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TheBathwickGroup




        A Bathwick Group
                 white paper




    The road to

    Smarter Computing




                                                        Author: Gary Barnett
All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011           Published:  June 2011
The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011




    Contents
    Smarter Computing – the new imperative ..................................................................................................................... 3
        Key messages: getting on the road .......................................................................................................................................... 3

    Why Smarter Computing and why now? ........................................................................................................................ 4
        The rate of business change really is accelerating ................................................................................................................... 4

        The competitive landscape is now global in scale.................................................................................................................... 5

        How fit is your IT to face this challenge? ................................................................................................................................. 5

    Three key dimensions to Smarter Computing ................................................................................................................ 6
        How well do you understand your key business processes? .................................................................................................... 6

        Does your organisation know what it knows? ......................................................................................................................... 7

        How smart is your infrastructure? ........................................................................................................................................... 9

    Starting the journey to Smarter Computing ................................................................................................................. 11
        Begin with a candid assessment of where you are today ...................................................................................................... 11

        Develop a long-term vision but with short-term goals .......................................................................................................... 11

        Getting fit for Smarter Computing ......................................................................................................................................... 12

        Begin with a series of short, small projects............................................................................................................................ 12

        A call to action ....................................................................................................................................................................... 13

    About The Bathwick Group ............................................................................................................................................ 14




| Page 2 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011                                                                                                                              www.bathwick.com
The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011




         Smarter Computing – the new imperative
         There are two sets of drivers behind the idea of Smarter Computing; the first is the fact that the rate of change
         in the competitive landscape is accelerating beyond the point where the traditional approach of “make do and
         mend” is enough to ensure an organisation’s survival, let alone its profitability. Over the years our IT systems
         have become complex and difficult to manage, and as a consequence IT is increasingly finding itself in the
         position of being a barrier to innovation rather than an enabler of it.
         The second set of drivers relate to the technologies that are available to help in addressing the challenge of
         delivering flexible, dynamic business processes at low cost.
         Organisations have to take a new approach to the way they manage and deliver IT – responsive, effective and
         efficient IT is no longer simply nice to have - it has become a question of survival.
         Smarter Computing defines a new manifesto for IT, with a focus on the delivery of the best business outcomes
         in the most efficient and effective way. For the majority of organisations Smarter Computing defines a set of
         goals that represent the fulfilment of what will be a journey. This paper describes the steps that organisations
         need to take on the road to Smarter Computing.

         Key messages: getting on the road
            Begin with a fitness check
             If you want to deliver smarter computing for your organisation you have to start with a candid self-
             assessment and use this as a basis to determine your path towards Smarter Computing.
            Remember your goal is to help support innovation not hamper it
             Many organisations are beginning to see IT as a barrier, not an enabler, to innovation. Support for business
             innovation has to be built into everything we do.
            Deliver incremental improvements in the way IT is delivered
             Don’t try to improve everything at once. Select a small number of key projects instead.
            Take a holistic approach
             Look at infrastructure, data and processes together.
            The boring stuff is just as important as the exciting new stuff
             In order to keep your IT “fit for smart” you need to continuously look at its core fitness. Auditing and
             managing your infrastructure, software and processes isn’t exciting but it’s crucial to ensuring that the
             gains you make are lasting.
            Keep the ultimate destination in mind, but focus on the things you need to do NOW
             While it’s vital that you develop a clear idea of what Smarter Computing looks like to your organisation, it’s
             even more important that you focus on delivering positive results sooner rather than later.
            When picking a partner, choose one that can help across the board
             Don’t pick a partner that can only help you make one part of your computing environment smarter; pick
             one that can help you address your infrastructure, data and processes together.




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| Page 3 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011                                                                  www.bathwick.com
The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011




         Why Smarter Computing and why now?
         Given that, one way or another, vendors, analysts and commentators have been calling on companies to
         “do something” with their IT every year since the industry began, why should end-user organisations pay
         attention to Smarter Computing?

         The rate of business change really is accelerating
         Ever since the concept of business emerged as early civilisations began to develop and organize, competition
         has been a spur for innovation. The principle of the competitive landscape is hardly a new one but the rate of
         change within that landscape is changing dramatically. Agriculture as an activity began in 7000BC, by 6000BC
         it was widespread but still limited by its need to be close to major rivers (like the Nile in Egypt). It took another
         thousand years for the Sumerians to develop organized irrigation and it wasn’t until 3500BC that the ard
         (plough) began to see widespread use. This pace of change is glacial by comparison to that of today. If
                                                                                    we move forward to the beginning of
              40
                                                                                    the 20th century and look at the rate
          Years taken to reach an audience of 50 million




              35                                                                    of adoption of a selection of key
                                                                                    technologies it is clear that the rate at
              30
                                                                                    which change occurs has been subject
              25
                                                                                    to a dramatic acceleration.
                                                                                                   It took nearly 40 years for radio to
                                                           20
                                                                                                   reach an audience of 50 million
                                                           15                                      listeners in the first part of the20th
                                                                                                   century. In the first part of the 21st
                                                           10
                                                                                                   century it took just 18 months for the
                                                           5
                                                                                                   Facebook mobile application to be
                                                                                                   installed on 50 million devices.
                                                           0
                                                                                   This rate of change is transforming
                                                                Radio   TV   Internet   Facebook
                                                                                   every element of society, even in the
                                                                                         Mobile
                                                                                   domain of politics. Social media like
         email, Facebook and Twitter is transforming politics by offering a much more direct link between a party, or an
         issue, and the people that are interested in it. During the 2008 presidential election in the USA, the Democratic
         party’s campaign made use of all of the traditional tools (phone banks, door-to-door canvassing, television
         advertising, placards, rallies and bumper stickers) but it also made extensive use of new communications
         channels – notably social networking technologies like Twitter. This willingness to embrace every available
         communication channel clearly paid off. In February 2008 the Republican campaign raised $11 million, while
         the Democratic campaign raised $55 million.




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| Page 4 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011                                                                                 www.bathwick.com
The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011




         The competitive landscape is now global in scale
         Not only is the pace of innovation accelerating it is also much more global in nature. In 1963 a little over 18%
         of patents granted in the United States of America were granted to foreign individuals or corporations. By
         2010 that figure had risen to just over 50%.
                                                                                     Innovation in the domains of
         250,000                                                          60%
                                                                                     business and technology is no
                                                                                     longer the exclusive domain of the
                                                                          50%        developed West, and the long
         200,000
                                                                                     term trends indicate that the
                                                                          40%        virtual monopoly on innovation
         150,000                                                                     held by the West is going to be
                                                                          30%
                                                                                     severely challenged.

