Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

Companies don't set out to alienate their customers. That's often just how it works out. Many interactions leave the consumer feeling dissatisfied, sometimes even downright hostile. All too frequently, technology plays a role in these customer service disasters.

Recent media coverage of BP and the spill in the Gulf of Mexico reveals that BP's management decisions and actions have been dominated by cost considerations. Rather than taking lower-risk actions or investing in better solutions, BP apparently took the low road. The low-cost road, that is. We in IT of course are very familiar with this.

A lot of advice has been given about the "how" and "why" of agile. Yet, in human resources (HR), there is still a need for an internal push on several counts. What would enable HR to create and support an agile environment? First, the ability to let go of all the earlier beliefs about people's functions and requirements, and second, a move to experiencing and understanding the agile employee from a different paradigm.

Due to the depressed economy, many companies have sought to streamline processes and reduce staff, leaving many compliance organizations leaner while new regulations and updates to existing regulations continue.

Based on our research over the past few years, it's apparent that the need to consolidate disparate data warehouses and data marts has become an ongoing trend among organizations wanting to upgrade their BI capabilities.

Outsourcing has become an integral part of nearly every organization. Whether it is a small business handing over its bookkeeping to a local accountant or the US military outsourcing its security to private companies, it's happening every day around the globe. One area that many organizations largely outsource is IT, an issue that is hardly controversial today. Except for one component -- information security outsourcing (ISO).

Back in March, I discussed some of the important developments involving the incorporation of social computing techniques (i.e., blogs, wikis, social networks) with enterprise software (see "Facebook for the Enterprise: The New Business