Patterns in Big Data

Porsche was founded in 1931 in Stuttgart, Germany. While Porsche is often associated with sports cars, that has never been the sole focus for the company. The first project for Porsche was to design a car for the people, as requested by the German governement. This led to the creation of the Volkswagen Beetle, one of the great successes in the history of the automotive industry. During World War II, Porsche designed 3 types of tanks, as the War obviously called for a more robust vehicle than the Beetle. It wasn’t until 1964, that Porsche introduced their first sports car, the Porsche 911. Porsche developed an entire line of professional racing cars and more casual sports car for the rest of the century, until the world demanded a new vehicle: the Porsche Cayenne. The Cayenne was geared towards families that needed more space and passengers, than a typical sports car. The most recent chapter was the development of the Porsche Panamera, a sedan, with the features of a sports car, but not the bulk of a Cayenne. A key part of the engineering strategy has been to leverage common parts across the product lines, to drive efficiencies. This enabled the company to deliver to many different client needs, at a value on par with the quality.

One philosophy has dominated Porsche engineering since the company’s formation: there is not one vehicle for all situations and people. Instead, each vehicle needs to perform a specific job for its user:




Patterns in Big Data

I first wrote about Next Generation Middleware in October of 2011. While alot has changed since then, many of my views on how Big Data will evolve have not. That being said, they have certainly become more granular.

I've had a front row seat to how Big Data is changing client environments for a few years now. 2 things are quite evident to me:

1) This change is quite real, it’s accelerating, and its much more than Hadoop.
2) There is a set of emerging deployment patterns.

As we’ve moved through the experimental phase of Hadoop and Big Data, I’m seeing clients take a much more strategic approach to the topic. It’s less about trying out the flavor of the month (Cassandra, Mongo, Hadoop, etc) and more about figuring out how to integrate many of these components into their existing environment.

A key tenet in developing a Big Data strategy requires an organization to take a page of Porsche's strategy and acknowledge that one size does not fit all. There are many technologies, most have a unique and special purpose, and the leaders in Big Data will leverage all or most in a complementary way. Hence, the pattern that I am seeing around building a Big Data Strategy revolves around 3 cornerstone environments:

The Landing Zone
The Discovery Zone
The Guided Zone

This is what it looks like logically:




You will recognize that IT environments of the last 20 years, have been largely focused in the ‘white areas’. These are traditional data repositories, providing data to business applications. This is how companies ran their business, in the e-business era. Certainly, as datawarehousing and analytics have risen to prominence, we have seen more investment in the ‘blue boxes’ or Big Data Zone. However, most of that investment to date has been an augmentation of the ‘white areas’ (ie providing analytics of structured data from transactional systems).

The Big Data Zone is where companies will separate themselves from others in the next 5-10 years. Those that can execute on this vision and get there faster will be more efficient, more information rich, and make better decisions.


The Landing Zone

This is the place where you 'land' your data in its native form. All data types, sizes, veracity accepted and expected. It's the innovation 'manufacturing floor', and as you begin to harvest your data assets, you can send those refined assets to other zones. The Landing Zone must be cost effective and differentiated by analytics and analysis (not just the run-time), as the effectiveness of your other zones may be dependent on the Landing Zone. I expect that we will see Hadoop and the plethora of NOSQL options take root in the Landing Zone.

The Discovery Zone

This is the place for discovery and deep analytics, primarily of structured data assets, but not limited to that. Have large complex analytic queries? Do them here. Need high performance analytics? Do it here. This becomes the core analysis and analytics hub for the organization. This will be the most efficient and cost effective place for high performance analytics. Obviously, this requires tight integration with the Landing Zone.

The Guided Zone

This is the place for mixed analytic workloads. It's not just deep analytics like the Discovery Zone; it encompasses thousands of concurrent users, operational workloads, analytic workloads and all of them in combination. It's the best place for mixed workloads, but it's too expensive to use for just landing data or for data discovery. This zone will be more important in some companies (like credit card companies tracking fraud transactions in real-time), than in others (a retailer analyzing last months sales).


