The most important thing for an organisation making a decision in this area is that the decision is concrete, and transparent in terms of drivers and desired outcomes.  This is often why I feel that the first framework charter on the cloud must be taken by the business, not IT.  (I post some more on this topic here.  Having the business set desired experience and implications drives the truly objective direction.)

The first piece to address is what attributes are desired by the word “cloud”.  Definitions abound but all of them will contain at some level the following:

Choosing the best for your business then becomes a reasonably straight forward decision based a few key questions.  (There are nuances of course, but it is better to choose a path and verify fit than procrastinate.):

• Do we as a business believe that this particular service is something unique to us and the provision of which drives a competitive advantage versus our peers in the industry?
• YES: We should make it as agile as possible and deliver internally using private cloud principles.
• NO: We should search for a market solution (likely to exist if it is a very common service), and procure from public cloud, focusing internal IT on other areas.

• Do we believe our internal IT people and systems have the scope, capability and motivation to transform to a private-cloud based delivery paradigm?
• YES: Do not take a half-hearted approach. Design it correctly from foundational principles, and ensure sufficient capital is assigned to enable the transformation [*].
• NO: Redesign the services to consume from a public cloud, or else consider a “classical outsource” of that area to an appropriate outsourcer

• From a business funding and capital asset management point of view, do we have easy access to capital?
• YES: In the long run, an on-premises, fully-depreciated, custom-designed and well-managed private cloud solution will be a very cost effective option with the best Net PresentValue
• NO: Follow the standard decision of “lease versus buy”, and rent it from a public cloud provider.

[*] – (This type of change program may involve reallocation of responsibilities inside the existing IT service delivery organisation as well as injection of fresh blood)

Clearly the devil is always in the details in these decision processes, with many variables being involved.  Therefore moving forward requires taking the same approach as solving a mathematical equation.

“Progress is impossible until we take a fixed decision on the major variables.  The minor variables will solve themselves, becoming resultant properties of the major decisions.”

This post is mainly about passing on a few tips and lessons I’ve picked up , but I’ll be up front and point out that these will not apply to everyone. There isn’t any one PC manufacturer or form-factor that can best fit every user. One of the reasons I’m most excited about Windows 8 is how it will enable a new wave of experimentation and innovation in PC hardware. However, I do think there is a ton of potential in this slate form factor for a wide variety of user types.

Here is my current desk configuration. 3M 22″ touchscreen on top, Samsung Series 7 slate below in its dock, and a standard keyboard and mouse below that.

There are a few reasons I really like this particular arrangement. First, the slate’s dock naturally angles the screen up at about 30 degrees. This means looking at the bottom screen still feels comfortable, but also helps with touch and pen input, similar to a drafting table. Generally I run Outlook full screen on the slate, while everything else runs up top. When sitting at my desk, most input happens via the mouse and keyboard, and I don’t expect (or want) that to change any time soon. However, I will occasionally use the bottom touchscreen for quick gestures. For example, I might just scroll through email while drinking coffee, or quickly dismiss a meeting reminder while I’m talking to someone. My point is, once you get used to having a touchscreen, you tend to use it once in a while even while in the ‘desk productivity’ context.

Another reason I think this screen arrangement works really well is specific to Windows 8. Peter Bright recently published a very comprehensive (and worth reading) review of his experience so far with Windows 8 on the desktop. He ran into several usability issues related to his multi-monitor setup and some of the new features of Windows 8 (‘hot’ corners and snapped metro-style apps). I’ve found that you can mostly avoid these issues with a top/bottom screen arrangement instead of side-by-side. With side-by-side, you have to worry about at least one edge being ‘virtual’, which means you can’t just jam your mouse into the lower-right corner and get the charms if you have a screen to the right.

Another issue that Peter brings up is the restriction of only running metro-style apps on the ‘primary’ monitor. I just leave my slate’s screen as the primary screen, which means all metro-style apps launch there, along with the start menu. Technically, I’m using the top screen far more often when sitting at my desk, I just don’t mark it as primary. This works very well for me, and I have a hunch it’s what a lot of Microsoft peeps are doing. Of course I’m aware that not everyone can position their screen this way, but I recommend it if possible.

1. IT is typically a service provider to the line of business.  This makes absolute sense, because it ensures that IT is aligned to the business needs.  However, this means that the dynamic is not usually set in way where IT can robustly challenge the business and force through awkward changes.
2. A number of these changes will affect IT itself, ranging from inconsequential to high impact depth and breadth.  It is often too much to ask for IT to have the viewpoint, priorities and impartiality necessary to make these changes.