         100,000                                                                  It is also important to remember
                                                                              20% that innovation and competition
                                                                                  isn’t just coming from the top-tier
          50,000                                                                  emerging economies. In Africa
                                                                              10%
                                                                                  the pace of innovation in mobile
                                                                                  commerce is outstripping the
               0                                                              0%
                    1963       1970       1980 1990       2000       2010
                                                                                  developed West with services
                                                                                  like m-pesa (The “m” stands for
                                                 % of patents granted to foreign
                      Total patents granted                                       mobile and “pesa” is the Swahili
                                                 individuals or corporations
                                                                                  word for money) transforming the
         way money is transferred and exchanged. M-pesa is a mobile phone-based money transfer service developed
         by Sagentia (with sponsorship from the UK Government’s Department for International Development). The
         service is marketed by Vodafone and is run by IBM Global Services.

         How fit is your IT to face this challenge?
         While all of this innovation and change is taking place within the competitive environment, many organisations
         are finding that their existing computing infrastructure is making it harder, not easier to remain competitive.
         Several of our retail industry clients have told us that while they can arrange for a new outlet to have the
         necessary shop-fitting done in less than 48 hours, and can get stock to that outlet in less than a day, getting
         the necessary IT infrastructure in place can take several days or even weeks. We hear similar stories across
         every industry segment, and geographic area.




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| Page 5 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011                                                                www.bathwick.com
The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011




         Three key dimensions to Smarter Computing
         When we talk about Smarter Computing, we talk about it in terms of three key dimensions:
            Process
             The core business processes that differentiate you as a business
            Data
             The information upon which you base your business decisions
            Infrastructure
             The computing resources that underpin your data and processes

         How well do you understand your key business processes?
         Very few businesses can (truthfully) claim to understand all of their key business processes from end to end.
         In the retail banking sector, it is still the norm for the process of opening a new account (perhaps one of the
         most important business processes within a retail bank) to require the customer to complete multiple forms,
         and the bank staff to enter data into several different applications.
                                                        The smartest banks have already streamlined the customer on-
              An example of business process
                                                        boarding process, creating greater customer satisfaction and
                       confusion:
                                                        better customer insight.
             The IT dept had to follow a business
                                                        It is ironic that the most differentiating processes are often the
              process that involved printing out
                the entire corporate database           messiest. These processes are the most likely to change over time,
                  (consuming a considerable             and as new elements are incorporated they gradually become more
              proportion of the overnight batch         and more unwieldy. The result is often that the most important
             window) and then take the resulting        processes within an organisation are often the least understood.
             print-outs to a specific room at the
                        company’s HQ.                   Getting to grips with these processes isn’t always easy; the most
                                                        differentiating processes tend to span multiple organisational
                 Unknown to IT, the facilities
              management team were working              silos and it is increasingly likely that they will involve third-party
             to a second process that instructed        organisations as well.
             them to go to the same room every
                                                        Smart organisations will constantly monitor key business
              morning and shred the print-outs
                   that had been left there.            processes, looking for opportunities to simplify and improve
                                                        them.

         Getting to grips with your business processes
         Not all business processes are equal. Some business processes can be classified as utility processes. These
         are things you have to do in order to function but which don’t directly affect the way your organisation
         differentiates itself against the competition. Others are operational processes, which have an important
         bearing on your ability to deliver the goods or services that you offer. The third category of processes we
         classify as delivery processes, these are the processes that the customer sees and interacts with.




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| Page 6 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011                                                                     www.bathwick.com
The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011




         You should treat these process categories differently, focussing on cost and efficiency where it comes to
         utility processes on one hand, and emphasising innovation and adaptability where it comes to your delivery
         processes. Where it comes to your operational processes, you need to constantly strike a balance between
         standardisation/cost reduction on one hand (i.e. pushing them towards the utility class) and innovation/
         flexibility on the other.
         Utility processes are prime candidates for outsourcing, whereas organisations that outsource their delivery
         processes run the risk of placing their value proposition (and customer relationships) into the hands of a
         third-party.
         Given that your organisation’s delivery processes deliver the greatest differentiation, you need to ensure
         that they are the most adaptable, and this is going to have an impact on the data that they use and the
         infrastructure on which they run. You need to make sure that you understand the impact on infrastructure
         and data when these processes change, and be ready to target these processes for modernisation in order to
         ensure that they continue to be adaptable in the face of business change.

         KEY CHALLENGES FOR ORGANISATIONS THAT WANT SMARTER PROCESSES:

            Aim to become confident that your organisation understands its three key business processes from end to
             end
            Become confident that your organisation is managing these key business processes appropriately and that
             it is able to change them quickly in the face of new business demands
            Get to the point where senior management is spending the right proportion of its time looking at the
             different types of process that your organisation relies upon.

         Does your organisation know what it knows?
         It is generally accepted that information is the life-blood of business, after all how can you possibly run a
         business effectively if you don’t know how much you owe your suppliers, who your customers are, or how
         much stock you are carrying?
         It should also come as no surprise that in the past 6 months we’ve had a retail client admit that they cannot
         tell at any given time how much they owe their suppliers, a bank that     There are known knowns. These are
         does not know how many unique clients it has, and a manufacturing            things we know that we know
         client that cannot reconcile its stock holdings centrally.
                                                                                  There are known unknowns. That is to
         How can a retailer engage in dynamic pricing if it doesn’t know its      say, there are things that we know we
         current liabilities? How can a bank properly report its exposure to                    don’t know
         risk if it cannot correlate all of the different accounts that are held
                                                                                       But there are also unknown
         by its customers? How can a manufacturing company effectively              unknowns. There are things we don’t
         manage and operate its supply chain if it doesn’t know its overall               know we don’t know
         stockholdings?
                                                                                        Donald Rumsfeld – Feb 2002




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| Page 7 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011                                                              www.bathwick.com
The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011




