...I saw a LinkedIn post recently that stated “There is no ‘Digital Strategy’ anymore, just ‘Strategy’ in a digital world”. In other words, ‘digital’ and ‘business’ strategy have become one and the same. Wise words. I recognise that the development of strategy AND getting a business to embrace digital technologies… Read More...

...Today as many as 75% of B2B buyers are embracing social media and using it to make purchase decisions. Given the fact, marketing and sales professionals can no longer afford to ignore the importance of social selling to meet their quotas. Having run a number of training events for the last several years, I often come across complaints from sales people that changing customer expectations has made it increasingly difficult to attract the right people and build meaningful and profitable relationships. Read More...

...I recently attended The MarketingProfs conference in Boston. It was an incredible event with some of the brightest minds in B2B marketing and sales. The lineup ofspeakers and sessions was just awesome. My favorite presentation hands down was from Avinash Kaushik. He’s… Read More...

...I recently attended FT Innovate 2015 in London.The two day chat-a-thon was aimed at exploring whether it’s better to be a ‘big’ or ‘small’ company when trying to innovate. I was tweeting like mad during the event, but there were a few gems that I’ve pulled out here to share. Read More...

...The business world is changing fast, organizations have to adapt Mo Farah is an extraordinary athlete. During the course of his career, he has won double gold medals in the 5K and 10K races at the European Championships, the World Championships, and the Olympic Games. When asked about his formula for success, he has a simple answer: “Training, you just have to put in the training”. In reality, of course, the success of an athlete like Mo Farah is due to a wide variety of factors, including natural ability, race strategy, preparation, and execution. Read More...

...I was watching our Seattle Seahawks lose to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday and was surprised to see a series of television ads air during the game from GE, not touting how great their products are, but why GE is a great place for software developers to come work. Each 30 second advertisement will have cost GE nearly $700,000, meaning that GE probably spent $2 million last Sunday. First I'll share the ads and then I'll share my thoughts on their significance. Read More...

...We’ve analysed some 670 change programs over the last 4 years, with detailed responses from 150 organisations in 2015. In partnership with the Process Excellence Network (PEX), we conducted two surveys in 2011 and 2013 to understand organisational maturity.  We set out to understand the benefits of increased maturity and how firms have improved their maturity. In mid-2015, we conducted a third round of research to find out what it takes to achieve successful change programs within an organisation. In all of these surveys, we used a modified five-layer maturity scale roughly based on the Business Process Maturity Model (BPMM) standardized by the Object Management Group (see Figure). Read More...

...This case study is based on a fusion of recent consulting engagements. EuroBank was embarking on a major change programme aimed at reinventing the core of the organisation over the next 5 years. Business Challenge The Bank had been relatively successful in avoiding the financial meltdown – mostly as a result of some cautious risk management in the early 2000s. Following previous rounds of M&A, the Bank had multiple overlapping systems and products. With strong functionally-organised business units, there was no effective way of challenging their dominance; each department set its own budgets and employed their own IT resources. To set up the Bank for a successful, long-term business simplification change initiative, the Bank started to explore a combination of a centralised Business Architecture initiative and CX programmes. It had to develop both the muscles and reflexes it would need for the transformation ahead. Read More...

...Implementation of IT Governance is being one of the key agenda items in the annual plans of most IT Leader around us today. IT Governance implementation is taken in different approaches in different organizations. For example some organizations will follow a 3 to 5 years roadmap for implementing IT Governance in their organization. To come up with such roadmaps they will undergo a detailed Strategic IT Assessment as a precursor activity. Some organizations will directly take COBIT kind of Integrated IT Governance Framework and will start implementing the principles of COBIT one by one. The biggest drawback of implementing such ready made frameworks from market is not doing a due diligence on whether COBIT needs to be implemented in full or not. Manier times organizations tend to forget to analyze is it beneficial for their IT Organizations to implement COBIT fully. Lack in having such a due diligence at first will result in wrongly focused IT Governance Implementation wasting efforts and money. Read More...

...Big Data is becoming a new technology focus both in science and industry, and motivate technology shift to data centric architecture and operational models. There is a vital need to define the basic information/semantic models, architecture components and operational models that together comprise a so-called Big Data Ecosystem. hbspt.cta.load(644390, '536fa098-0590-484b-9e35-a81a31e59ad8', {}); Extended Relational Reference Architecture: This is more about Relational Reference Architecture but components with pink blocks cannot handle big data challenges. Read More...

...It’s not a matter of if but when...  A tech correction is coming. The only remaining question marks are when it will happen and how bad it will be. Let’s take a look at the evidence. The NASDAQ index is now up around 5,000 points, the culmination of a terrific seven-year run in which it has tripled in value. The only other time it reached this level was just before the dot.com crash in 2000. In comparison, the Dow Jones has only risen by half as much over the same time period. Read More...

...Growing buzz around ‘Digital Strategy’[i] and ‘Digital transformation’ has assumed a resounding proportion in recent times. Appearing confounding at one end and quite exhilarating at other end – frenzy built around ‘digital readiness’ has pushed firms to stitch a ragtag Digital Strategy somehow and present a confident face. Without realization that a standalone Digital Strategy in itself is not a winning strategy – rather each dimension of Digital Strategy should remain deeply moored to key themes of firm’s business strategy. Read More...