BPM ‘s Mighty Waters

Companies are using Business Process Management to support new ways of interacting with customers

BPM walk through the rocky road, and start climbing the value trails, through recent surveys, that BPM is increasingly becoming a part of mainstream management thinking, though only 16% of respondents believe that their organization’s processes are currently at the “optimized” level knowledge and practical experience of the topic, 82% believe as more executives know about BPM –to manage the knowing from flowing,  the more C-level executives may enjoy the BPM’s mighty waters, especially a few live streams merged in recently.

  

1. Social BPM

Social business is the transformation many organizations blueprint now, beyond social platform, in essence, social enterprise means the new mindset, the culture of learning & sharing, the more creative way to do business in order to adapt to the new generation of customers, always-on, hyper-connected, hybrid operational environment and extended enterprise boundary.

BPM is moving into an unstructured, more collaborative age. Rules management will be the way to stay properly governed, visible, and compliant, while dynamically keeping business processes on track with changing and complex, to reach desired goals and KPIs.

Social business processes can be categorized into:

·        Social co-creation via collaborative projects

·        Social profile management via user participation

·        Social publishing for content sharing and aggregation

·        Social feedback via engaging customers to improve customer service.

Social BPM also means to converge BPM with CRM, BI, MDM and other cutting-edge technologies in order to optimize processes and cultivate competitive business capabilities, to go beyond inside-out business process, to delight customer via outside-in viewpoint. Companies are using Business Process Management to support new ways of interacting with customers

Though social BPM is not fully mature yet, the business need ride the wave, to re-tool the key business process via social angles and embrace change management via social collaboration.

2. Gamification Embedded into BPM

Gamification is a way of using game mechanics (challenges, recognition and rewards) to improve a business process, with the goal of fulfilling business objectives.  Organizations can use gamification to motivate behaviors that elevate business performance.

Gamification can also help business understand key processes, then how to improve and optimize them to encourage positive behaviors and improve staff satisfaction. As BPM is no long just process automation in which everything is mapped in a step-by-step process flow; through gamification, BPM will help diagnose flaws in process design, also identify the key steps to success, then become integral part of process design for business,  to achieve high-performance result. Such as: the learning management approach speeds domain mastery, or the service excellence via incentives and leader boards

 3. BPM Meets BI

The other trend is about aligning Business Process Management and Business Intelligence to achieve business process excellence. The traditional BPM may have the limit to see the context of processes. By integrating BI and BPM, the closed loop performance management can be achieved, where the metrics compared with goals, and KPIs fed back to improve processes and decisions.

• Optimize decision making process via integrating BPM & BI, takes business insight to drive decision process;
• Closed Loop Performance Management by combining BI with rule management associated with BPM to monitor process from outside-in perspective.
• Business agility is enabled via process and data linked dynamically, fueled by master data and ruled by data governance and principles.

The more agile and intelligent process via social BPM, mobile BPM or BPM in the Cloud,  will improve cost efficiency, business agility,  governance, compliance with regulations, customer centricity, innovation-driven and improve staff satisfaction

                                             

In last two decade, BPM has its roots in industrial management practices such as TQM, BPR, BPI, at the age of digitization, BPM may become the mighty waters for more business to dive in, to nourish the new fruit via innovation.  

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Three Perceptions of Global Diversity Ranking Report

Recently released Globaldiversity ranking report, commissioned by Forbes Insights and conducted by Oxford Economic, based on a weighted composite index to compare and benchmark employee diversity across countries, industries and occupations.

The index is comprehensive and takes into account many different types of diversity. Three separate indexes compose the composite index: a country index based on 50 nations, both developed and developing; an industry index based on 14 industrial sectors; and an occupation index based on the nine core occupation categories used in ISCO (International Standard Classification of Occupations). This report provides a statistical look at worldwide workforce diversity data. The perceptions may include:

1. The Progress of Global Human Society

·         Workforce Diversity Drive Culture Evolution: The culture worldwide varies, some traditional cultures may become the main obstacle for workforce diversity and societal progress. However, the industry leaders in the report take initiative to proactively support diversity, as they believe diversity will enable innovation and innovation is the power of business growth, the business development will further help make societal progress and economical improvement.

·         Female Workforce Drive Economy Growth: It’s worth noting that greater economic equality between men and women has been shown to reduce poverty rates, boost GDP and lead to better governance. In order to improve female participation rates, governments can adopt a number of proven approaches such as flex-time  initiatives, free or subsidized childcare, and tax breaks for married couples when both partners work.

