Surviving the recession: a Quocirca series

In the penultimate episode of this 12-part series Quocirca's Clive Longbottom advises on when to remain flexible and how to tell what's tactical and what's strategic...

The only definite thing about the future is that it happens. The main problem with this is that it seems to be happening more rapidly.

The impact on IT within organisations is that it is increasingly difficult to second-guess what the actual business requirements will be when any proposed solution actually goes live. It's like catching fish with a spear - you not only have to compensate for the movement of the fish but also for the refraction of the water making the position of the fish look like being some distance away from where it actually is.

Planning for change means you have to work in small time slices - otherwise you are guaranteed to miss your target. So, a project aimed at solving today's business problems will probably be totally unsuitable for the actual problems found when it goes live.

Hmmm... so there's no point in doing any projects? Well, it's not that simple. What we have to look for is a complete change to our approach to projects and their end results. We need to move away from the concept of specific applications and targeted long-term solutions to specific facilities, short-term value add and long-term flexibility.

Don't look at CRM, ERP or SCM as stand alone projects - this will only keep the myth that they can be dealt with separately. Don't put in 'applications', put in 'services'. Don't look at direct solutions, look at 'facilitation'.

This is what the new vendor hype is all about - web services are purported to be just what we need. However, few vendors are actually providing any web services which will hang together as you need, so beware. There is still the temptation for vendors to create yet another version of existing functionality - perhaps a wheel with an infinite number of straight edges will be more round than a circular one? 'Bloatware' will still happen - vendors will want to capture more of the market by being able to offer more. Standards will be bent to fit with the vendors' agenda, making not all services equal.

But we shouldn't let this stop us from taking an open flexible approach to the future. Don't go to your tame systems integrator, vendor or facilities management company saying: "We've got a CRM problem - what should we do?"

In your position as chief business-to-technology translator, go to them and say: "My company could be better positioned if we had the capability to tie our existing customer ordering system through to our existing supply chain system. It will be necessary for this to integrate into our call centre and sales automation solutions as well, which may be changing in 2003. Therefore the service will need to be open and flexible. What web service functionality can you provide me with that will enable this to happen?"

In a discussion I had recently, a group of us touched on market differentiation and how packaged applications and packaged solutions could not provide any true differentiation as you had to follow the prescription and proscription of the solution itself. This then led to a discussion on whether market differentiation is strategic or tactical.

My view is that a company's IT strategy should focus on automating the 'commodity' IT services - the infrastructure, the messaging, the payroll and so on. Those functions which provide market differentiation are ephemeral - and the time for those windows of opportunity (see http://www.silicon.com/a51109 ) is shrinking to such an extent that these must be viewed as tactical.

But, for successful tactical implementations of market differentiators, we need a flexible infrastructure - so we must not allow the infrastructure to be prescriptive or proscriptive. So, how do we get round the problem that packaged solutions aren't flexible but packaged solutions are required to automate the commodity areas?

Don't confuse flexibility with function - the capability to call a messaging subsystem to exchange information is commodity - the content and function of that call isn't. The laying of CAT 5 cabling is commodity - the provisioning of Quality of Service (QoS) isn't. Flexibility can be built in to the commodity infrastructure, enabling differentiation to be rapidly 'plugged in' as required.

Again, as we have previously discussed, the main point is that we are not looking at 'big bang' projects here. What we are looking at is solving point issues with services that are open enough to enable us to plug them into other solutions as they come along. By moving from the silo approach of the departmentalised, single-issue application project to a flexible, services-driven, functional approach you can create a fleet-of-foot company ready not only for the rigours of today's market but ready for the upturn if and when it comes along.

Next week: End Game - presenting a compelling case

**Quocirca is a leading, user-facing analyst house known for its focus on the 'big picture'. For a full summary of its activities see www.quocirca.com, or reach the company's founding directors by emailing quocirca@silicon.com.

Previous Surviving the Recession columns:
Part 10. In-house or hosted: the outsourcing question
http://www.silicon.com/a51291
Part 9. Creating and using Windows of Opportunity
http://www.silicon.com/a51109
Part 8. Time to Capability
http://www.silicon.com/a50908
Part 7. The use of Game Theory
www.silicon.com/a50677
Part 6. Creating a basic Total Value Proposition
http://www.silicon.com/a50475
Part 5. Supply and demand - managing expectations
http://www.silicon.com/a50295
Part 4. The mobile factor - preparing for the deluge
http://www.silicon.com/a50159
Part 3. Knowing the customer
http://www.silicon.com/a50052
Part 2. Prioritising business needs
http://www.silicon.com/a49901
Part 1. It's a recession - save or spend?
http://www.silicon.com/a49733