This pattern of Big Data Zones is gaining steam in the forward looking IT environments across the industry. Like Porsche realized long ago, many companies know that there is not a single answer to every problem. Leaders in Big Data will embrace this notion of the Zones and start to build a plan to meet the analytic needs of the organization, leveraging all aspects of Next Generation Middleware.

A Plan to Win in Sales

“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”
– Will Muschamp

Phil Blevins is one of the most successful stockbrokers in the history of financial services. When asked what makes a successful financial consultant, Phil does not mention things like studying the market, making sound investments, research, and portfolio management. Instead, he says the most successful brokers focus first on themselves (their attitude and skills). They define success as focusing on the things that lead to winning, doing them consistently, and ensuring that they are done every day. With that as a baseline, a broker defines success in terms of how well they honor their commitment to the process, as opposed to the outcomes/emotions of the day.

Once a broker makes a commitment to a process of development, they have to be patient, knowing that an adherence to the process will lead to results. Says author Bob Rotella, “Patience alone doesn’t get you anywhere. You have to be patient while doing the right things. “

Personal improvement processes are the top priority of winners, whether you are a stockbroker, professional athlete, a chef, or sales leader. The winners distinguish themselves by a commitment to do the right things.


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Anytime a sales organization is not meeting its potential, I’ve observed that everyone starts looking for a ‘silver bullet’ fix. Everyone knows the problems, or claims to know them, yet no one finds the solution. I believe the root cause lies in behaviors:

Underperforming sales organizations spend 80% of their capacity (time, effort, thoughts, stress) on items that only drive 20% of the business impact. To reach its potential, a sales organization must shift its behavior and thinking to spend 80% of its capacity on the items with the highest impact and output.

This is much easier said, than done.

I believe there is a recipe for winning in sales. I’ll call this a Plan to Win. I believe that if a team measures their weeks, days, and hours by how they are doing in executing this Plan to Win, results will improve quickly; they will become a winning team. The Plan to Win is about defining the behaviors necessary to win in sales. Some may discount these as ‘obvious’ or something that they already do. I’m sure many do. In fact, I know the top performers do regularly.

Change is not easy. But, it starts by identifying the desired state. If you want to be a top performer and make a lot of money, I challenge you to try this for a month. Then a quarter. Then a year…


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#1 Positive Attitude

What are you selling today? Are you selling something positive or negative? How are you impacting the environment? These are questions you should ask yourself everyday. Or better yet, make a commitment to bringing a positive attitude every day. One of the hardest things to do in any complex business is to maintain a positive outlook. However, I have seen it time and again; the few people that constantly bring the right attitude and temperament, turn negatives into positives, and engage the whole company with their enthusiasm, enjoy the greatest riches. It starts with a commitment to work with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.

“Nothing great can be accomplished without enthusiasm.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson



#2 Client Time and Expertise

Your worst day at a client will always be better than your best day inside the company. It’s amazing how often people forget this. In fact, the best cure to a negative attitude is to call on a client; get inside their organization, their challenges, and their needs. This is one reason why I think great sellers often had a previous life in consulting. Consulting is all about client time and building client relationships that become your personal relationships. This is very different from simply selling to the client. Client time demands expertise from you, the seller. Clients will not spend time with someone unless they believe they are learning something new from that person and that interaction.


#3 Speed and Accountability

Speed drives exponential improvements and outcomes. If you complete a task in 1 hour, instead of 1 day, your mean-time to a positive outcome is 500% faster. This is driven by the fact that large organizations always have some level of bureaucracy. You have to expect that. Therefore, the faster you execute, the faster the machine is forced to execute and spit out an answer. Leading sellers think about their days in 60-minute segments, with a mindset of maximizing every 60 minutes. If you knock out that request for approval in 15 minutes, instead of 3 hours, you’ll have your approval by tomorrow, instead of by next week. It’s a fact. I’ve seen it and measured it.

“Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.” – Charles Schulz


#4 Everyone is a Manager

It does not matter if you have 100 direct reports or zero: you are a manager in any sales role. If you don’t manage and leverage all your channels to ensure success, it will not happen. Even worse, one of your peers will do it, and pass you by. You have to manage Business Partners, Marketing, Product Management, etc. Most people do not do this systematically. This approach fosters teamwork and co-dependence and it increases your individual capacity from 100% to potentially 1000%.

