This story was first told to the British Chamber in Hong Kong in May 2016. It's about a real business that wishes to remain anonymous. It is just a short teaser that begs questions and much more discussion, but it did generate lively Q&A on the day. Please visit the Horses & Unicorns blog: http://horsesunicorns.blogspot.co.uk/

1. Nigel Green
Partner, UK
Hong Kong, July 2016

2. It’s hard to recognise innovation until it’s
happened…

3. “If I had asked
people what they
wanted, they
would have said
faster horses.”
The familiar doesn’t always help us
understand the new.

4. Horses & unicorns
The familiar versus the exotic.
TRADITIONAL FIRMS BORN-DIGITAL FIRMS

5. Who behaves like
unicorns?
Think & behave disruptively.
http://www.mckinsey.com/Industries/High-Tech/Our-Insights/Grow-fast-or-die-slow-Why-unicorns-are-staying-private?cid=digistrat-eml-alt-mip-mck-oth-1606
“Since 2013, an increasing number of
technology companies have achieved
“unicorn” status: valuations upward
of $1 billion in private markets.“
- McKinsey, May 2016

6. Who behaves like
unicorns?
We’ve all heard of them,
but have they been…
http://www.mckinsey.com/Industries/High-Tech/Our-Insights/Grow-fast-or-die-slow-Why-unicorns-are-staying-private?cid=digistrat-eml-alt-mip-mck-oth-1606
“Since 2013, an increasing number of
technology companies have achieved
“unicorn” status: valuations upward
of $1 billion in private markets.“
- McKinsey, May 2016
NOW PUBLICY QUOTED
BUT STILL THINK LIKE A
UNICORN.

7. …hidden in plain sight?

8. Hidden in plain sight?
Unicorn’s are living among the “horses” …
and eating their lunch!

9. Is this just the tip of the iceberg?
20% World’s unicorns
are from China
https://www.cbinsights.com/research-unicorn-companies

10. “a month ago, everyone was using their UnionPay credit cards, now
everyone is just tapping their phones”
Digital disruption in
China
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21660996-chinese-online-giant-looking-new-sources-growth-clicks-bricks

11. Efficiency
Resiliency
What the hidden
magic delivers
Revenue
Agility
Discovering how is the question.

12. } Agility - development processes that used to take months now take weeks.
} Efficiency - reducing the amount of infrastructure required to run a given application
by 50%.
} Resiliency - avoid a single point of failure, very limited downtime, can scale
seamlessly on demand.
} Revenue - faster iteration and less downtime add up to more revenue.
Who isn’t looking for these?

13. 2016
will be shaped by
digital transformation
with
availability, capabilities, and business needs
being the biggest related issues
IT leadership will face.
IDC Predicts…

14. • General Electric
• Hewlett Packard
• Capital One Financial Corp.
• Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
• The Guardian Media Group (UK)
• Thomas Cook PLC (UK)
• William Hill PLC (UK)
• ITV (UK)
• Nike
… and many more..
Adoption is looking like a hockey stick…
The Horses are looking
for their inner Unicorn.

15. Over half of organizations across
the US, UK, India and Israel plan
to follow the Digital-native’s “way
of working” to improve their agility
in the next 12 months, according to
new research by IDG Connect –
March 15th 2016
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160315005089/en/IDG-Connect-Microservices-Firms-Battle-Monolithic-Restrictions
Who else is
adopting?
Traditional firms are adopting
the unicorn’s way-of-working

18. Customer Service, Revenue, Cost, Merger &
Compliance challenges.
Mr. Black
the CIO
“Reduce IT
running
Costs”
“We must keep our
Regulator happy!”
“We need your
help to
modernise our
Retail stores”
“We plan to buy
the 2nd largest
firm. Be ready for a
merger – we want
one IT solution”
“Our
customers
need one great
experience – in
store & mobile”
Mr. Black joins ACME
(early 2015)
? ?

19. A hunch he could learn from the digital
unicorns – even though he was starting from a very different point..
What Would the
Unicorns Do?

