Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from April, 2013

The Accountant will harvest the benefits of cloud !

Today I had the honor to address a small focused group of  Chartered Accountants ( the Indian CPA)  on cloud computing. Their ability to grasp quickly the business benefits, the huge economics by moving to OPEX and  their experience in financing cost and time over run IT projects made them see the benefits of cloud computing adoption. The local Chapter of ICAI have now decided to include Cloud Computing in their Continuing Education was heartening. The Accountant will Harvest the Benefits of Cloud ! Many of them were seasoned system auditors and senior professionals in government and corporate in Mumbai. It was indeed a pleasure to see how quickly they could identify the challenges in cloud computing from a legal and data security point of view and its offering as an utility. They were quick to seize the benefits of cloud computing for business, the accelerated time to market  and the benefits of starting small with a few SAAS cloud solutions and also the need for a Cloud Strat

Will the CIO invite the Cloud Computing Evangelist to the Leadership Team or continue be the Nowhere Man !

The CIO on his own cannot introduce cloud computing in the Enterprise, even if the CIO is a believer in cloud computing his business leadership may not accept cloud computing adoption;  they have bigger risks to handle with higher rewards which takes priority over technology and as a business priority they still believe in the old saying " If it ain't broke don't fix it " when it come to corporate computing. The CIO needs the Cloud Evangelist to Navigate the Cloud ! Business Leadership look at CIO's as people with high IQ who are a necessary evil in the business ecosystem and are best left to do what they need in their own Ivory Tower. A smart CIO can use some help from a Cloud Computing Evangelist to convince the business leaders in  on the benefits of Cloud Adoption. The Cloud Computing Evangelist can work with the CIO to pitch the cloud as a strategic business enabler and as an utility to steer the the Business leadership's understanding and adopt

Personalized Cloud Appreciation Courses

I had a wonderful buffet a few week ago and was amazed at the aggressive pricing of the food on offer, a little more thought and it was back to Cloud Computing.  I figured the pricing was based on the philosophy that the customer will pick and choose what they need but overall the price will average out and so will the margins, since no two people have the same appetite or intensity to eat. More experienced buffet eaters know what to choose and eat and I call them value pickers, if they pay Rs. 300 they will make sure they eat that value of food irrespective of its consequences to their health. The second are the health conscious eaters who will pick healthy food which is valuable in nutrition and good for their health. The last is the one who will eat what they need and leave the rest on the buffet table.  To adopt any one of these strategies one needs to have experience with buffets, I still remember one of my classmates who used to visit a Chinese Buffet on Sundays, on the third

Is SAP losing its Sheen !

Is SAP losing its Sheen ! I have had three calls this week to attend the SAP India Forum in Mumbai but have not qualified since my turnover as a consulting company does not meet SAP India's requirements ! The fact that their agency repeatedly calls me to register and follows it up with an email and again turnover verification is the show stopper. It is clear that SAP wants only customers who have significant turnover in their business and not consultants who are vendor agnostic . Is it Sunset for SAP ! I am no new comer to SAP and have seen it swallow companies and enforce inflexibility in its process and stifle innovation ! I have had a few consulting stints where I have had mixed success in making SAP usage flexible and user friendly, but companies still finalize their forecast and balance sheets on data downloaded from the SAP and then used in Excel Sheets. Of course those companies who can afford the connector can directly connect into SAP through Excel. I know

Boston - How Big Data Analytic's of Images could help

It is a sad day for the runners and their friends and relatives who participated with joy in the Boston marathon only to meet with disaster at the finishing line. Analysis of the Images using Big Data Analytic's could help  in finding a pattern and help in pinning the culprits. First is creating the unstructured data of the images by collecting as many images and videos in every camera or mobile that ever captured anything before during and after the marathon run. Then comes the task on getting the best minds in the world to build the analytic engine to scan every image available to analysis the various clues that it could generate. Though it may be like finding a needle in a haystack, with today's Big Data Analytic tools there is a good probability of even identifying the eye of the needle in the haystack. Those who work in the area of Big Data Analytics' should come together and analyse  the images and also any other data that could be useful like mobile calls, s

EDP CFO & Cloud Computing

EDP was the origin of computing in business, it was the acronym for "Electronic Data Processing", The  EDP department was a busy factory during salary computation, closing of the financial books and also month end sales and inventory management and finally MIS (Management Information System) . There were no Microsoft workstation in those days, no lotus 123 just reams of printout in high speed printers which were transferred neatly into transparencies with marker pens ! The EDP was always under the control of the CFO - the chief financial office and EDP manager was a powerful person who had to be reliable and accomplished in technology. EDP began with punched cards, then tapes and so on ; today they are relics, but the EDP department was the temple of information, it was the knowledge bank of the business and access to it was restricted. The CFO was the lord and master of the EDP department because the first baby steps of data processing was accounting, later on it moved