2. The Power of Leadership Diversity

·         Breaking  Through Glass Ceiling: The proportion of women who have climbed the corporate ladder and made it to board-of-director status varies greatly among countries. The nations with the highest percentage of female board members are Norway (36%), the Philippines (23%), Sweden (23%). It’s not surprising that Norway is at the top of the list, since it was the first country to mandate a quota system for board participation in publicly listed companies

·         Businesses led by Female Leaders Outperform Market: Studies have demonstrated a positive correlation between women in leadership positions and a company’s financial performance. For example, in the Forbes 2010 “World’s 100  Most Powerful women” issue, a study of the stock performance of the 26 publicly traded companies run by women on the list discovered that, as a group, they outperformed the market, where most companies were run by male CEOs. On average, the 26 companies beat the market by 28% and their respective industries by 15%.

3     The Pipeline of Talent with Multi-dimensional Diversity

·         Build a Global Power House of Multi-culture Talent: The multi-dimensional diversity includes gender, age, ethnicity, disability, country of birth, skills and education, number of hours worked, language, and sectoral and geographical distribution, The vision of the diversity program was to be a truly diversified firm in terms of race, gender and organizational culture and to promote the principle of strength through diversity

·         Worldwide Point of View: Diversity program success has come from increasing understanding of the diverse characteristics of the workforce, and the use of a variety of approaches across as many aspects of diversity as possible. The biggest challenge could be to pick the best of the best.

Diversity Is Integral to Growth, the report concluded: A diverse workforce is critical to reflecting a global society and companies’ customer base. It allows executives to understand  their clients’ needs better and communicate more effectively. Additionally, diversity drives innovation and fosters competitiveness.

 In summary:: Diversity reflects human’s progress to make difference and gain wisdom via professional growth, to retool the modern culture via business influence and digital footprint.

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EA & BA: A Tale of Two Roles

"In order to be a realist you must believe in miracles."  -David Ben-Gurion

E^st century: enterprise visionary and business solutionary. The diverse understanding of the two roles may also depend on the maturity of EA, the maturity of IT and overall maturity of enterprise, Here are five key differences between the two roles:
A-Enterprise Architect and BA-Business Analyst are two interesting business roles that cause a lot of debate, it may indicate both roles are crucial at the hyper-complex enterprise today, also reflect two talent trends in 21

Breadth & Depth: EA may focus on enterprise-level scope, while BA might need to dig into a specific project, though it may not say breadth is always superior to depth. The BA works at a fine level of detail to fully understand the current situation and/or problem to be solved. The EA works at a coarse-grained level of detail, a synthesis (summarization and/or abstraction) of all projects and/or business areas that are, a portfolio view of business areas. 

Synthesis vs. Analysis: Enterprise Architect is a "synthesis" role - key words are holism, visioning, aggregation, while Business Analyst is “analysis” role-key word are artifact, insight, segregation. EA’s main focus is on understanding the links between the parts, as EA needs to synthesize the holistic business view to ensure enterprise as a whole more effective and efficient than the sum of parts; while BA needs to analyze and solve the specific business problem via gathering inter-related data & fact. Both EA and BA could be process-driven, EA with the synthetic mind, helps to blueprint the future of business; Business Analyst with analytic mind help breakdown the problems, they may have complementary skills to solve complex issues

Insight vs. Foresight, Reality vs. Future: EA needs not only to walk through today’s enterprise, more importantly, but it also helps to perceive the future state of the business; while BA needs to focus on reality,  untangle current business puzzles. Business Architecture and Business Analysis are linked to each other in a closed reinforcing loop (analysis provides "insight" to synthesis, while synthesis provides "foresight" to analysis) - each feeding on to the other for a better outcome (which is understanding and management of business complexity).

Accuracy vs. Betterment: Two roles may focus on different business objectives: The BA works towards the accuracy of the representations (e.g., artifacts, models, etc.) of the current state of their projects and/or business areas for localized decision making. The EA works towards enterprise “betterment” (which is dependent upon the enterprise business strategy & future state of business) which leads to decisions that affect multiple projects and/or business areas that embrace collaboration, consolidation, and reuse. 

“Dispassionately” breakdown vs. “Passionately” blueprint: From innovation perspective: business analyst needs to "dispassionately" examine the alternative, also need such curiosity and creativity to open the new box of mindset in order to solve the old problems; for EA, to blueprint the future of business is not just knowledge & skills, but also passion, vision, and imagination. No doubt, the organization needs both types of talents: EA as enterprise visionary,  and BA, as business solutionary. If the talent is good at both disciplines, which is even more valuable, and at least, two types of talent need to work more closely either via the physical team or virtual group to solve complex, cross-disciplinary issues and shape an optimal enterprise. By working together, they can achieve first-rate intelligence:

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Five “C” Words at C-Suite

Either culture change or business transformation, change is the only constant today.

Modern business executives may inundate with numerous meetings, sometimes they get over-optimistic about blue sky strategy, or get lost in business details, or get limited by their official title,  what does big table conference need focus on, which roles C-Level should play: movers & shakers, innovators or thought leaders?

