Today’s most forward-thinking IT leaders view outsourcing not as a cost reduction tactic but rather as a strategic vehicle and catalyst for transforming the organization into a digital business. They have learned that taking an approach that drives alignment with business requirements, transforms the state of IT, and changes the “work” that is being done not only produces better service levels but also delivers exponentially greater cost savings. In this new white paper, "IT Outsourcing Is Not About Cost Savings", The Outsourcing Institute and WGroup have teamed up to provide guidance to help you rethink IT outsourcing and how you can deliver increased shareholder value.
Increasing project success rates using project behavioral coachingWGroup
This strategy brief discusses the use of project behavioral coaching, which is a technique based on the science of human behavior that can be used with any methodology to drive up success. Covers the high level steps used in performing the project behavioral coaching™ (PBC) technique as a guide for project professionals that desire an introduction to learning the basics.
Using Business Process Mapping as a Communication Facilitator in the Global Enterprise
Information versus Communication
In a recent article on Lombardi Software and in particular their Blueprint business process mapping solution, I referred to John C. Maxwell’s assertion that “information is giving out; communication is getting through.”
It is an interesting perspective in that traditionally process mapping has been viewed as a way of providing an overview of the intricacies of the internal “architectures” that define and drive the modern enterprise. It has rarely (if ever) been considered a communication tool or facilitator. And herein lays the reason for its “boutique” status that has limited its practice to a select few “techies” who are perceived as being more system-oriented versus people-oriented.
Increasing project success rates using project behavioral coachingWGroup
This strategy brief discusses the use of project behavioral coaching, which is a technique based on the science of human behavior that can be used with any methodology to drive up success. Covers the high level steps used in performing the project behavioral coaching™ (PBC) technique as a guide for project professionals that desire an introduction to learning the basics.
Using Business Process Mapping as a Communication Facilitator in the Global Enterprise
Information versus Communication
In a recent article on Lombardi Software and in particular their Blueprint business process mapping solution, I referred to John C. Maxwell’s assertion that “information is giving out; communication is getting through.”
It is an interesting perspective in that traditionally process mapping has been viewed as a way of providing an overview of the intricacies of the internal “architectures” that define and drive the modern enterprise. It has rarely (if ever) been considered a communication tool or facilitator. And herein lays the reason for its “boutique” status that has limited its practice to a select few “techies” who are perceived as being more system-oriented versus people-oriented.
This article outlines how I’ve tackled the strategic alignment between the business and IT through capability mapping, governance and Agile delivery. It looks at the overall process from a strategic business objective, goal or idea through governance to achieving business value.
The real question here is “how” - how does an enterprise truly change its culture to embrace collaboration? This paper is the second in a series of publications that explore the insights gathered from the SMART Technologies Collaboration Council. Here we summarize the Council’s views on the criticality and steps towards of establishing a collaborative culture. White paper by Bill Haskins, Senior Analyst at Wainhouse Research.
Social Business Centers Of Excellence: FoundationsLeader Networks
Slides from a webinar hosted by Social Media Today Social Organization: How Centers of Excellence, Collaborative Management and Seamless Enterprise Structures are Working and a few bonus ones for good measure.
SMART Technologies commissioned a global research study to get a better understanding of customer value as it relates to their investment in collaboration. The primary
goal was to determine if companies experienced value differently, depending on their approach to implementing collaboration.
The white paper by Marty Parker, Principal, UniComm Consulting and Co-Founder, UC Strategies, emphasizes the ways in which improved collaboration maturity pays off for organizations. You will see how improved collaboration capabilities can provide great ROI by enabling your organization to go faster or to use less resources or be different from or better than your competition. Each of these types of returns are grounded in the actual case studies of real life customer successes.
Every company, of every size, in every corner of the globe collaborates on one level or another. At one end of the spectrum lies tactical communication and coordination between people, teams, partners and customers. However, the other end of the spectrum is reserved for those who have established the tools, process and culture, and optimized their environment for Collaboration - those who are Collaborating with a "big C". White paper by Bill Haskins, Senior Analyst at Wainhouse Research.
What can you achieve by socializing your corporate intranet?
In this presentation, social business experts Gia Lyons and Kathryn Everest will examine how a social intranet enables more employees to find and engage in corporate communications and strategic messages, thus driving greater alignment and buy-in.
Jive is the world's #1 social business platform. We help employees, customers and partners connect, collaborate and communicate to achieve breakthrough results in sales, marketing, customer service and workforce productivity.