“Lead. Don’t Manage”. – Jack Welch


#5 Proactive Territory Planning

Sales is often a series of reactions; request for status, request for data, request for a chart, etc. If you are always reacting, you’ve already lost the game. Winning organizations transition to an environment where the majority of effort is proactive: Planning your territory, your account call plan, prospecting, networking events, building your strategy, leveraging labs, etc. Everyone will have a different playbook. The key is to have a playbook in the first place. Most do not. Understand strengths; understand weaknesses…60 minutes at a time.


#6 Unleash the Labs

The most valuable asset for clients is technical talent. Technical talent solves problems and clients buy from those they trust and those that can solve problems. Winning sellers monopolize lab and technical resources in their accounts and deals. When was the last time you arranged a technical briefing for a client, without trying to sell something? Do it…it builds trust…it teaches…and clients love that. What is your plan to unleash the labs in your territory?


#7 ‘Steve Jobs’ Proposals

Whether you like Apple or not, you must agree that no one gave better presentations than Steve Jobs. Clean, crisp, articulate, client focused, rehearsed, and orchestrated. It was art meets business. The value, appearance, timeliness, and professionalism of sales proposals must ‘wow’ clients. Business value must exude from proposals. Great proposals will qualify deals on their own. Consider the contrast:

Scenario A: Guy walks into client conference room. Hooks up to projector. Spends 10 minutes getting it to work. Presents a canned presentation (same one he gave to a different client last week). Leaves. Emails the client a copy.

Scenario B: Gal walks into client conference room with bound hard copies, organized by the agenda for the meeting. The meeting starts with her observations of the client environment and examples of where she helped clients in a similar situation. Then, the conversation shifts to a discussion of capabilities: what can be provided to improve their environment. A timeline of next steps is discussed, formulated before the meeting and validated with the client. Bios of the team are in the Appendix.

One scenario is professional theater; the other is done in high schools all over the world. Anyone can do this. But, you must have the will to prepare.

“Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win.” – Bobby Knight


#8 Competition

Respect them. Know them: personally and in detail. Be able to explain their capabilities to your client, and then identify points of differentiation. The vast majority of sellers cannot explain competitive products, and that is a lost opportunity. If you don’t know the competition, you can’t set traps for their weaknesses.

Competing means that you have the knowledge to orchestrate a sales call, highlight requirements to the client (that you know are weaknesses for the competition), and make the client smarter from having met you.

Educate, differentiate, and compete. Ultimately, you will bury the competition. But you cannot do that without the other steps first.

“I’ll insist my competitor is the greatest, so that when I beat him, I won’t be calling myself the greatest- I’ll be proving it through my actions.” – Jarod Kintz


#9 Talent Management and Hiring

This is perhaps the most reactive task in sales. If there is a sales opening, the manager starts to look for candidates, etc. I believe that talent management and hiring should be a part of a weekly and monthly management system. Every position and territory should have a slate of known candidates, which is constantly evolving. When you have an opening, it’s about choosing from a known list, not creating a list. Winning teams recruit, hire, and manage talent as if they were a Hollywood Talent Agency.

“Time spent on hiring, is time well spent.” - Robert Half


#10 Time Management

Everything a seller does must be focused on optimizing output, 60 minutes at a time. You must set aside time monthly and weekly, to do the things that are most important. Spend time on sales and client priorities, as opposed to being consumed into the machine. Here is my view on how to prioritize time:
-Sellers
70%- Identifying, Proposing, Progressing, Closing deals
15%- Managing channels
15%- Learning and Administration

-People Managers
60%- Leading, coaching, planning, and driving deal strategy
25%- Hiring and motivating
15%- Managing channels, Learning, and Administration

“The key is not spending time, but in investing it.’ –Stephen Covey


#11 Metrics

If you want to change your results, measure yourself against this Plan to Win and sales priorities. Those two measuring sticks ensure that you are optimizing your time for maximum impact. Any other measurement is a potential distraction. If you trust the plan, execute it, and measure yourself against it, you will be successful. Think about it: what’s more valuable? The fact that you updated a CRM record or the fact that you spent 3 days this week in front of clients and delivered 2 rock-star proposals? The former is interesting; the latter is one step closer to success.