1. Customer:  the “Center” of strategic conversation

•  Customer Insight & Foresight: How does executive team make effective decisions to delight current customers and enchant potential customers.

•  Blue Ocean Strategy: “In Blue Oceans, demand is created rather than fought over. There is ample opportunity for both growth and profit.” The customer-centric strategy is also about how to make fresh choices to explore the blue ocean. 

2. Culture: The Spirit of the Organization is from Top

•  Toxic Culture sinks the ship: culture is about how people think and do things in the organization, the toxic culture includes such as uninspiring homogeneous leadership, destructive office politics, bureaucracy, or myopic goal setting., etc.
  

• “Culture” is Big Talk: Building a performance culture starts with management of organizational change, something that is rarely successful when driven from the bottom up. Organizational culture need be first shaped at C-suite, and executives need become culture masters first.

3. Capabilities: 21st Century Business Capabilities

 If the customer is the center of business strategy, the big “WHY”, and culture is “HOW” to do things,  and then, capability is about “WHAT” that enables us to execute the strategy. The strategy conversation need also focus on how to cultivate 21^st century’s business capabilities:

• Leaning Capability:  it's about Knowledge Management Capability, Human Mindset Capability and Organizational Intelligence.

• Change Capability: it's Change Management Capability, such as agility, elasticity to adapt to the future;
• Innovation Capability: Core Competency, Business value system,  information flowing capability., etc.
• Process Optimization Capabilities: How to keep business lean, reduce inefficiency & complexity --the process, cost structure., etc
• Governance Capabilities: GRC-Governance, Risk Management, Compliance

4. Change: The leaders need to be change agents first

 Either culture change or business transformation, change is the only constant today. The inspiring & authentic leaders need become change agents themselves,  to encourage critical thinking and creative thinking and to adapt to the changes. Therefore, Change need be the always on the topic at C-Suite, not for change’s sake, but for achieving long-term business goal and purpose.

• Continuous Improvement: the well-defined KPI Scoreboard helps leadership team to measure business improvement scientifically.

• Business Transformation: Only high-performance leadership team with cognitive capability and diversified viewpoint can help transform the business into the right direction and avoid blind spot.

5. Cloud: Not just technology terminology, but also the new mindset & model to run business

Cloud is not only about future of IT but also about how to run an “always-on” business without border and how to satisfy the customers at the hybrid business environment. It might be another interesting talk at C-Suite.

• New business delivery model: Businesses see the cloud model as a good response to business and market demand.

• New mindset: Despite potential savings in infrastructure, costs and improved business flexibility on the cloud, the new mindset is needed to leverage security, governance and risk management.

 Bonus Word: Concentration.

Strategy need focus & priority, C-Suite just needsd to walk the talk, to execute it solidly via practicing above five “C”s, to become the Change Agent and achieve high-performance business result.

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Five Myths of Business Architecture –Blue Print or Stove Pipe

As an emerging domain, enterprise architecture plays a significant role to help shape contemporary enterprise, as today’s businesses become over-complex, hyper-connect, and always on. However, the high percentage of EA project failure rate is a good cause to revisit its fundamentals, refresh its knowledge, debunk its myths, and make continuous improvement. BA as part of EA via Wikipedia definition also has the same mystery: attractive to become an effective tool but puzzled with diverse understanding.

1.   Definition of EA & BA

 From Wikipedia:

Enterprise architecture (EA) is the process of translating business vision and strategy into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating and improving the key requirements, principles, and models that describe the enterprise's future state and enable its evolution.

Business architecture is a part of an enterprise architecture related to corporate business, and the documents and diagrams that describe the architectural structure of the business.

Object Management Group'sBusiness Architecture Working Group as follows:

"A blueprint of the enterprise that provides a common understanding of the organization and is used to align strategic objectives and tactical demands." 

The myths are:

1) Is.BA is a PowerPoint presentation or a Business Solution?

2) Is EA = BA+ EITA?  If we translate this formula as Enterprise Architecture is a synthesis of the Enterprise Business Architecture and Enterprise IT Architecture disciplines.

2. Purpose of BA

The business architecture equivalent takes a look at balancing the business priorities and forcing conversations that are otherwise difficult to have. The real value of business architecture is keeping the priorities in balance and that is within the office of executives.

a) Business planning to bridge business strategy & execution
b) A business communication tool to keep the leadership team on the same page, and stay focus on key priority.
c) Business improvement initiatives of sufficient significance to warrant Board attention
d) Risk/governance management

e) Board performance

EA is to ensure the enterprise as a whole is more effective than the sum of parts via better designing and envisioning.

Myths:

1) Is BA an effective communication tool at C-level, to keep all executives on the same page by walking through discussions about strategy planning, governance, transformation, etc.