         If you look at the famous quotation from Donald Rumsfeld, you might notice that, logically, there’s a fourth
         condition that isn’t included “unknown knowns”. For most organisations, the information is there, somewhere,
         it just hasn’t been harnessed.
         While much of the hoopla surrounding information management is currently centred on real-time analytics,
         most organisations have challenges that are much less exciting, but just as important. One of our clients
         recently said “Our MI team is constantly delighting us with new ways of visualising data that we know is
         inaccurate”. All the dashboards in the world won’t help retailers, banks and manufacturing companies make
         better decisions unless the basic groundwork has been done.
         You should think in terms of an information supply chain that begins with the raw bits and bytes and then
         moves through a number of processes to culminate in actionable information. It is also important to recognise
         that a growing proportion of the data that organisations will need in order to compete effectively won’t
         actually be owned by them. The smartest organisations are already gathering data from a whole range of
         sources, including social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook in order to measure and predict demand
         for their products, but the value of this data depends on your ability to combine it with your own. If you
         can’t make sense of that data that you own and control, it is unlikely that you’ll get the best out of all of the
         additional data that exists.
         The smartest organisations have already implemented a “single view of the truth” whether that relates to
         stockholdings in manufacturing, patients in healthcare or customers in banking. The exceptionally smart
         organisations recognise that maintaining that single view of the truth is an on-going project. Every new
         application that the organisation deploys has the potential to fracture that single view, so the cost and effort
         associated with maintaining it is factored into every new deployment. Without this discipline, an organisation
         might achieve a single view of the truth in 2012, and see it fade away by 2014.
         The new era of real-time analytics and big data represents an enormous opportunity for organisations to react
         to changes in the marketplace more quickly and with greater precision than ever before, but that opportunity
         will be lost to organisations that fail to invest in the basic information infrastructure upon which real-time
         analytics depends.

         KEY CHALLENGES FOR ORGANISATIONS THAT WANT TO KNOW WHAT THEY KNOW:

            If you don’t have a single view of the truth, this should be a top priority
            Identify the pieces of information that are most critical to your key business processes
            Make sure that the information that senior management is using to make key business decisions is accurate,
             trustworthy and timely
            Make sure that information is delivered to the people that need it, in the format that is most useful to
             them




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| Page 8 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011                                                                 www.bathwick.com
The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011




         How smart is your infrastructure?
                                                        Infrastructure lies at the heart of everything we do in IT and it represents
               8 out of ten CIOs admit to not           the foundation of Smarter Computing. The right infrastructure will help
                knowing how many servers                you deliver the rate of change that the business demands by reducing
                  (physical or virtual) their
                                                        the time it takes to develop and deploy new applications, and once
                organisations are currently
                          running                       those applications are in production the right infrastructure makes it
                                                        easy to manage those applications.
         We’re currently in the middle of a period of enormous change in terms of the way we define, design and
         deploy infrastructure. Virtualisation promises enormous benefits where it comes to the effective utilisation
         of the resources (servers, storage and networking) that we currently have. Cloud computing will become the
         dominant model for infrastructure over the next decade, but how many organisations are really in a position
         to take advantage of the levels of automation, scalability and flexibility that virtualisation and cloud computing
         offer? This transition will take time for most organisations. There are very few companies that can transition
         all of their servers to cloud-based infrastructure overnight; for the majority the road to smart infrastructure
         is going to take some time and will require significant change in the way infrastructure is sourced, managed
         and provisioned.

         The key to smarter infrastructure is to begin the journey
         For many organisations the idea of a fully automated infrastructure nirvana will seem a long way off, but the
         key to getting there is to make a start. Some organisations will already be some way down the road, while
         others will have to do a considerable amount of work in order to get their
                                                                                                  Average Intel
         infrastructure fit for Smarter Computing.                                               server utilisation
         So what will it take to make your infrastructure fitter? As with any fitness                               - < 10%

         program the process needs to begin with a candid assessment of the current                          Average storage
         state of fitness. You could begin by asking these questions:                                       utilisation compared
                                                                                                                with capacity
            Do you know how many servers you have in production today?                                            - < 30%
            Do you know how many different software products are deployed around
             your organisation, and are you certain that they are appropriately licensed?
            Do you know the average utilisation of your servers?
            How long does it take to bring a new server into production?
         You should ask a similar set of questions about your organisation’s storage infrastructure as well.
         Having established where you are today, you can now identify those elements of your organisation’s
         infrastructure where modernisation would bring the greatest business benefit.




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| Page 9 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011                                                                           www.bathwick.com
The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011




         X86 blades won’t always be the answer
         When looking at how to make your infrastructure more flexible, more reliable and less expensive, don’t
         assume that scale-out architectures will always offer the best solution. Some workloads are ideally suited
         to the horizontal approach to scaling that blade technology implies, while others are much better suited to
         scale-up environments or “sealed” appliances. In the domains of large-scale OLTP applications, for example,
         high-end SMP-based hardware can offer significant advantages over Intel-based solutions, and in other
         domains, network attached appliances can offer major benefits when it comes to very specific tasks like XML
         processing.
         The key is to look at the range of workloads your infrastructure needs to support, and to choose the most
         appropriate technologies to support those different types of processing. The future of infrastructure doesn’t
         rest solely in the hand of X86 machines, even if the blade-oriented scale out approach to infrastructure is set
         to be the dominant architecture. There will always be some workloads that run better, faster, more reliably
         and more cheaply on scale-up hardware; the key to success lies in identifying the right workloads for the right
         platforms.

         The two most misused words in the domain of infrastructure are “architecture” and “governance”
         While your choice of hardware, virtualisation platform and management technology are all important
         decisions, the way you assemble these components and the approach you take to infrastructure governance
         are just as important in determining your ability to enjoy the benefits that these technologies can bring.
         Architecture isn’t simply about creating blueprints. Architecture is a process that begins by asking you what
         you want to achieve, then looks at the current infrastructure in the light of that goal. Before moving to
         the blueprint phase, good IT architects (just like good bricks-and-mortar architects), also consider external
         constraints and stakeholders. The final phase is to look ahead, and provide a basis for the future evolution of
         the business and the infrastructure that it will need.
         Governance is a second crucial factor in delivering smarter infrastructure. Organisations that fail to put in
         place appropriate processes to manage the server deployment process, charge-back, and procurement are
         likely to find that the benefits in terms of reduced cost and management complexity, higher reliability and
         greater flexibility will be difficult to achieve.

         KEY CHALLENGES FOR ORGANISATIONS THAT WANT TO DELIVER SMARTER INFRASTRUCTURE

            If you don’t have an accurate register of the assets that make up your infrastructure, creating one should
             be a top priority
            Establish, and police, a governance framework to ensure that the policies you set down are adhered to
            Identify those parts of your infrastructure that need to be the most flexible in order to deliver business
             value, and focus (initially at least) on those
            Don’t forget that the goal isn’t “Cloud” (or any other buzz phrase), it’s infrastructure that is reliable, flexible
             and low-cost.




