IT Management » Time to Step It Up, EAs

Organizations are benefiting from embracing TOGAF, but what are enterprise architects doing to enhance their strategic value? "This is a time for the enterprise architects to really step up to the plate and be accountable for real performance influence on the organization's bottom line," said The Open Group's Jason Uppal.

The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) is maturing, and enterprise architects and business leaders are advancing and exploiting the latest Version 9.

The full embrace of TOGAF, its principles and methodologies are benefiting companies in their pursuit of improved innovation, responsiveness to markets and operational governance.

Is enterprise architecture (EA) joining other business transformation agents as a part of a larger and extended strategic value? How? And what exactly are the best practitioners of TOGAF getting for their efforts in terms of business achievements?

Here to answer such questions, and delve into advanced use and expanded benefits of EA frameworks, is Chris Forde, vice president of enterprise architecture and membership capabilities for The Open Group, who is based in Shanghai; and Jason Uppal, chief architect at QR Systems, based in Toronto. The panel is moderated by Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Listen to the podcast (38:08 minutes).

Here are some excerpts:

Jason Uppal: This is a time for the enterprise architects to really step up to the plate and be accountable for real performance influence on the organization's bottom line.

If we can improve things like exploiting assets better today than what we have, improve our planning program, and have very measurable and unambiguous performance indicator that we're committing to, this is a huge step forward for enterprise architects and moving away from technology and frameworks to real-time problems that resonate with executives and align to business and in IT.

An example where EA has a huge impact in many of the organizations is ... we're able to capture the innovation that exists in the organization -- and make that innovation real, as opposed to just suggestions that are thrown in a box, and nobody ever sees.

Say you define an end-to-end process using architecture development method (ADM) methods in TOGAF. This gives me a way to capture that innovation at the lowest level and then evolve it over time.

Those people who are part of the innovation at the beginning see their innovation or idea progressing through the organization, as the innovation gets aligned to value statements, and value statements get aligned to their capabilities, and to the strategies and the projects.

Therefore, if I make a suggestion of some sort, that innovation or idea is seen throughout the organization through the methods like ADM, and the linkage is explicit and very visible to the people. Therefore, they feel comfortable that their ideas are going somewhere, they are just not getting stuck.

So one of the things with a framework like a TOGAF is that, on the outside, it's a framework. But at the same time, when you apply this along with the other disciplines, it's making a big difference in the organization, because it's allowing the IT organizations to .. actually exploit the current assets that they already have.

And [TOGAF helps] make sure the new assets that they do bring into the organization are aligned to the business needs.

Chris Forde: In the end, what you want to be seeing out of your architectural program is moving the key performance indicators (KPIs) for the business, the business levers. If that is related to cost reduction or is related to top-line numbers or whatever, that explicit linkage through to the business levers in an architecture program is critical.

Going back to the framework reference, what we have with TOGAF 9 is a number of assets, but primarily it's a tool that's available to be customized, and it's expected to be customized.

You can start at the top and work your way down through the framework, from this kind of uber value proposition, right down through delivery to the departmental level or whatever. Or, you can come into the bottom, in the infrastructure layer, in IT for example, and work your way up. Or, you can come in at the middle. The question is what is impeding your company's growth or your department's growth, if those are the issues that are facing you.

If you come to the toolset with a problem, you need to focus the framework on the area that's going to help you get rapid value to solving your particular problem set. So once you get into that particular space, then you can look at migrating out from that entry point, if that's the approach, to expanding your use of the framework, the methods, the capabilities, that are implicit and explicit in the framework to address other areas.

One of the reasons that this framework is so useful in so many different dimensions is that it is a framework. It's designed to be customized, and is applicable to many different problems.

Uppal: When we think about an advanced TOGAF use ... it allows us to focus on the current assets that are under deployment in the organization. How do you get the most out of them? An advanced user can figure out how to standardize and scale those assets into a scalable way so therefore they become reusable in the organization.

