I had a very interesting experience over the last few weeks.
I had the opportunity to spend quality time with two ostensibly similar companies.
Similar industries, similar situations, similar markets served -- but two fundamentally different approaches to IT.
And it's going to be very interesting to me to see which one does better in the long run.
It Doesn't Really Matter Who They Were ...
Besides, that would be indiscreet of me, wouldn't it?
But I can say that both are global companies, and both are very much challenged by the current economic environment.
And, after spending time with both of them, it struck me that -- despite their outward similarities -- they were as philosophically different about IT as night and day.
The First Company
The first company must have brought no fewer than 15 people to come see us. All of them worked for IT, but none of them really struck me as "IT people".
They had finance people, operations people, program management people, vendor management people -- quite a number of different essential roles, but no one who really lived and breathed technology. If there were any true geeks in the room, they were doing a great job of staying in the background.
My job was to speak a bit about what EMC was working on now, and what we saw in the next few years that could really help them get the job done.
I rose to the challenge, and spoke with passion about the transformative power of newer technology to reduce cost structures, remove friction from traditional IT and be more responsive to the business.
I pointed to how many companies were getting started with today's products and achieving amazing results, and could only look forward to more goodness as the technologies marched forward.
I offered up that now -- more than ever -- was the time to take a hard look at how they did IT, and start grinding up a few of those sacred cows and start making tasty hamburgers (so to speak).
I'm sure that I was able to win over a few covert converts in the audience, but the conversation ended up being much more of the same.
I wondered if they had the passion and the incentive to change how they did IT. Because -- from the outside -- that's what it looked like needed to be done.
A Different Approach
A few weeks before, it was a very different experience.
The team was much smaller. Everyone had a defined role in the organization, but knew what the others on the team did, and had a bit of shared perspective perspective.
They were intensely passionate about virtualizing as much of their environment as they could, as quickly as they could. They had already done a lot, but had a burning desire to do much more, and do it faster.
They had already started to rework their operations around virtualization and "just-in-time" IT. They had created a "new gen" environment, and were experiencing mostly success as the business welcomed the ability to put things up quickly, and change as they went along.
I was in hog heaven.
As they pushed me on deeper and deeper topics, we quickly went from 101 to 201 to 301 level material. Because they knew what they were going to need, I was able to get into strategically relevant roadmaps, not only from EMC, but from other vendors that are along for the journey.
Forget slides -- we went right to the whiteboard, and must have drawn a dozen or so architectural diagrams for different pieces of the environment they were thinking about.
These were passionate, knowledgeable IT people. They had a mission and a mandate to change how IT got done at their company. And, if any thing, the dire economic situation gave them additional incentive to get there faster than ever before.
An Open Question
Despite the recent recovery, It's pretty clear that the economic thermometer outside is pointing to a chilly winter. No one knows how cold it's going to get, or how long it's going to last.
But, like any winter, we can rest assured that -- sooner or later -- spring will eventually come around.
I have to wonder how many IT organizations will freeze in their tracks -- cut spending, cancel projects, and basically hang on for dear life.
Quite a few, I'd surmise.
The real question for me is -- how many IT organizations will look at this as big opportunity to fundamentally change how they do business?
Not only virtualize the majority of their environment, but re-engineer for speed and flexibility? And, rather than expending enormous effort on each and every application, give them all a decent starting point, and adjust things dynamically as things change?
When it's cold outside, you can sit inside and shiver, or get busy and build a fire.
I wonder how many IT organizations will do the latter, and not the former?
Courteous comments welcome as always ...
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