COMPANIES COMPATIBLE WITH THIRD PLATFORM Mohamed Gombolaty Remote Technical Support Engineer EMC [email protected] Table of Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 3 Adoption of new technologies in a true manner ............................................................... 5 Sense of Urgency to transform ........................................................................................ 6 Creating the ‘A’ Team ...................................................................................................... 9 Strategy Shift................................................................................................................. 11 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 13 Disclaimer: The views, processes or methodologies published in this article are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect EMC Corporation’s views, processes or methodologies. 2015 EMC Proven Professional Knowledge Sharing 2 Introduction International Data Corporation (IDC) seems to be one of the first adopters of the term, 3rd Platform, back in 2007. The concept predicted a new era of IT, where cloud computing will be the home of software accessed by PCs, mobiles, tablets, TVs, etc. and all that data can be analyzed for trends by using Big Data Analytics. Gartner also predicted a similar vision and named it “Nexus of Forces”. We already see components of the new era have matured, increasing in use as more people have access to new technologies and services based on the 3rd Platform. A simple example: we all can relate to becoming dependent on Microsoft Office software for everyday work. We write reports and documents on Word, create sheets, tables, and balance numbers in Excel, and present slides using PowerPoint. The constant is that and you always had to have a PC or laptop connected to a cable for connectivity to file servers on the network. The same thing you were doing in 2005 remain true today except now you read reports sent to you via Drop Box or use Word on Office 365 from your mobile device over a wireless network inside a restaurant. Now, your dining partner might be offended but they are likely looking at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or perhaps using Uber to get a taxi to leave you. Everything around us is evolving quickly into the new era. The things we can’t do by using apps on our mobile devices are becoming fewer and the predictions below indicate that we will soon see the eye of the hurricane very quickly. Looking at IDC predictions for 2015 (http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25285614), Senior Analyst, Frank Gens stated: “Worldwide ICT spending will grow 3.8% in 2015 to more than $3.8 trillion. Nearly all of this spending growth will be focused on 3rd Platform technologies, with spending on the 2nd Platform expected to slip into recession by the end of the year. On a geographic basis, ICT spending in emerging markets is forecast to grow 7.1% year over year while mature markets poke along at 1.4% growth. Cloud services will remain a hotbed of activity in 2015 with $118 billion in spending on the greater cloud ecosystem. Adoption of cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) will grow briskly (36%) as market leader Amazon comes under attack from all directions as challengers attempt the "Amazoning of Amazon". Similarly, look for heightened competition among Platform as a Service (PaaS) 2015 EMC Proven Professional Knowledge Sharing 3 providers as competitors engage in death match battles to attract developers and their apps and Software as a Service (SaaS) players accelerate their adoption of PaaS and cloud marketplaces. "Cloud is also where we expect to see new partnerships forming among 'strange bedfellows', such as Facebook with Microsoft and/or IBM or Amazon partnering with HP, to expand market opportunities," added Gens. Big data and analytics will see important developments in 2015 as worldwide spending on big data-related software, hardware, and services grows to $125 billion. Rich media analytics (video, audio, and image) will emerge as an important driver of big data projects. And big data supply chains (i.e. Data as a Service) will grow in importance as cloud platform and analytics vendors offer clients value-added information from commercial and open data sets. Elsewhere, IDC expects to see important new developments in cognitive/machine learning and Internet of Things (IoT) analytics. The 3rd Platform is transforming not just the technology industry but every industry. IDC believes a number of industry disruptions, driven by 3rd Platform developments, will emerge in 2015. Examples include alternative payment networks in financial services, expansion of IoT technologies into city safety, public works and transportation systems, and the expansion of location-based services in the retail industry. The number of industry platforms – industry- specialized cloud-based data and services platforms, usually created by leaders within the industry – will expand rapidly, easily doubling in 2015.” The above are some points of the predictions that effect all humans, not just the IT industry. The real problem is we are reaching the point where one must determine if they really can compete and work in that new era or drop out and just be a user. The key for survival has always been: Adoption of new technologies in a true manner. Sense of urgency to transform. Even having those two actions might not be enough for the 3rd platform transformation; you need to consider: Creating the “A” Team. Strategy Shift 2015 EMC Proven Professional Knowledge Sharing 4 We describe each one in this article to help you create your own unique vision for your company and business using the power of the 3rd Platform. Only through having such a vision and executing it will you be able to be relevant in the 3rd Platform Era. Adoption of new technologies in a true manner With all the talk about Big Data analytics, Data Lakes, Hybrid cloud, IT-as-a-Service, etc., a lot of technologies and changes hitting at the same time. Since all of these are loosely related, there is no way to divide and conquer. It’s no longer about simply buying a new machine or installing software and you’re up and running and believe that you are up to date. Adopting 3rd platform technology is not just a matter of investing in new technology and perhaps some employees to work on it; it has to be a holistic look. It’s about formulating how these new technologies give you an edge or expand your market reach. You need to be aware of how it’s changing your company from inside and also affecting its products, along with a business plan describing goals and objectives you need to achieve using this new technology. While you can buy hardware and software and say you have big data analytics, you will likely fail the same way ORCA failed in Mitt Romney’s U.S. Presidential bid in 2012. ORCA was a vote-tracker app designed to digitize the practice of strike lists, which is basically a voters list on paper. Campaign volunteers manually cross off people who voted and then go after voters who hadn’t voted yet and persuade them to vote for their candidate. The campaign assumed that by simply purchasing hardware and software—a substantial investment—they were digitizing a process. However, many users cited problems, i.e. not testing the solution or checking the functionality, users in the field were not familiar with app. For me, the most fundamental issue they had was they bought technology but didn’t align it, the number in the interface never moved, and how can it when not having proper inputs added to it. In essence, this wasn’t planned well because the basis was flawed, resulting in an epic failure. 2015 EMC Proven Professional Knowledge Sharing 5 (Sources) http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/11/romneys-fail-whale-orca-the-votetracker-149098.html http://ace.mu.nu/archives/334783.php http://www.computerworld.com/article/2473503/vertical-it/an-inside-look-behind-romney-s-loss--an-epic-failure-of-its-orca- big-data-app.html) Picture from CNET.com Moral of the Story: Everyone must be on board with the new technologies. It’s not just about buying software and hardware, you need to train, test, and build procedures, and truly know exactly how you will use 3rd platform technologies down to the smallest detail. It’s not just creating a data lake and then think, What’s next? Sense of Urgency to transform The speed you transform to new technology is key. One of the great advantages of 3rd platform is that investment in new technology is not as expensive as before, especially that it’s mostly software. The greatest threat is not having a sense of urgency to move forward. While you need to plan properly, create a vision, and put in plans of execution, don’t focus on mid- to long-range plans; your focus should be on short-range plans that address multiple changes at the same time. The entire organization must have this sense. In John P. Kotter’s article, Leading Change (https://hbr.org/2007/01/leading- change-why-transformation-efforts-fail/ar/1), he stated: “In a few of the most successful cases, a group has manufactured a crisis. One CEO deliberately engineered the largest accounting loss in the company’s history, creating 2015 EMC Proven Professional Knowledge Sharing 6 huge pressures from Wall Street in the process. One division president commissioned first-ever customer satisfaction surveys, knowing full well that the results would be terrible. He then made these findings public. On the surface, such moves can look unduly risky. But there is also risk in playing it too safe: When the urgency rate is not pumped up enough, the transformation process cannot succeed, and the long-term future of the organization is put in jeopardy. When is the urgency rate high enough? From what I have seen, the answer is when about 75% of a company’s management is honestly convinced that business as usual is totally unacceptable.