A good example of the second item was where I was working with a company that had a very strong policy around a particular area of data security.  This was creating insurmountable difficulties in terms of the design, despite all of the most creative thinking on our part and the part of the in-house IT function.  Ultimately, the whole problem disappeared when the business owner simply said, “That policy was created 10 years ago and our business is fundamentally different now.” From there, we rapidly came to a much more achievable, cleaner and simpler solution.

In this example, the IT architect was never going to be in a position to make that sort of decision.  This is why I say the cloud computing transformation must be hands-on owned by a truly senior member of the business (usually at the executive committee level with commitments to CEO).

This brings us to the below, where I outline which areas are business-owned and which areas are IT-owned. Some of the selections may seem counter-intuitive but there is a reason for each.  This is not to say that it is executed by the business in isolation, but rather that the starting point and ultimate decision framework is owned by the business.

Here’s how it works….

Having decided to commit to adopting cloud as a delivery platform, the business needs to reinforce this with a very tightly-worded charter.  This sets out the goal and outcome as well as serves as the framework for all other efforts.  If in doubt and when in the weeds, it provides context around what the committed outcome is, and therefore can remove blockages (as in the example above).

The next step is to frame the “WHAT,” or the top three things to do (see below).  These three activities can be executed in parallel.  Some portions may exist already, but will almost certainly need updates and a hard review to ensure that we do not build in constraints on success from the very start.

1.  Information Risk and Governance:  Unless the business is already heavily outsourced in a classical mode, this is the first time that the cloud impacts become real.  Fundamentally, the business must come to terms with the fact that some or all of their business information will no longer reside on premises and within their line of sight.  The information governance policies will show that not all data is equal.  What I call “Data Separation Anxiety” will be a big factor.
2.  Service Catalogue: It is very common in IT for “the tool” to shape the data, applications and processes.  Before embarking on a move to the cloud, the business must be clear on what services are necessary.  This is not an navel-gazing exercise, but rather is a ruthless and pragmatic understanding of what services that the business expects IT to deliver. (It often highlights orphaned services that, as the business has changed, are either no longer necessary, or do not justify the level of attention they have been receiving).
3.  Funding and Chargeback:  This hinges fully on the question of “how does the business want to pay for IT services”.  There are multiple models here ranging from Charge-Direct to Buy-and-Recharge.  I will go through the pros and cons of each model in other posts, however the key principle here is to establish a clear funding process.  The decisions made here affect the procurement and sourcing processes.

I’ll talk through the next series of steps in another post.

P.S.  None of this could/should stop a business from experimenting and introducing cloud in individual sub areas.  When looking at the portfolio, there will always be some items that a customer of mine termed “No Regrets”  (i.e. things that will always be a good thing to do and we know in advance will be part of any strategy plan so we can start them out of sequence, if needed).

One customer had the intention to move 15% of all enterprise workloads into the cloud within a year, but halfway through the year, they had not really made much progress.  The reason being that when it came down to the detail, everyone agreed in principle that it was a good thing, but that their individual needs for their platform/application was an exception to the enterprise strategy.  The net result was the IT landscape became comprised of nearly all “exceptions”.  In contrast, I was dealing with another company where the CEO was personally involved in the discussion.  With the CEO involved, it was frankly astonishing to see how fast a number of blockers disappeared.

This is why I always say that the cultural readiness is the first and largest sine qua non with respect to moving to the cloud.  Without that readiness, then the true committment will not exist to push through the changes.   A company will either make a decision to do something and commit behind it, or it will not.  Technical product comparisons and business case analyses do not create committment, they merely support a committment already made, and they certainly will not overturn an unsupportive culture.

My next post will talk about how a customer who is ticking the “go to cloud provision” committment can actually set in place the framework to do so.

The first take-away from MMS was the need for “standards” at all layers of the enterprise architecture. Most IT organizations have IT standards defined for naming conventions, hardware vendors and platforms and software (i.e., operating systems and applications). But, how well these standards are defined, followed or enforced is another story. Problems created because an organization has poorly defined standards will only be exacerbated in the cloud. Most organizations wanting to move to a private or public cloud will have to revisit  their current IT standards — and not just to revise or update them, but in many cases develop entirely new IT standards from a cloud computing perspective. More specifically, these new standards will need to be stringent, concise, and pervasive or to put it more bluntly—RUTHLESS.

Ruthless Standards

Typically, IT standards define “what” configuration items (CI) and services can be provisioned along with permitted attributes, constraints and exceptions. While ruthless standards might sound restrictive and limiting as well as contrary to an agile cloud computing model or a service delivery (e.g., Infrastructure-as-a-Service) point-of-view, they are essential to maximizing the benefits that can be derived from cloud  computing.