“Have a plan for everything. You’ll know if it was right by the scoreboard.” –Bear Bryant


#12 Communication

While the means of communication have changed dramatically in the world (real-time, interactive, social, network-based, relevant, etc), the communication in most sales organizations is stagnant. It’s asynchronous (email), overly participative (conference calls with the masses), and often not valuable to the seller. Winning organizations will rethink and reinvent communication. It will be interesting, relevant, interactive, valuable, social, and consistent. You know you are successful if other teams grow tired of your level of teamwork and engagement.

“Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul, encourages another person to be brave and true.” –Charles Dickens


#13 Obsess over Client Satisfaction

Winning teams obsess over clients and their success. You must know your clients better than you know ourselves. It starts by thinking of your client as a friend, and then treating them like a friend. There are 2 approaches to sales that ensure client success. I’m surprised by how rarely I see them practiced:

a)After you sign a deal, set Conditions of Satisfaction, in writing, with your client. This makes it clear that you care about success and even better, it sets a bar for the team to live up to. Manage the post-signing interaction according to these conditions. Review them regularly. Tell the client that you expect them to be a public reference, once the Conditions of Satisfaction are met.

b)Hold Quarterly Business Reviews (QBR’s) with your clients. This is not a sales call. This is a broad review of the relationship: what they like, what they don’t like, where they need assistance, etc. It’s an ideal time to review how you are doing against the Conditions of Satisfaction. If you do this regularly (yes, 4 times a year), your clients will love you and continue to buy from you. It is in fact that simple.

#14 Personal Development

Every person in a sales organization should have a written set of goals for the year. No, not corporate goals. I’m talking about something that you privately commit to, and, you enlist your leadership team to help you be successful. It could be building technical skills (if you are a seller) or developing sales skills (if you are a tech). It could be learning an industry to the depth that you can truly advise your clients. It could be learning Japanese, because many of your clients are in Japan. It can be anything. After all, its personal.


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14 behaviors.

I’m sure many were hoping this was a simple 3 or 4 behaviors. However, the fact is that selling is not easy. Changing behaviors and habits is even harder.

Author Bob Rotella says, “When people with real talent approach any endeavor, they look for a method, a process, that will lead to success. Then they follow that process every day. They set themselves up to succeed.” This Plan to Win is not perfect. But, it can be a guide to how to optimize time.

“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” Growth in your wallet, accomplishments, career, and relationships are all achievable and in front of you. If you commit to this plan to win, as an organization, I believe you will enjoy tremendous success.

Life of Harold

Harold Torrance was born in 1924. He never worked a day in his life.

He was an avid reader, a true American, a bow tie ‘fashionista’, knew Disney World better than the employees, thought bottled water was a rip-off, and was the last hope for the vintage photographic film industry.

However, none of those are the things that will stick with me about the life of Harold.

He never worked a day in his life. Think about that for a moment.

Modern day companies talk about work/life balance. It’s the notion of having a job, plus having time to take care of your hobbies, friends, and family. This notion of work/life balance did not resonate with Harold. After all, it’s just ‘life’, if you make the right choice.

He found a profession that he loved as much as anything he could do with his free time. As a physician in World War II and Orlando, Florida, he catered to family, friends, and anyone that asked. Later in life, he volunteered at a medical clinic for those in need. This was not work for him, it was life and it was what he loved. Said another way, he found his passion and shared it with everyone he knew. He practiced until he was 74 years old. That’s the impact of passion and enthusiasm: they make you unaware of time.

Harold was my grandfather and he passed away last week. His model of work/life balance or “life”, is something we can all learn from and admire.

Leadership: Episode 1

Despite the multitude of writing about the topic of leadership, I believe it is still largely disregarded as the difference between success and failure. Success if often rationalized as ‘the right market’, ‘the best product’, or ‘solving a key problem’, while failure is often rationalized as the inverse. Based on some recent observations, I’ve decided that leadership alone can be the key determinant of the success/failure of a team.