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| Page 10 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011                                                                    www.bathwick.com
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         Starting the journey to Smarter Computing
         If you ask someone who has climbed Everest how long it took, the chances are the reply will be something
         like “four and a half years”. The actual climb itself can take only a matter of days, and the fastest climbs have
         taken fewer than 24 hours, but the process of climbing Everest doesn’t begin at Base Camp 1, it begins when
         a person makes the conscious decision to get to the summit.
         Once a person makes that decision, it’s likely that there will be a year (or several) of preparation to undertake
         before they even get to Nepal. Clearly if you’re already an experienced climber the transition from Mont
         Blanc to Everest may only require 6 months preparation, but if your biggest recent ascent has been up the
         ladder into your attic it’s likely to take a lot more effort and a lot more time.
         The same is true when it comes to Smarter Computing. When you see some of the most adbvanced computing
         environments it’s easy to be a little put off. The leading Smarter Computing environments were already pretty
         smart. What about those of us who are a long way from being fit enough to scale the summit? The bad
         news that if we do nothing we’ll be left behind; the good news is that every step we take towards Smarter
         Computing brings its own benefits. Even the basic, mundane activity of conducting a complete asset audit will
         help you control costs and improve governance. The key is to start the journey.

         Begin with a candid assessment of where you are today
         The journey to Smarter Computing has to begin with an honest and pragmatic self-assessment. How fit is your
         computing environment?
         In the context of your business processes, you need to establish how well understood your key business
         processes are. When it comes to data, you need to identify the gaps in your organisation’s understanding of
         what it knows. In terms of infrastructure you need to determine the cope of your current infrastructure.
         This assessment will provide you with a basis, from which the rest of your journey will proceed.

         Develop a long-term vision but with short-term goals
         The chances are that, as a result of your initial assessment, it will be pretty clear that significant parts of your
         computing environment are far from being “smart”. So the next step is to define your objective (or a set of
         objectives).
         Now you can begin the process of planning the program of work that you need to undertake to get from your
         current state of fitness, to the state of fitness that will be required in order to reach your summit.
         Going back to the Everest analogy, what does it take to climb a mountain?
            Physical fitness
            Expertise
            Equipment
            Teamwork
            Discipline




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| Page 11 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011                                                                  www.bathwick.com
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         The key is that you need all of these. The best equipment in the world won’t be any use if you don’t know
         how to use it properly. For competitive cyclists, a difference in weight of 200 grams can make a difference of
         several seconds over the course of a race, for an occasional cyclist it is unlikely to be noticeable.
         Without a team, with a common set of goals and clearly defined responsibilities, climbing Everest would be
         close to impossible. Discipline is also essential, whether this relates to rules about the amount of equipment
         people can bring with them or the amount of training they have to do before joining the team.
         Again, this analogy can be applied to Smarter Computing. The best server hardware in the world won’t help
         unless you have the expertise to use it appropriately. There is no point in establishing policies unless you’re
         prepared to police and enforce them. You can’t hope to drive business benefits unless the business feels that
         it is part of the team.
         For many organisations, the “Summit” is likely to seem a long way off. So how can organisations motivate
         themselves to begin the journey?

         Getting fit for Smarter Computing
         Having done your fitness assessment, you should be able to determine what you need to do to get your
         organisation fit for Smarter Computing. When you look at this, you need to consider the following things.
            Skills and expertise
             What skills and expertise do your people need in order to get fit for the journey?
            Technology selection
             What are the best technologies to deploy in order to help you deliver Smarter Computing?
            Get external help
             Very few successful athletes work without a coach, the most successful will have a number of people
             working with them on diet, core fitness, technique etc. The same is true for Smarter Computing.

         Begin with a series of short, small projects
         Faced with an apparently arduous journey, it’s easy to feel discouraged. The key lies in breaking it down into a
         series of phases, each of which brings its own benefits beyond simply getting you closer to your objective.
         For example, simply auditing your assets (the essential first step) is a worthwhile exercise. As you identify
         redundant infrastructure (processes or data stores) you’ll be reducing complexity and lowering cost. The
         point is that you don’t have to wait till you reach the summit for your reward; you will be able to deliver
         meaningful business benefits with every step of the journey.
         We’d recommend that you begin with small projects, typically with a timescale of well under a year (we
         suggest 6 months as a basis). Shorter projects bring a number of benefits.
            The destination feels within reach
             Short projects have a sense of focus that long term plans often lack
            Risks and resource requirements are easier to predict
             As project timescales grow, the likelihood of unforeseen issues and resource demands grows even faster



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| Page 12 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011                                                               www.bathwick.com
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            You can set, and maintain, a sense of momentum
             Momentum is important if you have a long term vision
            You can readily adapt to changing business needs
             How many organisations can predict what their key business process, infrastructure and data requirements
             will be in five years?

         A call to action
         If you recognise the need to deliver a Smarter Computing environment for your organisation, then the time
         to begin that journey is now, not least because your most dangerous competitors are likely to have already
         started their journey.
         Here are four initiatives that we urge you to begin, right now.

         Do your fitness assessment
         Launch a six week project to conduct an initial assessment. Look at your overall approach to the delivery
         of computing to your organisation. How well aligned is your IT function with the business objectives of the
         organisation that it is there to serve?
         The output of this project should help you prioritise the next three initiatives that you should be launching. The
         initiatives that follow should have a time scale of between three (the ideal) and six months to be realistic.

         Launch a smarter process initiative
         Identify three key business processes – the ones that are the most crucial for your organisation’s success,
         then make sure that they are properly understood across the organisation. Identify who should be involved
         in refining and improving these processes and then get on with the job of making them smarter. You can
         then look at how best to deliver these processes; are they embedded within a legacy application, or are they
         running within an environment that makes them easy to change? Your organisation’s most differentiating
         processes should determine your plans to modernise your infrastructure, and deliver smarter data.

         Launch a smarter data initiative
         Identify three key pieces of information that your organisation’s executives need to have available to them
         all of the time. Then make sure that you can deliver them to those executives via whichever channel (paper,
         dashboard, email, SMS text, etc) is most useful to them.

         Launch a smarter infrastructure initiative
         Do an assessment of your infrastructure, make sure you know how many different servers you have, how
         much software you use (and how it’s licensed). Then set yourself a challenge to reduce the number of physical
         servers in your infrastructure. For some organisations this may manifest itself as a challenge to switch off one
         server a month, for others it may result in a challenge to switch off twenty.




