Enterprise architecture- Mending the IT- Business bridge

Hello readers,

It has been sometime since I posted something useful on my blog. Time seems to have just slipped away since my last blog post. I was inundated with work and movies ;) . Saw movies in the ballpark range of 300- 350 movies over the last 4 months. Tall - tale but a special thanks to IMDB and its list of top 50 movies by different genres.

In midst of this madness I happened to get richer by a credit through a Kelley Direct (More about it can be read by clicking here ) course I took during my spring semester. Honestly speaking I took the course on Enterprise Architecture from a pure recreational perspective to get my mind out of all the movies and TV series I have been watching. The course boasted of being one that helps IT professionals speak in business parlance. It stuck to its promise of being a real eye opener in terms of its content and delivery. Taught by some of the greatest thought leaders in EA field , it not only presented a theoretical perspective of how business vision ties up to IT strategy but pragmatic approach on how to achieve the same.I had read something on them during my Kelley pre requisite days while I was in India (article can be found here) but never gave any serious thought on it. This field is a fast growing one and many corporate enterprises who views their IT indispensable for sustainable growth are adopting them at a rapid phase. Better many of the India IT outsourcing giants have spun off separate departments focused on helping clients through a EA driven strategy . Some of the front runners are MindTree Consulting , Wipro Consulting and Cognizant Business Consulting and many more to follow!

Recently one of my good colleagues had posted an article on 6 hottest IT jobs by Info World (Click here). The first job directly attributes to the type of work done by an EA specialist. Business Architect is one of many specialist fields within EA (There are a total 4 fields in which one can specialize in namely data architect, application architect, technology architect and Business architect). Just goes to show the demand in the market expected for this field. I would advise all serious IT professionals looking to make the intellectual cross to become an IT strategist take a serious look at "Enterprise Architecture". This is definitely going to be the next big thing in IT .

Until next time folks , adios!

PS: As always suggestions for the blog , about the blog post and movies are always welcome :)

Beyond the ken: Time to pop a 'Tablet'

Beyond the ken: Time to pop a 'Tablet': "There has been such a frenzy in the tablet market over the last few weeks , that I could not resist but blog. To start of the blog , a brief..."

Time to pop a 'Tablet'

There has been such a frenzy in the tablet market over the last few weeks , that I could not resist but blog. To start of the blog , a brief about the happenings in the tablet arena:-

1) Apple announced its iPad version 2 today!

2) Announcement happens at a strategic time when the Motorola just announced about its Android powered Zoom !

3) 10 new tablets are going to be released this year!! (One of them being from India [NotionInk])

4)HP about 6 hours ago announced their Tablet rendition running on WebOS( Palm developed platform)http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/02/09/hp.webos/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

My favorite pick of the 3 has got to be the first! Apple could not have found a better time to shake up consumers and deter their focus away from "Android" . Its all so fair :) .Whats better the pricing beats the c*** out of all other tablet players. For 500 bucks I get a world class , cool gizmo with backed by a App store. Xoom which is priced at 800$ cannot even match up to that price point. If there can be one it is going to be the technology behemoth HP. They have not officially revealed the price of the tablets yet. But my hunch is it will be priced anywhere between 600-800 bucks. They after all have to recover their money from the Palm acquisition.

So one starts thinking why is that Apple always comes out victorious in these battles (Atleast for now!). I start digging for facts and data out there on the net and I landed back to the birthplace of these technology gizmos 'Fox-conn'. As I had previously mentioned Foxconn based out of China is one large gigantic organization that churns out hardware for many of Worlds leading hardware suppliers in the world. OK , so what? Motorola/HP can outsource the manufacturing of these gizmos to Foxconn, and Presto !

But there is more than it than meets the eye. I went out researching (Googling if you may) how Apple reached the enviable position it is now. So ,the turtleneck shirt wearing executives at Apple have laid out a more elaborate strategy from 2001. They simply played by the books. Vertical integration across the supply chain albeit a step lower. They went ahead and placed orders for the hardware components required to manufacture these gizmos well in advance and to the tune of 10m+ !