Learn more at http://bit.ly/1aTo6Vq
Using market-based comparisons to drive transformation planning for a private healthcare hospital system. Are your technology costs in line with what best-practice outsourcing providers would charge for similar work? This is a case study showing how a market assessment led to a transformational roadmap - and the chance for a hospital system to save millions of dollars.
11 things IT leaders need to know about the internet of things WGroup
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the next phase in the evolution of the Internet. More than 100 devices connect to the Internet every second. By 2020, Cisco estimates that number to be more than 250 per second. Morgan Stanley projects the Internet will be loaded with 75 billion devices by the end of the decade. This document discusses WGroup's perspective on what 11 things IT leaders need to know about IoT.
This article outlines how I’ve tackled the strategic alignment between the business and IT through capability mapping, governance and Agile delivery. It looks at the overall process from a strategic business objective, goal or idea through governance to achieving business value.
The real question here is “how” - how does an enterprise truly change its culture to embrace collaboration? This paper is the second in a series of publications that explore the insights gathered from the SMART Technologies Collaboration Council. Here we summarize the Council’s views on the criticality and steps towards of establishing a collaborative culture. White paper by Bill Haskins, Senior Analyst at Wainhouse Research.
Social Business Centers Of Excellence: FoundationsLeader Networks
Slides from a webinar hosted by Social Media Today Social Organization: How Centers of Excellence, Collaborative Management and Seamless Enterprise Structures are Working and a few bonus ones for good measure.
SMART Technologies commissioned a global research study to get a better understanding of customer value as it relates to their investment in collaboration. The primary
goal was to determine if companies experienced value differently, depending on their approach to implementing collaboration.
The white paper by Marty Parker, Principal, UniComm Consulting and Co-Founder, UC Strategies, emphasizes the ways in which improved collaboration maturity pays off for organizations. You will see how improved collaboration capabilities can provide great ROI by enabling your organization to go faster or to use less resources or be different from or better than your competition. Each of these types of returns are grounded in the actual case studies of real life customer successes.
Every company, of every size, in every corner of the globe collaborates on one level or another. At one end of the spectrum lies tactical communication and coordination between people, teams, partners and customers. However, the other end of the spectrum is reserved for those who have established the tools, process and culture, and optimized their environment for Collaboration - those who are Collaborating with a "big C". White paper by Bill Haskins, Senior Analyst at Wainhouse Research.
What can you achieve by socializing your corporate intranet?
In this presentation, social business experts Gia Lyons and Kathryn Everest will examine how a social intranet enables more employees to find and engage in corporate communications and strategic messages, thus driving greater alignment and buy-in.
Jive is the world's #1 social business platform. We help employees, customers and partners connect, collaborate and communicate to achieve breakthrough results in sales, marketing, customer service and workforce productivity.
Learn more at http://bit.ly/1aTo6Vq
Using market-based comparisons to drive transformation planning for a private healthcare hospital system. Are your technology costs in line with what best-practice outsourcing providers would charge for similar work? This is a case study showing how a market assessment led to a transformational roadmap - and the chance for a hospital system to save millions of dollars.
11 things IT leaders need to know about the internet of things WGroup
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the next phase in the evolution of the Internet. More than 100 devices connect to the Internet every second. By 2020, Cisco estimates that number to be more than 250 per second. Morgan Stanley projects the Internet will be loaded with 75 billion devices by the end of the decade. This document discusses WGroup's perspective on what 11 things IT leaders need to know about IoT.
There are five disruptive forces shaping IT today, but none has more wide-ranging impact on all enterprises than the emergence of cloud as a preferred means of service delivery. This article discusses the cloud industry and how WGroup can help give client a competitive advantage using a service delivery strategy and new IT operating models.
Even with the maturity of outsourcing, one of the most important yet often overlooked or minimized aspect of an outsourcing transaction continues to be the relationship management and governance model. The objective of the relationship management model is to ensure the anticipated benefits of an outsourcing relationship are realized in the most efficient manner. It must be based on the terms of the agreement and link the management processes of the two parties in order to govern the working relationship and achieve results. This article highlights the governance and relationship management model developed and implemented to support a sourcing strategy is the single most important factor in the realization of success in an outsourcing relationship. It also shares WGroup’s experience in advising on the creation and management of outsourcing relationships and governance and guiding clients in the development and implementation of sourcing strategies for existing contracts.
In this document, the five disruptive trends shaping the corporate IT landscape today are layed out. Out of the five, Big Data has the biggest potential to generate new sustainable competitive advantages. But the benefits will remain out of reach of many organizations as they struggle to adopt the technology, develop new capabilities, and manage the cultural change associated with the use of big data. This document offers a pragmatic approach to generating business value.