As we move up the food chain from very technology-centric view of a more optimized and transformed scale, advanced users at that point look and say -- a framework like TOGAF -- they have all these tools in their back pocket.

Now, depending on the stakeholder that they're working with, be that a CEO, a CFO, or a junior manager in the line of business, they can actually focus them on defining a specific capability that they are working toward and create transitional roadmaps. Once those transitional roadmaps are established, then they can drive that through.

An advanced user in the organization is somebody who has all these tools available to them, frameworks available to them, but at the same time, are very focused on a specific value delivery point in their scope.

One beauty of TOGAF is that, because we get to define what enterprise is and we are not told that we have to interview the CEO on day one, I can define an enterprise from a manager's point of view or a CFO's point of view and work within that framework. That to me is an advanced user. ...

I use methods like TOGAF to define the capabilities in a business strategy that [leaders] are trying to optimize, where they are, and what they want to transition to.

This is where a framework allows me to be very creative, defining the capabilities and the transition points, and giving a roadmap to get to those transitions. That is the cleverness and cuteness of architecture work, and the real skills of an architect comes into, not in defining the framework, but defining the application of the framework to a specific business strategy. ...

Because, what we do in the business space, and we have done it many times with the framework, is to look at the value chain of the organization. And looking at the value chain, then to map that out to the capabilities required.

Once we know those capabilities, then I can squarely put that question to the executives and say, "Tell me which capability you want to be the best at. Tell me what capability you want to lead the market in. And, tell me which capability you want to be mediocre and just be at below the benchmark in industry."

Once I get an understanding of which capability I want to be the best at, that's where I want to focus my energy. Those ones that I am prepared to live with being mediocre, then I can put another strategy into place and ask how I outsource these things, and focus my outsourcing deal on the cost and service.

This is opposed to having very confused contract with the outsourcer, where one day I'm outsourcing for the cost reasons. The other day, I'm outsourcing for growth reasons. It becomes very difficult for an organization to manage the contracts and bend it to provide the support.

That conversation, at the beginning, is getting executives to commit to which capability they want to be best at. That is a good conversation for an enterprise architect.

My personal experience has been that if I get a call back from the executive, and they say they want to be best at every one of them, then I say, "Well, you really don't have a clue what you are talking about. You can't be super fast and super good at every single thing that you do."

Internet » Managing the Customer Service Revolution

Social networking and mobile devices have changed customer expectations in regard to service and support. These new pressures have lead to both innovation and disruption in customer service. But when you strip away all the technology, what matters is that you're taking care of the customer faster than ever before. In today's increasingly connected world, that wins customer loyalty and creates a huge competitive advantage.

During the past few years, customer service organizations have faced increasing amounts of pressure to deliver better service over a broader range of channels including the Web, email and phone. Customers expect to get service at any time of the day or night and assume that customer service teams will keep a history of all interactions.

More recently, the social network boom has created a new revolution in customer service. The reach and immediacy of Twitter, Facebook and, now, Google+ has made the voice of the customer an extremely powerful force. Bad customer experiences can quickly snowball into online customer uprisings leading to PR disasters.

In addition, the proliferation of smartphones and tablets has raised customer expectations for timely response. Customers now expect to reach companies from anywhere, at anytime, and through any device that they choose such as iPads, iPhones and Blackberry and Android smartphones. While it used to be expected that customer inquiries would be answered in a couple days, now customers expect answers in hours, if not minutes.

As is often the case, tech-savvy startups are the first to embrace new technologies and communication channels. Larger, more traditional organizations are now finding that they need to develop new customer service strategies or else smaller, more nimble organizations may leave them in the dust and take their customers with them.

The exciting part of this ever-changing environment is that these new pressures have lead to both innovation and disruption in customer service.

The Help Desk Goes Social

When traditional customer service software was developed, the pressures of supporting new and multiple online channels just didn't exist; the products were never designed to accommodate input from social media 6 Ways to Use Social Media for Business. Free Guide. or run on mobile devices. As companies using these traditional solutions look to update their customer service software infrastructure to keep up with new channels, many realize that they cannot afford to expend 6 to 12 months to customize their current help desk solution if it were, indeed, even possible.

