COMMS VISION 10-12 NOVEMBER GLENEAGLES PREVIEW
www.commsvision.com THE BIG THEME EXPLAINED
The prominent theme at this year’s Comms Vision Convention is Business Transformation – but what do we mean by this? And what are the implications for our industry? Paul Cunningham, CVC co-Facilitator, explains...
initiative that attempts to align people, process and technology elements of an organisation more closely with its business strategy and vision. The end game is to innovate new business strategies and meet long-term objectives. Business Transformation can be defined as changing appearance (by improving services to customers); changing shape (by reviewing and reappraising what a business should do, by working with partners and by making better use of all types of resources); and changing form (by improving the way the business works, embracing new organisational models, skills, processes and technologies).
B
Business transformation can be achieved through a mix of new technology, business models and management practices and is now considered an essential part of the competitive business cycle. Organisations typically consider a business transformation to get more from their existing technology, inspire employee innovation and facilitate collaboration.
Architecture is the new platform: What are the implications for solutions providers in the channel? Enterprises are under constant pressure to expand their business
usiness transformation is a key executive management
capabilities, operate more efficiently, improve information access and enhance collaboration, especially with customers and partners. New Internet capabilities and mobile devices are raising customer expectations and demands on the quality of their experience. If we think about solving these problems with a fixed ‘platform’ of features we will probably fail.
The next generation of applications will integrate collaboration into business processes at new and fundamental levels and will foster new models of people working together to achieve common goals within the extended enterprise. Such applications require an architecture that delivers new processing and presentation models for the workspace; supports collaboration across evolving end-to- end business processes; and offers access at any time, from anywhere, on any device and takes advantage of new technologies. Even when working with a small-to- medium sized business customer who may be far from globalised, these architectural principles provide a basis for future growth and flexibility that our customers will thank us for in future.
Performance is a
fundamental expectation: It may be a source of regret to many but we
live in an age of exacting expectations in terms of the availability and speed of the numerous information sources we depend on in our working and personal lives. Why should a small business be more forgiving of poor performance in communications technology than a large enterprise? This key requirement has implications for the solution provider, not just in terms of basic design decisions about the performance characteristics of any hardware and software required, but increasingly in the choice of networking or services partners that form part of the whole solution. As we move to a hybrid delivery model of CPE and hosted services, with customers occupying a variety of niches between the two poles, the reliance on partner performance and the need to present an integrated front end to the customer is paramount.
It’s the Application that counts: A fundamental component of business transformation is the optimising of business applications to give more functionality to more business users. Collaborative technologies in particular have the potential to impact the way in which business applications operate. The ability to see what a colleague or partner is seeing, in real time, can be used to break down traditional process silos and develop a greater
Paul Cunningham
We anticipate another lively set of debates and meetings
understanding of issues and problems between teams and between organisations. This will require a certain amount of out-of-the-box thinking and creates an opportunity for smaller and agile solution providers to build solutions that larger competitors might take months to recognise, let alone develop and bring to market.
People define processes: Business transformation is unlikely to be effective when attempted only as a top-down, command and control exercise. Obviously, clear direction and inspirational leadership are needed, but when people are given effective collaborative tools that work as specified they will create or refine their own informal processes and networks to get the job done. We all know people who can be relied on for their insight or ability to fix a certain type of problem in their own inimitable way. Good communications technologies don’t just
allow this to happen but actively encourage their involvement and contribution to the development of the business. The question ‘What if?’ is no longer a mere function of a spreadsheet model but something that all employees should be encouraged to explore with the tools available to them.
Technology is not the issue, but the business model is: Ultimately, however cool and slick the technology is, we are still limited at any point in time to what it can and can’t do. The questions we face as solution providers are focused on managing the commercial complexity of partnership, service delivery, financing, billing and customer relationship management rather than the features and benefits or otherwise of any specific technology. With this in mind, we anticipate another lively set of debates and meetings at Comms Vision 2010, as we work towards a business transformation of our own. n
Gleneagles Hotel
10th, 11th & 12th November 2010
www.commsvision.com
48 COMMS DEALER NOVEMBER 2010
www.commsvision.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98