read a recent post by Debbie Bertlin who shared some information on the impact that mobile technology is having on healthcare.

Just as MP3s and early tablets fundamentally changed the way people listened to music and watched movies, we believe Windows 8 has the potential to fundamentally change how business does business. Transforming the way work gets done is something you’ll hear more about from Avanade, so watch this space.

In my last blog post, I said that we’re living and working in an era of transformation. Technologies like mobility and enterprise collaboration are changing the way businesses operate. At Avanade, we actively embrace these trends– both to make sure we are delivering cutting-edge capabilities to our employees and helping our customers drive innovation and business value. As a result, I’m proud to say that our Information Technology Services team (ITS) team has been honored for the third consecutive year as part of the 2012 InformationWeek 500. This award is given to the top 500 companies who passionately seek to bring innovation to information technology.

As a rapidly growing global consulting organization with more than 16,000 professionals and offices in more than 20 countries, Avanade depends on its ability to quickly and effectively access its network of experts to deliver results for customers. We know firsthand how essential collaboration is to the success of a business. To that end, Avanade initiated an ambitious plan to develop a truly connected global organization through the “Avanade Fabric.”

The Avanade Fabric vision is to enable every employee to support every client every day. This becomes a reality when employees are able, and eager, to quickly tap into the collective knowledge of the company. Essentially, we want to provide everyone at Avanade access to the company’s professionals and their expertise.

Through the Fabric program, Avanade has created a single business productivity platform that takes advantage of emerging technologies like social networking, mobility and videoconferencing to foster greater collaboration and knowledge sharing. And while the list of various collaboration capabilities available to Avanade’s team members is impressive, what’s really exciting is the value that collaboration is bringing to Avanade’s business because it has become a simple and integrated element of core processes and culture.

For example, supporting a highly mobile sales force and globally distributed consulting workforce with anytime/anywhere access to information and expertise requires innovative mobile solutions. While many companies are wrestling with the impacts of the consumerization of IT, Avanade has embraced it as a way to encourage deeper connections and additional collaboration access points. Avanade supports mobile platforms enabling enterprise social capabilities, unified communications, and business productivity applications.

We are able to extend the benefits of this collaboration framework beyond Avanade’s corporate boundaries. Customers can also take advantage of the project team collaboration capabilities within the Avanade Fabric to connect with networks of experts and the vast amounts of information they have created. Check out our case study on the Avanade Fabric for more details.

Congratulations to our ITS team on winning yet another InformationWeek 500 award!

In FY12, we experienced strong growth in the face of the steady economic headwinds familiar to our customers.  Part of what’s been driving our growth is the wave of technology change facing CIOs –cloud, mobility, data, social collaboration – and the opportunity those types of advancements have on productivity, customer service, lowering costs and streamlining operations. We continue to invest in innovation to help customers capitalize on megatrends that are shaping organizations today.

Speaking of innovation, we’re excited about Microsoft’s ambitious line of new products this year and next. One of the most anticipated products of 2012 is Windows 8. To make sure that we are staying as innovative as possible internally, we are getting ready to roll out Windows 8 to Avanade’s worldwide team of professionals in early October.

With new technologies comes the opportunity to do things differently that yields better business results. We created a dedicated Windows 8 design team to develop line-of-business application proof of concepts in industries such as healthcare, consumer packaged goods and airlines. One airline we’re working with is testing mobile devices for point-of-sale during flights, giving employees tools to better serve customers. This is just one example of how we’re working with companies to help them rethink business processes and the technologies required to do business in new and innovative ways.

Another big Microsoft upgrade is Windows Phone 8. It’s exciting to see really cool devices from companies like Nokia that will be available soon. PC World says Nokia’s Lumia 920 is a winner. Combine the consumer experience of Windows Phone 8 with the IT security and integration requirements CIOs need and I agree that Windows Phone 8 is a compelling platform.

