Driving a successful Platform Strategy

By Simon King

When reviewing service portfolios, I think we we have a major problem - Diversity.

Darwin informs us that Diversity is Good.

Survival of the Fittest ensures the best solution dominates.

And it's true. Diversity enables Optimal performance in different sets of conditions. But it also drives Risk, because future conditions are an unknown. And it drives Specialization of capabilities which can limit flexibility.

What does this mean for IT?

From a resource perspective such consumption comes at a cost. In the past we have selected Best of Breed solutions for problem domains. As a result we spend a lot of time and money on just making it work.

• Integrating solutions. 
• Building data warehouses. 
• Keeping systems running.

Too much is being spent on just Keeping The Lights On rather than innovating to support and drive the business. As a result the business impression of  IT is that of an expensive but necessary step child. Barely tolerated because they're part of the family.

What's the alternative?

One solution to a Best of Breed approach is to open things up with a Platform. A Platform doesn't try to do everything itself.

A Platform provides a foundation on which other Services can be deployed.

A Platform elevates the level of functionality.

A Platform interconnects organizations - suppliers and customers.
Current examples of such Platforms include:

• Amazon for e-commerce
• eBay for auctions
• iTunes for content
• Salesforce for customer relationship management

Platform Thinking

But building a Platform doesn't automatically ensure success. There are some unique differences in the dominant Platforms of today.

Each of the example Platforms has a set of common capabilities that make them so effective

1. Connection: Simple for others to plug into the platform to share and transact
2. Gravity: strong attraction for participants - producers and consumers
3. Flow: fosters the exchange and co-creation of value

Today, every organization is faced with the fundamental question underlying Platform Thinking.

How do I enable others to create value? 

Building a better mousetrap may have worked in the past - but it's left us with high cost and low differentiation. A platform might just do the trick.

Are you defining a platform approach to take advantage of the opportunities they offer? 

Recommended reading
http://www.chiefmartec.com/2012/05/marketing-technology-suite-platform-or-portfolio.html: Scott Brinker
http://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Playbook-Battle-Tested-Capturing-Keeping/dp/1591840384: John Zagula and Richard Tong

PODCAST #3 Defining Service?

By Simon King

After describing the business reasons for having a service, I got feedback that we may not have been clear about the technical model for a service.

In this session, Anthony Orr and I delve into more detail about how to define a service.

In this third session we recap the business value of a Service, and explore the technical definition of a business service in terms of the Assets, Suppliers, Customers and the processes that support it.

Our conversation is around 30 minutes - please take a listen and let us know what you think Podcast #3 Defining a Service?

Please let us hear your questions and feedback in the comments

PODCAST #2 What is a Service?

By Simon King

Hey - it's getting near Christmas and I really wanted to get this podcast out, so here we go ...

A couple of weeks ago, Anthony Orr and I started these podcasts to explore the role of ITIL in Service Management.

At the end of our first blog, we decided we should talk next about Services.

In this second session we recap how we got to the discussion of what Services really are, and explore the implications of IT managing technology and processes instead of business outcomes.

This time our conversation is just under 20 minutes - please take a listen and let us know what you think Podcast #2 What is a Service?

Please let us hear your questions and feedback in the comments

What are your major Disruptors?

By Simon King

In the article "Disruptive Innovation Comes to Healthcare" Thomas Lee, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Business School, suddenly realizes that the emperor has no clothes.

"We instantly understood that our heads had been in the sand."

In seeing how other industries have been completely transformed by lower cost options for what look like simpler needs take hold and expand to command significant market share.

This has happened many times before. A good example is what happened to the US steel industry in the 70's when the innovation of minimills started to take hold.

"It was like World War I trench warfare, where a 1% shift in market share was a big deal. "

Initially the minimills targeted the lower quality segment of the market with a much lower cost product. Then they gradually improved the quality and volume of their product to serve the high quality and higher margin segments of the market. In time they totally changed what had been an industry controlled by large vertically integrated steel manufacturing.

"1% shifts in market ... trivial .. compared to possible 20% movement ... to lower cost disruptive innovations." 

With Salesforce and Amazon driving tremendous innovation, Cloud and SaaS are looking like the next major disruptors for the software industry. What are your plans to avoid unpleasant surprises and to be ready to take advantage of the opportunities they offer? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Podcast #1 Introduction to The Service Experience

By Simon King

Working at BMC I have the great delight to work with dozens of really smart people.

Today I finally managed to convince our own Anthony Orr (member of the CTO office, contributor to ITIL V3, a BMC book on Service Modeling and a recent book on Service Lifecycle) to sit down and have a conversation with me about Service Experience.

He and have have the fortune to meet a great many of BMCs customers, and we wanted to share with you some of the common observations we hear from them and some of the recommendations we provide in response.

In this first session we explore a number of different avenues as we consider why customers should really consider Service Management and what the key benefits are.

It's about a 30 min podcast - hopefully you have time to listen in
Podcast #1 Introduction to The Service Experience

Please let us hear your questions and feedback in the comments

A Burning Bush for Change

Interesting article by Forrester analysts, Ted Schadler and TJ Keitt, outlining 4 company's uses of Social technologies to transform interaction inside and outside the business.

http://bit.ly/TjCua4

Over the next few posts they plan to document in more detail what they found

A key observation was that the traditional model of technology deployment that relies on organizational change for adoption is likely to run into trouble for Social apps.

The four companies who succeeded had one thing in common - A Burning Platform for change.

Sound familiar to successful ITIL implementations, anyone?