Negotiating Better Solutions with IT PartnersWGroup
See how WGroup helped a major insurer fix service delivery performance issues while working with an incumbent partner – developing an innovative solution to improve service and reduce costs.
State of Cloud 2016 - WGroup Industry ReportWGroup
Cloud technology is core to delivery of services in almost every industry, but its ongoing evolution means your organization needs to be flexible and agile enough to change with it. New services and applications appear daily, and cost structures are constantly changing. This special WGroup industry report, State of Cloud, will help you understand its rapid evolution so you can refine your IT strategy and fully leverage the power of today’s cloud in your organization.
E-book discussing the new IoT, which is a network. Like the internet, the IoT connects people. This e-book expolores the booming growth of IoT, what it means for companies now, and how your business can leverage it to drive business goals.
Management model for exploratory investment in IT WGroup
The ability to evaluate these new technologies in a practical environment where their technological value and impact on business and IT operations can be assessed is extremely important. Exploratory efforts should be structured and controlled similarly to other major projects and in addition should be evaluated for use in the production environment. In addition to evaluating the technical capabilities and practical application of the new technology, IT must evaluate the “fit” of the new technology in the existing service portfolio or catalog. In this article, WGroup has developed a new class of IT investment, referred to as “Exploratory,” along with a supporting management model to guide the effort through the evaluation phases and ensure a tight fit within the service catalog.
One in six projects is a ‘black swan’, or a project that if it goes badly it could threaten corporate financial stability. Now more than ever, companies must critically examine their project portfolio management processes for optimizing success. This strategy brief discusses how WGroup has helped numerous clients design, build, and manage the discipline of project portoflio management. Also shares the common pitfalls WGroup has seen in their experience.
This article takes a look at the 5 disruptive trends that are effectively changing the role of the CIO and the IT function— a shift in responsibility for IT to business units; the convergence of IT and business process outsourcing; the onset of big data, analytics, social and mobility; the commoditization of IT; and the consumerization of IT. The 5 drivers of transformation are: responsibility for IT is moving the business, convergence of ITO and BPO, mobility and analytics, commodiziation of IT, and consumerization of IT.
IT Strategic Sourcing Can Relieve the Squeeze on HealthcareWGroup
See how WGroup helped a major healthcare system develop more cost effective IT sourcing strategies. WGroup's analysis and recommendation will help the client develop more sophisticated IT sourcing strategies — to leverage synergies between institutes, improve patient and employee experiences, and reduce costs.
Automation and autonomics are here and organizations that don’t take advantage of the new technology will fall behind. The immense benefits to efficiency, labor costs, and customer satisfaction cannot be ignored. WGroup has decades of collective experience in supporting the implementation and optimization of automation and autonomics. Our team can help your company solve the automation puzzle and gain the perspective it needs to effectively deploy new automation systems or increase the effectiveness of existing ones.
Choosing the Right Digital Transformation Company.pdfMaveric Systems
After all, meaningful and long-lasting digital transformation requires businesses to prioritize product and process changes over technology investments. However, many companies have difficulty seeing past the immediate benefits of new technologies.
The Rise of Digital Darwinism and the Real-world Business Drivers for Digital...Brian Solis
Digital transformation (DX) is shaping the future of business. While it can mean different things to different leaders, DX is about migrating from on-premises and labor-based models to the cloud, then complementing migration with cloud capabilities and agility. But to stop there would miss the full potential of using the cloud to enable DX.
The potential of DX is the sum of its parts: “digital” and “transformation.” Explored in isolation, we’re limited to either the constant pursuit and implementation of new technologies that enhance capabilities or a focus on change to modernize and become more efficient and innovative. Combined, they represent the future of business, how it operates, how it serves customers and employees, and how it adapts to industry evolution.
DX is continuous, never ends, and never a “won and done” series of checked boxes. DX is how organizations continually respond to disruptive events, trends, and technologies – beyond IT. The most effective partners in a DX journey explore existing states and capabilities within, benchmark those results against industry best practices and customer needs, and apply those insights to a strategic digital transformation plan of their own.
Future-proofing public sector and commercial businesses starts with future-proofing partner businesses. The PTP is an accelerator to drive DX and business modernization from B2B all the way to B2C. The PTP provides partners with the guidance to accelerate the development of their AWS skills and expertise to better serve their government, education, or nonprofit and also commercial customers’ journeys to the cloud.
