{"id":12313,"date":"2013-04-22T12:54:06","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T11:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/?p=4878"},"modified":"2013-04-22T12:54:06","modified_gmt":"2013-04-22T11:54:06","slug":"how-and-why-to-create-an-in-memory-action-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/how-and-why-to-create-an-in-memory-action-plan.html","title":{"rendered":"Why You Need An In-Memory Action Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a third post of a series based on a SAP-sponsored breakfast meeting organized in Sydney earlier this year with speaker Donald Feinberg, Gartner VP and Distinguished Analyst<\/a> explaining the \u201cNexus of Forces<\/a>\u201d: social, mobile, cloud and information.<\/p>\n

In the first two posts, Donald covered why in-memory is disrupting everything, and why every organization will be running in-memory in 15 to 20 years time<\/a>, and the business impacts of the new in-memory computing possibilities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In this post, Donald explains why you should have an in-memory action plan — and how to create one.<\/p>\n

These comments are based on my notes taken from the speech, formatted for legibility.<\/p>\n

\n

Why you need an in-memory action plan<\/h3>\n

\"in-memory-action-plan_thumb\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You need to change the way you look at IT infrastructure, applications, and the infrastructure that\u2019s running those applications. Truly, with some of these new technologies like in-memory technology, there are no barriers, things that you can\u2019t do. Words like \u201cno we can\u2019t do it\u201d start to go away.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to tell you it\u2019s going to be cheap, I\u2019m not going to tell you there\u2019s not going to be bumps in the road as you\u2019re doing it, but things that you really thought were not possible are possible now. Period.\u00a0<\/strong>[examples in previous post<\/a>]<\/p>\n

What do you do in your organization to start to adopt or use some of the in-memory technologies? You are<\/em> going to spend money on this. Whether the TCO is less or not, you still have to build your skills, you still have to buy applications, you still have to buy the technology and infrastructure and things like that.<\/p>\n

\"in-memory-action-plan-2_thumb\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Build a business case first.<\/strong> Show the value of what you\u2019re going to do. The return on investment may be long or may be short. We recommend short at first. Small projects with quick return on investment will get you more projects that are bigger and have a greater impact on the company. But you have to prove it first \u2013 that\u2019s the key.<\/p>\n

Assign a small team of people to look at this. Most companies don\u2019t have a research and development organization in IT (the big ones do). But there\u2019s no reason you can\u2019t have one person looking at the things that are possible with the new technologies, looking at how they can make your current applications more efficient, or start to change how you use them.<\/p>\n

So set up a CTO or department of the CTO that has somebody in there who\u2019s just looking at the stuff that\u2019s out five years or ten years from now<\/strong>, so that you will be ready to start to do projects with it when it matures to the level of risk that you\u2019re willing to take.<\/p>\n

Always do a POC, proof of concept. Do not just assume that because it looks good on paper it\u2019s going to work for you. You need to test it with your data, with your applications, with your people.<\/p>\n

Brainstorming. A lot of people don\u2019t realize that your business unit people are much more IT-aware than they have ever been before. Brainstorm with them on what some of these things can happen, in the business, and how they can make use of it. Who has the budget today? IT? Or the business unit? So if you don\u2019t do this, they\u2019re going to do it anyway, and they\u2019re going to implement the technology without IT. The big disadvantage is that the company doesn\u2019t get the broad skill base that is necessary, and that technology is not shared across the business units. It\u2019s much better to keep it in IT, not because you order it so, but because you are moving along in these new ways, with the business units and what they need.<\/p>\n

If you believe what I\u2019m telling you about in-memory technology, as being part of your future, it\u2019s not too early to start to define a strategy for how in-memory is going to enter into your organization and be used<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

You may decide that part of the strategy is \u201cwe\u2019re going to wait two years to let it mature\u201d. That\u2019s fine, but start looking now at where it can fit and when within the organization, so that you\u2019re prepared and ready to accept it when it comes along. If you\u2019re an early adopter, start tomorrow. If you\u2019re more risk-adverse, next year, the year after.<\/p>\n

But at least understand the strategy for how this is going to fit in your organization, because as we believe, it IS coming, whether you want it or not,<\/strong> so you may as well start now to look at a strategy for where it\u2019s going to fit in the future.<\/p>\n

Questions and Answers<\/h3>\n

What would you reply to somebody who said \u201cI\u2019ve already got enough problems in my organization already\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

From a short-term standpoint, I can\u2019t disagree with that.<\/p>\n

But some of the new architectures and the in-memory technologies can maybe help you with some of the issues that you have today.<\/p>\n

It depends on what the issues are. One of the issues a lot of people have is speed: my applications don\u2019t run fast enough. So maybe there\u2019s in-memory technology that can speed that up. Or maybe moving it to mobile will make it run faster.<\/p>\n

Looking at the nexus of forces and looking at technology as a solution to some of your problems may actually help you short-term.<\/p>\n

Cloud \u2013 maybe cloud can save you some time. I\u2019ll give you a simple example: how are your development costs? Use the public cloud for that. Let your developers develop on an Amazon AWS.<\/p>\n