                                                                | 13 |
| Page 13 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011                                                                 www.bathwick.com
The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011




             About The Bathwick Group
             The Bathwick Group is a research-based consulting company that helps clients address their most pressing needs in
             strategic planning, go-to-market planning and execution, and IT infrastructure effectiveness:

             CONSULTING
                   Bathwick Engage A rapid collaborative consulting service combining external experts and IP protection mecha-
                    nisms to expedite solutions to major corporate challenges
                   Enterprise IT strategy Planning and contract support for enterprise IT leaders; productivity and infrastructure
                    agility benchmarking and best practice
                   IT vendor strategy and marketing Customer analysis and deep research for IT vendors targeting mid-market and
                    enterprise markets
                   Sustainability strategy Modelling and benchmarking for organisations wishing to embed sustainable practices
                    and mitigate strategic risks

             RESEARCH AND BENCHMARKING
                   Research Platform A flexible software platform for organisations to deploy their own surveys and benchmarks,
                    both internal (e.g. employee surveys), or external (e.g. market intelligence)
                   Media Platform A research platform for online media customers, providing an engagement environment to en-
                    courage reader registration and generate new revenues

             SALES ENABLEMENT
                   The Customer Insight Platform A software platform that supports deployment of sales guidance, customer as-
                    sessments, marketing collaterals, ROI tools, etc. direct to a seller’s laptop for online and offline operation; for
                    both direct and channel sales support.


             The Bathwick Group also includes the ThinkAgain Partnership LLP, a global collaborative research network, which
             brings together academics, writers, business and political leaders to generate new insights into business productivity
             and performance, geo-political and environmental issues.




All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011                                                                  Document number: BG-TL-W-00078UK-EN-00

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The road to Smarter Computing