Introducing the AWS Partner Transformation Program eBook
For PTP partners to get started, AWS created a DX playbook “The AWS Partner Transformation Program: Setting the Stage to Transformation Your Business.”
The eBook explores digital trends, DX methodologies, and the needs and areas of opportunity for partner organizations. The eBook can help PTP partners chart a “transformation plan” to set the stage for their customers’ digital transformation.
The time is now to future-proof your business to future-proof your customer's business.
Next generation IT outsourcing and the global enterprise model (GEM)WGroup
Disruptive technologies such as cloud computing and the “as-a-service” model for software, infrastructure and platforms have led to fundamental changes in how IT services are organized, managed and delivered—whether they are outsourced, insourced or a combination. The reality that IT services can be delivered to anywhere on the globe via the “Cloud” has accelerated the commoditization of IT. Ubiquitous access to IT services has lessened business units’ dependency on internal IT and shifted the IT organization’s prime role from process excellence to technology and service innovation. This article discusses through WGroup's perspective how outsourcing can create value through changing the way business is done.
We’ve worked with Executives and IT leaders for over 30 years, and the single most common complaint we hear from them is their profound frustration with the lack of results and transparency from their never-ending IT investments.
To add further complexity, the demand for digital products and services has made it increasingly difficult for organizations to make ongoing investments and balance the need for innovation with optimization.
The latest data, combined from global enterprises, big consulting and research firms, makes the case that companies need to urgently act to address the digital disruption of their business and their related skills gaps. The data shows that 70% of digital business initiatives are likely to fail to deliver business growth, due to lack of business process and product innovation, as well as poor organizational adaptability.
Poor governance and legacy product management processes to align business and IT initiatives, coupled with insufficient leadership engagement across the organization, are the main reason most companies are wasting money on IT.
This thought paper speaks to these challenges and how optimizing both technology innovation and cross-organizational engagement will accelerate the positive business outcomes that organizations are looking to achieve especially in lieu of increasing digital disruption.
Authors - Alex Adamopoulos and Bob Kantor
As businesses continue through this evolution, IT begins to recognize increasingly significant benefits. In terms of value, the focus on management and automation yields a reduction of operating expenses, as automation of manual tasks enables the IT organization to operate more efficiently.
In recent years, Capital market players have had to adapt to changing macroeconomics, challenging growth environment and increasing regulatory burden. The advances of digital technology have presented threat as well opportunities for traditional players. This article presents high level analysis of various business models and explores potential instances of a truly digital operating model.
Similar to IT outsourcing is not about cost savings (20)
IT Integration Done Right
It may or may not surprise you, but about 70% – 90% of M&As fail, for one reason or another. The integration of two companies into one functional unit inevitably involves great change. Culture, business strategies, and many other variables need to be adapted to fit new environments, people, and goals.
Are you prepared to take on the pressure and complexity of an IT M&A? Our new M&A Playbook for IT is your roadmap to navigating the biggest IT integration challenges and driving business goals.
In this strategy brief, find out:
-The three common M&A pitfalls that CIOs must avoid
-How to improve synergy, lower costs, and shorten time to market
-How to determine the right level of IT integration for your company
Strategies to Address Regulation in SourcingWGroup
Regulatory Changes Impacting Sourcing and Automation – What could it mean for your business?
There is currently a tremendous amount of uncertainty among sourcing professionals as the outsourcing world as we know it is being challenged. Possible regulatory changes have the potential to significantly impact how organizations operate, and may completely change the future state of outsourcing. We explore important questions like:
- What if there is a tariff placed on outsourced or offshore resources?
- What could changes in H-1B visas mean for a global technology workforce?
- How could Bill Gates’ “Robot Tax” on automation impact process improvement initiatives?
- And more…
This is a review of the potential paths of sourcing regulation, detailing the top potential risks, and outlining strategies that could be employed to respond.
IAOP OWS 17 Leveraging Outsourcing to Modernize While Maintaining ApplicationsWGroup
Anthem’s New AMS Approach Proves You Don’t Need to Pick One or the Other:
Learn how a new approach to AMS sourcing can enable the modernization of core IT systems and maintenance of applications in parallel. See Anthem’s playbook and methodology for this innovative sourcing delivery model.
Learn how to stratify which suppliers can truly help you transform core systems, and which ones that may only be able to handle tasks. See the evaluation criteria that Anthem leveraged in assessing its suppliers for transformational work.
Understand the potential for running modernization and maintenance in an integrated effort, as opposed to separate initiatives.