As a result, many companies are making the move to cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions. These have proven to be a fastest and most cost-effective alternative to updating on-premise packages. More importantly, these new cloud-based solutions are specifically designed for multi-channel customer service.

As an example, let's take a look at Twitter as a channel. Studies by Edison Research have indicated that 19 percent of Twitter users seek customer service via Tweets. With more than 200 million users, this means 38,000,000 customers are seeking service via Twitter. Modern customer service solutions have made this manageable by allowing companies to create custom searches for their brand names and product names on Twitter. When a problem is encountered, the tweet can be immediately converted into a customer service ticket, known as a \u201ctwicket,\u201d in this case. The twicket then can be assigned to the most appropriate person in the company to respond. That response can then be sent as a tweet or a direct message.

The Help Desk Goes Mobile

On the hardware side, customers and employees do more and more on mobile devices than ever before. In fact, the mobile revolution seems like an unstoppable force with more than 5.3 billion mobile subscribers worldwide (by the way, that's 77 percent of the world's population).

Today the mobile consumer and the mobile workforce are rapidly converging. Whether officially sanctioned or not, many customer service employees already make use of their smartphones, iPads, and personal accounts like Twitter and Facebook to solve their customers problems because these channels make their jobs easier.

Being able to access customer service systems from anywhere frees services teams from their desks. It allows them to respond to and escalate customer inquiries from anyplace at any time. As a result, response times go down and customer satisfaction goes through the roof. Over and over again, we see examples of customers who are delighted to get timely responses from inquiries whether they're over the Web, email or Twitter. When you strip away all the technology, what matters is that you're taking care of the customer faster than ever before. In today's increasingly connected world, that wins customer loyalty and creates a huge competitive advantage.

Multiple Channels, Unified Tools

However, the more customer service channels a company supports, the more challenging it can be to effectively track and respond to customer inquiries. In addition, every new channel has the potential to create confusion for both customer service agents and customers. For example, one customer service agent may respond to a customer via email while another is communicating over Twitter. It can create the classic problem of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing.

To avoid these issues, companies need all their channels to feed into a central help desk with a unified set of business processes. While requests may arrive in different ways, the organization should should strive for consistency across channels. This will reduce an overlap of efforts, ensure consistent responses, and simplify the management of the customer service team.

That is exactly how the new generation of help desk solutions are designed. In fact, they can truly provide the fastest way to a great customer experience because they are easy to set up, funnel interactions from multiple channels into a single place, and improve the efficiency of customer service agents.

In Conclusion

Today's companies are faced with having to deliver customer service across a wide variety of channels such as email, the Web, social media and mobile devices; it's not just about having a call center or fax machine anymore. By supporting these channels, customer service organization have an amazing opportunity to deliver a truly awesome customer experience with the right processes and tools in place.

If the last update you made to your customer service organization was the addition of a support@ email address, it is probably time to seriously reassess your customer service strategy. Happy customers are loyal customers who not only keep coming back for more, but also spread the word about your company and products.

Computing » A Big Round of Face-Palms For HP

The Linux-oriented blogosphere reacted swiftly to HP's news that it's cutting webOS devices and mulling the sale of its PC division. A brief sound-bite sampler: "No competent management left," "HP blinked," "What were they thinking?" "Now it's simply too late," and "It'll be sad to see them go." Suffice it to say, then, this was not a popular decision among Linux lovers.

Life tends to be pretty exciting even in an ordinary week here in the Linux blogosphere, but few can be compared with the one we just endured.

Not only did we learn of Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) Motorola Mobility (NYSE: MMI) purchase plans on Monday, but later in the week came word of HP's (NYSE: HPQ) mother-of-all-face-palm-inspiring acts in the form of its decision to dump pretty much everything relating to webOS.

