There are a lot of use cases for blockchain technology, and the business case for each needs to be developed. A lot of companies exist with a blockchain solution for a problem that does not exist — essentially a hammer searching for a nail. The use cases outlined in this Advisor have common benefits focused on simplifying existing relationships, reducing fraud, and improving the speed of commerce.

With the rush to new digital platforms, technology leaders often underestimate the value of continuous improvement. Many see it as a waste to invest in “fixing the old,” as it would leave fewer resources to develop “the new.” DevOps practices and cloud platforms can catapult enterprise technology forward, improving consumer responsiveness, time to market, throughput, and resilience, but they depend on continuous improvement to become internalized and self-sustaining.

This workshop covers how to establish and mature all aspects of a business architecture practice such as defining value proposition and measuring value, creating a roadmap for the practice, defining governance, selecting tools and defining organizational structures. 

Leaders peering over the edge of the horizon of their own and adjacent industries might wonder, “What are companies that have achieved digital success doing differently?” We believe that at the heart of the ability to manage an ongoing and multilayered organizational transformation rests a sophisticated enterprise architecture capability with a specific charter to act as a transformation engine connecting strategic intent and execution excellence.

Cutter Consortium’s Digital Transformation & Innovation Bootcamp is designed to help executive teams upend the reflex thinking that prevents essential change, take a fresh and creative look at opportunities, and dive deeply into what they need to do to succeed. Cutter Consortium Fellow, Professor Karim Lakhani will guide participants through a 2-day examina­tion of how digital innovation is transforming our business landscape on October 25-27, 2017.

Organizations are starting to use blockchain to develop a new breed of transactional business applications designed to embed trust, transparency, efficiency, and accountability into the process of sharing and transferring a broad range of assets in a business network. These business blockchains are not limited to currencies. Assets ranging from equipment, shipping containers, and warranties to healthcare records and data related to supply chains can now be shared, exchanged, or transferred via blockchain networks more efficiently, and with greater collaboration and less risk to shareholders, than is practical using traditional centralized approaches.

To ensure that the focus of any analysis of technical debt includes the real causes of technical debt, we must define it in terms that are unbiased relative to cause. One approach that meets this constraint is a definition not in terms of cause, but in terms of consequence. 

To gain insight into the various trends and issues impacting enterprise data security and protection practices, and the extent to which organizations employ data-centric security practices and tech­nologies, Cutter Consortium surveyed 50 organizations worldwide. Here in Part III of this Executive Update series, we examine survey findings pertaining to the specific issues and concerns involving the protection of data maintained in big data platforms and applications.

The success of Global Business Services (GBS) in managing this transition and in meeting the evolving expectations of business divisions has contributed to a sea change in Dell EMC in which all departments are being asked to align for business-driven digital transformation. This has prompted discussion around the changing value proposition of GBS over time, which began as a set of orthogonal and functional agreements but has transitioned into a process-entangled, ­bottom-up engine of collaboration, innovation, and ­personal development.

Attempting more demanding endeavors requires innovative methods for delivering, guiding, and managing projects. Meanwhile, the rise in complexity and uncertainty demands new ways of thinking about projects.

CIOs and their teams are now tasked with enabling digital strategies, and many of the user stories target tangible benefits for customers and the organization.

Digital ecosystems are formed by a network of businesses linked together through a collective goal. Success in the financial services sector will increasingly be determined by which ecosystem you choose to participate in and how these ecosystems will compete against each other.

In this Executive Update, the last of three related Updates, we evaluate how financial organizations are responding to the new challenges of cloud outsourcing and continue to distill our findings based on research and data collection conducted from 2014-2016. Using insight from our interviewees, we share some action points through a framework that enables organizations to manage this increasingly complex, crucial area. We also outline some good practices for managing cloud-based innovation on a continuing basis in order to maintain daily compliance. 

In this Executive Update, the last of three related Updates, we evaluate how financial organizations are responding to the new challenges of cloud outsourcing and continue to distill our findings based on research and data collection conducted from 2014-2016. Using insight from our interviewees, we share some action points through a framework that enables organizations to manage this increasingly complex, crucial area. We also outline some good practices for managing cloud-based innovation on a continuing basis in order to maintain daily compliance. 

This Executive Roundtable examines why it is still the dawn of the digital age and phenomena such as blockchain, the shared economy, and artificial intelligence. You'll explore the true vocation of technology and the transformative potential to build the new Economy of distributed networks.

This Executive Roundtable examines why it is still the dawn of the digital age and phenomena such as blockchain, the shared economy, and artificial intelligence. You'll explore the true vocation of technology and the transformative potential to build the new Economy of distributed networks.

Regardless of whether Agile teams operate with or without a scaled frame­work, the need to match the expectations of the business users on the receiving end of the value generated by the team with the internal measures of throughput is critical. The three challenges described in this Advisor highlight the importance of measuring value in the eyes of the recipient of the output of work, not only the effort generated to attain value.

At the Cutter Digital Transformation & Innovation Bootcamp, Cutter Fellow and Harvard Business School Professor Karim Lakhani talked about digitally-driven disruption of traditional business models for value creation and capture, discussing platform models like Facebook and Twitter. To date, Twitter has clearly done a good job “creating value.” But unlike Facebook, it continues to struggle with the capture part of the equation.

In this on-demand webinar, Cutter Senior Consultant Paul Harmon considers the growing role of artificial intelligence and cognitive technologies in all aspects of business. He argues that cognitive technologies will simply extend the ongoing digital transformation requiring that companies reconsider their business models and processes yet again and that they will need to incorporate intelligent elements to remain competitive.

In this on-demand webinar, Cutter Senior Consultant Paul Harmon considers the growing role of artificial intelligence and cognitive technologies in all aspects of business. He argues that cognitive technologies will simply extend the ongoing digital transformation requiring that companies reconsider their business models and processes yet again and that they will need to incorporate intelligent elements to remain competitive.

The IoT is rich with opportunity — and risk. Designers must proactively consider the privacy implications of the design choices they make. Designs should help people make intelligent, rational decisions about their interactions with sensors and devices, not obfuscate those decisions. When the benefits appear to outweigh the risks, society as a whole should be informed, educated, and engaged to develop appropriate social norms to be followed.

The role of EA leaders in technology innovation is to scan the horizon of emerging technologies to determine how they are being applied and identify opportunities for the organization to innovate for competitive advantage. Once EA leaders have identified and analyzed those opportunities, businesses can formulate strategies for adoption.

The Internet of Things (IoT) continues to garner considerable attention as companies announce they are developing new connected products and services. Of course, this brings up the important topic of to what extent organizations are maintaining sensitive data in IoT devices, platforms, and applications.

For organizations to survive and thrive in the modern world, we should be able to work “remote first”: working online as if we were in the office together. Our companies will only be stronger for it. The things that make remote working successful are the same things we want in place anyway: effortless and fast communication, a shared place for files and conversation, and alignment on a common vision.

Having clearly defined outcomes creates the opportunity for stakeholders to reimagine their business, which informs the shape of future capabilities.