The rising collection and analysis of data has shifted the way companies do business. Four key ingredients to develop a data strategy, how to leverage next-generation technologies, and three essential steps for rolling out implementation are included. The Data Ecosystem will show you how to develop and implement the strategies that will meet the needs of your business.
How to keep pace with changing technology and increase speed-to-value. In order to keep pace in a constantly evolving marketplace, organizations need a new model for sourcin IT services. Sourcing has become one of the most critical functions of the IT organization.
Is your project a losing battle? We've alI seen IT projects that failed, whether in our own organizations or observed elsewhere (hopefully the latter) One common attribute of failing projects is the Gambler's Paradox, where the gambler - the project manager - continues to gamble in the hope of recouping losses, resulting in even greater losses. We believe that milestone based project management LS superior to traditional project management.
Across the corporate landscape IT functions are completing their transformation to a service-orientation. Slowly but surely, “governance” has become a core mission, if not yet the core competency, of the IT organization. Governance involves many fronts and addresses many levels – there is architectural governance, IT finance and projects governance, and of course, supplier governance. All call for new skills and new structures. WGroup collectively brings decades of hands-on experience in IT supplier management to assist our clients with the multi-supplier challenge – from building the governance structures to defining sourcing strategies to facilitating contract reviews to transition management. This states how WGroup would implement a multi-supplier governance model successfully.
Most sourcing organizations focus on direct procurement, potentially overlooking indirect procurement and missing key opportunities to reduce spend. As indirect purchases increasingly become a larger percentage of overall spend, for many organizations, indirect procurement can be a diamond in the rough. This article makes the arguement that the value of indirect procurement should not be overlooked.
With the role of key vendors growing in importance and with more vendors being introduced into the workplace, effective vendor management has become a critical capability of any enterprise. This document describes how the design (or redesign) of the VMO needs to be approached with a focus on enlisting top skills, implementing effective processes and tools and establishing an organization whose role is clearly defined in the enterprise.
Five principles for improving your cyber securityWGroup
Corporate assets have been shifting from physical assets to virtual assets over the past 20 years. This trend has been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the vulnerability of intangible assets, leading to a greater general awareness of corporate cyber security risks. The alteration or destruction of a company’s data can result in harm to reputation, loss of public confidence, disruption to infrastructure, and legal sanctions. The security risk can adversely impact a company’s stock price and competitive position in the marketplace. In this document, WGroup cites 5 principles that will help improve a business's cyber security. The 5 principles are risk identification, risk management, legal implications, technical expertise, and expectations.
Outsourcing has evolved rapidly, especially during the last year. These changes are primarily due to technological advances, although the increasing globalization of business is also a factor. The attributes of the best IT outsourcing leaders also are shifting in response to this evolution. These attributes may generally be classified into personal characteristics and strategy. This document gives WGroup's perspective on 15 attributes shared by top IT leaders. The top 5 attributes are organization, cloud computing, standardization, renegotiation, and supplier risk.
Five ways to develop a successful outsourcing contractWGroup
WGroup perspective paper on how to develop a successful outsourcing contratct--A few key aspects of an outsourcing contract typically drive its projected savings and return on investment (ROI). You must carefully consider all of these areas to avoid mixed financial results on your outsourcing project. Strategizing the following five areas can help you develop a successful outsourcing contract. The 5 key ways are contract components, unit pricing, resource volume, dead bands, and renegotiation bands.
As sourcing is a highly specialized and complex process, many IT and business executives consider hiring a specialized sourcing advisory to support the development of a sourcing strategy, the execution of an insourcing initiative, or the management of an outsourcing transaction. The role that a sourcing advisor plays in the strategy development and orchestration over the sourcing process is vital to achieving the desired business outcomes. Conducting a thorough analysis of sourcing advisory firms is key to finding the best fit firm for your project. This strategy brief discusses how to find the best sourcing advisor that fits your needs.
Innovative sourcing transformation provides ongoing value through strategic p...WGroup
A major North American travel and transportation company was approaching the expiration of contracts covering IT services outsourced to a tier 1 Service Provider with which it had maintained a long-term contractual relationship over a period of 10+ years. Faced with evaluating a stagnating long term relationship with an outsourcing provider, the client turned to WGroup to ensure they were receiving the most value at up to date market competitive prices. WGroup helped rejuvenate the contractual relationship with the client and their provider.