So semiconductor manufacturers like Samsung (Ironic!) , LG , Phillips etc have their their hands tied down by contractual agreements with Apple to serve it. Whats more Apple which is sitting on huge cash reserves ($50 B +) have gone ahead and implemented strategically in many of these manufacturer labs to augment the production. Two things that jumps out are

a)Apple places orders well in advance

b)They are not looking to set up their own labs . A very good ploy I must add.

So finally it becomes zero sum game , where Apple so eliminating the competition out on price. The recent news about HP touchpad did not shake up the stock market hawks simply because they did not place a $ figure. This indicates a price point has been established by customers at which they expect the luxuries of a tablet are served to them. Adding to it, rumors are rife that iPad2 is going to be sold much cheaper. Of course it was going to be , Apple was going to pull this one out of its sleeve any moment. Again playing by the textbooks : Economies of scale , with large cash reserves they can afford for mass volume discounting and completely squeeze out the competition out of the market.

I am not much of an Apple fan but my hunch is in the long run HP is the only potent competitor that can carry home sizable chunk of the 'Tablet' pie.

Looking forward to your thoughts!

Beyond the ken: The Lampoon show called CES

Beyond the ken: The Lampoon show called CES: "All the technology evangelists and vultures watch with bated enthusiasm the CES every year , year after year . This year’s CES did not disa..."

The Lampoon show called CES

All the technology evangelists and vultures watch with bated enthusiasm the CES every year , year after year . This year’s CES did not disappoint at all. Almost of records of sort , more than 20,000 new products were unveiled in under flashing neon light in those 4 frantic days that lasted . Samsung alone unveiled 75 of them!

I was left scratching my head , mopping my brows….really? 20,000?? That’s a lot of products to be released in one year! To imagine what goes into making one product :- Business strategists strategizing , technology strategists huddling to put in effect those strategies, scored of powerpoint shuffling , outsourcing to China (Foxconn anyone ?) , export , import and whole gamut of power economics in play! But what good are these features for an already placated palate of consumers today. Getting antiquated in the technology industry is much faster than you think. In a recent interview by Ray Kurzweil (https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Business_Technology/BT_Strategy/IT_growth_and_global_change_A_conversation_with_Ray_Kurzweil_2728?gp=1) , he said technology evolution is exponential and human needs are linear. Somehow what happened at CES does not add up to what he proclaimed? In a hyper consumerist economy, consumers demand seems more exponential than linear or is it? The craze to deliver value have in a lot of sense off tracked many companies today who are venturing out into different domain in an effort to be different (Very Un-Warren Buffet I must admit). We have Dell entering the tablet market with Dell Streak which failed to ignite any fire from the moment it was launched.

But is it wrong to experiment fly into unchartered territories? The problem is it is unchartered for you but very much disturbed, disrupted by others (Competitors). I say companies today are in zero sum game of Least common denominator (LCD). The LCD being more products under least cost possible. Burn , slash , reorganize , restructure our cost centers and keep churning out products with stagnant value. This by itself is the weakest strategy of this new techno era. What one should really care about is elevating the numerator which is where all the moolah is bound to lies- Delivering high value! Value in products delivered. That alone is the single reason why Apple survives and sustains. High value for a not so low LCD , when other ‘Smart’ players are battling it out in the market for the supremo position.

Tying this back to the organization I am currently working with, I now begin to realize and appreciate their strategy – To create a large numerator. They exited out of the denominator game 2 years ago.

Looking forward to more insights from my friends!

PS:- Pardon me of all the typos, too lazy to do a cross check :P

'Defibrillator'ing my blog back to life!

Hello Human Beings, Greetings! It has been almost 2 long years since I visited my blog and things have changed a lot since May 2009.

After a brief stint with an IT company , I joined the Kelley School of business to pursue my Masters in Information systems. I have been enjoying my course so far and right now I am doing an internship with an Insurance Giant here in US!

