When IT is Destroying Your Company's Future

A long time ago, before gray hairs appeared on my head, I was an IT manager.  My title was B2B E-Commerce Manager for a computer manufacturer.  I remember sitting in long meetings discussing how successful Dell Computer was with their just in time manufacturing and just in time supply chains.  I also remember our business representatives asking IT if they could develop systems that would allow us to operate in a similar supply chain model and the answers seemed always to be, "NO!"  Our IT systems were not set-up to support a real-time environment.

Of course the business would then say this must change if we are going to be competitive, and the IT would say then give us the budget to change.  Many years after I had moved on, the computer manufacture closed.  This manufacturer had never been able to gain freedom from their business-limiting legacy IT environments.

I was in England and Scotland last week teaching SMAC strategies (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) to large companies.  In a number of these sessions, I heard echoes from my days at the computer manufacturer, "Our current IT systems are not set-up to support those kinds of things."  They were not arguing the need for business and IT transformation, they were simply sharing the reality of their current IT architecture.

When working with companies on enterprise mobile strategies, the ability to support a real-time environment is often crucial to optimizing mobile apps and the ROI.  I have personally worked with many large utility companies that wanted to support real-time mobile solutions for their field services technicians, but the biggest challenges were trying to get their back-end legacy systems to work in a real-time environment.  Some simply couldn't make that change, and they stayed with a batch service ticket model and gave-up the attempt to fully optimize their systems.

I came across this excerpt from the article Four Reasons Your SMAC Initiatives May Underperform, "The cost to support and maintain existing IT systems is eroding companies’ ability to fund new investments in social, mobile, analytics and cloud IT initiatives (SMAC). Out of the $3.8 trillion expected in worldwide IT spending in 2013, NPI estimates there will be $760 billion in unnecessary overspending in non-value creation areas such as maintenance and support, over-subscription, license program misalignment, and sub-optimal contract negotiation and management."

That is a problem.  I have also often read that 80 percent of an IT budget goes to support legacy IT environments, leaving only 20 percent of the IT budget left for strategic initiatives.  If this is true (it was when I worked at the computer manufacturer), then our past may be preventing us from achieving our goals in the future.  In order to break this cycle, often something transformational must happen.  Something beyond the normal iterative improvements.  This takes courage.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Social Analytics for Your Enterprise with Google+ and Ripples - Guest Expert Post


I have Google's Blogger app on my iPhone and iPad mini.  I can write articles for publication from anywhere with an Internet connection, but are they read, are they shared?  That is our subject for today.

One of the biggest growth areas involving mobility is mobile marketing.  If your company's target customers are researching products, comparing products and buying products on mobile devices then the following information about Google+ and Ripples may be of interest to you as it is to me.  I have invited social media expert Allison Rice to share her expertise in this area with us.

Question: How do you know the number of people paying attention to your company's messages or articles on social media?

If you use Facebook, as more than 700 million active users do (most on mobile devices), then you click on your business page's Insights tab and read through about four pages of fairly detailed graphs and statistics. If you're on Pinterest, you've probably already checked out their new analytics page that launched in March, while Twitter users likely get their stats from Twitter Web Analytics.

Most social media sites have some form of analytics page that goes into varying degrees of detail about your social reach. Facebook has one of the more detailed, with information down to what region most of your followers are from and how many of your first time visitors come back for a second, third or even twentieth look at your page.

But sometimes all you want to know is your overall impact. How many people did you reach with a particular post? Did those people care enough about your post to share it with others? Are you really reaching new people or are you just wasting time on a particular social media campaign?

It was just this kind of thinking that led the developers of Google+ to create a unique analytics feature called Ripples. In one glance, business owners can see what, if any, impact an individual post has had in their social community and how it reached.

