business value & ICT - Orange Business Live Blog

SaaS rides high as budget constraints prove a driver

Enterprises are beginning to feel more relaxed about using software as a service (SaaS) and the traditional concerns about hosting software on company premises are starting to lift, according to a Gartner study. More than a third of respondents said they had plans to transition from on-premises software to SaaS and almost 90% of enterprises expect to maintain or grow their SaaS usage.

“Our survey indicates that more than 40% of organisations have used SaaS for more than three years, implying a growing fluency with the model within the end-user base,” said Sharon Mertz, research director at Gartner.

So finally it looks like software as a service has turned a corner and, having survived the still-birth of ASP offerings, organisations are now dialled in to the benefits. The Gartner study certainly seems to think so citing total cost of ownership (TCO), changes in sourcing strategy and unmet performance expectations from on-premises solutions as reasons for increased willingness to commit more heavily to SaaS.

North American companies still show a greater appetite from SaaS investment than their European or Asian counterparts and Gartner thinks that, in the light of reduced discretionary spending in 2009 and perhaps 2010, SaaS could gain at the expense of further investments in on-premise solutions. It is confident that a drive away from on-premises solutions is happening right now and that drive is especially strong in Asia, where 50% of companies are shifting towards SaaS. In India the drive is strongest with an indicated 70% conversion towards SaaS.

There’s just one caveat. Gartner warns only 38% of companies that currently use SaaS have a process or policy that guides their evaluation procurement and deployment of such services. Greater governance will be required to maximise SaaS activity.

Power down PCs for a green pot of gold

Companies are haemorrhaging cash by failing to shut down PCs at night and over weekends, and millions of dollars are at stake, according to recent research by Forrester. Powering down PCs at these times can save a company between US$25 and US$75 per PC over the course of a year. Washington Mutual, General Electric and Dell, which have all done this, claim savings of US$3m, US$2.5m and US$1.8m respectively.

However, it’s not just a case of switching off to save cash. Forrester has identified that various green-leaning activities are bunk. Leaving a PC on in order to lengthen its lifespan - the idea being that there is less stress on the cooling and heating of components - is a myth, according to Doug Washburn, author of the Forrester report ‘How Much Money are Your PCs wasting?’. Screen savers, which have been thought to save energy, actually could have an inverse effect. A graphics heavy screensaver may even increase the amount of power a computer uses.

Washburn also points out that companies are missing a basic trick with their failure to control their PCs’ power usage and more complex efforts, such as focusing on environmentally friendly data centres, while highly valid, don’t offer the quick easy gains that powering down PCs can. According to the Climate Group, PCs account for three times as much power consumption and carbon generation as data centres.

Kaiser Permanente 's noble fight and social media

This is the fourth and final presentation which I have  been able to attend(*) at the blogwell event, which was organised by the blog  council in San Jose, CA on October 28, 2008. After Cisco, Intel, Andy Sernovitz's presentation on disclosure and Wells  Fargo, the fourth presentation was that of Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser Permanente  is a very large organisation, made of 152,000 employees (as of dec 2008). It is a not for profit  organisation in the health sector, and it has 9 million members across the USA.  The history of Kaiser Permanente can be found at (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Permanente)  Kaiser Permanente was presented by Hilary Weber, who is Kaiser Permanente's Director of Internet Marketing Services, in charge of Internet  and social media within the organisation. Hilary's presentation was entitled  "corporate blogging, working for your brand".

One of the few introductory tips, which were given to  us by Hilary are the following:

 
• first, building the right network of  people is what can make your life easier for you to get started with corporate  blogging,
 
• second, no one has made it work  entirely, so don't be afraid to get started, and don't be put off by best  practices, however impressive,
 
• thirdly, if you want to get started,  start with a "safe" topic will (as opposed to a more dodgy or  controversial topic).

Hilary also recommended the strategic groundswell  blog by Forrester at http://blogs.Forrester.com/groundswell.  The groundswell blog is indeed packed with good advice, and hosts important  editors like Laura Ramos and Josh Bernoff. An account of Josh's report on  corporate blogging is made available on the blog council blog at this address: http://blogcouncil.org/blog/.