No wonder there's been standing room only at the blogosphere's bars and saloons over the past few days. In times like these, who doesn't need a little extra liquid comfort?
A Crushing Disappointment

Now, webOS, it should be noted, isn't just any old mobile operating system -- it's a Linux-based one, albeit proprietary and closed.

That, indeed, is surely a big part of the reason so many FOSS fans have taken this latest news so hard. HP's original announcement earlier this year caused considerable excitement far and wide, only to bring us crashing down again with last week's decision.

The analyses have been flowing as freely as the tequila down at the blogosphere's Broken Windows Lounge. In the interests of a little group therapy, Linux Girl took it upon herself to share what she heard.

'No Real Vision Left'

"This proves that HP simply has no competent management left -- a far, far cry from the old days of Hewlett and Packard," Slashdot blogger hairyfeet lamented.

"How long did Android take to gain real share? Something like a year and a half?" he pointed out. "They bring out a device that is overpriced, set a price point equal to the leader-of-the-pack iPad, and then pull the plug after barely a month?"

In short, "this is a company with no real vision left, they are flinging poo and hoping something sticks," hairyfeet concluded. "After Carly and Hurd gutted the place, I guess there simply isn't anybody left worth their salt at this point; it'll be sad to see them go."

'Nothing to Do With Linux'

Indeed, "this has nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with HP buying a floundering product and screwing it up even more," offered consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack.

"As an aside, HP seems to want to dump its low-margin businesses, but after cutting R&D I suspect that the only remaining high-margin business is their consulting side and the department that makes printer ink," Mack added.

"HP blinked" was blogger Robert Pogson's interpretation.

'WebOS Is a Neat Concept'

"Everyone knows that it takes perseverance to bring a new OS to market," Pogson explained. "The world of IT would be in the stone age if every product had to be a hit in its first quarter.

It's likely that "years of sucking up to M$ has weakened HP's heart," Pogson continued. "WebOS is a neat concept and would have worked with the right promotion. There was no BSOD in its introduction. It was smooth."

The same is true, for that matter, of HP's decision to back out of client PCs, Pogson asserted.

'Are They Nuts?'

"What's with that for the No. 1 OEM of the world?" he asked. "Are they afraid to sell small cheap computers with GNU/Linux that the world is demanding?"

HP was also No. 1 in thin clients for a time, in fact, "but was selling them for (US)$700," Pogson pointed out. "Are they nuts? The whole idea of thin clients is to improve price/performance a lot. Keeping prices high allowed Wyse to walk all over HP."

If HP "cannot make enough profit out of the tiny margins M$ leaves them, they should have pushed GNU/Linux and/or webOS, where they didn't have to give the big slice to M$," he opined. "For that matter, they should push ARMed thin clients and PCs so they would not have to give the biggest slice to Intel."

'They Are Giving Up'

Pogson has used HP products since the 1970s, and "they were always tops," he said. "Now they are cowards afraid of their own customers."

Customers "want small cheap computers, and HP could figure out a way to supply them profitably if it wanted," he concluded. "What are they going to do when customers demand small cheap servers? Give up?

"This looks like another surrender by a U.S. company," he added. "Instead of adapting and telling M$ where to go, they are giving up."

'What Were They Thinking?'

Barbara Hudson, a blogger on Slashdot who goes by "Tom" on the site, had a similar reaction.

"As the owner of an HP dv9000-series Pavilion that mainly runs linux, I'm not happy to see my trusty laptop become an orphan, and I'm sure I'm not alone," Hudson told LinuxInsider. "What were they thinking? Even if the personal computer market wasn't generating much profit, it still provided one-third of all HP's revenues and was a gateway for them to sell higher-margin HP-brand products like printers and ink."

HP, in fact, "sold more computers last year than any other vendor," Hudson asserted. "They had sufficient market capture to do something different, but threw it away."