21. SaaS
IaaS
DevelopersPaaS
Do Work On
Use Resources Of
Build Solutions On
Users
Developers
Broadly adopted Cloud usage.
Cloud Mode 1: Horses
Outsourced IT
Firewall

22. XaaS XaaS
XaaS
XaaS
XaaS
XaaS
XaaS
Cloud Mode 2: Unicorns
Cloud Everywhere
http://internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/definition/fog-computing-fogging
Private Cloud(s)Public Cloud(s)
Everything’s a Service on the Cloud ecosystem.
Firewall

23. And there’s more – A seismic shift in
computing.

24. A much bigger change than Mainframe to
Client Server.
The New Compute
Platform

25. XaaS
Services everywhere: an ecosystem of
macro and micro services.
Services, services &
more services
“I like the simple
elegance of a
Cloud Services-
Everywhere
model”
“We can be
flexible on how
we source the
services we need
– externally or
internally”
Firewall
XaaS XaaS
XaaS
XaaS
XaaS
XaaS
Private Cloud(s)Public Cloud(s)
“We should
focus first on
the business
differentiating
services…”
“…and how to
establish
foundation that
will enable the
whole services
ecosystem”

27. Business Unit Leads Analysts & UX specialists & Technicians
NEW SMEsENTHUSIATIC INCUMBANTS
A small team with one shared vision.
A new way of
working
The Progranme
Director
The
Consultant
The DesignerThe CIO
NEW LEADERSHIP TEAM

28. A culture of agile experimentation.
Unicorn culture
“…cloud-oriented architecture should be prototyped and
refined by small "innovation teams" that can perform a
scouting mission to specifically trailblaze how the organization
and culture can be adapted to the new cloud-based
world of software development. These missions should not
be throwaway projects, but a high degree of risk is implied, and the
culture of "fail fast and fail often" should be the mantra”.
IDC February 2016
Business Unit Leads Analysts & UX specialists & Technicians
NEW SMEsENTHUSIATIC INCUMBANTS
The Progranme
Director
The
Consultant
The DesignerThe CIO
NEW LEADERSHIP TEAM

29. The ACME challenge: deliver a
working prototype within 90
days.

30. Focus on the Customer & Revenue first.
The CIO’s strategy “Reduce IT
running
Costs”
“We must keep our
Regulator happy!”
“We need your
help to
modernise our
Retail stores”
“We plan to buy the
2nd largest firm. Be
ready for a merger
– we want one IT
solution”
“Our customers
need one great
experience – in
store & online”
• IMPROVED CUSTOMER SERVICE:
• Create an Omni-Channel experience, in store or mobile.
• Establish new levels of situation awareness through near real-time
analytics and use it to improve customer insight.
• Improve the in-shop environment: happier staff = happier customers.
• IMPROVED REVENUE:
• attracting new customers & retaining old through improved interaction
at all touch-points.
• ability to respond to new demands and new routes to revenue
through micro-marketing.

31. Demonstrate route to all four business
outcomes, within the 90 Days.
The CIO’s strategy “Reduce IT
running
Costs”
“We must keep our
Regulator happy!”
“We need your
help to
modernise our
Retail stores”
“We plan to buy the
2nd largest firm. Be
ready for a merger
– we want one IT
solution”
“Our customers
need one great
experience – in
store & online”
• AVOIDED COSTS:
• License cost reduction through the replacement of databases and
middleware with Open Source Software.
• Create a platform for rapid integration post M&A.
• EXCEED REGULATORY MANDATES:
• Open-up data and create process transparency through business
event-logging leading to exceptional process auditability.

32. Significant enough progress was
made within 30 days to gain the
support of the entire C-Suite.
The story continues…

33. Of Horses & Unicorns

34. EXPLORE THE
POSSIBILITIES
1. ASK “WHAT WOULD THE UNICORNS DO?”:
Take a lead of the “Born-digital” firms and tailor to your firm’s needs.
Recognise “The Cloud” is the next-gen compute platform.
Leverage Open Source Software & commodity Cloud services.
Create a route-plan to Cloud-Native Applications (e.g. Microservices)
Architecture.
Adopt an agile, adaptive & evolutionary approach.