  • 1. TheBathwickGroup A Bathwick Group white paper The road to Smarter Computing Author: Gary Barnett All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011 Published: June 2011
  • 2. The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011 Contents Smarter Computing – the new imperative ..................................................................................................................... 3 Key messages: getting on the road .......................................................................................................................................... 3 Why Smarter Computing and why now? ........................................................................................................................ 4 The rate of business change really is accelerating ................................................................................................................... 4 The competitive landscape is now global in scale.................................................................................................................... 5 How fit is your IT to face this challenge? ................................................................................................................................. 5 Three key dimensions to Smarter Computing ................................................................................................................ 6 How well do you understand your key business processes? .................................................................................................... 6 Does your organisation know what it knows? ......................................................................................................................... 7 How smart is your infrastructure? ........................................................................................................................................... 9 Starting the journey to Smarter Computing ................................................................................................................. 11 Begin with a candid assessment of where you are today ...................................................................................................... 11 Develop a long-term vision but with short-term goals .......................................................................................................... 11 Getting fit for Smarter Computing ......................................................................................................................................... 12 Begin with a series of short, small projects............................................................................................................................ 12 A call to action ....................................................................................................................................................................... 13 About The Bathwick Group ............................................................................................................................................ 14 | Page 2 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011 www.bathwick.com
  • 3. The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011 Smarter Computing – the new imperative There are two sets of drivers behind the idea of Smarter Computing; the first is the fact that the rate of change in the competitive landscape is accelerating beyond the point where the traditional approach of “make do and mend” is enough to ensure an organisation’s survival, let alone its profitability. Over the years our IT systems have become complex and difficult to manage, and as a consequence IT is increasingly finding itself in the position of being a barrier to innovation rather than an enabler of it. The second set of drivers relate to the technologies that are available to help in addressing the challenge of delivering flexible, dynamic business processes at low cost. Organisations have to take a new approach to the way they manage and deliver IT – responsive, effective and efficient IT is no longer simply nice to have - it has become a question of survival. Smarter Computing defines a new manifesto for IT, with a focus on the delivery of the best business outcomes in the most efficient and effective way. For the majority of organisations Smarter Computing defines a set of goals that represent the fulfilment of what will be a journey. This paper describes the steps that organisations need to take on the road to Smarter Computing. Key messages: getting on the road  Begin with a fitness check If you want to deliver smarter computing for your organisation you have to start with a candid self- assessment and use this as a basis to determine your path towards Smarter Computing.  Remember your goal is to help support innovation not hamper it Many organisations are beginning to see IT as a barrier, not an enabler, to innovation. Support for business innovation has to be built into everything we do.  Deliver incremental improvements in the way IT is delivered Don’t try to improve everything at once. Select a small number of key projects instead.  Take a holistic approach Look at infrastructure, data and processes together.  The boring stuff is just as important as the exciting new stuff In order to keep your IT “fit for smart” you need to continuously look at its core fitness. Auditing and managing your infrastructure, software and processes isn’t exciting but it’s crucial to ensuring that the gains you make are lasting.  Keep the ultimate destination in mind, but focus on the things you need to do NOW While it’s vital that you develop a clear idea of what Smarter Computing looks like to your organisation, it’s even more important that you focus on delivering positive results sooner rather than later.  When picking a partner, choose one that can help across the board Don’t pick a partner that can only help you make one part of your computing environment smarter; pick one that can help you address your infrastructure, data and processes together. |3| | Page 3 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011 www.bathwick.com
  • 4. The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011 Why Smarter Computing and why now? Given that, one way or another, vendors, analysts and commentators have been calling on companies to “do something” with their IT every year since the industry began, why should end-user organisations pay attention to Smarter Computing? The rate of business change really is accelerating Ever since the concept of business emerged as early civilisations began to develop and organize, competition has been a spur for innovation. The principle of the competitive landscape is hardly a new one but the rate of change within that landscape is changing dramatically. Agriculture as an activity began in 7000BC, by 6000BC it was widespread but still limited by its need to be close to major rivers (like the Nile in Egypt). It took another thousand years for the Sumerians to develop organized irrigation and it wasn’t until 3500BC that the ard (plough) began to see widespread use. This pace of change is glacial by comparison to that of today. If we move forward to the beginning of 40 the 20th century and look at the rate Years taken to reach an audience of 50 million 35 of adoption of a selection of key technologies it is clear that the rate at 30 which change occurs has been subject 25 to a dramatic acceleration. It took nearly 40 years for radio to 20 reach an audience of 50 million 15 listeners in the first part of the20th century. In the first part of the 21st 10 century it took just 18 months for the 5 Facebook mobile application to be installed on 50 million devices. 0 This rate of change is transforming Radio TV Internet Facebook every element of society, even in the Mobile domain of politics. Social media like email, Facebook and Twitter is transforming politics by offering a much more direct link between a party, or an issue, and the people that are interested in it. During the 2008 presidential election in the USA, the Democratic party’s campaign made use of all of the traditional tools (phone banks, door-to-door canvassing, television advertising, placards, rallies and bumper stickers) but it also made extensive use of new communications channels – notably social networking technologies like Twitter. This willingness to embrace every available communication channel clearly paid off. In February 2008 the Republican campaign raised $11 million, while the Democratic campaign raised $55 million. |4| | Page 4 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011 www.bathwick.com
  • 5. The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011 The competitive landscape is now global in scale Not only is the pace of innovation accelerating it is also much more global in nature. In 1963 a little over 18% of patents granted in the United States of America were granted to foreign individuals or corporations. By 2010 that figure had risen to just over 50%. Innovation in the domains of 250,000 60% business and technology is no longer the exclusive domain of the 50% developed West, and the long 200,000 term trends indicate that the 40% virtual monopoly on innovation 150,000 held by the West is going to be 30% severely challenged. 100,000 It is also important to remember 20% that innovation and competition isn’t just coming from the top-tier 50,000 emerging economies. In Africa 10% the pace of innovation in mobile commerce is outstripping the 0 0% 1963 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 developed West with services like m-pesa (The “m” stands for % of patents granted to foreign Total patents granted mobile and “pesa” is the Swahili individuals or corporations word for money) transforming the way money is transferred and exchanged. M-pesa is a mobile phone-based money transfer service developed by Sagentia (with sponsorship from the UK Government’s Department for International Development). The service is marketed by Vodafone and is run by IBM Global Services. How fit is your IT to face this challenge? While all of this innovation and change is taking place within the competitive environment, many organisations are finding that their existing computing infrastructure is making it harder, not easier to remain competitive. Several of our retail industry clients have told us that while they can arrange for a new outlet to have the necessary shop-fitting done in less than 48 hours, and can get stock to that outlet in less than a day, getting the necessary IT infrastructure in place can take several days or even weeks. We hear similar stories across every industry segment, and geographic area. |5| | Page 5 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011 www.bathwick.com