3 recent examples have brought this home to me. These examples stick out in my mind, because in each case, the team in place, the ‘market’, and the overall ‘goal’ did not change. They were constant. The only thing that changed was the Leader. And when the new Leader came onboard, despite all of the other constants, success came rapidly.

Episode 1: James Franklin

Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee, has a reputation for a few things: great academics, great medical school, and a weak football team. Vanderbilt football has historically been at the bottom of the SEC, driving limited fan attendance and attention. A few facts on the full history:

-The Commodores have been in 5 bowl games since 1894.
-The last time Vandy won 5 SEC games in a season was 1935.
-Vanderbilt has finished the season ‘ranked’ 1 time…in 1948
-Vanderbilt has only 4 winning seasons. Ever.

And the more recent history:

-The Commodores won 1 SEC game in 2009 and 2010. Combined.
-The Commodores won 4 games total in 2009 and 2010. Combined.
-All 7 SEC losses in 2010 were by >14 points and 4 were by >24 points.

In short, this is a team that has never succeeded consistently and hardly succeeded at all. All of that would change on December 17, 2010.

James Franklin came to Vanderbilt with an incredible confidence and swagger. His energy was infectious from the first day. He was a polished speaker, engaging everyone that would listen to his plan and approach. However, Franklin had one major problem. He was inheriting nearly the same team that had won 4 games over the last 2 years. Specifically, 12 of 22 starters were returning from the team that had 4 wins over the last 2 years. Over 80% of the team was identical to the previous year…and most of the 20% that were new were freshman with zero experience. In short, the leadership adage of ‘hire A players” was not available to him. For 2011 at least, his hand was dealt…and they were not winning cards. This is where the leadership story begins.

From day one, Franklin was focused on setting expectations for the program: for the players, parents, faculty, administration, and fans. The foundation of the expectation setting was to instill a culture of winning. While many leaders try to do this, the difference here was consistency. The message has not changed since day 1 and it’s the foundation of this Leader.


Bold Expectations

If a team is a reflection of their Leader, setting expectations is what sets the bar of achievement. I am still amazed at how many organizations I see where there is no expectation of behavior and achievement. Note: In the business world, “Hit your sales numbers”, is not an expectation. That is just a statement of the obvious.

For Franklin, expectations are about shaping behavior:

-Positive attitude
-Competing, in everything you do
-Focus on micro-segments of a season: 6 seconds at a time (1 play), 1 week at a time (stated goal is to go 1-0 each week)
-Not worrying about things you can’t control

While some of these may sound like leadership clichés, it’s the consistency of their execution that makes them stand out. Meet expectations…and you’re on the team. Miss expectations….and you’re not needed.

Says Franklin:

“After every game, I go over the different firsts with the team and some of the things we’ve accomplished,” Franklin said. “But we plan on getting to a point with our program where we move past all of these firsts and there’s a culture of winning here at Vanderbilt that everyone expects.

“That’s why all the talk about making it to a bowl game doesn’t really register with me. Our goals are to win a national championship and an SEC championship. We’re not going to limit ourselves by settling for anything less.”

Positive Attitude

One reason that Vanderbilt has always struggled at football is the high academic standards. The great players don’t want to have to deal with the academics or worse, simply cannot qualify to play at the school. This is a negative that every previous Commodore Coach has tried to overcome. Many have resigned to the fact that they will have to learn to win without the best players. Franklin, turned this seeming negative into an enormous positive. According to Franklin:

“Vanderbilt is the only place where you can get a world-class education and an opportunity to play in the best college football conference in America. Plus, you can get early playing time. To me, that is something to be really proud of, that is something you can sell.”

With one short statement, he turned years of a negative into an immediate positive. In fact, this became his punch-line on recruiting trips. By embracing Vanderbilt’s admission standards, yet maintaining the Expectation of leading the country in recruiting, he has willed his way to success. This is a Positive Attitude in action…far from a cliché or a simply a ‘jovial’ approach to life.

To bring an even edgier approach to recruiting and a positive approach, Franklin has been known to woo players by selling the fact that at Vanderbilt you don’t ‘rent’ a football tradition; you get to build a football tradition. Clever. Positive. Edgy.