We’re also excited about the business results that new service models are presenting to help companies achieve greater levels of efficiency and cost reduction. Our partnership with Unilever is a great example. We worked with them to deploy a private cloud environment on Windows Server 12 to support aggressive growth goals while containing costs. It’s this type of technological step change that is making a significant difference in helping organizations better compete in the market.

There’s nothing quite as energizing for me than partnering with our customers to help them realize their vision and unlock the business value that these new technologies can bring.

Years ago, when I received my first corporate Blackberry, I was warned that I had been given a leash which would keep me tethered to the workplace. Today, in contrast, I am empowered by the constant access to corporate email, unified communications and other corporate mobile-enabled resources provided by my Windows phone.  I am not tied to work because I bring that device to my daughter’s soccer games — I feel like I am able to go to my daughter’s soccer games because I have that access.

We’re working on tablets from remote locations; submitting timesheets and expense reports via our mobile devices; and, we’re seeing retail sales associates stepping out from behind the registers to meet us at the product to pay for an item. The borderless work environment is in full-swing and businesses are being challenged to update and even create new business processes to meet changing employee expectations.

The traditional workstation is going away. It is no longer an accurate description of where we complete our work or how we spend our days. The walls are coming down between various devices (desktop, laptop, tablet, phone) and there is a convergence of capabilities between them. In fact, we’ve come to find that distinction is irrelevant – it’s more about access to business information and applications regardless of device. To meet this change, Avanade is updating all of its internal policies to remove ‘workstation’ and replace it with ‘device’.

And, there are exciting new technologies coming onto the scene that make this transition even easier. Notably, with the launch of Windows 8, we will have an enterprise-level security platform that will be more appealing for IT to embrace.  PCMag.com recently outlined the “vastly improved protection” of Windows 8 and noted the numerous security capabilities of the soon-to-be-released OS.

Each business and industry will have varying levels of adoption of technologies like these that promote a more flexible work style. At Avanade, we are embracing changing expectations for how work gets done in the modern enterprise and updating policies to match those expectations. We encourage companies to think about ways to accommodate their worker’s flexible needs with new security guidelines and policies rather than looking for ways to restrict employees and limit access on devices that are widely used by employees and have the power to further transform our work.

This trend has taken a further leap forward in recent years with the introduction of cloud technologies and the consumerisation of IT.  A recent comment I heard from a Gartner analyst reinforced that with the ability of business to consume IT “as a service”, the challenge was a large amount of budget spending that may be happening outside the control of the CIO.

I spend a lot of time in my role having conversations with either divisional IT or business leaders who are pushing for greater agility and financial control. Their attitude is: “I now have a choice that I didn’t have before. If I can’t get it from corporate, then I’ll simply go and buy it somewhere else.”

Which brings me to the role of the Architect. In my career, I have often come across an architect who ends up playing the part of a police officer. They see the elegance in design of “in a perfect world”, not realising that the reality is much more unstructured. They build a corporate service design which attempts to support the changing landscape. But, at its heart, it still harks back to times when IT was basically a monopolistic supplier.  The second danger is when the architect has been involved in the IT systems for so long that it colours their perceptions of what is right/acceptable for the business. This mindset fails to take into account that the business no longer has the same priorities.

It is not the position of an Architect to say “No” to the business.  The best model they should follow is perhaps closer to that of a legal officer — whose job is to understand what the business is trying to achieve and why. Then, if appropriate, they can suggest alternatives, strongly if necessary, and ultimately provide risk and guidance for the path that the business wishes to pursue.

As you can see below, the span of activities that drive architecture and governance as “compliance” is much smaller than the total span of activities. The governance is much more about guidance of the business energy and enthusiasm to the optimal channel of provision rather than interdiction or resistance.

The era of X-aaS and consumerisation is upon us.  If our IT products/services are difficult to consume or we are not adapting to the changing business, then the line of business can be every bit as fickle in moving to a new supplier as our end-customers can be in moving to a new brand.