The Science and Art of Business Leadership

Cloud Computing and the Process Integration Era

By G C Network | December 17, 2008

The Industry Advisory Council (IAC) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to fostering improved communications and understanding between government and industry. through its affiliation with the American Council for Technology…

The Tactical Cloud

By G C Network | December 16, 2008

When cloud computing first came in vogue, there was a rather serious discussion about the private cloud concept. The whole idea of cloud computing seemed to argue against implementing such…

“Cloud Musings” Now on SYS-CON Media “Cloud Computing Journal” !!

By G C Network | December 15, 2008

I’m happy to announce that a recent “Cloud Musings” article, “Commercial vs Federal Cloud Computing ” has been reposted on SYS-CON Media’s “Cloud Computing Journal“. Thank you SYS-CON for making…

How to make clouds interoperable and standard !!

By G C Network | December 12, 2008

This has been a huge part of my life over the past few weeks! This is my personal view. WARNING: DON’T EXPECT THE ANSWER TO BE FOUND BELOW !!! There…

The Tension between Public and Private Clouds

By G C Network | December 11, 2008

Last week, during discussion on cloud interoperability and standards in Israel, I saw for the first time a real dichotomy in the value of public (external) and private (internal) clouds.…

Cloud Computing for Continuity of Operations (COOP)

By G C Network | December 10, 2008

Recently, I’ve been focusing on cloud computing for COOP. The way I looked at it, many government agencies are already using commercial shared facilities as COOP sites and that the…

NCOIC Plenary Session

By G C Network | December 9, 2008

Hopping a plane to the west coast today to attend the NCOIC Plenary in Costa Mesa, California. First day “Cloud Computing for Net-Centric Operations” agenda includes: David Ryan, Chief Architect…

Dataline named “Top 100 Cloud Computing Company”

By G C Network | December 9, 2008

SYS-CON’s Cloud Computing Journal included Dataline in its expanded list of the most active players in the cloud ecosystem. In adding Dataline to the “Top 100” list, Jeremy Geelan noted…

Autoscaling into the cloud- Good or Bad?

By G C Network | December 8, 2008

I always thought saw the ability to autoscale into a cloud infrastructure as a good thing. George Reese presented a differing view on the O’Reilly blog recently. “Auto-scaling is the…

Cloudera must be reading the script!

By G C Network | December 4, 2008

“Cloud computing leapt out as the most obvious way to address enterprise large data problems” – Ken Pierce, IT Specialist, DIA-DS/C4ISR “We view Hadoop as the key enabler…[in] optimizing the…


Business leadership is both science and art. The scientific aspects revolve around finance, organization, products and service. Artistic aspects include relationships, market trajectories and business strategies. While many focus on the science through books and training, the art of business is best learned from real practitioners.  That is why I jumped at the chance to meet Dimension Data’s Steve Nola during the company’s analyst event, Perspectives 2015, in Prague, Czech Republic. Steve is the company’s ITaaS Group Executive and prior to this, served separate stints as Chief Executive Officer of the Cloud Business Unit and Dimension Data Australia region. Meeting over dinner, Steve shared his views on how businesses should deal with today’s dynamic information technology environment.
 In his opinion, cloud computing is destined to harness more of the IT market and organizations that participate in just about any industry must decide what they are going to do about it. 
“Cloud a key change agent for business and the critical skill in this environment is managing the rate of change within your enterprise”, says Steve. “This is crucial because change drives innovation and innovation fuels the internal experimentation needed to maintain marketplace relevancy.”
Businesses must also build and maintain an effective partner ecosystem. This actually reduces business risks as IT transitions to the “as-a-service” model. IT professionals must build and maintain a fluency in bridging technology to business outcomes. Companies must also use cloud services in order to tailor technology’s contribution to the chosen business strategy.
While virtualization is a necessary component of any IT modernization strategy, virtualization without optimization for cloud may preclude the necessary alignment of IT with today’s dynamic business models. This wise counsel highlights why business science and business art must be
synergistic. It also puts a spotlight on why a corporate IT ecosystem is also needed. Modern business models are created, launched, modified and retired quickly. In some industries such a cycle could transpire over a timeframe measured in hours. A traditional corporately owned IT platform is unable to economically deal with such a fast pace of change. This is why traditional IT support models in some verticals are rapidly giving way to shared IT infrastructures and IT as a service. Traditional architectures aren’t designed with an ability to cycle up and down. They are also not typically metered and monitored. Companies facing this type of industry disruption need trusted IT service partners. According to Steve, enterprise IT product vendors are being disintermediated by this transition to the IT service provider model. “2009 saw a $142B decrease in enterprise IT product industry revenue. That money went to the IT as a service market” 
Dimension Data itself is not immune to these forces. As a global IT service provider, it too needs to have a strong and reliable partner ecosystem. The importance of partners to Dimension Data has been made obvious by winning 23 channel partner awards at the most recent Cisco Partner Summit and Deloitte’s selection of its Managed Cloud Platform for the management firm’s business transformation clients.
 
The key takeaway from this discussion is that successful IT leaders effectively leverage both business science and business art as day to day leadership tools.
https://www.arnnet.com.au/article/569759/dimension-data-bring-tour-de-france-billions-cycling-fans/

( This content is being syndicated through multiple channels. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of GovCloud Network, GovCloud Network Partners or any other corporation or organization.)

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