(Stephen Parker, Senior Industry Evangelist, 1visionOT)
It’s only a few years since “Cloud”, Big Data” and “Mobile” seemed like the bright shiny things. Now they are just mainstream with most of the major vendors trumpeting their current leadership or planned dominance in one area or another. Customers are focusing their new IT spending in these areas, referred to by IDC as the 3rd Platform http://www.idc.com/prodserv/3rd-platform/.
This acceptance is great news as like any change it creates opportunity. However, with mass acceptance come the challenges of increasing competition and growing customer expectations.
For service providers there are 2 major risks:
- For those who were early adopters there is the risk of complacency. Michael McQueen would explain it by saying “they saw the tipping point early, but whilst they were basking in the glow of success, they missed the turning point and are at risk of going beyond the tanking point” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zR7reXnQsY
- For those not yet in and don’t think it affects them, they are at risk of a blind spot. Looking through the lenses of the old business model shows limited benefits and lots of risks. They believe the great relationships they have with their customers means they can determine the time to change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindspots_analysis
Irrespective of your current position, as a service provider you need to be thinking about your Innovation Strategy and how you are going to continue to be the Disruptor.
As Jack Welch (Chairman, GE, 1981-2001) said:
“Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while.”
Cloudy Questions 