In addition to being ruthless, compliance to these standards must be mandatory and rigorously enforced with few or no exceptions. These standards must be pervasive and cover each service level or classification (e.g., Gold, Silver, Bronze, Green, etc.), application tier (e.g., front-end, mid and back-end) and environment (e.g., development, test, QA, pre-production, production, etc.) that will be supported by the cloud fabric. At a minimum, standards must be defined for each type of configuration item (CI) and service necessary to deliver cloud-based services. Standards should also be defined for the development of scripts and runbooks that will be used for automation within the cloud.

Explicit Processes

While standards define the “what”, processes (or workflows) define the step-by-step instructions on “how” to perform the activities to provision a standard configuration item or service in the cloud. Standards need to be translated into concrete actionable items as part of the workflow design process. A runbook developer cannot optimize and automate overly complex and convoluted  manual processes that are neither understood or followed, or that require excessive approvals and do not comply with the standards. IT organizations will need to transform their processes to meet the needs of cloud environments. For example, automation and orchestration tools do not make poorly defined processes better — instead, they expose the inefficient, inflexible and  noncompliant aspects of the workflow. Explicit processes should also include fault and exception handling.

Robust Automation

Ruthless Standards drive Explicit Processes, which, in turn, drive Robust Automation. Robust automation simply means that we want it to perform as expected in all possible real-world scenarios within the cloud fabric. Robust automation is flexible (i.e. it can be easily modified or extended at a later stage if required), efficient (i.e., performs efficiently at runtime), and compliant (i.e., conforms to ruthless standards).

Without ruthless standards, explicit processes and robust automation, few organizations will experience all of the benefits of cloud computing.

The social channel for business to consumer is becoming increasingly more important. I’ve found that it is no longer enough just to wait for consumers to call into the contact center or email with questions. Consumers are posting their experiences with businesses on Facebook, tweeting about service issues – and expecting companies to listen. We’re hearing that more and more companies are now hiring resources to help monitor these channels and build a social brand. Social is a solid extension of established Web and telephony channels. Check out this interesting research from Frost  & Sullivan about how social is impacting today’s contact centers.

From a technology perspective, it is all about combining your CRM system and social media channels to improve the quality of your customer interactions. Plugging social media activities into your CRM is necessary to help bring you closer to your customers, to listen to them, to meaningfully engage with them and ultimately bolster your customer service, brand and sales.

Plug-ins like Flash have provided a way to get interactivity in the browser for over a decade but they tend to have heavy footprints and require downloads. The upside of using plug-ins is that they provided consistent behavior across all platforms – provided you have the plug-in installed. This is why they have gained the popularity and ubiquity they have. There was no other way to have interactivity and consistency across platforms and browsers without them.

The movement in the industry that we are categorizing as HTML5 is really about developing a set of standards that all browsers across all devices can consume that provides a consistent user experience. The marketplace is demanding that the standard experience enable the ability for manipulation through interactivity by the user and have a small, lightweight footprint.

HTML5 is the latest generation mark-up language being adopted by the W3C. By itself, HTML5 as a mark-up language would hold little comparison to the interactive user experience of Flash. What makes HTML5 interesting is jQuery and Cascading Style Sheets 3.0 (CSS). jQuery’s ability to manipulate the document object model (DOM) and dynamically change style and behavior is where the rich interactive user experience begins. It’s the power of the 3 together that make up the new “HTML5″ paradigm that’s creating the buzz.

The driving force to standardize interactivity and provide consistency across platforms is in what we are calling the Consumerization of IT. Progressive companies no longer want to control the devices, operating systems and browsers an employee may use to consume work-related information.  Rather they want to enable and facilitate their use because it increases employee productivity and satisfaction.  These devices are primarily tablets or smartphones which drive the need to provide faster, lightweight protocols that suit mobile platforms.

While this shift to the new “HTML5” paradigm helps companies address their device variations, it’s also good for many software vendors. Imagine a software vendor having to rewrite an app every time a new smartphone or major/minor version of an OS is released while still supporting each and every former release.  That model is costly and unmanageable – particularly as fast as new devices and OS versions are being released. Using standard technologies frees software vendors from the burden of having to write and support device, OS or browser-specific applications.  It’s lightweight, more scalable characteristics make it ideally suited for delivering information from the cloud as well – another major topic in the industry.

It’s exciting to imagine where this new consumer lead paradigm will take us. Like any major technological shift in history, this shift is stimulating innovation. Great ideas for new applications are coming at break-neck speed. Because JavaScript (the language behind jQuery), CSS 3.0 and HTML5 are relatively easy to understand, individuals who previously had great ideas but lacked the programming knowledge to land them are now able to bring them to fruition faster, cheaper and easier, resulting in a seemingly endless abundance of new applications. Over time all of the major software companies will have cross-platform/mobile offerings but until then, our biggest challenge will be sorting out the quality, well-written applications from the rest.

Though this shift is certainly upon us, HTML5 by itself will not replace Flash. However, unless these proprietary plug-in vendors reinvent their relevancy, this paradigm shift we’ve labeled “HTML5” certainly will.

