SD-thunderstorm-300x226I’ve been having trouble getting a handle on the relationships between the nexus of forces / third platform themes of social media, mobility, big data, analytics, and the cloud, and it made me feel better that someone like Geoffrey Moore, world-renowned author of “Crossing the Chasm”, seems to be in the same boat. If you haven’t run across it yet, Geoffrey Moore is an official LinkedIn “InFluencer”, and you can ‘follow’ him on LinkedIn and read up on some of his recent insights on his author page. Moore has been tackling these topics for several years now, and you can watch especially how his opinion of the Cloud has evolved over time.

In sorting these themes out, I wanted to assess them outside the influence of those parties who have a stake in how the subject gets framed, and also from the point of view of, “So what? – What’s in it for me?”

“Mobility” seems to be the easiest to classify, but the repercussions are going to be monumental. No need for a ‘third platform’, mobility fits neatly into the client-server model, or maybe it should now be called ‘device-server’. Or rather, there are a range of devices in the client role that run the continuum from thick client to sensor. In between are smart devices of all flavors, such as phones, in-car GPS and home appliances. Far from being just an IT problem (i.e. BYOD), mobility impacts everyone from marketing to operations, as everything from people to products goes mobile.

‘Big Data’ is of course a relative term, but when I think ‘big data’ one of the following three data categories seems to be in play:

- High transaction volumes: Millions of customers, billions of transactions (i.e. ATMs or POS), or tens of thousands of SKUs crossed with other attributes such as retail locations, cost and/or service levels.
- Temporally dense: Sensor data, audio.
- Spatially dense: Video, satellite imagery.

The business issue becomes – what do you want to do with all this data? Is it just a matter of storage, in which case Hadoop might be called for, or does the value come from real-time event stream processing, or does the data serve as the foundation for the further application of analytics and the extraction of metadata? But does Big Data constitute a fundamental building block for a new computing platform? By itself, I don’t think so – evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

‘Analytics’ always has the potential for revolution, because it is in the unique position of being able to respond to the requirement, “Tell me something I don’t know”. How much risk is in that forecast? What’s the optimal product mix given certain production constraints? What’s the next best offer to make to that customer in the store or on the web? What are our customers saying about us on social media? Insights like that are more than a system, platform or architecture.

The Cloud. Is it just an outsourcing model / just another business model, or is it going to be as disruptive as its proponents advocate? For the time being, the answer seems to depend on which side of the equation you find yourself. If you are in the IT business, the potential for disruption, either by yourself or your competitors, is keeping you awake at night. Those on the receiving end, however, currently seem to view the Cloud primarily from a cost basis, from the motivation to cut the costs and risks of hardware acquisition, maintenance, and software migrations.

While this might be a good foot in the door (or sticking your head in the cloud?), it would be best not to dismiss too quickly what the cloud visionaries have envisioned. Two potentially important cloud applications to keep in mind are:

- SaaS as a way to acquire capabilities you could never support in-house, especially niche applications that could add considerable value but don’t currently generate enough internal critical mass. Watch this space – SaaS as a business model will enable a plethora of new applications that were previously barely imaginable.

- PaaS as an internal IT business model. You won’t be outsourcing everything, there will still be mission critical enterprise apps that you manage in-house, but in order to meet your internal business client needs you are likely going to have to be more cost competitive and more flexible with your IT resources. As an effective business model, PaaS needn’t remain the sole domain of the big boys.

- That leaves us with Social Media. Honestly, I don’t know how to classify it. It’s a game changer, most certainly. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I’m quite the fan of Marshall McLuhan and his observations on the media. If “the medium is the message”, what is the message of Social Media? The implications of “social” as both a medium and a message are likely to be both subtle and far reaching. This isn’t about “digital” at all – this is about brand reputations and networks and experiences and influencers and chaos. Your current struggles with big data or with BYOD security are just a taste of what’s to come in the social arena.

If I had to put a label on them, Big Data feels like weather, like a cold front passing through. Mobility is the storm itself. For now, the Cloud is like the seasons – winter if you are in one hemisphere but summer if you are in the other. Analytics is a longer trend, an El Niño with global consequences. And social media? Climate change for sure – but whether it’s a runaway greenhouse or the next ice age remains to be seen.

By Leo Sadovy, EPM Channel Contributor, from: http://blogs.sas.com/content/valuealley/2014/09/23/the-cloud-and-other-forces-climate-change-or-just-the-weather/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ValueAlley+%28Value+Alley%29

Leo_Sadovy-212x300 (1)Leo Sadovy handles marketing for Performance Management at SAS, which includes the areas of budgeting, planning and forecasting, activity-based management, strategy management, and workforce analytics, and advocates for SAS’ best-in-class analytics capability into the office of finance across all industry sectors. Before joining SAS, he spent seven years as Vice-President of Finance for Business Operations for a North American division of Fujitsu, managing a team focused on commercial operations, customer and alliance partnerships, strategic planning, process management, and continuous improvement. During his 13-year tenure at Fujitsu, Leo developed and implemented the ROI model and processes used in all internal investment decisions—and also held senior management positions in finance and marketing.Prior to Fujitsu, Sadovy was with Digital Equipment Corporation for eight years in sales and financial management. He started his management career in laser optics fabrication for Spectra-Physics and later moved into a finance position at the General Dynamics F-16 fighter plant in Fort Worth, Texas.He has an MBA in Finance and a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing. He and his wife Ellen live in North Carolina with their three college-age children, and among his unique life experiences he can count a run for U.S. Congress and two singing performances at Carnegie Hall. See Leo’s articles on EPM Channel here.

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