'Now It's Simply Too Late'

Hudson has long wondered why no vendor tries to "differentiate themselves by selling dual-boot machines, taking advantage of the abundance of open source software out there," she said. "HP had enough market clout after the Compaq acquisition to stare down a post-DoJ Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), but instead took discounts and cash to load up their laptops with crapware."

Had the company taken the dual-boot road, "they would have had a natural entry point for introducing webOS to the masses a few years later, and gotten further product differentiation," she explained. "HP could have created the 'year of the linux desktop' and generated future demand for webOS tablets and smartphones."

The reality, however, is that "long-term markets were continually sacrificed to hit each quarter's numbers and not rile up Microsoft," Hudson noted. "Now it's simply too late, especially in the mobile market, which has evolved into a duopoly, with Android at No. 1 and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iOS at No. 2.

"Like Nokia (NYSE: NOK) earlier this year, HP will find that there's a long-term cost to depending too much on Microzilla," she added.

'All HP Did Is Shoot Themselves in the Foot'

Now, "nobody's going to buy a failed tablet and smartphone business, nor a low-margin declining PC business, except at a vulture-fund pick-over-the-corpse discount," Hudson opined. "All HP did with this announcement is shoot themselves in the foot, the same as Nokia killed demand for their existing smartphones when they prematurely announced they would be transitioning to WP7.

"Will Uncle Ballmer find some way to funnel enough money to Nokia for Nokia to buy HP's computer business, and be even further dependent on Microsoft?" she mused. "Selling millions of laptops and tablets with Bing as the search engine, IE as the browser, Microsoft's Web docs as the Web docs solution, and tie-ins with Windows Phone and Xbox could be worth it."

That, of course, remains to be seen. In the meantime, Hudson concluded, "about the only bright spot is that much of WebOS is open source, and you can still grab the open source components from the Palm website."

Computing » Birth of Googorola, Rebirth of Compaq, Death of RIM

There is no doubt that last week was a world-changing week. We entered it with Apple dominant, Android trending, and the PC vendors stable. We ended with Android as we know it effectively dead, a new company -- Googorola -- that will eventually mimic Apple, a vastly more-focused HP, and a new/old PC company being reborn (Compaq). Microsoft is in a better position -- and this is a common comment -- if it can just execute.

Last week's announcement of Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) plans to acquire Motorola -- Googorola -- created a massive change for Android licensees. They are now looking for alternatives, tossing the biggest smartphone platform into flux and increasing the interest in what will happen to RIM -- with specific emphasis on its QNX platform.

As if that weren't enough, speculation surrounding the HP (NYSE: HPQ) spinoff of its PC division tossed the PC market into flux, initially benefiting Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Lenovo, and Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) but suggesting that Compaq could be reborn. The Holy Crap moments just keep coming as executives across the personal technology ecosystem move to respond to what may be the biggest series of changes ever seen in a single five-day period in the history of the industry.

I'll close with my product of the week: Booklamp is a really interesting free service that helps you find books you didn't know about in a Pandora-like fashion. I'm a huge reader.

Birth of Googorola

What is particularly fascinating about the acquisition of Motorola by Google is Google's efforts to suggest that nothing has really changed. This is like a guy, after getting married, going back to an old girlfriend and suggesting they can continue dating because the marriage doesn't matter.

Yes it happens, but something has also clearly changed -- like the guy, it makes Google appear less trustworthy. In fact, this move has companies that were licensing Android but already had their doubts about trusting Google -- given surprises like the Chrome OS -- simply locking down on this opinion and looking for other options.

Those options appear to be RIM's QNX, licensing HP's now-dormant webOS, and Microsoft's Windows 8 and Windows Phone platforms. Each has issues, however, which is why there is growing speculation that another independent OS will emerge to take the place of Android.

Briefly, QNX isn't interesting as long as it belongs to RIM -- but given that RIM is seen as failing, there is a chance it might spin QNX out as a separate company again, or that RIM will be acquired by someone like HTC that both could raise the capital to buy it and is in the most dire need for a replacement for Android.