2) How to make the full architecture framework, documents, and charts simple, but not simpler? Highlighting the CHANGES, with standardization, coherence, and visualization.

3. The Main Components of BA

BA’s components and views may include: A Process View, A Business Strategy View, An Organizational Structure View, An Organizational Governance view, A Business Capabilities View, A Business Value Stream view, A Business Value Chain/System View, a Business Operating Model view, and other views."

The lack of proper focus on BA is one of the biggest reasons why we have had mixed results (mostly failure) on EA

The key point: Keep Focus and ‘critical success factors’ 

Myths:

1) Why is there a need to segregate the ‘business’ and ‘executive’ layers?

2) How should they be segregated? How will the segregation improve enterprise business architecture?

4. The Users of BA

 Business Architecture is one practice driven by the C-level and INTERWOVEN throughout EA or a company's operating strategy. Therefore, BA’s users include:

1) C-level:  BA could become a great executive communication tool, particularly when the BA discussion is kept at a higher level. 

2)  Managers: The architecture that is created needs to be maintained and used by the managers to adapt and improve the organization in the future. 

3) EA (Enterprise & Business Architect), BA (Business Analyst) who are both BA designers and users.

How to use BA?

The following are examples where you use Business Architecture:
• Shifting Business Structure
• Acquisitions
• BPM or Re-engineering for efficiency
• Business Planning
• Project Initiation

Keep BA and EITA separate for most audiences. Better simplify the presentations by highlighting differences and how the strategy is supported.

Myths:
1) Tractability is the major way of verifying BA correctness, but how?

2) There are not that many times when there are major strategy changes. How to keep BA relevant?

5. Is BA Part of EA?

Enterprise Architecture is a synthesis of the Enterprise Business Architecture and Enterprise IT Architecture disciplines.

BA should provide the business context for EA and therefore part of BA may become a component of EA 

 BA should drive much of EA. It should be part of the EA framework but doesn't necessarily need to be part of the EA organization. The lack of proper focus on BA is one of the biggest reasons why we have had mixed results (mostly failure) on EA 

Based on the Business Strategy, the sequence could be:

1) BA ending with a Future Vision, Strategy, and Roadmap.

2) Based on the BA results, develop an IT Architecture (Apps, Data, Infrastructure) and end with the future EITA, Vision, Strategy, and Roadmap. The ‘nexus’ between EBA and EITA is that they both contain components related to applications and information at different levels of abstraction.

3) The future EBA and EITA documents highlight (a) changes to the current architectures, and (b) how the future architectures support the business strategy. The emphasis is on ‘hot issues’ and ‘critical success factors’

Myths

1) The argument:  EA is BA, but BA is not necessarily EA. Nothing else makes lexical sense
 Is lexical sense critical from an architectural perspective?.

2) A business architecture would look for leverage within the ecosystems, industries, and domain knowledge that defines it.  How to define the BA’s scope?

EA/BA is such a discipline to blend art and science, requires critical thinking and creative thinking at the same time, to invent new ways of doing things, new solutions, new approaches, and new perspectives. The myths are not completely busted yet, and the debate is still on.

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Three Big WHEREs to use Big Data

By deploying Big Data’s WHY, WHAT, HOW, WHO, consequently we come to discover Big WHEREs need Big Data insight:

1.   Decision Point

Both academic and industry research suggest that companies use data and business analytics to guide decision making are more productive and experience higher ROE -returns on equity than competitors that don’t.

• Big Debate: There are many interesting debates to brainstorm Big Data potential to influence decision making:

1)      Does big data complicate decision or drive the right decision?

2)      How to filer out the noise of big data in order to make sound analysis?

3)      Big Data is about those small tweaks and chat, can it help solve big business problem?

• Big Judgment: That is said:  Big Data need big judgment. “. Big data and big analytics will dramatically amplify the effects of human decisions, which is great if those decisions are timely, sound, and effective—but potentially catastrophic if not.

• Big IQ (Insight IQ):  Some organizations build an “Insight IQ” index to measure the analytic maturity of employees: such as ability to find and analyze relevant information to make better decisions. The three elements of Insight IQ are information attainability, information usefulness, and employee capability

2.   Customer Touch Point

• Behavior & Sentimental Analysis: Customer-centric businesses have already used data to segment and target customers. But Big data leapfrogs such analysis to the state of the art by making real-time tailored customer solution possible via tracking the behavior of individual customer, update their profile, and model their likely behavior in real time, such in-depth customized analytics or sentiment analysis will increase the chance for high value customers to purchase higher-margin products or service , also help adjust business/marketing strategies accordingly. 