  • 6. The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011 Three key dimensions to Smarter Computing When we talk about Smarter Computing, we talk about it in terms of three key dimensions:  Process The core business processes that differentiate you as a business  Data The information upon which you base your business decisions  Infrastructure The computing resources that underpin your data and processes How well do you understand your key business processes? Very few businesses can (truthfully) claim to understand all of their key business processes from end to end. In the retail banking sector, it is still the norm for the process of opening a new account (perhaps one of the most important business processes within a retail bank) to require the customer to complete multiple forms, and the bank staff to enter data into several different applications. The smartest banks have already streamlined the customer on- An example of business process boarding process, creating greater customer satisfaction and confusion: better customer insight. The IT dept had to follow a business It is ironic that the most differentiating processes are often the process that involved printing out the entire corporate database messiest. These processes are the most likely to change over time, (consuming a considerable and as new elements are incorporated they gradually become more proportion of the overnight batch and more unwieldy. The result is often that the most important window) and then take the resulting processes within an organisation are often the least understood. print-outs to a specific room at the company’s HQ. Getting to grips with these processes isn’t always easy; the most differentiating processes tend to span multiple organisational Unknown to IT, the facilities management team were working silos and it is increasingly likely that they will involve third-party to a second process that instructed organisations as well. them to go to the same room every Smart organisations will constantly monitor key business morning and shred the print-outs that had been left there. processes, looking for opportunities to simplify and improve them. Getting to grips with your business processes Not all business processes are equal. Some business processes can be classified as utility processes. These are things you have to do in order to function but which don’t directly affect the way your organisation differentiates itself against the competition. Others are operational processes, which have an important bearing on your ability to deliver the goods or services that you offer. The third category of processes we classify as delivery processes, these are the processes that the customer sees and interacts with. |6| | Page 6 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011 www.bathwick.com
  • 7. The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011 You should treat these process categories differently, focussing on cost and efficiency where it comes to utility processes on one hand, and emphasising innovation and adaptability where it comes to your delivery processes. Where it comes to your operational processes, you need to constantly strike a balance between standardisation/cost reduction on one hand (i.e. pushing them towards the utility class) and innovation/ flexibility on the other. Utility processes are prime candidates for outsourcing, whereas organisations that outsource their delivery processes run the risk of placing their value proposition (and customer relationships) into the hands of a third-party. Given that your organisation’s delivery processes deliver the greatest differentiation, you need to ensure that they are the most adaptable, and this is going to have an impact on the data that they use and the infrastructure on which they run. You need to make sure that you understand the impact on infrastructure and data when these processes change, and be ready to target these processes for modernisation in order to ensure that they continue to be adaptable in the face of business change. KEY CHALLENGES FOR ORGANISATIONS THAT WANT SMARTER PROCESSES:  Aim to become confident that your organisation understands its three key business processes from end to end  Become confident that your organisation is managing these key business processes appropriately and that it is able to change them quickly in the face of new business demands  Get to the point where senior management is spending the right proportion of its time looking at the different types of process that your organisation relies upon. Does your organisation know what it knows? It is generally accepted that information is the life-blood of business, after all how can you possibly run a business effectively if you don’t know how much you owe your suppliers, who your customers are, or how much stock you are carrying? It should also come as no surprise that in the past 6 months we’ve had a retail client admit that they cannot tell at any given time how much they owe their suppliers, a bank that There are known knowns. These are does not know how many unique clients it has, and a manufacturing things we know that we know client that cannot reconcile its stock holdings centrally. There are known unknowns. That is to How can a retailer engage in dynamic pricing if it doesn’t know its say, there are things that we know we current liabilities? How can a bank properly report its exposure to don’t know risk if it cannot correlate all of the different accounts that are held But there are also unknown by its customers? How can a manufacturing company effectively unknowns. There are things we don’t manage and operate its supply chain if it doesn’t know its overall know we don’t know stockholdings? Donald Rumsfeld – Feb 2002 |7| | Page 7 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011 www.bathwick.com
  • 8. The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011 If you look at the famous quotation from Donald Rumsfeld, you might notice that, logically, there’s a fourth condition that isn’t included “unknown knowns”. For most organisations, the information is there, somewhere, it just hasn’t been harnessed. While much of the hoopla surrounding information management is currently centred on real-time analytics, most organisations have challenges that are much less exciting, but just as important. One of our clients recently said “Our MI team is constantly delighting us with new ways of visualising data that we know is inaccurate”. All the dashboards in the world won’t help retailers, banks and manufacturing companies make better decisions unless the basic groundwork has been done. You should think in terms of an information supply chain that begins with the raw bits and bytes and then moves through a number of processes to culminate in actionable information. It is also important to recognise that a growing proportion of the data that organisations will need in order to compete effectively won’t actually be owned by them. The smartest organisations are already gathering data from a whole range of sources, including social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook in order to measure and predict demand for their products, but the value of this data depends on your ability to combine it with your own. If you can’t make sense of that data that you own and control, it is unlikely that you’ll get the best out of all of the additional data that exists. The smartest organisations have already implemented a “single view of the truth” whether that relates to stockholdings in manufacturing, patients in healthcare or customers in banking. The exceptionally smart organisations recognise that maintaining that single view of the truth is an on-going project. Every new application that the organisation deploys has the potential to fracture that single view, so the cost and effort associated with maintaining it is factored into every new deployment. Without this discipline, an organisation might achieve a single view of the truth in 2012, and see it fade away by 2014. The new era of real-time analytics and big data represents an enormous opportunity for organisations to react to changes in the marketplace more quickly and with greater precision than ever before, but that opportunity will be lost to organisations that fail to invest in the basic information infrastructure upon which real-time analytics depends. KEY CHALLENGES FOR ORGANISATIONS THAT WANT TO KNOW WHAT THEY KNOW:  If you don’t have a single view of the truth, this should be a top priority  Identify the pieces of information that are most critical to your key business processes  Make sure that the information that senior management is using to make key business decisions is accurate, trustworthy and timely  Make sure that information is delivered to the people that need it, in the format that is most useful to them |8| | Page 8 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011 www.bathwick.com
  • 9. The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011 How smart is your infrastructure? Infrastructure lies at the heart of everything we do in IT and it represents 8 out of ten CIOs admit to not the foundation of Smarter Computing. The right infrastructure will help knowing how many servers you deliver the rate of change that the business demands by reducing (physical or virtual) their the time it takes to develop and deploy new applications, and once organisations are currently running those applications are in production the right infrastructure makes it easy to manage those applications. We’re currently in the middle of a period of enormous change in terms of the way we define, design and deploy infrastructure. Virtualisation promises enormous benefits where it comes to the effective utilisation of the resources (servers, storage and networking) that we currently have. Cloud computing will become the dominant model for infrastructure over the next decade, but how many organisations are really in a position to take advantage of the levels of automation, scalability and flexibility that virtualisation and cloud computing offer? This transition will take time for most organisations. There are very few companies that can transition all of their servers to cloud-based infrastructure overnight; for the majority the road to smart infrastructure is going to take some time and will require significant change in the way infrastructure is sourced, managed and provisioned. The key to smarter infrastructure is to begin the journey For many organisations the idea of a fully automated infrastructure nirvana will seem a long way off, but the key to getting there is to make a start. Some organisations will already be some way down the road, while others will have to do a considerable amount of work in order to get their Average Intel infrastructure fit for Smarter Computing. server utilisation So what will it take to make your infrastructure fitter? As with any fitness - < 10% program the process needs to begin with a candid assessment of the current Average storage state of fitness. You could begin by asking these questions: utilisation compared with capacity  Do you know how many servers you have in production today? - < 30%  Do you know how many different software products are deployed around your organisation, and are you certain that they are appropriately licensed?  Do you know the average utilisation of your servers?  How long does it take to bring a new server into production? You should ask a similar set of questions about your organisation’s storage infrastructure as well. Having established where you are today, you can now identify those elements of your organisation’s infrastructure where modernisation would bring the greatest business benefit. |9| | Page 9 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011 www.bathwick.com
