I’m coming in by invitation of @sureddy on Twitter to share a few thoughts for consideration from perhaps a little different vantage point…

Below is a backdrop from which I offer a few observations that I strongly believe have proven to be critical to cultural/paradigm shift transformations:

Over the years, working across many corporate functions, including IT, dealing with cultural change and paradigm shifts, one conclusion I formed has remained true: Regardless of the particulars or function, dealing with cultural change in the context of a paradigm shift is pretty much the same.

Most of us, think our circumstances are so very unique. This is true, but the process of change on both fronts is universal. This doesn’t diminish the significance of the change itself and all its inherent issues that need to be resolved. Change is difficult. However, in my experience, engaged leaders and often very simple strategies work far more effectively than big grandiose campaigns and/or trendy methodologies that often make change seem complex and contrived.

The great news is this universal reality provides a wealth of time-tested KNOWLEDGE to drawn from that can be hand-picked, customized and adapted for specific circumstances and issues. It is often a deliberate step by step strategy that works best — part visible; part invisible behind the scenes. I assume many of you, if you reflect on what has worked for you, works, would agree.

So when I think and observe the ENTERPRISE COMPUTING transformation in progress, I see IT going through what most other functions are doing. Reinventing themselves for a whole new global marketplace reality. It is exciting for those who can see it and experience it and dream about it. It is suspect to those who “don’t yet get it.” I think the result will change the culture in some dramatic ways, including…
*** the way we think about competitors,
*** mutualistic collaborations some can’t imagine with old thinking,
*** a demand that everyone master the art of putting differences together,
tapping into new combinations people and technology that create
innovation far greater than any one could do on their own, and
*** the development of an open, adaptable working environment that is focused on discover of the next new idea.

OBSERVATIONS/IDEAS about CULTURAL/PARADIGM SHIFT TRANSFORMATIONS

• The FIRST CRITICAL steps are to effectively…1) establish THE NEED FOR CHANGE in every mind, 2)engage sponsors’/people’s COMMITMENT to be part of it in a big way; 3) create experiences that immerse people in the “the end in mind” — enough that they can see where they are now — and havea fingerprint on developing the path and outcome of where you are leading them.
• Most people go yah, yah, yah about #1, but few execute it with superior results achieved. We(and consultants ☺) tend to put everything through “the complexor” — big new words, complicated flow charts, graphs with statistics, surveys and analysis, processes that make most people doubt the change and themselves — all the same ol’ things we’ve all seen before. Then we wonder why senior leaders don’t get it; people aren’t engaged, and change doesn’t take root as we hoped. ACCEPTANCE of a cultural change/paradigm shift or any change is undoubtedly the most overlooked, under-valued, and/or ignored success factor in most strategies related to cultural/paradigm changes.
• SPECIFIC to ENTERPRISE IT…My observation (offered humbly) is like other organizations, IT tends to talk about its changes in language it understands. When others don’t get it, those people blame the messenger, the idea, timing et al… in other words, those who don’t “get it,” throw up all kinds of “gorilla dust” or create obstacles that most often create a detour or derail progress. Unfortunately, again like others in this situation, the problem is rarely diagnosed as a “failure to execute” #1 and #2 above, but it is. If people don’t get it, it is because it was not effectively introduced — meaning “you didn’t get the order”. It only takes a few cynics, victims, or bystanders — or threatened peers/senior leaders to cause this. Sometimes it comes from consultant-rich involvement that has a bunch of fanfare, but doesn’t really create the ongoing results and organizational engagement and ownership needed to fuel next steps and new levels of acceptance and investment at the organizational level to support success.

What do you see from your vantage point? Would welcome learning about alternate perspectives.

Best…
Debbe

@debbekennedy
founder, Global Dialogue Center/Leadership Solutions Cos.
author, Putting Our Differences to Work…

I think your points concerning process standardization and enterprise messaging services are where the real payoff will be. Many organizations find changing the culture and the people too difficult, so they buy software the forces the culture to the way the software app wants to do things. To the extent that a cloud delivered service instantiates a best-practice process (or at least a good enough process at the right price) you will find companies improving their business processes by dint of adopting cloud SaaS.

Integration of the supply chain has been rolling along, but there is still quite a way to go. Standard message bus and the protocols that ride over this bus will make supply chain integration that much better, and will bring the B2B integration only the “big boys” can afford to a much wider constituency.

As for the Twitter discussion on the speed of adoption – I think it is at least 7-10 years before most Fortune 500 corporations can say that they have at least one mission critical application running in the cloud. Even if an organization had an appetite to get 100% of its context apps into the cloud, it would be a minimum of 4 years to migrate environments because of the problem of stranded capital.

I think that in 15 years when I am right about to retire, most of what we consider IT today will be in the cloud with maybe only about 10-20% of on-premises equipment. It will be a complex and difficult environment to manage because while each individual component may be simple and commoditized, the overall system will be very complex. Making the aggregate of all the best in breed services deliver the promised value will be the challenge to get right before things will really take off.