• Insight from Call center: some call center providers are embracing new analytic tools to dig deeper into the big data they generate. Companies are applying text and sentiment analysis to the unstructured data, and looking for patterns and trends,  to analyze agent records, identify customer concerns, highlight trends and patterns, and provides early warning capabilities. Call center logs can provide invaluable insight on what customers were calling about, and can also provide foresights for future product trends and what customers need for the next.

      3. Process Optimization Point

Like business analysis, the rise of BPM reflects a growing view that processes are instrumental in driving sustainable competitive differentiation. Distinctive business processes make one company stand out from its competitors. Differentiated and effective processes can create speed. Efficiency and agility to help organizations better adapt to the dynamics of the business environment

The alignment of BPM and Big Data Analysis can be seen from following perspectives:

• Injecting analysis into business processes to improve decision-making – i.e. it helps take well blended,  inside-out process view and outside-in Big data vision in decision making process.
• Closed loop feedback management—via big data analytics by digging into customers feedback & suggestions, business may practice closed loop feedback management discipline and optimize end to end business process to further delight customers or engage employees.

  There might be many BIG WHEREs need Big Data insight, via exploring such big three WHEREs, the business can walk the talk, to reach the destination step by step

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Strategy in One Sentence: Ten Creative Insight

“He who fails to plan is planning to fail" - Winston Churchill

 1.  The strategy is like GPS, with zoomed in vision as a destination, lead organization in the right direction, leverage resource, and execute effectively.

2. The strategy is like a 'Kite on a String,' it's about projecting and balancing variables on the business continuum to achieve that goal further away in the distance.

3. Good strategy is a funnel through which, all ideas that have been previously filtered, now flow and create a positive result for your company growth,

4. The strategy is the pillar of organizational existence, its design, structure, functions, vision, and mission. Without it, it's a black hole!

5. Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. A Goal without Plan is a foolish wish.

6. The strategy is the art of executive decision making.

7. Strategic planning follows 80/20 principle to provide focus. It helps the leaders to focus on the 20% of activities that will yield 80% future success.

8. A strategic plan is important as it is the road map for the achievement of an organization's goals, mission, and purposes.  

9. A real strategy is neither a document nor a forecast but rather an overall approach based on a diagnosis of a challenge.

10. You can judge the outcome of the good strategy, the people are happy working with clear purpose and the organization has the competency sailing through the thick and thin of the changing environment because it has more willing people.

twitter: @pearl_zhu

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Three Principles Modern IT Needs to Practice

Every IT Project is a Business Project!

Information is like blood, and technology is like a backbone for any modern business today. However, most IT organizations have a reputation as a cost center than a value creator, a controller than an enabler,  a tool than magic. With the new wave of latest technology trend such as cloud, mobile, consumerization and social, the contemporary IT leaders need to refresh the innovative mindset, embrace the lightweight technology, practice the following three principles, run IT with simplicity technically, culturally and politically, in order to become the strategic business partners and reach high-level of IT maturity.  

1.   Every IT Project is a Business Project

Every IT investment has a business purpose, therefore, every IT project is a business project. Some critical root causes of IT project failures include:

• The business purpose of the project is not well-defined and communicated, a clear-defined project purpose should well describe the business problems need to be solved or the strategic vision needs to be implemented.

• Business initiated projects run as an interesting technical challenge: The projects may have a relatively simple and sensible scope but get over-engineered by an excessively risk-averse IT department, adding so much cost and complexity that the project exceeds the cost/benefit or technical viability hurdles.   

• Governance was missing or was skipped; with the convergence of enterprise governance and IT governance projects that compete for resources should be assessed on the metrics of the business - not only ROI but also include business case &strategic input, and balanced scorecard metrics.

 2.   Simplicity is an Optimum of Sophistication

Managing complexity is a systematic effort: as today’s IT switch focus from “T” technology to “I” information focused, permeating into every corner in modern business, and related systems such as financial, productivity or customer service, supply chain platforms will be simplified either via the effective process or methodology.

• EA, BPM, PMO need to be managed holistically: The IT complexity may be also caused by short term goals, to run IT as a silo, with overcomplicated, poorly architected application/platform infrastructures. However, long-term success requires enterprise architecture, business process management, and project portfolio management teamwork more closely to reduce the waste and optimize the process.

•   “Less is more” for modern enterprise architecture design: Overall, simplicity should become the rule for communication: less terminology, more business language; Furthermore, “Less is more” for modern enterprise architecture design; resilient process and elastic IT framework are all based on “simplicity is optimum of sophistication” philosophy.
• 
  

3.   Do More with Innovation

Though CIO & IT staff work extremely hard to support businesses. However, they are still being beaten down and told IT is not agile, too slow to adopt the new technology, with over-complex processes.

• As a steward of information technology in the organization, how can IT stay ahead of the curve, to build up security and governance model & framework before business requests new technology or service, such as today’s BYOD & consumerization of IT?