35. TOP-LEVEL BUY-IN
GET TOP-LEVEL SUPPORT:
Define measurable, business relevant, principles …
…and then manage to them.
Show both tactical and strategic value to the business early.
Take C-suite on a journey of low-risk incremental steps that
demonstrate clear value-for-money that strengthens the
strategic business case.

36. FASTER THAN EVER
BEFORE
CREATE A FAST-PACED DELIVERY TEAM:
Use experts that understand the “vision” to get things started quickly.
Establish new ways of working through a separate expert-led team.
Demonstrate results frequently clearly pinned to business outcomes.
Create the “seed of change” and then propagate it.
Learn from the Unicorns, then be bold,
experiment, and manage risk.

37. ACME’s Hypothesis
ACME decided the risks were worth the reward
and to act now! (The risk of doing nothing was too big)
REWARD
RISK
COST

38. Experiment

39. Could their thinking help your business?
Is your CIO developing Cloud-enabled
Ways of Working?
Can horses afford to wait?

40. nigel.green@cio-connect.com
Mobile:+44 7943 137344
Twitter: @taotwit
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelgreen

42. } Agility. By breaking down functionality to the near atomic level, development teams focus
on only updating the relevant pieces of an application. This removes a painful process of
integration experienced with monolithic applications. Development processes that used to
take months now take weeks.
} Efficiency. Far more efficient use of code and underlying infrastructure. Users report
significant cost savings— reducing the amount of infrastructure required to run a given
application by 50%.
} Resiliency. The dispersion of functionality across services can avoid a single point of
failure. The result is systems that perform much better with very limited downtime, and
can scale seamlessly on demand.
} Revenue. Faster iteration and less downtime add up to more revenue. User retention
and user engagement increase as your product continuously improves.

43. Omni-Channel
Select technologies & services which are appropriate for use by both retail store and online
channels.
Leading Edge Not Bleeding Edge
Use technologies & services which have been adopted by class leading digital businesses and
proven at scale in real world operations.
Design For Uncertainty
Design for flexibility which allows systems to be more quickly replaced and/or enhanced, to reflect
continuous customer feedback, and to enable strategic agility should there be a significant shift in
the market.
Right Time Information
Design for real time or near real time information as needed – avoid batch ‘end-of-days’.
Open Data & Interfaces
Design systems by default to allow all their data to be consumed in an open way, so that data can
readily be aggregated and used as a single version of the truth, internally and externally.
Scalable / Agile
All solutions must allow ease-of-scale, through replication and be highly agile, through ease of
configuration.
Available
All solutions must be highly available; able to deal with degradation of elements of the solution
without impacting operational capability or the end user experience.
Device & Channel Agnostic
Any solution must be able to work on any ACME device natively and available across the Internet.
ACME Transformation
Principles

44. ACME Transformation
Principles
Measurable business principles – understood
& supported by the Excom.
Reducing Cost Of Ownership
By choosing ‘open source’ or ‘cloud’ solutions’, which can run on minimum spec devices, and
allow retirement of legacy. By adopting a ‘rent don’t buy’ mantra and adopt an OPEX model which
is scalable (up and down) based on actual usage.
Smart Stitching
Utilise best of breed SaaS and/or ‘open source’ products where possible and focus on ‘stitching’
these solutions together.
Incremental Changes
Utilise a Microservices approach to allow gradual deployment of new capability towards an overall
vision, but without large scale transition states, and hence reduce business operational impact
Build for Competitive Advantage; Buy for Competitive Parity
Build tech/services that enhance or automate a capability that is a competitive advantage for
ACME. Do no re-invent functionality that can be provided by commodity services

45. Keep things simple to start and evolve.
Four outcome areas
FOCUS ON 4 KEY OUTCOME AREAS:
1. User Experience: make it tangible; show how things will
look and feel through rapid prototyping cycles.
2. Insight: demonstrate the insights created by knowing
exactly what business event has happened and when and
focus on issues that had been hard to fix in the past.
3. Integration: show how external services and internal apps
can be integrated, quickly without expensive middleware.
Demonstrate how this will simplify the integration of future
acquisitions.
4. Agility: deliver results in days rather than weeks or months.