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JohnBarnes
7/23/2016 8:36:04 PM
User Rank Platinum
Agility and the short cycle
Excellent breakdown of the implications for different offices, but to suggest a unifying theme: agility means the time between noticing a need and filling it is much, much shorter. This means several fundamental changes:
1) Noticing problems and opportunities pays off better (the "delay discount" is reduced), so there's apt to be much more innovation and more innovative workers will be promoted faster. Time is money because of interest ($100 today is worth $104 next year if the interest rate is 4%) and the faster that cycle from problem-to-solution increases the value of finding problems.
2) A gradual decrease in fatalism and an increase in willingness to try to fix things. If it takes 2.5 years to find, specify, prototype, solve, and deploy, that breeds an attitude of "nothing ever changes", "you can't fight City Hall," and "that's just the way things are." If the same cycle takes six weeks (admittedly this would be extreme!), problems are just "those things we solve, it's part of the job." The cycle time is the time a problem has to be lived with after someone spots it and comments on it. Shorten the cycle, increase proactivity and commitment. Thus every company is more likely to reach for solutions rather than just live with the pain.
3) In a competitive environment, agility in information basically means you know what's going on before the competition does; this is why politicians and generals try to get "inside the decision cycle" of the other side. So early adapters of agile ops are going to acquire an advantage, and the only way to wrest it back from them will be for their laggard competitors to become agile themselves.
faryl
7/24/2016 9:38:43 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Agility and the short cycle
I worked for a large accounting firm for a while doing enterprise risk assessments of clients - usually to support our internal audit team, sometimes to support audits.
It's been years since I've done that work, but the idea of putting so much technology into the hands of c-suite executives makes me curious about the compliance aspect that goes along with it.
JohnBarnes
7/24/2016 11:11:40 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Agility and the short cycle
faryl,
Excellent point. C-suite executives haven't really had as much hands-on control over the day-to-day since the 1940s or so. And unlike the old generation, they weren't brought up to have it, either. Henry Ford could run Ford Motor or JP Morgan could run his bank network because they'd grown up with it, it was nearly an extension of them. No C-suite type has that kind of experience in depth anymore, except in small new firms.
vishalaug
7/25/2016 5:20:53 PM
User Rank Author
Re: Agility and the short cycle
Thankyou.
Yes. Agility is about moving & responding in a faster manner. To do that if the fundamentals itself are not right, achieving that will be difficult. E.g. If the CSP plans to launch a new Product Category (which doesn't fit within the conventional telco products category) and the existing Systems & Processes do not support it - it will severely impact the agility.
The NPV (Net Present Value) of Digital Initiative is expected to be positive, especially because of Agility. The right platforms can increase the Agility and reduces the cycle time of problem-to-solution. Even the mindset of the people has to change. But as I said in the first section of the article, such changes are not always easy in existing old organizations. However there has to be some starting point.
Tools that promotes Agile development & deployment is certainly part of Digital. OTTs don't take years & years to roll out new ideas (products/services). And that is well rewarded in the financial market. Look at the Enterprise Multiple (EV/EBITDA) of many OTTs. They are far higher than traditional CSPs.
Agree- there is no choice for the laggards, but to become agile & digital.
vishalaug
7/25/2016 5:42:18 PM
User Rank Author
Re: Agility and the short cycle
Agree, many C-Suit do not know about the technology. But they surely know about the goal and strategy.
In my recent engagement with a customer, I had the privilege to introduce the Digital Solution & Value, to not just multiple C-Levels, but also to the Key-Shareholders – with all sitting in a single room. The shareholders were pushing the Group CEO to make the company like a major OTT, in which they had started investing.
The focus was fully on Customer Experience, Partners, Products - and above all - making all Digital and Agile. They clearly could associate the relationship between the share-market and the need-to-become-agile-and-digital. So they do understand the need.
A side-note: This article is more about the 'offices' that each C-Level hold. It tries to answer the question 'What's-in-it-for Me?', and how their offices can rely on Digital Platforms to improve their stakes.
faryl
7/25/2016 6:18:43 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Agility and the short cycle
Ah - thanks for the clarification. I had read that from the perspective that this was streamlining processes using api's & gui so that c-suite execs could implement changes without having to rely on vendors/partners or technical staff. (Which is why I was wondering where change control management, etc. fit in).
(Now I'm going to re-read it from the "proper" perspective!)
faryl
7/25/2016 6:27:12 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Agility and the short cycle
Agreed. The way technology changes so quickly, even those who worked their way up from within usually only have hands on experience with the more dinosaur technologies. (The exception being - as you mentioned - smaller companies or tech/start-ups)
Granted, someone doesn't need to know how to build networks or code to manage those that do....as I think we talked about in comments elsewhere, the criteria for the executive level is on strategy & managment skills vs. hands-on knowledge.
We've also talked about how the value of all that data that's become available relies on the ability to analyze & use it - this article seems to cover the ways to make that happen.
batye
7/25/2016 8:08:25 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Agility and the short cycle
@faryl I could not agree more as technology changing rapidly yes rapidly, but with new reality is the only way - how I see it...
faryl
7/25/2016 10:16:18 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Agility and the short cycle
I guess that's where the need for agility fits in :)
batye
7/25/2016 10:18:01 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Agility and the short cycle
@faryl yes I would think so...
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