Engagement

Engagement is a combination of factors: Having an edge, polished speaking, intensity, passion, and presence. Ultimately, the proper level of engagement instills belief in the team. Winning starts with believing and when you couple belief with Attitude, it’s a potent combination.

Franklin has championed engagement in the program through transparency. Opening up the walls of the program to the public and creating an emotional buy-in from everyone: players, parents, students, administration, and alumni.

This is done most effectively through social media. If you don’t believe me, follow @jamesfranklinvu on twitter or check out these videos:

Dodgeball
Scholarship
Ole Miss Game


Planning

Many organizations blow in the wind. They are constantly reacting to outside opinions and circumstances. In contrast, Franklin has proven to have a consistent and proactive approach to everything the team does. Very little is reactive. It can be summed up as:

-Focus on process, not outcomes. Do your job.
-Focus on the present. Forget what happened or what might happen.
-Maximum intensity: 6 seconds at a time, one week at a time.

Sports psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella talks about how successful people focus on process, not outcomes, in his book, “Life is Not a Game of Perfect”. Says Rotella,

“When people with real talent approach any endeavor, they look for a method, a process, that will lead to success. They follow that process every day. They set themselves up to succeed.”

Franklin is so focused on process and consistency; it annoys the media at times:

“For us, it’s always going to be about this week and getting better as a football team,” Franklin said. “I know some in the media don’t really buy that, but that’s our approach. We don’t even have any schedules up in our building. That’s because each game stands on its own. We’re going to do everything in our power to be 1-0 this week.”

If you’ve read books on leadership and/or books by other coaches like Nick Saban or Bill Walsh, you see similar themes. The difference is the passion, intensity, and consistency of message from Franklin. Planning and process turn hopes into belief. And belief leads to success.


The Results

So, has it worked? With essentially the same group of players that won a mere 4 games in the 2 years prior to his arrival, Franking and Vanderbilt have achieved the following:

-Franklin's wins in first 2 years are the most by Vandy coach since 1904-05
- Vandy is in a bowl game in back-to-back years for the first time ever.
-Only 1 Vandy team, since 1935, has more SEC wins than the 2012 team
-Last year, 17th ranked in recruiting nationally according to ESPN.com
-Finished in the Top 20 in defense nationally in 2011
-Beat rival Tennessee in Nashville this year. Last time was 1982.
-Recovered from 23-6 deficit, on the road at Ole Miss, to win.
-2012: first winning record in SEC since 1982, before that 1959
-Dores have 4 SEC wins of 23+ points under Franklin. 4 all time prior.
-4th game scoring 40+ points…first time since 1916
-Won 6 games in a row in 2012, first time since 1955
-1st time since 1873 that VU has 3 road SEC wins

The facts on the success are evident. However, the real indicator, if you’ve watched Vandy for all these years…is in the competition. The team competes like they never have before. You see it in their faces, body language, and attitude. It’s simply a reflection of their Leader.

Expectations- Attitude- Engagement- Planning ----------→ RESULTS

Gameday at hack/reduce

I had the opportunity to join "The College Gameday of Tech" again last week, at the hack/reduce launch event. In talking with Dave Vellante, we cover:

1) Massachusetts tech scene
2) Big Data opportunities
3) What we look for in acquisitions

hack/reduce

I joined the hack/reduce launch last night in Boston. The venue itself, Kendall Boiler and Tank building, was worth the trip alone. It is a tremendous atmosphere, in a great location, but that's just a small part of the story.

I met Chris Lynch a few years back. He personifies the old adage, "Often wrong, never in doubt.", and I mean that as a huge compliment. He is the type of person that believes obstacles exist for a reason: to prove how much you want something. Like everything else he has done, hack/reduce seems to be a product of his will.

When the concept was introduced to me, the mission was simple: Ensure that Massachusetts is at the heart of the next wave of IT innovation, namely Big Data. Given IBM's extensive lab presence in Massachusetts, that alone was enough to make sponsoring an easy decision. That being said, I think there are even more important reasons for our participation.