  • 10. The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011 X86 blades won’t always be the answer When looking at how to make your infrastructure more flexible, more reliable and less expensive, don’t assume that scale-out architectures will always offer the best solution. Some workloads are ideally suited to the horizontal approach to scaling that blade technology implies, while others are much better suited to scale-up environments or “sealed” appliances. In the domains of large-scale OLTP applications, for example, high-end SMP-based hardware can offer significant advantages over Intel-based solutions, and in other domains, network attached appliances can offer major benefits when it comes to very specific tasks like XML processing. The key is to look at the range of workloads your infrastructure needs to support, and to choose the most appropriate technologies to support those different types of processing. The future of infrastructure doesn’t rest solely in the hand of X86 machines, even if the blade-oriented scale out approach to infrastructure is set to be the dominant architecture. There will always be some workloads that run better, faster, more reliably and more cheaply on scale-up hardware; the key to success lies in identifying the right workloads for the right platforms. The two most misused words in the domain of infrastructure are “architecture” and “governance” While your choice of hardware, virtualisation platform and management technology are all important decisions, the way you assemble these components and the approach you take to infrastructure governance are just as important in determining your ability to enjoy the benefits that these technologies can bring. Architecture isn’t simply about creating blueprints. Architecture is a process that begins by asking you what you want to achieve, then looks at the current infrastructure in the light of that goal. Before moving to the blueprint phase, good IT architects (just like good bricks-and-mortar architects), also consider external constraints and stakeholders. The final phase is to look ahead, and provide a basis for the future evolution of the business and the infrastructure that it will need. Governance is a second crucial factor in delivering smarter infrastructure. Organisations that fail to put in place appropriate processes to manage the server deployment process, charge-back, and procurement are likely to find that the benefits in terms of reduced cost and management complexity, higher reliability and greater flexibility will be difficult to achieve. KEY CHALLENGES FOR ORGANISATIONS THAT WANT TO DELIVER SMARTER INFRASTRUCTURE  If you don’t have an accurate register of the assets that make up your infrastructure, creating one should be a top priority  Establish, and police, a governance framework to ensure that the policies you set down are adhered to  Identify those parts of your infrastructure that need to be the most flexible in order to deliver business value, and focus (initially at least) on those  Don’t forget that the goal isn’t “Cloud” (or any other buzz phrase), it’s infrastructure that is reliable, flexible and low-cost. | 10 | | Page 10 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011 www.bathwick.com
  • 11. The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011 Starting the journey to Smarter Computing If you ask someone who has climbed Everest how long it took, the chances are the reply will be something like “four and a half years”. The actual climb itself can take only a matter of days, and the fastest climbs have taken fewer than 24 hours, but the process of climbing Everest doesn’t begin at Base Camp 1, it begins when a person makes the conscious decision to get to the summit. Once a person makes that decision, it’s likely that there will be a year (or several) of preparation to undertake before they even get to Nepal. Clearly if you’re already an experienced climber the transition from Mont Blanc to Everest may only require 6 months preparation, but if your biggest recent ascent has been up the ladder into your attic it’s likely to take a lot more effort and a lot more time. The same is true when it comes to Smarter Computing. When you see some of the most adbvanced computing environments it’s easy to be a little put off. The leading Smarter Computing environments were already pretty smart. What about those of us who are a long way from being fit enough to scale the summit? The bad news that if we do nothing we’ll be left behind; the good news is that every step we take towards Smarter Computing brings its own benefits. Even the basic, mundane activity of conducting a complete asset audit will help you control costs and improve governance. The key is to start the journey. Begin with a candid assessment of where you are today The journey to Smarter Computing has to begin with an honest and pragmatic self-assessment. How fit is your computing environment? In the context of your business processes, you need to establish how well understood your key business processes are. When it comes to data, you need to identify the gaps in your organisation’s understanding of what it knows. In terms of infrastructure you need to determine the cope of your current infrastructure. This assessment will provide you with a basis, from which the rest of your journey will proceed. Develop a long-term vision but with short-term goals The chances are that, as a result of your initial assessment, it will be pretty clear that significant parts of your computing environment are far from being “smart”. So the next step is to define your objective (or a set of objectives). Now you can begin the process of planning the program of work that you need to undertake to get from your current state of fitness, to the state of fitness that will be required in order to reach your summit. Going back to the Everest analogy, what does it take to climb a mountain?  Physical fitness  Expertise  Equipment  Teamwork  Discipline | 11 | | Page 11 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011 www.bathwick.com
  • 12. The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011 The key is that you need all of these. The best equipment in the world won’t be any use if you don’t know how to use it properly. For competitive cyclists, a difference in weight of 200 grams can make a difference of several seconds over the course of a race, for an occasional cyclist it is unlikely to be noticeable. Without a team, with a common set of goals and clearly defined responsibilities, climbing Everest would be close to impossible. Discipline is also essential, whether this relates to rules about the amount of equipment people can bring with them or the amount of training they have to do before joining the team. Again, this analogy can be applied to Smarter Computing. The best server hardware in the world won’t help unless you have the expertise to use it appropriately. There is no point in establishing policies unless you’re prepared to police and enforce them. You can’t hope to drive business benefits unless the business feels that it is part of the team. For many organisations, the “Summit” is likely to seem a long way off. So how can organisations motivate themselves to begin the journey? Getting fit for Smarter Computing Having done your fitness assessment, you should be able to determine what you need to do to get your organisation fit for Smarter Computing. When you look at this, you need to consider the following things.  Skills and expertise What skills and expertise do your people need in order to get fit for the journey?  Technology selection What are the best technologies to deploy in order to help you deliver Smarter Computing?  Get external help Very few successful athletes work without a coach, the most successful will have a number of people working with them on diet, core fitness, technique etc. The same is true for Smarter Computing. Begin with a series of short, small projects Faced with an apparently arduous journey, it’s easy to feel discouraged. The key lies in breaking it down into a series of phases, each of which brings its own benefits beyond simply getting you closer to your objective. For example, simply auditing your assets (the essential first step) is a worthwhile exercise. As you identify redundant infrastructure (processes or data stores) you’ll be reducing complexity and lowering cost. The point is that you don’t have to wait till you reach the summit for your reward; you will be able to deliver meaningful business benefits with every step of the journey. We’d recommend that you begin with small projects, typically with a timescale of well under a year (we suggest 6 months as a basis). Shorter projects bring a number of benefits.  The destination feels within reach Short projects have a sense of focus that long term plans often lack  Risks and resource requirements are easier to predict As project timescales grow, the likelihood of unforeseen issues and resource demands grows even faster | 12 | | Page 12 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011 www.bathwick.com
  • 13. The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011  You can set, and maintain, a sense of momentum Momentum is important if you have a long term vision  You can readily adapt to changing business needs How many organisations can predict what their key business process, infrastructure and data requirements will be in five years? A call to action If you recognise the need to deliver a Smarter Computing environment for your organisation, then the time to begin that journey is now, not least because your most dangerous competitors are likely to have already started their journey. Here are four initiatives that we urge you to begin, right now. Do your fitness assessment Launch a six week project to conduct an initial assessment. Look at your overall approach to the delivery of computing to your organisation. How well aligned is your IT function with the business objectives of the organisation that it is there to serve? The output of this project should help you prioritise the next three initiatives that you should be launching. The initiatives that follow should have a time scale of between three (the ideal) and six months to be realistic. Launch a smarter process initiative Identify three key business processes – the ones that are the most crucial for your organisation’s success, then make sure that they are properly understood across the organisation. Identify who should be involved in refining and improving these processes and then get on with the job of making them smarter. You can then look at how best to deliver these processes; are they embedded within a legacy application, or are they running within an environment that makes them easy to change? Your organisation’s most differentiating processes should determine your plans to modernise your infrastructure, and deliver smarter data. Launch a smarter data initiative Identify three key pieces of information that your organisation’s executives need to have available to them all of the time. Then make sure that you can deliver them to those executives via whichever channel (paper, dashboard, email, SMS text, etc) is most useful to them. Launch a smarter infrastructure initiative Do an assessment of your infrastructure, make sure you know how many different servers you have, how much software you use (and how it’s licensed). Then set yourself a challenge to reduce the number of physical servers in your infrastructure. For some organisations this may manifest itself as a challenge to switch off one server a month, for others it may result in a challenge to switch off twenty. | 13 | | Page 13 | All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011 www.bathwick.com
  • 14. The road to Smarter Computing - June 2011 About The Bathwick Group The Bathwick Group is a research-based consulting company that helps clients address their most pressing needs in strategic planning, go-to-market planning and execution, and IT infrastructure effectiveness: CONSULTING  Bathwick Engage A rapid collaborative consulting service combining external experts and IP protection mecha- nisms to expedite solutions to major corporate challenges  Enterprise IT strategy Planning and contract support for enterprise IT leaders; productivity and infrastructure agility benchmarking and best practice  IT vendor strategy and marketing Customer analysis and deep research for IT vendors targeting mid-market and enterprise markets  Sustainability strategy Modelling and benchmarking for organisations wishing to embed sustainable practices and mitigate strategic risks RESEARCH AND BENCHMARKING  Research Platform A flexible software platform for organisations to deploy their own surveys and benchmarks, both internal (e.g. employee surveys), or external (e.g. market intelligence)  Media Platform A research platform for online media customers, providing an engagement environment to en- courage reader registration and generate new revenues SALES ENABLEMENT  The Customer Insight Platform A software platform that supports deployment of sales guidance, customer as- sessments, marketing collaterals, ROI tools, etc. direct to a seller’s laptop for online and offline operation; for both direct and channel sales support. The Bathwick Group also includes the ThinkAgain Partnership LLP, a global collaborative research network, which brings together academics, writers, business and political leaders to generate new insights into business productivity and performance, geo-political and environmental issues. All contents © The Bathwick Group Ltd 2011 Document number: BG-TL-W-00078UK-EN-00