Category Archives: Cloud Computing

#IdentityManagement and #IoT Coming Soon to You!

I just came back from a very successful trip to #Gartner and their Identity Management Summit. As a rockstar consultant, I am used to the throngs of people that gather for my pearls of wisdom. However, this year the crowds were out of control. I coupled the summit with a book signing as well and sold thousands of copies. But I digress. Let me explain the magic in more detail.

There will be more #IoT things than there are grains of sand on the beaches of the world. All of these #things will need context and connectivity. Without context there can be no connectivity and without connectivity there can be no context. So the two are different sides of the same coin, albeit the coin may be different. See what I mean? Therefore without a valid strategy encompassing agility, cloud, offshoring, and wage arbitrage your business is in deep trouble. Only automation and massive scale can help define and control the legions of end points that will soon be at your door step.

Hope this helps!

Sincerely, TCC

#IaaS for Christmas!

The client is struggling. Current IT staff is not capable and are wasting valuable cycles. Competitors are nipping at their heels and IT leadership is whistling by the graveyard. What is one to do?

This is the call I received last week and I immediately sprang into action. I quickly assembled the team and we converged on the client site. The initial meeting was tense. I looked at the Executives assembled before me and boldly claimed: “Your business is dying and IT is to blame”.

As heads nodded in the affirmative, I started with the proposal in a few steps:

Step 1: Offshore the entire IT department by Christmas. In a bold move, I told the customer to perform the layoffs on 12/24 so that tax savings would be maximized. But I told them to keep the layoffs a secret so we could pump all the information out of the current staff as possible.

Step 2: Allow me to staff a massive IaaS offering with self-service, cloud-bursting, load balancing, auto-tuning, agility, flexibility, pervasiveness, and ROI. Center of innovation would be Bangalore with secondary center of innovation in Russia.

Step 3: Sign a 10 year commitment with my firm to manage the resources.

The client agreed in short order. We celebrated at a fine steakhouse, with the pre-requisite leather chairs and all. #IaaS for Christmas is what the client wanted and what they will get!

Sincerely, TCC

How #MachineLearning and #BigData Saved the Day…

Let me be clear: my team is made up of rockstars. When a client knows they are in trouble, when they realize that revenues are down, that the end is near they call us in. Like superheroes, we swoop in and save the day.

Recently, a customer engaged my firm to save them from impending doom. At first glance, it was the typical customer deal. Incompetent leadership, poor staff, and bad lighting in the conference rooms. However, a more detailed analysis revealed the real problem: the lack of a comprehensive Big Data strategy and no ability to adopt machine learning.

I asked them, do you realize your competitors are miles ahead of you? Do you realize that without Big Data you cannot aggregate and disseminate the colossal troves of data you have? That without an ability to capture this data and analyze it that your data services have failed? By the end of the meeting, the entire staff was scared stiff. I also casually informed them that my firm was told to look for significant salary savings and that most of their positions were 100% dependent on helping me to launch this project.

Once the proper cajoling was completed, the client signed on the line which was dotted. I claimed a spot bonus for my fantastic sales ability while the customer now has access to my team to help them save their business.

Chalk it up as another win for the good guys!

Sincerely, TCC

#CloudComputing Saves The Day

Today my client was worried. Profits were decreasing and customers were not happy with service in their retail locations. I immediately convened a panel of experts from my firm to come in and listen to their issues.

There was Charlie, who is a major superstar in business process engineering. We brought in Pauline who has a list of consulting conquests that are too numerous to list. I flew in our most Senior Project Manager (Allan) to start planning work-streams.

As the customer went through their challenges, my team anxiously awaited the opportunity to present them a Statement of Work. We knew the solution before we even heard the problem. Cloud computing was required.

Below is an example of some of the dialog. Again, I am taking you into the conference room to experience the deal going down as it happened:

Customer: How does cloud computing address our product deficiencies?

Me: It provides efficiencies and agility while decreasing TCO and increasing ROI

Customer: Yes but the products are not popular with the market. How will cloud computing help?

Me: If you are not in the cloud, you are already behind. Fix your IT model and the products will follow.

Customer: When can you start?

There you have it. The net result: $10MM for my firm and several years of work at the client site.

Sincerely, TCC

Client needs #IaaS, I deliver

One of the things I love about my career is my ability to make a difference in the lives of my customers. I have a saying that is tried and true:

“It not how you play the game, it’s how you change the rules to win at the game”

Case in point. I was with a client a few weeks back holding a massive strategy summit. I had my team bring in poster-sized PostIt notes so that we could cover the walls with brainstorming and diagramming. During the meeting, it was determined that the company was losing money and market share due to the inability of their current IT team to work at the speed of business. Sensing an opportunity to go for the kill, I asked leading questions such as:

  1. Does your IT team utilize the latest and greatest DevOps and Cloud Computing methodologies?
  2. When hiring IT leaders, do you look for thought leaders or deep technical skills?
  3. Is IT growing as a cost and, given the failure of the current staff, are you looking at an offshore strategy?

The answers were what I expected. The IT team did not practice DevOps and Cloud Computing. Why? Because there were no funds made available for it and there had been a hiring freeze in IT for years. I confidently noted that lack of investment was not an excuse for the IT department. Truly agile thinkers should be able to get creative. After all, fire was not invented by a company that made lighters! It was discovered through sheer will by rubbing sticks together.

IT leaders were not really hired, they were promoted from within. I noted this is a tremendous mistake as those who work for the company already are part of the problem and should never be allowed to move up the ladder.

Finally, IT was growing as a cost but an offshore strategy was never looked at. I quickly mentioned wage arbitrage as THE strategy to follow as it was a way of saving money while also freeing the client of any and all obligations to their IT employees.

Given my deft navigation of the meeting, the client begged me for a solution. I came back with a multi-point program focused on an offshore strategy and IaaS. I pointed out the following benefits:

  1. My consulting firm would take over IT from the client. We would do this for 6 years at a total cost of $100MM.
  2. The current IT team would provide knowledge transfer and would only receive their severance packages if they stayed through the entire period of 4 months during transition.
  3. I would fly to our offshore location (first class round trip) and assemble an army of IaaS gurus who would combine agile IT with orchestration, business process, and Six Sigma.
  4. ROI and TCO calculations would be done on a quarterly basis. If we under-performed we would try harder but if we over-performed, we would receive a bonus of 5% of the quarterly invoice.

The client gladly accepted my proposal and has engaged with us to start the process. For all of those in the same position, I highly advise you to look into wage arbitrage and IaaS as the elixir to cure all that ills you.

Sincerely, TCC