According to Hilary, research can help you find out  where the customers are. Kaiser Permanente launched a 4-year campaign, which led  to the creation of: http://kp.org/thrive.  The idea behind that is to spread the word, and provide health advice, and to  make people fitter. As you all know, the question of healthier lifestyles is a  serious issue not only in the United States but across the world. Possibly, the  UK, of all European countries, is one in which obesity is one of the biggest  threats, but strangely enough, one of the most endangered European countries is  one where the so-called Mediterranean diet springs from: Greece. Hilary's role  within Kaiser Permanente, is to use social media to help spread this  information, and she uses such means as the fitness calculator, which is a  widget, which Kaiser Permanente developed in order to help people understand  better what they have to do to improve their health. It must be said that  Hilary is also a vegetarian, so that her fight for healthier lifestyles and  eating more vegetables is not just a daytime job, but a true passion and noble  course (caution: I have nothing against meat eaters, I'm one of them, and  besides I have friends on both sides. I am merely insisting on the need to eat  more vegetables).

One of Kaiser Permanente's initiatives was about  "putting a face on a Doctor". Hilary recruited Doctor Preston Maring  (http://www.permanente.net/homepage/kaiser/pages/c5645-top.html),  a passionate doctor who gave the human touch to this social media initiative of  the not for profit organisation. Doctor Maring is so passionate that Kaiser  Permanente turned his work into a branded newsletter. His day job is as a  physician, but he actually works on the blog to talk about his work and  passion. At the beginning, it wasn't so easy. The first five months he blogged  with comments turned off. Then comments were turned on, as soon as he felt more  comfortable with it. 200,000 unique visitors, according to Hilary's numbers  have actually visited the blog. Real-time polling works well too, and it boosted  the activity on the blog. Hilary also experimented with sound with what she  called "sonic branding", that is to say adding music (Michelle  shocked) to the blog.

But Hilary warns: "there are things that we  won't blog about". For instance, there are regulatory issues such as an  environmental health. Quality of (medical) service is also another no-go area  what with breast cancer, heart health etc. It is not allowed to "let  people give each other advice" (This is a regulatory issue as well).  Hilary set up a Web 2.0 steering committee, and also some sort of internal  Facebook which is a "good way of letting people find each other".

There are more items on Hilary's agenda for the  future: new widgets such as the one about the brain teaser, and planned suite  of blogs (with new doctors), focused on exercising both the mind, body and  spirit. And also more music will be brought in at a later stage.

What I found particularly compelling in Hilary's presentation is the fact that Kaiser Permanente is not just blogging away for blogging sake. They - and Hilary herself - have a vested interest in the noble and just cause that they are defending. As a result, their social media exercise is a lot more credible than if it just were another corporation jumping on the band-waggon. This is rule 6 of my 15 golden rules for Web 2.0.

A few of the questions posed during the Questions and  Answer sessions:

 
• environmental issues: Hilary said that  Kaiser Permanente is doing loads of things but that image is a problem;  perception, not being on par with the effort being produced,
 
• what kind of approval is required?  Hilary's answers was that it's not a legal problem. It all has to  go through doctors,
 
• internal blogs? They helped she  said, but "it hasn't percolated as yet",
 
• the fear factor? Hilary's advice is  to find something safe to start with. One has to choose a topic (dairy products  had to be excluded for instance). One also has to find something that resonates  with the public,
 
• how do you compare with competition?  On the social media standpoint Hilary describes Kaiser Permanente's experience  as unique.

(*) there were 8 presentations in total at that event,  but they were run in pairs, I was only able to attend 4 of them.  The other 4 presentations were those of the following blog council members:

• Graco
• The Home Depot
• UPS
• Walmart

 

Who should manage privacy in the age of Ubiquitous Computing?

It's clear that privacy is a concern in today’s web 2.0 world; the post ‘Does Google's flu-tracker raise privacy issues?’  on this blog talks about Google's ability to mine data and its potential impact on privacy. This is a valid concern, but may appear insignificant  in the future, when simply walking across an airport, or even an office floor, could confirm your identify, highlight your political sympathies and provide your state of health to the management via an imperceptible event.

Ubiquitous Computing , described by Mark Weiser almost 20 years ago in the article entitled 'Ubiquitous Computing #1' , sets out this new age of imperceptible computing. One major premise of Ubiquitous Computing , or Ubicomp, is that  the computing process will become almost invisible- this is because the falling cost of the micro-processors means that they can be inserted into the built environment at almost no cost. The insertion of these computers into the fabric of the built environment in which we live would allow computation to flourish away from the PC- a huge  development considering the extent to which we depend on the PC today .

