What is Your 2017 Business Strategy?

“Cloud Musings” Named A “Top 50 Blog”

By G C Network | August 27, 2010

My appreciation and thanks goes out to Jeremy Geelan for including “Cloud Musings” on his list of the Top 50 Cloud Computing Blogs. Thanks is also in order for “HighTechDad”…

Will Oracle Buy Informatica?

By G C Network | August 25, 2010

According to 1,250 ERP Software Advice readers that will be Oracle’s next acquisition. Terradata came in a close second in this race, suggesting that Oracle will “…play it safe next time…

What’s Next For Oracle?

By G C Network | August 14, 2010

Watching Larry Ellison and Oracle over the years as it has morphed itself is a real study in market dynamics.  It’s transformation from database company through middleware provider to now…

Enterprise Architecture Enables Innovation: Melvin Greer, Lockheed Martin

By G C Network | August 11, 2010

Earlier this week, my good fried and NCOIC colleage, Melvin Greer was interviewed by Rutrell Yasin of Government Computer News. In the interview, Mel focused on the importantance of entrprise…

Are You A Cloud Architect? NJVC Needs YOU!!

By G C Network | July 31, 2010

If you are a cloud computing architect, have I got news for you!  NJVC, one of the largest IT solutions providers supporting the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), is building…

“Army Private Cloud” RFP Released

By G C Network | July 28, 2010

Last week the US Army released  a procurement solicitation for the Army Private Cloud.  This $249M solicitation calls for a 1-year base period with four, 1-year options. Department of the…

Cloud Musings Direct Launches

By G C Network | July 15, 2010

In response to request, the inaugural “Cloud Musings Direct” newsletter was launched this week.  This bi-weekly electronic newsletter will highlight important government cloud computing industry trends and events.  If you…

CloudExpo Europe 2010: Not Your Father’s Prague

By G C Network | June 30, 2010

When my good friend Jeremy Geelan invited me to speak at CloudExpo Europe in Prague, Czech Republic my imagination went into overdrive.  Being a child of the 60’s and a…

NCOIC Plenary Highlights Collaboration and Interoperability

By G C Network | June 29, 2010

Last week in Brussels, Belgium, the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium highlighted it’s support of collaboration and interoperability through an information exchange session with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and…

GovLoop “Member of the Week”

By G C Network | June 22, 2010

Thank you to Radiah Givens-Nunez and GovLoop for the honor of being their Member of the Week for June 21-25, 2010. Created in 2008, GovLoop is an online social network…

Photo credit: Shutterstock


End of year predictions in December are as predictable as tomorrow’s sunrise, but a recent video on 2017 Technology Trends helped me really understand how important a digital transformation strategy is to just about any business executive. The CSC Town Hall conversation actually identified some of the specific tasks that today’s corporate executive really need to address in the coming year. To enhance your opportunity for 2017 business success, your action item list should include:

  • Reconfiguring both corporate front and back office operations for digital execution which is expected to reshape organizational structures, employee compensation models and every business’ partner community;
  • Preparing for intelligent machines advisory services to the enterprise that will drastically increase productivity and business competition;
  • Leveraging the industrial internet, aka the Internet of Things, that will use sensor cross connectivity to improve human safety and machine productivity
  • Dealing with radically new and culturally driven business innovations that originate from the East Asian “Sinosphere”
  • Using simplified cloud computing platforms that will drive 80% of all corporate information technology into public cloud platforms by 2020; and
  • Capturing the value proposition of the truly interactive virtual experience and digital interface for enhanced user experience and worker productivity

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To survive these imminent changes, corporations must identify new transformational business opportunities within the context of their specific industry vertical and competitive landscape. This requires much improved collaboration between business and technology leaders around developing an explicit linkage between the cloud computing economic model and the relevant business economic model. This linkage will inevitably include the effective use of virtual IT operational models that include dynamic infrastructure provisioning, infrastructure auto-scaling, application microservices and serverless computing. Preparing for these changes may also require a rethinking of your core business because customer experience design may actually drive your business success. Since quality experiences are based on customer empathy, business analytics, and cognitive technology, a successful business strategy may need to blend all of those capabilities. This also means having an ability to engage with both your customers and employees in meaningful ways, no matter where they happen to be.


Your corporate information technology team itself will also need to deal with an extremely rapid shift from technology operations to robust and automated IT service management. The coming transition to a public cloud dominated IT industry landscape also will also demand corporate strategies around:
  • Matching cloud deployment and service model options to organizational risk tolerance;
  • Enhancing organizational expertise on cloud computing through an increased training investment strategy; and
  • Preventing digital operations failures due to an inability to monitor and enforce the necessarily strict IT governance models.

One final thought. Organizational risk tolerance levels may also need some significant recalibration because it only takes one successful “fail-fast” entrepreneur to reshape an entire industry. Chief financial officers and chief risk officers need to take a holistic approach that integrates business risk management and performance management, including compliance where required, as part of the overall business strategy and execution. In addressing this need, external risk management services may be the key to evolving your company from basic compliance and ad-hoc responses, to optimized business risk management, in which the value of risk management far outweighs the costs. 

This post was brought to you by IBM Global Technology Services. For more content like this, visit ITBizAdvisor.com.

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