In this case study, WGroup collaborated with business and IT stakeholders to build and compare business scenarios to evaluate in-house and third-party Pharmacy applications to support the client’s strategic, operational, and technical objectives, which resulted in estimated savings of $80M over 5 years. WGroup helped the client work through a complex analysis and evaluation process in just a few months. The client’s commercial pharmacy package will return value in a much shorter time than could be achieved by continuing with their internal solution development.
A global investment firm’s private equity group was unsure of whether a target Healthcare company was a valuable addition to their growing portfolio. They enlisted WGroup to assess the competitive position of the company overall as well as the functionality of a key software platform owned by the company. WGroup assessed the client’s software from all angles (security, scalability, competitiveness and cost implications) and found that several areas for improvement existed. WGroup created a roadmap for the initiatives that mapped out how the client could achieve these goals.
A diversified global manufacturing company was experiencing increasing IT spend and needed assistance to understand if their spend was in line with their S&P 500 peers. The company was in the process of hiring a new CIO, and the current COO wanted to understand, historically, where IT was spending the bulk of their budget, and if this was within best practice. The company was also interested in WGroup’s evaluation of the existing outsourced infrastructure contract. In this case study, WGroup worked with the COO and incoming CIO to identify, categorize and optimize IT spend across the enterprise resulting in greater value of reduced IT spend.
WGroup is brought in by a Fortune 100 corporation to restart a stalled RFP effort and guide its IT sourcing strategy. With a contract deadline looming, the client brought in WGroup to restart a stalled RFP effort and guide its IT sourcing strategy beyond incremental improvements toward service providers capable of delivering transformative advances in automation, efficiency, and effectiveness. Having these differentiated and variously priced options saved the client money and alleviated service concerns by appropriately targeting workloads to the delivery model that best fit the needs.
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projects’ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, you’re in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part “Essentials of Automation” series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Here’s what you’ll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
We’ll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 3DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 3. In this session, we will cover desktop automation along with UI automation.
Topics covered:
UI automation Introduction,
UI automation Sample
Desktop automation flow
Pradeep Chinnala, Senior Consultant Automation Developer @WonderBotz and UiPath MVP
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
2. 2
The driving forces of change are the speedier, more
efficient and more agile delivery of services that
transform the business. This is having a huge impact
on the way IT professionals and business leaders see
the role of outsourcing in helping their organizations
transform to become digital businesses.
March 10, 2016
3. Early in 2014, market researcher IDC asserted that chief information officers had to
jettison their old roles of technology overlords in favor of becoming leaders of digital
business transformation. But two years later, IDC pointed out the stark reality: “While
many CIOs have embraced this change, there are still a large percentage that will
benefit from evaluating their organizations as well as their relationship with the
business counterparts as they continue on this journey.”
“The Changing Role of IT Leadership: CIO Perspectives For 2016,” IDC, December 2015
“Here’s What Your Tech Budget is Being Spent On,” ZDnet.com, November 2014
“2016 IT Salary and Spending Report,” Computer Economics, December 2015
“IT and the Business are Finally Aligned: So Why is No One Happy?” Vanson Bourne study conducted for Computer Associates,
December 2014
It is more than a bit remarkable that so
many organizations still struggle to
understand how to use technology to
improve service delivery and enhance
business outcomes. Consider that:
Only 8% of IT spending is allocated to IT
innovation.
Fewer companies are committing to
year-over-year IT spending increases in
2016 than in previous years.
Just 15% of line-of-business respondents
to an industry survey said they were
completely satisfied with IT’s speed of
delivering new applications or services.
At the heart of many organizations’
struggles to optimize the use of
technology is how they have utilized
outsourcing as a business strategy.
Unfortunately, too many organizations
are bogged down by an antiquated and
inefficient vision of outsourcing as a
sourcing strategy designed solely to
shave labor costs. This is a major blind
spot. It’s more than startling that some
organizations still sign 5- and 10-year
outsourcing contracts centered only on
moving labor-based activities to offshore
locales, which incents the outsourcing
supplier to maintain the status quo,
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4. deliver less innovation, and minimize the
number of services—not to help realign
the IT activities towards driving business
value.
Innovative and truly successful organiza-
tions, by contrast, see outsourcing as a
way to enhance service delivery, speed
time to market, accelerate implementa-
tion of new technologies, foster
innovation and make smarter decisions.
Shareholder value is narrowly defined to
initiatives that increase revenue, eliminate
cost, mitigate risk, and/or are required for
regulatory compliance purposes.
Beyond shareholders, there are numerous
constituencies that can and should
benefit from a strategic, value-based
approach to outsourcing, including
customers, company employees, trading
partners and any other organization
whose business intersects with those of
the organization.