Making Ripples
Click to Enlarge

One of the neat things about Ripples is that you can view the Ripples of any public post, not just your own. Take, for example, a link that Geekless Tech writer Steven Hughes posted about social media lessons for small businesses on April 19, 2013.  Within four hours it received 133 "+1" or likes and 60 shares. Since it's a public post, we can view the post's Ripples by clicking in the upper right hand corner and selecting "view Ripple."  The Ripple graph that appears shows that, within those four hours, the following things occurred:

The article was reposted 44 times
The article was seen and posted independently by 26 Google+ users, represented by the small, external circles
Harold Gardener and Rex Dow are important influencers as their shares were re-shared by one and two more users, respectively.

Below the larger Ripple graph is a chart that allows you to view the spread of the post as it occurred in real-time. This allows you to see when the most people reposted it, thereby giving you a good estimate on the best time to post in the future for the most reach.

Below that are three short columns. One lists, by name, your highest influencers -- in this case Harold Gardener and Rex Dow. The second shows the frequency of shares per hour, as well as the average chain length, and the third shows the primary language of those sharing the post.

Finally, by hovering over each sharer's name, you can see what they posted along with the re-post, any hash tags they might have included in their post, and their profile image. A running stream of real-time comments and shares on the post also appears to the right of the Ripple with the commenter's image and time of action.

So with essentially one chart, you learn not only how much your post has spread over a given period of time, you also find out:
The best times to post to reach the most people
Which influencers you should appeal to in order to reach more people
How fast your post spread and who it appeals to
What people are saying about it
The virality of your post
What region of the world your post appealed to most

With so much detail in just one glance, enterprises are quickly realizing the value of a Google+ page for their business. Apart from the Ripples aspect, Google+ pages are optimized for higher ranking in search results and the "personal" results aspect of Google searches means that your business is more likely to show up in searches conducted by people in your area, as well as in recommendations within Google+.

Even though some have marked Google+ as a "ghost town," recent surveys show it as having the second highest active user level of social media sites, ranking just under Facebook. And if the ease of use and the ability to see the results of your social media campaigns in quick, easy-to-understand analytics, the simple fact that your business is instantly more visible should encourage you enough to give Google+ a shot.

What aspects of social media analytics have you found to be the most helpful? Which have been the most confusing? What do you like/dislike about Google+ and Google+ Ripples?

Allison Rice is the Marketing Director for Amsterdam Printing, a leading provider of custom promotional products to grow your business and thank customers. Allison regularly contributes to the Promo & Marketing Wall blog.


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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Crowdsourcing, Collaboration and Enterprise Mobility

I spent time with a company recently that identified one of their strategic initiatives for 2013 as being crowdsourcing.  Are you familiar with the term?  Here is Wikipedia's definition, "Crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people."

This company, we'll call ACME Inc., is purposely asking their employees to contribute ideas which are then reviewed, voted on, and the winners identified and rewarded.  I love it!  Now to be sure this is all very new to ACME Inc., but I applaud their thinking!  If employees know their ideas can make a difference and be recognized, and that actual thinking will be rewarded, then the sky is the limit on innovative thinking within a company!  All too often employees think only certain bestowed titles and roles in the company are paid to think, while the rest of the brain power in the company is put on sleep mode.

I am here to tell you - in the coming months, quarters and years, it's going to take all the brain power a company can muster to stay in front of the millions of competing digital disruptors as author James McQuivey calls them in his book Digital Disruption - read the WSJ review here.

With cloud based SaaS (software as a service) solutions available today, even the smallest companies can use world class CRMs, ERPs, SCMs, workforce management systems, finance and payroll systems on a monthly subscription basis.  This means your competition can appear overnight, unencumbered by your overhead, legacy IT systems, debt load, unionized workforce and benefit burdens.  If your company is going to be competitive in the market of the future, things need to change.

I also spent time with another company this month that had completed a POC (proof of concept) with a social collaboration platform.  I asked how the POC went.  The answer - not much happened.  There were no earth shaking discoveries or results to report.  Upon further questioning, the person shared that the social collaboration platform did not include a mobile app.  STOP the PRESS!  No mobile app?  Can you imagine Facebook or Twitter with no mobile app?  They wouldn't have anywhere close to the number of users as they do today.

