Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Telecom Italia: Profile of Innovating and Leading in Managed Services

Successfully navigating through the economic downturn requires the right strategies, the right investments, and the right partnerships. During a recent visit to Cisco’s San Jose Executive Briefing Center, Telecom Italia‘s senior leadership team shares how they are using this downturn to introduce new managed services and new business models to better serve the Small and Medium business segment and win market share.

Key to Telecom Italia’s success is their partnership with Cisco. Over the past several years, Cisco has helped Telecom Italia design and implement their “Impresa Semplice” managed service portfolio that provides SMBs with services including: managed LAN, managed VPN, managed firewall, and managed unified communications. In this video, Telecom Italia shares their perspective on the market, key success factors, and the power of partnerships to accelerate innovation.

http://bit.ly/5dDDI8



Saturday, September 5, 2009

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Wednesday, June 3, 2009

A bigger sail for partners to navigate the "Perfect Storm"


Cisco has added to its "Navigate to Accelerate" partner enablement arsenal with a series of announcements this week in Boston; less than an hour's drive from Gloucester, MA (where the Andrea Gail and Billy Tyne's ill-fated crew departed for the final time in 1991, inspiring 2007's "Perfect Storm").

The "Perfect Storm" for managed services adoption is well underway (fueled by technology enabling "clouds", the worst economy in 25 years keeping business "underwater", and many providers trying to offer their customers a "lifeboat" with new service pricing models). At the eye of this storm is Data Center Virtualization and the business benefits it will bring (efficiency, scaling, reliability, and new service time to market).

Among the announcements Cisco has made this week are new channel programs to expand its expanding data center partner channel:

Key Take-aways:

* To motivate channel partners to invest in building a unified data center practice, Cisco has expanded its existing Value Incentive Program (VIP) offering for all of Cisco's data center technologies, including unified computing, storage networking, and WAN optimization, as well as for its existing offering for data center switching. VIP is Cisco's flagship profitability program that rewards partners for investing in architecture practices around collaboration, data center virtualization and borderless networks.
* Cisco also announced the new Data Center Channel Solutions Program, designed to help enable and accelerate the sale of tested, validated reference IT solution designs that incorporate products from industry-leading data center vendors, including EMC, Microsoft, NetApp, Red Hat, and VMware.
* Cisco today announced it is opening the Unified Computing opportunity to a broader range of its channel partner community. Cisco is announcing an Authorized Partner Program (APP) to support the new Unified Computing C-Series Rack-Mount Servers. All Cisco DCNI Specialized Partners will be able to sell the new rack-mount servers after completing online training and exam from Cisco.
* The Cisco Advanced Data Center Network Infrastructure Specialization (DCNI) is the fastest-ramping specialization in Cisco's history. Despite the economic downturn, partners have rapidly invested in the specialization since its launch a year ago because of its strategic significance to their business.

More good things to come...

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Sunday, May 10, 2009

Prepare for the upturn, focus on Talent Development

With the latest Federal employment report just in, The U.S. is inching it's way toward 9% unemployment and 6 million jobs lost since November 2007. And while Fed Chairman Bernanke says that we should see improvement in the economy by the end of this year, he also said that job losses will continue. Estimates have the U.S. inching past 10% unemployment by the end of 2009.

Business is down, but most business leaders plan to lead a recovery that is powered by improved employee productivity coming from increased use of technology, collaboration solutions, training, and talent management tools. I've spoken with several business leaders who are expecting revenues in calendar 2009 to be flat to modestly higher than 2008; this after they've laid off 6-10% of their workforce. This mandate for increased employee productivity has proved to be a boon for solutions vendors selling web conferencing & collaboration solutions, teleworking solutions, and training & talent management solutions.

As we all know, in a recession, people managers are tested. Employees are disillusioned, demotivated, and scared. One strategy to ensuring your employees stay engaged and committed, is to invest in your people and their professional development. So, how do you do this in a tough economy with increasingly slim budgets?

You buy training and talent management solutions "on-demand" from companies such as Taleo, SuccessFactors, or Cisco/WebEx.

Some good perspectives on Taleo's blogsite

Friday, May 8, 2009

CIO Top of Mind: 1) Virtualization, 2) Collaboration, 3) How am I going to get #1 and #2 done?

According to a recent study by Network Instruments, three quarters of companies will have invested in virtualization and unified communications by the end of the year, despite the worst economic downturn since World War II. The biggest drivers behind this projection are the perceived cost savings and quick return on investments.

Susan Campbell of TMCNet summarizes saying: While this news is positive for this industry, the study also determined that some companies are not adequately prepared. In fact, 75 percent of the organizations that are rushing to roll out new network technologies do not have the tools and visibility necessary to monitor and troubleshoot performance problems.

This comprehensive study included nearly 450 CIOs, network engineers and IT managers throughout the world. It also explored the economy’s impact on virtualization and unified communications in addition to primary challenges in managing these technologies.