• How to leverage flexibility, effectiveness, and efficiency by continuously communicating with business partners? And keep in mind with clear business goals such as how to improve employees’ satisfaction & productivity, how to delight end customers, and understand what customers need even before they know themselves.

• “Do More with Innovation” is the mantra for business & IT in today’s uncertain economy, through taking advantage of new IT trends, not as new technology toys, but as timely enablers to deliver the business solution with elasticity and agility.

If CIOs and IT can really practice these principles, CIOs may not get perceived as techies without business savvy, and IT will turn to a value center, an innovation incubator, a business transformation center,  a business strategy verification brain yard, a GRC headquarter, a business rule influencer and even a game-changer.

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Three Big “WHO”s to Master Big Data

Big Data is big deal & big distraction as we put in Three Big “WHY” for Big Data.  There are three challenges Big Data presents.: Ocean of data amassing with departmental silos; The second is the old “needle in the haystack” problem; The third is making use of the information by developing framework and methodology to find meaning in it..

At series of blogs, we also explored: Three Big “WHAT” about Big Data; and Three Big “HOW”to Tame Big Data, and now it’s time to be more specifically asking Big WHOs: who are those data masters and data stewards to form a successful dream team and conquer the Big Data challenges:

1. Big Data Visionary

As we addressed above, the first Big Data challenge is the fact that the mountains or oceans of data many companies are amassing often lurk in departmental “silos,” how to manage data life cycle including data storage, data cleansing, data integration, data integrity, data governance,  timely exploitation., etc. So who are these data visionaries:

• Executives who sponsor Big Data: such as: CIO & CMO & like-minded executives understand business’s long term view, proactively craft Big Data strategy as a core element of strategy,  and sponsor on experiment with calculated budget and resources. 

• Data Enthusiasts with intuition & vision: who can help recognize game-changing effects of big data; who can connect the dots to focus on the business issues, to add fresh insights, sharp perspectives and different capabilities, who know what questions to ask, and then be able to translate the answers into business strategy or operational effect

 2. Big Data Analytical/Technical Expert

To conquer the second challenge: the old “needle in the haystack” problem of uncovering the information you need amongst the massive amounts of data, is making use of the information by developing framework, talent and methodology to deploy,  you need have:

• Data Scientist/technical expert who can build up a flexible infrastructure which can integrate information and scale up effectively to meet the surge, who can also understand and employ quantitative methods, design, test and deploy models,. experiments, algorithms, and analytics can make sense of all this information.

• Analytics specialists: who can practically deal with data, who understands how to take data and can take on the basic manipulations of the data in databases and management tools; who can program and apply the statistical learning and modeling techniques used for extracting information from that data.

3. Big Data Solutionary

  The third Big Data challenge is to find meaning in it. Big Data is the means to the end, not the end. The key is to turn the data into understandable information analyzed and transformed into knowledge which then be abstracted as wisdom that allows people to make better & faster decisions. Technical driven analytic niche expert on team are important, as building data models, understanding them and running them is important, but pure technologist won’t get you too far, data solutionaries are those:

·        Emerging hybrid business-IT Analyst: who can make sense of the tsunami of data flowing through cross-silo corporate systems; who can also excel at blending IT and business together for great outcomes, to solve the complex business problems.

·        Data masters who can interpret data, who can use creativity to ask provocative questions, who can think “outside of box” about experiments to run, who can ponder questions such as,

1) How does information flow?

             2) What forces underlie those currents?

             3) What’s the best way to pull insights from that sea?

             4) And how does the way a company works influence what data is available and  

                who can find it?

            5) 80/20 Rule: every bit of data is fact, but not all data are created equal, how to

                 get the best value via the most critical 20% of data?

             6) How to improve business capabilities via the data insight?

             7) What are the set of KPIs to measure Big Data project?

 As Joke on the web: “The data scientist is the data analyst who lives in California”, it may uncover two pieces of truth: Data mining might be the new gold rush in 21st century; and data masters not only need hard discipline, the soft skill is even more critical to tame Big Data-a big learning effect to combine the science and art.

Through asking Big Whos, successful companies are likely to be the ones that cultivate their talent masters, and compete on insights—striving to derive insights that matter and applying them to their business.

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The CIO’s Leadership Footprint

“One who walks in another's tracks leaves no footprints.

Modern CIOs have one of the most paradoxical but significant executive roles, as information technology becomes so pervasive, they craft their organization’s architectural blueprint; they shape their business’s digital footprint; they are responsible for their enterprise’s information footprint, they shape the fresh cloud footprint, they also work hard to reduce the data center’s carbon footprint. However, first things first, CIOs, don’t forget to build up your leadership footprint.

1. The Influencer’s Footprint

“The footprints you leave behind will influence others. There is no person who at some time, somewhere, somehow, does not lead another.          