Very few social networking users wait until they sit down and boot-up the desktop or laptop to become social.  Social is about being connected anywhere and everywhere.  You don't want to wait until later to update people and share your thoughts and ideas.  Social is all about immediacy, and immediacy is all about mobile.
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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Google Enterprise, Collaboration and Enterprise Mobility

I would invite anyone in an IT department buried in demand for mobile apps to first take a look at Google Enterprise http://www.google.com/enterprise/, before trying to develop everything yourself.  There are many mobile capabilities already available in the Google world which are free to individuals and available free or on a subscription basis for companies.  Here are a few of them:
  • Google Drive - Keep all your files, documents, spreadsheets, videos, photos, everything digital in a free secure cloud.  Access from any mobile or desktop device. http://youtu.be/wKJ9KzGQq0w 
  • Google+ - Strives to make sharing online, like sharing in person.  We at Cognizant have been using Google+ for many of our strategy groups and discussions.  I love it.  I use it for both work and personal.  I have specific "Circles" and "Communities" for work and personal.
  • Google Hangouts - This is a very powerful solution that let's you video chat with your team no matter where in the world they are located.  Share documents, videos, screens, presentations all while in a free Hangout.   Learn more about them here: http://www.youtube.com/embed/3pmSWh2BQco?cc_load_policy=0&hl=en&cc_lang_pref=en&autoplay=1
  • Google Hangouts On Air - Now broadcast your Hangouts -  I just recorded my first Google Hangout discussion with a group of mobility experts.  You can see it here http://youtu.be/GID7nRwhIIo, however, now you can broadcast Google Hangouts live through YouTube.  I will try that next.
  • Google Apps - I have also been doing a lot of work lately in Google Apps.  I have been collaborating with others on documents, spreadsheets and presentations through Google Apps.  Here is what I am most impressed by - you can collaborate on the same document at the same time and see exactly who is editing, and what they are editing in real-time.  Plus, you can start a Google Hangout inside a document so you can video chat with those that are editing.  See an example here - http://www.google.com/enterprise/solutions.html
  • Enterprise Controls - Google is rapidly adding enterprise controls to all of their solutions.  These enable you to integrate with enterprise LDAP (directories) and other things and control who is viewing particular documents and who is joining or able to join different "Circles" in Google Plus.  If you haven't read up on these enterprise controls in a while, it might be good to read this blog from Google - http://googleenterprise.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/bringing-google-to-work.html.
I am a mobility analyst among other things, so I am always looking at these apps with enterprise mobility in mind.  All of the solutions and features mentioned above are already mobile enabled.  They already run on my iPhone, MacBook Pro and iPad mini.  I don't have to build any apps to get all of these enterprise social and mobile capabilities!

I am also a SMAC Analyst (social, mobile, analytics and cloud), so when I wear that hat, I am interested in how these Google Enterprise solutions are all deeply social and collaboration enabled, mobile, include analytics and all reside in the cloud.

Many companies are years behind and slow to support emerging technologies like mobility, cloud and the social business technologies.  They assume they have to build everything or pay millions of dollars to get these features.  You don't.  They are available today and much of it is free.

In addition, most companies are made up of many small departments, committees, projects and groups.  These small organizations are often dynamic, shifting and often short-term.  They never get a budget to support their collaboration efforts and mobility needs.  Google Enterprise can go a long way toward supporting these kinds of efforts.  Just saying...
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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Expert Video Series: Sahara Alexis, Part 4

In this short video interview, I ask Cognizant's Head of Advisory Services for Mobility, Sahara Alexis here predictions for enterprise mobility in 2013.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://youtu.be/Igx9M-xaVPY


*************************************************************
Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant
View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked
Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

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