Key findings from the study highlight that more than half of all applications will run on virtual machines by 2011; companies deploying video conferencing solutions will double by 2010; 65 percent of network teams have not experienced layoffs and do not expect to in the near future; more than half of the surveyed companies lacked the appropriate tools or visibility into virtual environments; 80 percent struggle with identifying the problem source as their primary troubleshooting challenge; and 45 percent view virtualization as the greatest emerging monitoring challenge.

"While organizations have the right idea investing in technologies that reduce corporate expenses and improve productivity, they're failing to invest in appropriate monitoring tools," said Charles Thompson, product manager of Network Instruments, in a Monday statement. "This will actually create larger problems that can halt business processes and cause network teams to waste countless hours troubleshooting."

This is where partnering with a trusted managed service provider comes in. To get the job done, companies both large and small are turning to managed service providers to purchase: unified communications and collaboration "as a service" as well as virtualized infrastructure (virtual data center, virtual private clouds, storage as a service, compute as a service). I had an opportunity to participate on a webcast with the Kirk Laughlin of Information Week "Catching the Managed Collaboration Services Wave" where we discuss the business drivers fueling adoption of managed and hosted collaboration services. We also discuss how Cisco is uniquely enabling its managed service providers to "envision, build, market, and sell" managed services. To find a global list of the industry's leading "Cisco Powered" managed service providers, see the Cisco Powered Search tool: www.cisco.com/go/cpn. View the webcast and let me know your thoughts.

With regard to virtualization, as 75 percent of organizations have virtual network environments, the majority are running less than 25 percent of applications on virtual machines. This is expected to rapidly increase over the next two years. Yet as the majority of companies still cite monitoring in such an environment as a critical challenge, vendors will need to address this challenge and turn it into a market opportunity.

The study also found that the majority of companies will implement some form of unified communications within the next 12 months. More than half will have deployed video conferencing and unified messaging by 2010.

The Managed Collaboration and Virtualization Gold Rush is on!

Friday, April 3, 2009

Collaboration - empowering the new "Unified Workplace"

Today's business climate is being shaped by a number of forces that are driving an increasing need for all of us to "collaborate across distances"; collaboration that harnesses the power of technology to bring people together in high quality virtual environments to speed decision making innovation, and provide better customer serivce.

From financial issues to societal, business needs to do more with less. Business needs to achieve more with less resources; to have more customer interaction, more partner interaction, and keep employees connected while on the road. The "net is that we must use technology more effectively to increase collaboration between employees, partners, and customers. We must use technology to scale scarce resources, to expand globally, and to gain the most benefit from our human resources. The challenge for most businesses is how to harness the power of technology to increase collaboration when most IT departments are challenged to keep up with increasing demands.

In response to this challenge, many IT leaders are turning to managed collaboration service providers to help them get the job done. Cisco has invested in a a program named the "Cisco Powered Program" to help business decision makers easily find the industry's leading managed service providers. Verizon was just awarded TMC's Unified Communications and Collaboration service of the year; I encourage all to take a look at their service offerings to explore how they can take your business forward.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Facebook: enabling a "collaboration bridge" between our personal & work lives


As the saying goes, "if you want to predict the future of business IT and Communications, look at the younger workforce to steer your thinking in the right direction". Indeed, the "Millenial" generation has shepherded in new social networking technologies that are changing how business gets done.

When Zuckerman founded Facebook from his dorm room at Harvard, he was thinking of a safe and scalable way to bring communities of friends and like minded people together, to share likes, dislikes, and provide an unobtrusive way to share and learn more about one another (by viewing photos, personal information, comments and updates).

I don't think that Zuckerman was thinking about fundamentaly changing the way that global corporations would collaborate with each other, share ideas, innovate together, and stay conneected to virtual teams. With the "Millenial" generation streaming into the workforce over the past 5 years, they've brought new perspectives and culture with them; a culture of openness and transparancy, a willingness to collaborate to solve problems as a team ("crowdsourcing"), and a comfort level with being connected 24x7 and accessible, virtually, whenever and wherever you are.

The popularity of Facebook has exploded in popularity as the place to connect with friends. As the pressures of a fast paced society have integrated our personal and business lives, so Facebook has followed suit; adding new business features (e.g. Facebook Connect) that allow facebook users to make facebook their "one stop shop" for personal and business.

In their 2007 book, Junco and Mastrodicasa expanded on the work of Howe and Strauss to include research-based information about the personality profiles of Millennials, especially as it relates to higher education. They conducted a large-sample (7,705) research study of college students. They found that Net.Generation college students were frequently in touch with their parents and they used technology at higher rates than people from other generations. In their survey, they found that 97% of students owned a computer, 94% owned a cell phone, and 56% owned an MP3 player (iPod, Zune, Sansa, etc.). They also found that students spoke with their parents an average of 1.5 times a day about a wide range of topics.[10] Other findings in the Junco and Mastrodicasa survey included that 76% of students used Instant messaging, and 92% of those reported multitasking while IMing, and 40% of students used television to get most of their news and 34% the Internet.