My intent of return to the blog is to post my learnings from this internship (whatever little that maybe!). The reason being this particular company is undergoing a sea change of transformation in the way it does business. This transformation has it effects in all spheres of biz, be it IT /HR /Finance etc and I wanted to capture all of the "effects" (Good/bad) of these changes.My prime focus area would be IT. The initiative being Lean IT. To fill in more information I would be calling for help from my other peers who are doing internships with the firm.

And finally the blog would however not be restricted to IT only and would cover any topics under the sun from Politics to Finance to general business !

Adios!

Being ZOOZOO

Dog has been and will be man's most faithful animal , but the vice-versa was never an adage.So our orange turned hutch turned vodafone folks though it was hig time to show unfaithfulness and they dumped our pug rather uncermoniously.Part of the reasons can be Maneka gandhi led Animal lovers group protest aganist use of our puggy which lead to exhaustion of our puggy and other such weird reasons.Next apna vodafone folks handed the onus to Oligivy and Mather , Niravana films to bring forth innovation plus appeal.After a hard ,long weeks of Cerbration were born the apple of our eye for last 30 days Egg shaped half human , half alien the ZOOZOO's.When the news of dumping the pugs hit the headlines i was rather scpetic about it . But rest as they was history.

So when IPL got deported aborad , to lift the Indian moods O&M delivered a masterpeice.These creatures is rather a far cry from Ads running presently running for various other companies who have roped in Multistars, superstars , Megastars et al. Maybe O&M or other marketing agenices did there homework.They learnt Bollywood biggies never seem to strike chord with Aam Junta(Shah Rukh Khan never rides in a santro , AB swears by his Armanis to name a few).So we rather put to work the TagLine of SEIMENS --"Sense and Simplicity".

The ZooZoo's are simple and sensible.More imporatntly there potent creatures to get the message across using a short play/skit followed by a Tetris after each story.It also cuts across the cultural , regional , language barrier by using a universally alien language to emphatically show the Ad -Gurus emotions and drama works better than some sleazy dialogues.


Vodafone used these Ads primarily to propound there VAS(Value Added Servies ) across viewers.In total they made 25 of them. Played out about 5 of them during intial IPL matches and to there surprise Audience were able to instantaneouly relate themselves. Add to that some zingy background score ,funny squeaks exchanged(i heard they used malaylam words like Appam ,pottu kadala) between our egglings and of course a simple story line .1 min of complete fun.Many IPL viewers look forward to these Ads more than the matches.


On the financial front , an avergae Indian Ad with our leading film stars cavorting in mini skirts and super bikes cost abt 10crore. 25 adds would cost 250 crore and ZooZoo's were made in a modest budget of less than 40 crore where the actors where South africans .What a win and couble win sitautiofor vodafone ad makers who had to think out the box in 30 second ad for a crowd puller program like IPL-2 which is also a marketers nightmare because of the clutter!


When they were aired first one couldnt make out whether it is animation or people in body suits.
Art of Ad-making! Finally vidoes started pouring in affirming that they were humans in Suits double there size.Very sensible .Animation costs way higher than body suits do and off late animations (Disasters like Jumbo ,Krishna ,return of hanuman etc) never really captured audience imagination possible due to poor qulaity of animation. So again a thumbs up to ZooZoo.


But the reason to be more proud of is the fact that it was made by Indians and directed too by an Indian - Prakash mehra. Indians Ads have come of age.

What from here on? The euphoria has been unprecedented .Social networking sites like facebook have formed communties with fan base above 70k. Quizzes are being launched.Bloggers like me are hot on ZooZoo topic.The making of ZooZoo videos are being passed all around though mails and other medium. Even the makers never expected this kind of acceptance !

Marketing Guru Seth Godin always emphasised that Brands should be Remarkable. He defined remarkable as " Worthy of Making a Remark about ".

The ZooZoo is a classic example of being Remarkable...

PS: Facts from Yahoo( i Sympathsize with Yang ) and not from googling ! :X