UNIX and whatever Windows system admins will be just as scarce as mainframe system programmers are today (and mainframes will still be around) doing niche work. Only a few people will really understand system programming and the interaction between hardware and software by then. The platforms will not need that much tuning and the abstraction level will be so high – only a handful of truly specialized application environments will require the level of complexity and investment we take for granted today.

Anyway – great article – enjoyed reading it thoroughly.

~Randy

randybias: The problem with the assertion that enterprises will adopt mostly public cloud is that, while true, it’s 20 yrs out. What about b4 then?

randybias: @A_F @samj The transition starts now and will take 20 years just like mainframe to client server. There is too much momentum in cli/server

sureddy: @randybias very interesting view! It only took 10 years to dramatically change manually driven enterprises to ERP/SCM based ones.

sureddy: @randybias Cost has been major barrier in addition to cultural barriers for first and second generation IT movement.

sureddy: @randybias now if IT leaders can’t think ahead of the business, their role will get marginalized. So, time scale are radically changing.

sureddy: @randybias Globalization, Economic turmoil, and pressure to create more value, competition, information empowered customer& many drivers

samj: @sureddy @randybias exactly – law of accelerating change. 20 years out is quite probably post-singularity so good luck with predicting that

samj: @sureddy @randybias that too… there is extreme pressure for a change & “digital native” competitors will devour incumbents

randybias: @samj @sureddy Some change accelerates and some does not. Given that cloud is more a people change than a tech change, 20 yrs likely.

randybias: @samj @sureddy regardless there is no way it’s 5. You just can’t grow it that fast and enterprises don’t turn that fast.

randybias: @samj @sureddy 5 years is an eyeblink in Internet time. Not possible to create culture change that fast in an enterprise

valb00: @randybias @samj @sureddy Precisely. Cloud is a generational shift, driven by ‘millenials’. They’re in control now, so 5-10 years IMO

randybias: @valb00 @samj @sureddy 5 yrs is much too short. I could be talked into 10, but it took 15 just for the Internet to mature.

valb00: @randybias @samj @sureddy Our generation would take 10-15 years, but the younger one will do it in 5-10

sureddy: @randybias @valb00 @samj If companies fail to deconstruct their IT infra & embrace cloud, somebody will do & make them irrelevant

sureddy: @randybias @valb00 @samj Context functions are already moving & then Core –
valb00: @sureddy @randybias @samj Completely agree with Context already being on the move, followed by Core going to virt (5yrs), then cloud (10yys)

samj: RT @sureddy: If companies fail to deconstruct their IT infra & embrace cloud, somebody will do & make them irrelevant < - my point exactly

AAinslie: RT @sureddy: If companies fail to deconstruct their IT infra & embrace cloud, somebody will do & make them irrelevant (via @samj) +2

drelu: [Agree] RT @samj @sureddy: If companies fail to deconstruct their IT infra & embrace cloud, somebody will do & make them irrelevant

derik66: RT @sureddy: @samj If companies fail to deconstruct their IT infra & embrace cloud, somebody will do & make them irrelevant < -EA drives tha

randybias: @sureddy @valb00 @samj yes and no. Agree that companies that don’t embrace cloud run risks, but IT not only barrier to entry in industries

randybias: @sureddy @valb00 @samj For example, Kaiser Permanente is 3.5B IT shop. Need cloud but will upstart use cloud to dethrone? No. Other barriers

randybias: @sureddy @valb00 @samj This is not a black/white situation. Critical that biz embrace cloud now, but it will be a much longer process.

Winners will do more with less and create value not just cost reduction. There has to be a business benefits and there is one. Some old value proposition: productivity and service delivery.

Having gone through a couple of on-prem SAP implementations, I can absolutely see the benefits that could be achieved. Many enterprises roll out ERP deployments in phases, meaning that different aspects (e.g regions) are rolled out, while others continue on legacy. Maintaining these in parallel is a painful process, and often go awry, leaving a bad taste in executives’ mouths, not to mention a budget that ends up out of control.

Assuming that an enterprise does decide to move away from on-prem and choose to go this route, the challenge then becomes bringing customers/partners on board, integrating them into an enterprise’s ecosystem. Different partners, different systems…this is where standardization AND flexibility will be key; cloud services will need to be flexible enough, as customers/partners can change, and so do requirements. However some level of agreed upon standardization (set by customer most likely) is needed. Again, I do believe cloud services can enable that flexibility.

Ultimately, I believe most enterprises will adopt a hybrid approach with respect to ERP/SCM, and take advantage of benefits of both cloud services and on-prem. Some functions of an ERP system will be delivered through cloud, other functions will be delivered on prem, depending on the level of resources needed to perform those functions. I don’t necessarily think enterprises will want everything delivered through cloud services, but they will need to decide what functions can be delivered optimally from either.

Of course, then there is the challenge that goes along with a technological transformation of this nature, and that’s the cultural/organizational aspect of it. A change of this nature requires an organizational change; IT, finance, accounting, LOB become much more integrated and fluid. The role of procurement evolves; levels of accountability increase…all changes that become very disruptive. In order for this kind of transformation to happen, it must be an enterprise-wide effort.

That’s just my 2 cents…