According to a study by Junco and Mastrodicasa, 69% of "Millenials" reported having a Facebook account, typically logging in twice a day. Since this time traffic has grown from approx 7M account holders to 100M.

Facebook's original rapid growth was in the U.S. but has expanded globally at a much faster clip. Facebook is wielding incredible bargaining power with advertisers having over 100M subscribers to date.

The end game? I'm guessing that we have a good chance that Facebook will replace Google and the "search engine paradigm" as the internet users "watering hole". The new "waterhole" being online communities of interest.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Collaborating from a Distance: The Business Value of Teleworking

When gas prices surged to $5 last summer, something happened. Managers everywhere began embracing teleworking to help alleviate some of the pain inflicted at the pump. Often talked about, few managers openly promoted teleworking as an option. Now, deep into a recession, managers have come to realize that for your more senior talent, teleworking not only raises productivity, but also raises morale.

Much earlier in my career, I had a manager say that he wanted to see everyone in the office to make sure he understood what everyone was doing. He said that his style was to "manage by walking around". During a quarterly meeting, we had one of our senior leaders fly in for this meeting. Somebody asked him if he was supportive of teleworking and hiring talent that was not based on the same city as our office. His response was very clear - "If you want to rise in the company, you need to learn how to work from a distance and manage from a distance. The higher up you go, the more your direct reports will live in other cities."

Increasingly, companies are empowering their employees to telework. Enabled with Instant Messaging & "Presence" which allows you to see the availability of your employees at any time, managers feel more comfortable "letting go". What we've come to see over the past few years is that doing so, pays off in spades. Productivity increases of 10-20% are the norm with the added benefit of higher employee morale and loyalty. In a challenging economy when you can't afford to give raises and promotions, allowing people to telework 1-2 days a week, gives them more autonomy in how and when they get the job done. Having the ability to go for a run at lunch, wash your clothes in the middle of the day, or pick your child up from school at 3pm is a real benefit to your most prized assets - your people.

This week's "Trendwatcher" (Institute for Corporate Productivity), sites some great statistics supporting teleworking including research from the non-profit, Telework Coalition, that has found sizable productivity rises within the U.S. and abroad. Two of the findings are:

* Productivity increased 31% among the 9,000 telecommuters employed by British Telecom.
* At JD Edwards, telecommuters are 20% to 25% more productive than office workers (All, 2008).

Some experts say that telecommuting, especially in customer service jobs, will likely broaden and expand in the future. This growth is fueled by solutions such as Cisco's Unified Contact Center, which allows companies to deploy a "virtual contact center" and take customer calls, emails, or chat sessions from home. Not only does it give companies the ability to offer flexible work arrangements for their employees it also allows them to tap talent wherever they are in the world.

Nancy Gofus of Verizon offers some compelling reasons for adopting a teleworking program including: raising employee productivity, savings real estate costs, and going "green". Listen to her podcast.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Collaboration - Goes Mobile!

Well, what we've all been waiting for has arrived. The ability to leave a Web Conferencing session at your desk, transfer it to your mobile phone and continue the session while on the move. When you consider that 35% of mobile calls are made in transit, having the ability to take full featured web conferencing sessions (with voice and slides) has tremendous value in keeping employees productive while on the move.

At last week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Cisco-WebEx announced the ability to support mobile collaboration on the iPhone, RIM/Blackberry, and Nokia N60. Functionality includes the ability to transfer sessions in progress from your desk computer to your mobile and vice-versa. To increase the safety of users taking a web conference call from the road, Cisco has added a new "one click to join" feature. Several minutes before a scheduled call, WebEx will trigger the "one click" feature allowing the user to press one button and be connected to his full feature web-conference.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Thriving in a Challenging Economy: 2009's Business Imperatives

Wow, what a year 2008 was - one I'm sure many of us wish we could forget, especially as we review our 401K statements. As we all adopt our New Year's resolutions and embrace an "onward and upward" attitude, I wanted to pass on some considerations for thriving in a challenging economy.

A smart move is to embrace technology as an "operational lever" to help boost productivity and get closer to your customers. Some considerations as you forward into the new year:

1) Save to invest
- Intelligently reduce costs to fund investments for improvement
- Focus on profitability, focus on Capital Efficiency
- No investments that don't offer a fast return
- How can I cut costs out of my business without impacting the bottom line?

2) Unlock Employee Potential
- Nuture key employees - focus on motivation and morale
- Invest in Talent Management systems (e.g. Taleo, SuccessFactors)
- How can I enable them to do more with less?
- How can I get them to work harder, smarter, faster (perks like teleworking have been show to boost morale by 10-25% and employee productivity by 10-20%)

3) Drive True Customer Intimacy
- Get much closer to key customers (even when not buying!)
- Include customers in your decision making processes
- How can I personalize / customize to match customer needs?
- How can I ensure I'm giving them the best service possible?
- How can I empower them to get answers fast and easy, without having to dedicate more resources?

Focusing on these three imperatives as you head into 2009 is sure to get your year off to the right start!