Tag: Peter Bendor-Samuel

Blockchain-enabled “Smart Contracts” Solve Problems in Administering IT Ecosystem Services | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

Businesses are moving into a software-defined world with usage-based service contracts and an “Everything-as-a-Service” ecosystem of providers. But there’s a problem: Contracts have not kept up with the desire to buy things in an as-a-service model in an ecosystem. Thus, the contracts provide no accurate way to account for usage adjustments that need to be made. This is a huge, nettlesome problem for service providers and customers, which I’ve recognized for years. Now there is finally a powerful solution, and I’m excited to share with you how blockchain-enabled “smart contracts” can solve this dilemma.

Read more at my CIO Online blog

Why a Hackathon May not be a Good Strategy for Your Company | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

Hackathons, or hackfests, are getting a lot of buzz for being a collaborative, crowdsourced way of generating new product or service ideas. Sometimes they’re even touted for ideas that drive change and create a competitive advantage. But if that’s what you have in mind for a hackathon at your company, prepare for a letdown.

The buzz isn’t all hype. Entirely new companies (such as GroupMe, which was acquired by Skype) have been birthed from hackathons. And Facebook’s “like” button originated in an internal hackathon at Facebook. Some hackathons resulted in government entities capturing new ideas on how to improve government services. And an increasing number of companies find hackathons to be an effective strategy for improving employee engagement.

Read more at my CIO Online blog.

The Primary Challenge To Blockchain Technology | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

Any emerging technology goes through a hype stage. It takes a while to get the kinks out and for pilots and proofs of concepts to prove use cases and shift the curve to broad adoption. The power and disruption of blockchain is evident in the news almost daily, and people are beginning to understand how blockchain distributed ledger technology works. I’ve previously blogged about soaring investments in pilots and proofs of concepts (POCs) on its security and examples of use cases. Even so, there are several issues currently slowing adoption.

Blockchain adoption is currently crossing the chasm, and I believe the next two years will be critical for resolving issues now slowing broader adoption.

Read more at Forbes blog

Why Anticipated Value From Digital Implementation Often Disappoints | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

Every senior executive recognizes that digital disruptions are both a huge potential blessing and an enormous threat. Companies can be Uberized out of existence, as is happening with taxi cabs. Or like Amazon, companies can create whole new offerings and competitive advantage. GE uses the power of the Internet of Things to create a new $5 billion business and transform its competitive position. But if it didn’t, new competitors could take its place. It’s no wonder companies often fall into the trap of believing technology can create value.

Businesses recognize the power of digital technology. However, the technology business presents a great lie to the market: Buy this technology and you will be able to do wonderful things. At one level, that’s true. Companies that have bought technology have accomplished wonderful things. But it isn’t true that the technology drives the benefit. The business model drives the benefit.

Read more in my blog at Forbes.

A Fundamental Flaw in Approaching Digital Transformation | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

What makes digital technologies so different and disruptive is their potential to enable very substantial business benefits. “Enable” is the key word. Too often, executives see the power of a technology and reason to themselves, “This technology will create significant benefits, so we need to implement it and learn how to use it to our advantage.” The problem is this is a fundamental flaw in approach that almost always ends up in a digital transformation failure.

Technology does not drive change; creating substantial business value requires changing the business model. And a business model change requires many changes in operations, not just new technology. Yes, those changes are cross-functional, usually end to end, and always disruptive. But without changing other operational aspects than technology, the transformation initiative will fail to deliver the anticipated outcome.

Read more in Peter’s CIO online article.

What’s Driving The Vibrant Growth In Global In-House Centers for Services? | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

There is a do-it-yourself (DIY) movement building in the services space. At Everest Group, we continually track the number of Global In-house Center (GIC) startups, and the number is accelerating. Along with new startups, existing GICs (formerly known as “captives,” or enterprise shared-services organizations in low-cost areas) are expanding their scope. In this post, I’ll highlight four reasons why the DIY GIC movement is growing and delivering value.

  1. Lower Barriers to Entry
    Historically, building a GIC or captive has been difficult and risky due to the substantial barriers to entry. It’s a daunting prospect to go into a country where you don’t have a presence, particularly in a developing country such as India or Eastern Europe or South America and master the complexities of local property regulations, business licensing, hiring practices, finding and identifying the right leadership, finding and hiring the necessary talent teams.

Read more at Peter’s Forbes blog.

CEO Mandate is not Enough for Success in Digital Transformation | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

If you’re a CIO or other executive tasked with leading a digital transformation project, chances are high that you’re left-brained oriented — you’re a logical thinker and are very good at solving problems. But be careful when you develop the approach to the transformation. Inevitably you’ll be asked “What’s the solution?” and “What does the road map look like?” Speaking for myself here, we folks with dominant left-brain characteristics are often “stupid” enough to answer those questions. Unfortunately, thinking we are bright enough to know the answers is a mistake that usually motivates passive-resistance to change and can even lead to a failed initiative.

Some leaders driving transformation initiatives have a natural tendency to go right to the problem, figure out the solution and start working on it. This is especially the case in organizations where there is a mandate from the CEO to make the transformation happen. Everyone understands they must get on board with the mandated change.

Read more at Peter’s CIO online blog

Thinking Bigger with Digital | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

It’s no surprise that companies are diving into digital. When combined with new business models, digital technologies not only result in extreme efficiencies but also set the stage for the ability to change a company’s competitive posture. We’re seeing markets transform as they rotate into digital. Moving into the digital world drives two effects. It clamps down on efficiencies and productivity. But what’s really interesting to me is digital’s rippling effect.

Like pebbles tossed into a pond, rotating into digital uncovers new addressable markets. For example, let’s look at the new market that digital creates in the call center space.

Read more at Peter’s Forbes.com blog

Regulatory Changes Drive Digital Disruption | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

Companies in some highly regulated industries often view digital transformation and digital restructuring as being constrained by laws and regulations that don’t evolve fast enough to allow digital transformation to happen. But there’s another side to the regulatory coin: sometimes regulatory changes enable and drive disruption and business transformation. That’s about to happen in a few months with APIs and financial institutions.

A payment service directive will go active in the UK in January 2018. The directive will force all banks to expose their core systems to APIs for three functions:

Read more at Peters Forbes.com blog.

Is Blockchain Technology Secure for Your Company’s Transactions? | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

Blockchain technology is hard to ignore as practically everybody’s talking about it. That’s understandable because it’s predicted to disrupt the value flows that underpin business transactions and economies as well as create new business models. It has enormous power to solve business problems. But is a blockchain “distributed ledger” secure?

Blockchain is still in its infancy, so company leaders are naturally concerned about whether it can be manipulated. Organizations worldwide are seeking to take advantage of the new opportunities and disruptive power of blockchain — organizations that understand the magnitude of potential security issues. It has been rigorously tested in pilots and at scale by many governments, institutions and companies that have found the technology is incredibly secure.

Read more at Peter’s CIO.com blog

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