So how could the computational power of Ubicomp be utilised? Imagine you are walking across your office lobby. Firstly the smart floor identifies who you are, and thus determines where you work -for example office 12, floor 48. The express lift door would open as you approach and whisk you off to floor 48 without so much as a button press. Of course, in the meantime, your office heating has come on, your coffee machine has powered up and the status of your inbox is being presented to you as you walk along the corridor in the scenery of the pictures on the wall- lots of bonfires and you’ll get the hint as to what you’re about to walk into.

The Ubicomp world is enormously interesting and many commentators believe that it’s already on its way. However, it presents a challenge to the level of control that individuals have over their own privacy. What should happen if, for instance, your combined data presents a picture to your employer that he deems to be damaging? Think Virgin Atlantic's Facebook fiasco without the need for Facebook.

It appears that Ubicomp is going to happen, but this raises questions about who will manage the data, and who will control privacy and the rights of individuals. Given that TELCOs provide the network backbone, would they be a better choice to manage the data than the Government, or  a non-elected organisation ?

TELCOs have the capability to filter data travelling across interconnected networks, could they provide the answer and control the data and execute the privacy levels set by the users in the same way they manage firewall policies? Could you choose to allow all data flow and benefit from that, or would you want only a subset of your data to flow and put up with having to swipe your ID badge and press the button for floor 48.

CIOs feel ‘out of the loop’

A failure to understand and define the role of a Chief Information Officer (CIO) is leading to a failure by companies to use their information assets to power innovation, strategy and growth, according to recent research by Cranfield School of Management and Deloitte.

The research highlights that, while the majority of companies have an IT director, too few have a CIO on their senior management team. The researchers reckon that a CIO should play a central role and ensure IT underpins business strategy but the study uncovered that the CIO role is poorly defined, confused and there is a lack of understanding of its scope. This lack of understanding isn’t just among other directors and senior management. CIOs themselves feel perpetually out of the loop and feel there is a lack of clarity in their roles.

According to Professor Chris Edwards at Cranfield School of Management, tensions rise between CIOs and their peers when the CIO is out of sync with the evolving business needs. “Frustrations occur in situations where an inappropriate CIO type is deployed,” he said.

However, its not IT expertise that presents a problem, says Professor Edwards. “Far more important will be the ability to lead innovation, drive change, develop information awareness and expand it across the broader organisation.”

The report concludes that CIOs’ alienation need not continue because an effective CIO will ultimately negate the need for a CIO position to exist. The CIO’s role is to create an environment in which information and technology are so intimately and fundamentally bound to every aspect of the business that the need for a CIO diminishes, says the study.

Internet a massive waste of time say UK employers

In spite of the promise of collaborative working, software as a service (SaaS), professional development and enhanced communications that the internet offers, recent research from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has found that employers in UK businesses regard the internet as a massive time-waster. The internet refuseniks in senior management are running the risk of alienating younger employees according to the study, which polled 1,000 managers aged under 35. 16% of respondents described their employers as ‘dinosaurs’ and I reckon they’re thinking less of the aggressive tyrannosaurus rex and more of the plodding diplodocus.

That’s borne out by the predictable stats regarding provision of email access (95%) and intranet communications (81%) and Web 2.0 technology, web-based applications, organisational message boards and webcasting still only have traction at a small proportion of companies.

This climate of caution – 49% of managers say their employer only takes up innovations once they’re tried and tested (i.e. no longer innovative) – could see UK businesses lag behind their competitors according to Jan Hutchinson, director of HR & corporate services at Ordnance Survey, which published the report in association with the CMI. “The low level adoption of new technology is in tandem with employers’ belief that internet usage is a time waster,” she says. “Its something that must be looked at because the longer this situation is allowed to remain unchallenged the greater the likelihood UK employers will fall behind their international competitors.”

Employers’ seem happy with email but unwilling to engage with the internet as a business tool. One webhosting firm has reported a 50% rise in the number of new mailboxes being created each month and thinks businesses are looking to email to replace costlier postal, fax and face-to-face communications. However, employers concerns about workers just using the web for personal reasons may be overblown. After all, the CMI report states that only 41% of the managers interviewed regard the internet as a ‘social space’ – or were they scared their bosses were looking over their shoulders?