Leadership is an influence, influence comes from wisdom, wisdom is base on knowledge, but more than knowledge and knowledge is gained from information & data, luckily, The CIO is the official owner of business’s information system. However,  such an entitlement won’t guarantee the CIO’s leadership effectiveness.

The CIO’s leadership skill needs to be transferable and touchable, to bring up the fresh perspective into business, new industry, instilling new culture, inspiring new thinking, transformational CIO and IT need to craft influence landscape and leave footprint cross-functional silo, and keep pondering on how to improve project success rate (average 70% failure rate statistically), how to significantly improve 80/20 IT investment ratio, and leverage how much percentage of resources have created business value.

The CIO’s footprint is more than the feet crunching in the sand, it may also like the wind blowing in the trees, the waves curling on the beach, the firework blossoms in the sky and the song of the mockingbird as the evening sunsets.

2. The Improvement Footprint

We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. Eddington 

Modern technology proves human’s progress. At a contemporary business, technology is an enabler for business transformation, process optimization, and talent empowerment. CIO as a C-level peer executive, the leadership footprint needs to cover all functional organizations & their inter-relationships and know how to orchestrate them effectively.

The CIO’s leadership footprint is base on business acumen, and a comprehensive understanding business in general, to perceive future vision and craft strategic planning, to master the SWOT analytics, GAP, IMPACT, Value Analysis., etc, not only grasp the growth opportunities, but also include competitive landscape, regulation, and governance.

The CIO’s leadership footprint is rising on the data shore or hidden in the deep valley, scatters on the mountain or flow with the cloud,  and lead business’s continuous improvement with a small step and large leap.

3. The Innovation Footprint

Don't tell me the sky is the limit, there are footprints on the moon!

Today’s forward-looking CIO also need be an innovator with both critical thinking and creative thinking capabilities as CIO is truly an influential leadership role which can make a significant difference for business's win or wane, it might also mean to create unique footprint to lead through business transformation.

The innovation leadership includes the movers and shakers with fair judgment; thought leaders who can bring up the different point of view; the innovators with the hybrid mindset to blend three elements of the triad: analytics mindset of the business strategist, the innovative mindset of the entrepreneur; and communication mindset of the coach. 

The CIO‘s innovation footprint can be traced at the rocky road in innovation management journey, with clear goals to delight customers and to engage employees via the effective process and right tools & platform, a radically different kind of management needs to be in place, a different way of coordinating work, a different set of values and a different way of communicating. The CIO’s leadership footprint needs to be left in customers’ mind, the employees’ heart, at the customer frontline or the big room in decision-making.   

The transformational CIO does not lead alone, the CIO’s footprint need be interwoven with other leaders,’  the high-performance leadership team needs to compliment each other’s skills, styles, and strengths, to deliver economic, social and people values at the same time and build solid global footprint.

Yes, there are also footprints on the moon.

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Mirror, Mirror, What is the Best Strategy

The strategy is about shaping the future, and the future is more about progress and evolution.

A strategy is a set of choices following with a series of action designed to achieve a vision and compete for the future. There’re so many good strategy theories from ancient to contemporary time, from eastern to western philosophy, today’s strategist may just wonder: what is the best strategy?

 1. The Origin of Strategy

To trace its lexical root, a strategy derives from the Greek strategia, "office of general, command, generalship,”  the Greek equivalent for the modern word “strategy” would have been “strategike episteme” or (general’s knowledge) “strategon sophia” (general’s wisdom). One of the most famous Latin works in the area of military strategy is written by Frontius and has the Greek title of Strategemata.

Sun Tzu’s "The  Art of War," written in 400 B.C. has received critical acclaim as the earliest and best work on military strategy, including those that have followed it centuries later.

 2. The Magic “Five” in Some Famous Strategy Theories

1) Sun Tzu’s Five Elements of Strategy

• Mission: Inspire people to share the same visions, ideas, and expectations
• Ground: to be able to master mountains, valleys, rivers, plains, etc. it’s about situation,  distant or immediate, difficult or easy, opportunities and risks
• Climate: it’s nature, changes in climatic conditions
• Command: Leadership, such as wisdom, humanity, credibility, courage, intelligence and firmness. 
• Method: the discipline, the moral cause, reward, punishment, logistics, and metrics.

Key Take away: Winning without Conflict: Sun Tzu's book teaches winning without conflict. “A great general finds a way to win without fighting a single battle, human wisdom is the best  weapon".

2) Five Principles of Carl Von Clausewitz's Strategy

Von Clausewitz's book On War is classic, he had a career in the Prussian army, and served in a number of major campaigns, he was a thinker and philosopher who studied war to with in-depth knowledge that no one else had ever done before. He also believed that war was more like a business. As he points out, both war and business involve the clash of interests. Here are his five principles.