Why is that good? Your people don\u2019t have to set up the development environment. You make a phone call, and you have it. When the project\u2019s done, you make another phone call, and not pay for it any more. You don\u2019t have to go out and buy a server that then you\u2019ve got to figure out what to do with after the development project is done. So there\u2019s a place where cloud immediately can help you.<\/p>\n

So some of this new technology is mature enough to solve some of your problems. And then, when you start putting your head together with the business units and start to have an impact on the competitiveness and the bottom line of the organization, that\u2019s where you can really make a difference. Some of this technology may enable you, if you\u2019re a retailer, to turn your inventory one more time a year. Is there any retailer that doesn\u2019t want to do that?<\/strong> And not be out of something when somebody wants it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If the business unit wants to be an early adopter, but the IT unit is risk-averse and conservative, how does the business user drive this change?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been around a while in this business. If there\u2019s one thing I\u2019ve heard over and over since I started in the 60s, it\u2019s \u201cIT has to communicate with the business\u201d.\u00a0 We\u2019ve learned that lesson \u2013 that doesn\u2019t work. Going out to dinner with your business liaison once a month and talking with them is nothing.<\/p>\n

So one of the concepts that we came up with around twelve years ago, with respect to BI specifically, is the BI Competency Center. The reason that has worked is because it takes business people and IT people and puts them together, working together, not talking. So they make decisions together.<\/p>\n

If I\u2019m going to do a new project, all the business units decide what the priority project is. This is a concept that works. Some of your companies can\u2019t afford to have full-time people in it, so you do it virtually: you have a meeting once a week. But they still manage projects, they still make buying decisions on products, they still set strategy for the company. The group should not be run by IT (which is hard to swallow sometimes) \u2013 but by the business unit. And most important: the CIO can not be the sponsor. It must be higher in the organization.<\/p>\n

So if I\u2019m going to have a \u201cbusiness technology competency center\u201d where people from the business and the industry are going to get together to look at new technologies and where they may work, the sponsor has to be the CFO, the CEO, the Board, somebody like that. Then they will work together to do this.<\/p>\n

Risk-adverse IT organizations are normal.<\/strong> You have a job to do to keep the lights on and you\u2019re not going to do it if you take risks. It\u2019s that simple \u2013 you\u2019re not going to have a job if you take risks.<\/p>\n

So how do you fit that with adopting new technology? Again, just like with the research and development with one person, you can take a couple of people from your organization as part of this \u201cbusiness innovation competency center\u201d, sponsored by the CEO, so you can go hire some new people to do it if you need to, or move people over and backfill them.<\/p>\n

They may take on a project with a business unit where you see tremendous value to the business, and you look at something that is, say, in beta. And you look at that technology to enable that business unit to be more competitive, more productive, more profitable, and it doesn\u2019t affect the rest of your organization. You still can deliver the things you\u2019re doing, because it\u2019s \u201coutside\u201d. How do you get to that? You have to get senior management in the organization \u2013 not the IT organization \u2013 behind you. How do you get that? A small project, to demonstrate to them the value of this kind of thing.<\/p>\n

Now one thing that comes to mind immediately: if you look at what\u2019s happened in the past ten years with data warehousing \u2013 my area \u2013 every time there\u2019s been a recession, database sales and data warehousing sales have dropped off. Except<\/em> in the 2008\/2009 worldwide recession, where every segment of IT was negative growth except DBMS, which was flat. In that environment, flat was positive.<\/p>\n

Why? Because when the CIO came in to the CEO and said \u201cI need more money to spend on my data warehouse\u201d and the CEO says \u201care you nuts, with this economy?!\u201d, you pointed to a flat screen on his wall that had key metrics of the business in \u201creal-time\u201d \u2013 for the first time, senior management, the CFO, COO, CEO, could physically see the value that information was bringing to their business.<\/p>\n

If you can demonstrate physically to them the advantages of some new technology, then they\u2019re going to buy into it and start to fund it. You can\u2019t say something like \u201cI want a new ERP package\u201d \u2013 in an economy like 2009, that will get you fired for asking. But if you have some real strong value that you can demonstrate quickly or instantly to them, they\u2019re going to spend money on it if they think it\u2019s going to save money or help them. So that\u2019s what you have to do. Lots of people say \u201conly large companies can afford that\u201d \u2013 but anybody can put it together with at couple of visionary people from the business units and one or two people from IT to put this together, and they can be virtual.<\/p>\n

Pfizer is one of our BICC case studies. They have 150 people full time in the BI competency center: 75 employees and 75 consultants. Most people can\u2019t afford to do that, and I\u2019m not suggesting you do. But here are models in-between that make sense, that will fit in everybody\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gartner VP and Distinguished Analyst Donald Feinberg explains why you should have an in-memory action plan, and how to create one. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[71,72,100,160,172,204,213,282,324,521,560,595,911,916,931],"class_list":["post-12313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-presentations","tag-action","tag-action-plan","tag-analytics","tag-bi","tag-bicc","tag-business-intelligence","tag-businessobjects","tag-comptency-center","tag-dashboards","tag-gartner","tag-hana","tag-in-memory","tag-sap","tag-sap-hana","tag-saphana"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/gartner-in-memory-action-plan-banner-1.jpg?fit=690%2C310&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3X9RF-3cB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}