WebOS is uninteresting as part of a unit that makes tablets and phones, but if it stays with HP as the PC division is spun out, it could be the leading replacement because it is the strongest iOS alternative. As of this moment, licensing it out appears to be the plan. Microsoft, if it can address concerns about its bifurcated Windows platforms and get better carrier support, is in the best position to benefit -- but it has been unwilling or unable to address the concerns about its platform.

In short, any of these players could move into the breach, but all have issues in doing so, which suggests we can't yet call a clear beneficiary here. But the one vendor that makes the right moves suddenly has a huge opportunity to move into the breach that Google has created.

This looks like the emergence of a three-horse race for tablets and smartphones, with Apple and Googorola as the most likely top two players, and Microsoft, QNX and an HP-owned-and-licensed webOS contesting for that third spot. Based on what is coming out of HP, it appears to be the closest at getting this right, in terms of losing the hardware and then stepping into the gap the Android/Motorola merger has created.

Compaq Rebirth

The spinout of the HP PC division -- at least, as I'm writing this -- will either result in a sale or an investor buyout (I'm told Todd Bradley is apparently driving the latter). If it becomes a separate company, the most likely path is the recreation of Compaq, because that brand is still well regarded and this would vastly increase its chance of success.

However Acer, Lenovo and even Google might be willing to buy the unit for different reasons: Google to get licenses to HP's patent portfolio and to ensure at least initial success for its Chrome OS efforts (and, frankly, to really piss off Microsoft); the others to ensure a No. 1 position in the PC market. China, in particular, would love to take a key technology market from the U.S. and might be willing to cofund the acquisition. However, getting this through U.S. regulatory approval would be nearly impossible.

This leaves the highest likelihood being a consortium of investors that would spin out this division and operate it independently of HP. The best path would be to call it "Compaq," because that brand is still trusted and has power in both the consumer and enterprise segments.

I understand that there is a consortium in play being driven by Todd Bradley, the current operating leader. However, Bradley, while strong operationally, is a poor CEO, and I would expect him to be replaced prior to an emerged firm becoming successful. The unit would likely be better off with a more dynamic CEO who didn't have the history of failure (Gateway, Palm, Voodoo PC, Palm again) that Bradley has -- but he likely would be fine for the initial divestiture.

In the short term, or until the new Compaq finishes its divestiture, Apple, Dell and Lenovo are likely to benefit due to the uncertainty. Eventually, though, given how successful Lenovo has been separate from IBM (NYSE: IBM), the new company has the chance of being more agile than it was as part of HP. This may take as long as 18 months, using the Lenovo example, to fully execute.

Wrapping Up

There is no doubt that last week was a world-changing week. We entered it with Apple dominant, Android trending, and the PC vendors stable. We ended with Android as we know it effectively dead, a new company -- Googorola -- that will eventually mimic Apple, a vastly more-focused HP, and a new/old PC company being reborn (Compaq).

WebOS failed, but if it finds new outlets, it may actually end up as a better competitor as a result. Microsoft is in a better position -- and this is a common comment -- if it can just execute. There is even a chance a new OS could emerge shortly that didn't exist two weeks ago. You don't see this level of change often. Thank god.

Product of the Week

Tim Bajarin, who runs Creative Strategies, brought this product to my attention at a vendor meeting last week, and it is an amazing product. Booklamp is a free Web offering that allows you to put in books you like and get back recommendations on books you might like but didn't know about. It currently has about 600K books indexed, which sounds like a lot, but is likely a magnitude below where it needs to be to be truly useful.

The books are indexed across a number of vectors based on content, and the result is an experience not unlike one of the self-selecting music services like Pandora or Slacker.

If you are an Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) user -- particularly a Kindle reader -- you'll find a similar service in Amazon, but this one appears to have far more potential, and it is vendor independent. So, it works if you don't want to live on Amazon, which I kind of do.

Because I love to read and am always on the hunt for new books, and this tool helps fill that need, Booklamp is my product of the week.