1) I believe this is real and substantial. The leadership ensures that.

2) Big Data is not a buzz word nor an idea, technology or product. It is the next generation of IT. See here, if you want to know why Warren Buffett agrees with me.

3) Big Data is about skills and talent for the next 5 years. Those with access to talent and the ability to cultivate talent will win. hack/reduce is ultimately about bringing the data and resources to the talent. From there, the talent can grow.

4) Massachusetts is critical to IBM. We have acquired many companies in Massachusetts and it has been a wonderful experience. All of this activity culminated in our opening a significant development lab in Westford. For this reason, it is essential to us that the Mass tech scene remain vibrant. The tech scene must include an entire ecosystem: talent, companies, venture firms, business partners, universities, etc. hack/reduce has the potential to be a key driver of the tech scene. It's great for the folks involved, great for the community, and ultimately great for our business.

We will be very active at hack/reduce: training, learning, providing technology and tools, etc. It's great to be a part of this and we can't wait to get started.

A Framework for Enterprise Software

Pop Quiz:

For decades, the companies in this industry have produced sophisticated and complex products. They are difficult to assemble, require the stitching together of a variety of component parts, and its often a long time from the beginning of a project to when the end user sees value/success. Unfortunately, many times, the user is never satisfied. The product breaks or does not work quite as it was described it would. As these quality problems emerge, the companies in this industry turn to 3rd parties, asking the 3rd parties to help their clients have a better experience. The companies incorporate IP from those third parties and many times, they ask the 3rd parties to service the products. While this often improves the customer experience, it does not solve the problem of the negative externalities (and the implications on the users) of the product. In many cases, the negative externalities drive up costs for the users.

Then, along comes the threat of a new approach and technology. It simplifies many of the previous issues. The product looks better on the surface and clients tend to be happier, sooner. It also solves the problem of the negative externalities. It's a homerun all around. Does everyone move to the new approach/technology en masse?

Well, you tell me: do you own a battery-powered car?

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The story above is merely an illustration that history repeats itself and there is a lot to be learned from understanding and spotting patterns. I suppose most people who read this will think of enterprise software, as they read that story. And, when I get to the part about the new approach/technology, they start thinking of SaaS and Cloud. However, the answer to the question is the same, whether we are talking autos or enterprise software: The world does not move en masse in any direction, even though benefits are apparent.

I continue to see rhetoric that postulates that the future of enterprise software is simply cloud and SaaS. While its hard to argue this at a conceptual level (given its lack of specificity), I think it trivializes a very complex topic. Not everything will be cloud/SaaS, although those will certainly be two possible delivery models. To really form a view of how enterprise software evolves over the next 10-20 years, I've constructed some over-arching hypotheses, which hopefully provides a framework for thinking about new business opportunities in enterprise software.


Hypothesis 1: The current model of 'pushing' your product through a salesforce does not scale and is not optimal for clients/users. Usability will dominate, and I extend usability to include topics like time-to-value, ease of use, and self-service.

Hypothesis 2: The model of paying Systems Integrators to make your products work together (or work in the first place) will enter a secular decline. There will continue to be a strong consulting market for application development, high-end strategy/segmentation, and complex project management. However, clients will no longer tolerate having to pay money just to make things work.

Hypothesis 3: Enterprises cannot acquire skills fast enough to exploit new technology. So, on one hand, usability needs to address this. On the other hand, continuing education will need to offer a new method for driving skills development quickly. Continuing education is much more than ‘product training’. In fact, while ‘product training’ is the majority that is paid for today…I believe it will be the minority going forward.

Hypothesis 4: There will be different models for software delivery: Cloud, SaaS, On-premise, Outsourced, etc. Therefore, just because a company offers something in a certain model does not mean that they will be successful. Clients will buy the best fit model, based on their business goal and related concerns (security, sustainability, etc).

Hypothesis 5: Clients will optimize easy (implementation and ongoing support) and return (on investment and capital). Products that deliver on both are a no-brainer. Products that only hit one of them will be scrutinized. Products that deliver neither, will cease to exist.

As I meet with new companies and even assess products that we are building, this is my current framework for thinking through how to identify the potential winners and losers.