• The principle of Plan Well with Simplicity.
• The Principle of Unity of Command.
• The Principle of Historical Examples
• The Principle of using the superiority of numbers to good effect.
• The principle of System Thinking: We are part of a wider system that controls us more than we could ever know.

  3) Musashi Miyamoto: Five Rings of Strategy: 
As Sun Tzu, Miyamoto Musashi was well known as a great warrior and strategist lived four hundred years ago, his books of "Five Rings" also make significant impact on shaping modern business strategy and the art of wisdom:

• Ground: Knowing the smallest and biggest thing, the shallowest thing and deepest thing.
• Water: With water as a basis, the spirit becomes like water, water adopt the shape of its receptacle.
• Fire: The spirit of fire is fierce, whether the fire is small or big, you must appreciate the spirit can come big and small
• Wind:  means old traditions, present-day traditions of strategy. It is difficult to know yourself if you do not know others.
• Void. means that which has no beginning and no end. Attaining this principle means not attaining the principle. The Way of strategy is the Way of nature.

 The Gaze in Strategy: Perception and Sight: In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things.

4) Michael Porter’s Five Forces strategy

Modern business strategist: Michael Porter’s Five Forces strategy, a SWOT analysis model on creating a strong position for product or service that allows it to garner outsized profits, makes a significant influence on contemporary business society.

• Marketing Entry: How easy is it for others to enter the market? 
• The threat of product/service substitution
• Bargaining power of buyers.
• Bargaining power of suppliers
• Rivalry among current competitors.

 Porter’s latest social dimension in strategy: All profit is not equal. Profit involving shared value enables society to advance more rapidly and allows companies to grow faster.  

5) Blue Ocean Strategy

“In Blue Oceans, demand is created rather than fought over. There is ample opportunity for both growth and profit.”  W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne

• Reconstruct market boundaries
• Focus on the big picture, not the numbers
• Reach beyond existing demand
• Overcome key organizational hurdles
• Build execution into strategy

6)  Fifth Discipline: Talent Management Strategy:

The Fifth Discipline” series of book written by Peter Senge was published in 1990th, is all about learning. As applied in the “learning organization":

• System Thinking: Break problems down and see things laterally and sequentially.
• Personal Mastery:  “Organizations learn only through individuals who learn,” says Peter Senge. As “approaching one’s life as a creative work"
• Mental Model: We must seek divergent views before developing a convergent conclusion.
• Shared Vision: “The strategy plan will not energize us, vision does"
• Team Learning: People continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire in “Learning Organization”

3.  The Purpose of Strategy

All the strategy models discussed above are conceptualized leadership essentials, yes, it's a light to guide you up, not a hand to walk you through. As someone famously said that strategy is about shaping the future, and the future is more about progress and evolution.

Perspective: Chaos is a perception, if an opponent uses chaos in his strategy, it can be very effective and difficult to predict and counter, In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things, as Miyamoto perceived. 

• Position: All strategy models articulate the need for accurate intelligence of  “terrain” or creating a strong position for product or service that allows it to garner outsized profits, makes significant influence in contemporary business society

• Plan: Well planning is more than half way of success. As Clausewitz well put, plans should cover every aspect of the conflict, weaving them into a single operation with an ultimate objective. 

4.  Why Strategy Fails & How to Make a Good One?

          

• . Change is Accelerated: At today’s rapidly change business environment, one can't help wondering whether selecting and sustaining a strategy is not as relevant as gathering, assembling and understanding the information about the progress a business is making with a particular strategy.  Change is accelerated, modern business is heading off with a particular strategy in the face of growing information that suggests they should be revisiting the strategy.

• Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The book: Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters, by Richard P. Rumelt well articulated the most basic idea of strategy which is the application of strength against weakness. The good strategy need include actions.

 Three-Step Strategy Making:
1) Figuring out the nature of the business challenge
2) Designing a guiding policy that produces an advantage
3) Creating a set of coordinated actions to carry out that policy.

The world and global history that clearly show how to recognize the good, reject the bad and make good strategy a living force in the organization

 5. Mirror, Mirror, What is Best Strategy

All these great leaders: Rumelt, Paton, Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and Porter have one thing in common. They all understood that over-reliance on any particular approach to strategy is dangerous. The modern theories of strategy systematically deal with issues connected with organizational structure and psychology, anthropology and sociology, and also with all internal and external elements of the organizational environment. One size doesn’t fit all.

What is best strategy, the mirror answers:

The location makes the dwelling good.
The depth of understanding makes the mind good.
A kind heart makes the giving good.
Integrity makes the government well.
Accomplishments make your labors good.
Proper timing makes a decision good

-LAO TZU  "TAO TE CHING

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