At the end of the day, outsourcing
should be about one thing:
Enhancing shareholder value.
That’s why the most successful
executives at the most forward-thinking
organizations see outsourcing not as a
cost-reduction strategy—frankly, that ship
has sailed—but as a vehicle and catalyst
to transform the organization into a
digital business.
In today’s business environment, the
emphasis has shifted from cost to
speed—speed to market, speed to value,
speed to ROI and more. That’s because
labor-centric outsourcing and other
initiatives have done their jobs at wringing
cost out of business operations, but those
cost-savings initiatives have largely
plateaued.
Instead, organizations have shifted into a
mode that places far more value on
agility and flexibility, not wanting to be
locked into old business models, lengthy
contract terms,
Changing the Rules of the Game
for IT and Business Leaders
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5. 5
vendor relationships or other restrictions
that limit their ability to move as fast as
new technology allows them to go. After
all, it wasn’t long ago that organizations
were debating how aggressively to
embrace trends like cloud computing,
layered security, enterprise mobility,
BYOD policies or virtual workspaces.
Business leaders and their IT counterparts
place a premium on avoiding vendor
lock-in, whether that vendor is providing
IT outsourcing services, data center
infrastructure, cyber security defenses or
mailroom services. Today’s market is a
buyers’ market – contracts are more
flexible than they have ever been and
termination costs are only a fraction of
what they once were (if they exist at all).
Multi-supplier models further mitigate risk
in a sourcing delivery model. If a provider
doesn’t live up to business-impacting
service levels, they can and should be
replaced by a better supplier—
ideally, one with a partnership mentality
and a shared vision for how to measure
mutual success, at no cost to the client.
When the business focus shifts from cost
savings to creating shareholder value, the
nature of relationships between
organizations and their service providers
moves away from contract terms and
service-level agreements to one where
everyone collaborates on how to define
and deliver higher levels of business
value. It repositions the outsourcing
provider from transactional vendor to
strategic partner.
Instead of trimming costs—and having
suppliers manage to contract terms
rather than finding ways to deliver
innovative services faster—IT and
business executives have reoriented
organizational priorities. And this
reorientation affects every trading partner
and service provider with which the
organization does business.
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6. Organizations’ relationships with
outsourcing partners, in particular, have
to endure a wake-up call. Business
executives obviously want to see financial
improvements, and expect their CIOs and
IT partners make that a reality. But now
those financial improvements have to
embrace a far more expansive and
strategic issues designed to drive higher
revenues, as well as keep costs under
control. As an example, the delivery of
automation capabilities becomes less
about reducing headcount to manage
transactional tasks, and more about
improving the customer experience.
IT organizations need to ensure that their
outsourcing partners are, in fact, true
partnerships in delivering services and
advancing the goals of the business.
How IT Has Impacted the Role of
Outsourcing
After all, IT leaders don’t really place a lot
of value on lower-cost ways to write
software code or determining if help desk
calls should be answered in Bangalore or
Minsk. What they do care about is how
technology partners help them to make a
positive impact on the business, to deliver
new and better services—fast—to
employees, trading partners and
customers.
The “democratizing” of technology
through trends like BYOD, public cloud
services, Web-hosted applications and
app stores has empowered end-user
groups to become well-informed, highly
motivated consumers and shapers of IT
services. This, in turn, means that IT
organizations need to work more closely
with outsourcing partners to come up
with new technology frameworks that
result in innovation, improved service
delivery, faster time to market and
achieving mutually agreed-upon business
goals. Running the business is no longer
sufficient – the outsourcing model must
enable transformation in the business.
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7. Of course, IT departments must insist that
their outsourcing partners do that
without locking the organization into
tangible or intangible penalties should the
need for change arise. That means the
ability to switch technology platforms,
expand cyber security defenses, change
application delivery methodologies or
quickly adopt new tools for transformative
workloads, such as analytics, automation,
or to address the Internet of Things.
Not every outsourcing vendor has the
skills—or even the inclination—to
become a true partner in business
transformation. That puts big pressure on
CIOs, IT leaders and business executives
to do their due diligence in thoughtful
and thorough evaluation of those
partners and their skills.