For example, think about the changes taking place in terms of how we work based on these trends:

• As tablets and smartphones continue to permeate our lives, we’ll do more and more work on high-res displays – moving them away from a pure entertainment feature.
• And, these tablets will always be connected securely to cloud applications, which will be delivered via HTML5. And, these applications will be integrated into the fabric of your company and customers, connecting them to enable greater efficiencies, better customer experiences, etc.
• All of the documents and information employees store and share will also be in the cloud. This business-ready storage, along with increasingly mobile workforces, changes the concept of the ‘desktop’ quite radically.
• At the same time, this new fabric of connecting employees and customers will essentially drive enterprises and customers to become their own social networks, which will drive its own type of social analytics.
• With new social data streams and the continued growth of big data, predictive technology will become even more crucial for business decision-making.
• We’ll also begin to see voice (or speech for business) rise dramatically in the enterprise. Computing power will be more accessible and it will allow new types of collaboration and connectivity within businesses.

Even though we’re only a few months into this year, many of these technologies are already in your business in some form. The question is how will your company and IT department manage these changes? As the Inc.com article says, “Whether these trends will force you to change how you do business, or present you with entirely new opportunities depends on how willing you are to be an early adopter and take risks. You’ll have to find room in your IT budget for these things, too.”

Having said that, everyone would argue that successful companies are the ones that treat every year as the year of the customer. What’s different about 2012 is the changing way that customers and companies interact, driven by the way consumer technology changed in 2011. Social networking, mobile devices and digital content all arrived in the mainstream last year, thanks to new devices and maturing business models. Actually, I personally think that Big Data, mobile technology and social media are key factors driving the change to customer experience in 2012.

I am going to take a few facts here to illustrate this thinking. Nucleus Research recently surveyed 223 CRM decision makers and found an average productivity gain of 14.6% from using mobile technology in their CRM strategies. Mobile CRM is on the rise, and the introduction of the new tablet-friendly Windows 8 OS will only serve to fuel this trend.
The same Nucleus survey found an 11.8% increase in CRM productivity from adding social capabilities into a CRM solution. It seems that plugging in social networks like LinkedIn into a “CRM for sales” strategy to help improve the view of the customer and provide a wider choice of channels for interaction has started to have an effect.

In a nutshell, from whichever perspective you look at the opportunities for CRM, 2012 seems set to be the even more than the ‘year of the customer’. As business IT aligns itself to create a far more personalised experience for everyone, 2012 will see the definition of the term ‘customer’ evolving alongside the technology. As brands become more accessible and customer experience more tailored to the individual, maybe we should start saying that 2012 is about to be ‘the year of you’?

For more insight into CRM and the business problems it helps to solve, take a look at our new CRM minisite. You will also be able to learn more about what Avanade does in this exciting, growing area  and you can take a free CRM test drive to see how Microsoft Dynamics CRM can work for your business.

For us, we are betting that “Social Collaboration as a Service” will become the next enterprise application to move to the cloud. With email, portals and other applications that feed into social collaboration tools, like CRM, already in the cloud, it makes perfect sense that this will be the next migration to the cloud.

But what exactly is social collaboration? At Avanade, we see this as the fabric to foster deep, productive connections between our employees and connect them to the information they need to meet customer needs, without barriers or distractions. It’s at the heart of Avanade’s culture and many businesses worldwide today. It is reflected in the behaviors of employees across the globe, and is enabled by an integrated collection of collaboration technologies. These technologies deliver an enterprise social networking platform that integrates things like microblogs, activity streams and communities with the traditional tools we already use like email, instant messaging and voice. This enterprise social platform is fast becoming the new fabric for how companies and employees work.

In our fast-paced global economy, where it’s becoming more and more challenging to get numerous employees focused on the same project at the same time, this social platform is streamlining and accelerating effective communications and decision making. By leveraging it in a cloud environment, it makes utilizing such tools even more accessible regardless of location.

To be clear, social collaboration isn’t just about talking with coworkers internally. It’s about being able to connect people (including colleagues, partners and customers) with each other and offering the tools to share ideas, locate information and coordinate processes efficiently and easily.

However, even once you deploy the right social collaboration tools, effective communication and internal collaboration isn’t going to happen overnight. In fact, PC World recently claimed that “the harder work lies in changing your company’s culture to embrace social tools and use them effectively.” It’s definitely going to be an ongoing process and there will without a doubt be a learning curve associated with wide-spread adoption. But, with the right tools in place in an easily accessible cloud-based system, “Social Collaboration as a Service” can make a big difference for an increasingly mobile workforce.

What do you think? Is this the next app to go to the cloud? What are you currently thinking about migrating to a cloud environment?