What to Look For in an
Outsourcing Partner
Here are a few things IT and business
decision makers need to keep in mind
when looking for this new kind of
outsourcing partner:
Technical skills are important, but
technology no longer differentiates
companies or their service providers. Be
sure they have deep skills in the right
kinds of “new” technologies, not just
armies of COBOL programmers or
mainframe administrators. Those aren’t
the tools of transformation. The new
technology weapons in business
transformation are tools like Hadoop,
Spark, enterprise mobility management,
hybrid cloud, threat intelligence, robotic
process automation, and software-
defined infrastructure. Be sure your
outsourcing partner has a demonstrated
competency to walk that walk.
Technology skills are table stakes;
be sure to get the right ones.
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8. Your outsourcing partner has to lead with
a solution that is laser-aligned to your
business strategy and transformation
objectives. If your preliminary research of
their capabilities, or your initial
conversation with their team, doesn’t talk
about how they have helped
organizations morph into sleek, agile and
visionary players that compete in new
ways walk away.
For others that make the first cut, keep
your eyes open for real-world success
stories that are relevant to your industry,
business model and market challenge.
And find out where their consultants cut
their teeth and achieved business
breakthroughs for their clients. You don’t
want to be anyone’s guinea pig when
they are trying to become the next
management consulting guru.
Your next outsourcing engagement
needs to center on strategies for
improved service delivery and
architecture reengineering as part of a
broader business transformation strategy.
As such, it’s an executive-level and
technology engagement, not a job for
your purchasing department to tackle
alone.
Put aside old models like long-term,
fixed-rate contracts based on cost
reduction in favor of business-oriented
metrics that encourage service
development and delivery.
A bias for strategy, an eye for
business transformation.
Outsourcing as business strategy,
not procurement exercise.
Turning the traditional outsourc-
ing model on its head.
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9. The irony of IT outsourcing is that
taking an approach that drives alignment
with business requirements, transforms the state
of IT, and changes the “work” that is being done not only
produces better service levels but also delivers exponentially
greater cost savings. Taking an approach from a
transformational mindset will best enable the IT and sourcing
leader to deliver true business value.
CONCLUSION
At the heart of this approach is an
understanding that IT, and the delivery
and consumption of IT-based services, no
longer is the sole domain of the IT
department. IT is now owned by the
business. Outsourcing must be a deeply
collaborative process among IT, business
stakeholders and the outsourcing partner.
This puts the IT executive in the critical
role of service broker and business unit
confidant, not a manager of
programmers and tech support staff.
Remember: You want to do more than
simply embrace change for your
organization—you want to accelerate it.
Be sure to do business with an
outsourcing partner willing and able to
do the same.
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10. About Co-Author: WGroup
Founded in 1995, WGroup is the preeminent sourcing advisory firm for creating IT
sourcing models that directly impact business outcomes. WGroup believes that
sourcing is a vehicle for transforming the reference architecture and restructuring
the service delivery model to take advantage of new capabilities. Today, these
capabilities include cloud, automation (RPA), multi-sourcing strategies, and other
advanced capabilities of the digital enterprise. In WGroup’s view, sourcing is only
successful when it makes a tangible impact on business performance.
The firm supports clients through renegotiations and restructuring of existing
sourcing agreements and the creation of new sourcing strategies from strategy
development, through provider selection, to transition and vendor management.
Over its 21 year tenure, WGroup has advised on some of the most complex and
transformative deals in the industry and has a reputation for continually delivering
market-leading results in its clients.
At its core, WGroup’s chief differentiator is its people. All of WGroup’s Principal
Consultants have formerly held CIO and senior IT executive roles and are bound
by a passion for delivering high quality, professional, fact-based, and results-driven
work.
In addition to sourcing advisory activities, the firm has a robust IT Transformation
and Management Consulting Practice that assists IT leaders with aligning IT
towards business outcomes. Much of this activity is centered on IT strategy,
merger and acquisition integration, operational improvements, and tackling
complex IT issues. WGroup works across all industries with some of the most
forward-thinking IT and business leaders in the world.
More information about WGroup is available at thinkwgroup.com. 10
11. About Outsourcing Institute:
Founded in 1993, The Outsourcing Institute (OI), located at outsourcing.com, is a
neutral professional association dedicated solely to outsourcing, providing
information, research, networking opportunities and customized outsourcing
services and solutions to the outsourcing industry.
OI is recognized worldwide for its intellectual capital, outsourcing practice
expertise and unbiased thought leadership. OI's commitment to innovation, along
with its mission to advance the skills and knowledge of its membership, has made
it the most respected and relied upon brand for the outsourcing marketplace. OI's
executive network, which is comprised of more than 70,000 professionals
worldwide, looks to OI as the go-to source for outsourcing thought leadership,
information and advice.
To learn more visit www.outsourcing.com.
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