3 Reasons Advisory Services Fail… And Why You Need One

Many IT organizations today use traditional advisory services. The reasons they use them vary, but it is usually to gain the advantage of expertise, information, and actionable advice that the organization does not have access to in-house. The personnel within the organization who use these services varies, but because of the high per-user costs, the users are generally higher level managers and executives. But regardless of the who and why, traditional advisory services companies continue to fail their clients.

They look into the crystal ball… They don’t eat the glass

Traditional advisory services companies are not really advisory companies; they are research companies. They don’t give actionable advice, they provide “forward-looking information” based on research and the past performance of clients and other companies. In other words, they are in the “past and future” business.  Anyone who has ever purchased a mutual fund has heard the phrase “past performance does not guarantee future results” and other “Safe Harbor” statements,  yet it is these predictions based on past performance that enterprises rely on to make decisions, and they are finding that in an era of fluctuating economics and the rapid growth of disruptive technologies, the predictions are becoming less and less accurate and so are becoming less and less valuable. Traditional advisory services “hide” these inaccuracies by issuing “revised estimates” essentially saying, “we got that one wrong folks, but now we’re right… until the next revision”.

Being in the “past and future” business, these companies leave out the one place we actually do business… in the present.

One size fits all… Except that it doesn’t

Only in the business world would a company that provides “food for thought” ironically license by the “seat”. We all know that prices are somewhat negotiable, but for traditional advisory services companies, seat licensing is the norm, meaning a small or medium-sized business (SMB) will pay the same price (or more) for a seat as a Fortune 100 company. This “seat license” becomes a much bigger percentage of the IT spend for an SMB; some companies can only afford a single seat, and many can’t even afford that. Add to that the fact that only the seat holder can access the information, and must then “digest” and reformat the information so it can be used by the rest of the team without violating the advisory services contract, wasting the time and effort of what is usually a senior manager. This greatly reduces productivity and collaboration.

Since advisory services companies make most of their money catering to the large enterprises, most of their research is targeted at these enterprises, leaving the SMB to figure out for themselves whether the information has any relevance at all to their unique situation.

“I’ll do anything for you, but I won’t do that!”

Traditional Advisory services companies use analysts to do research and write their findings into white papers. Each analyst is immersed in a single subject matter area and does not stray into other areas. For that reason, it is difficult for these types of advisory services groups to provide information in niche areas or very new markets. Clients who have questions that fall outside the knowledge base of the analysts are stuck without an answer; and unless the advisory services group feels that it would be profitable for them to add an analyst in that area, the client will never get an answer to that particular query.

Why you need advisory services

The irony is that you need an advisory services company for the exact reasons that traditional advisory services companies fail. You need access to practicing professionals who can give you real world advice and information in the context of your own organization and circumstances. You need services that are scalable to both your size and budget, and save you time by providing these services to your whole IT organization instead of a single seat. And you need to be able to get information in niche areas and in a specific context.

Companies employing the Expertise-as-a-Service^® (EaaS™) business model have been able to overcome these failings of traditional advisory services organizations. The EaaS™ delivery model uses a network of practicing experts instead of analysts, so the information available is firsthand and current. Because of the nature of the expert network, it is easy to add expertise to cover emerging technologies and other niche areas of interest to a single client; and because of the EaaS™ business model, costs are greatly reduced, since a company does not need to pass on the high cost of maintaining a bench of full-time analysts.

Advisory Services groups using the EaaS™ business model deliver highly personalized, highly targeted, and highly contextualized, actionable advice and information to the individual client, regardless of the size of the company or IT organization.

Which is why you need an advisory service in the first place, isnt it?

If you currently use an IT Advisory Service, Please take our short survey HERE

Windows Phone 8 – A Very Worthy Underdog

I’ve always been the fan of the underdog. I can go through “March Madness” rooting for one team, and then switch teams in the final game, just because the team I was rooting for became the favorite. I’m a Red Sox fan, and was long before they won a World Series. My tablet computer is an HP Touchpad (now running a dual-boot of WebOS and Android). Until recently, I had what Verizon “lovingly” called a feature phone. When it died, I was faced with the realization that there was really no good replacement for it. I would have to upgrade to a smart phone. So, with the choices available to me, I quickly narrowed the field to one… I went with a Nokia Lumia 822 running Windows Phone 8 (WP8).

WP8 uses the same “Live Tiles” setup as Windows 8, the OS I currently run on my laptop, so I can’t really even say that there was a learning curve at all. If anything, the WP8 experience is everything Windows 8 on a laptop wants to be. The start screen on the phone is easy to use. Tiles can be sized (3 sizes) and arranged so you can group your apps by importance, function, or any other way you feel like arranging them. The OS is blazingly fast using 4G or WiFi (I haven’t been in a situation where I’ve had to use 3G yet) and there are plenty of visual themes to play with. Voice recognition is excellent (at least it is for me), and the phone takes commands and dictation well.

In addition to all of this, the phone comes with Microsoft Office.

TAC (The Advisory Council) recently went to the cloud with Exchange 365, and as I said before, I run Windows 8 so I figured it should be an easy task connecting exchange to the phone… and it couldn’t have been simpler. It was, in fact, easier than connecting my laptop. My contacts, calendar, and email sync effortlessly, regardless of which device I use to enter information.

Let’s talk about the Apps and accounts for a minute. Email accounts set up very quickly, and if you have several accounts as I do, you can link (aggregate) them together in the email app to minimize clutter on your start screen. I have all of my personal accounts under one tile, and my business email under another one. Calendars are also aggregated under one app, with selectable colors for each calendar so your personal calendar events appear differently than your business ones.  Appointments are as easy to set on the phone as they are on a laptop with Outlook.The “People Hub” aggregates your contacts from Exchange, Facebook, and pretty much anywhere else you have contacts located. Just like with email, you can link contacts together so you don’t have 5 John Smith’s in your address book, all of whom are the same person. Getting your content (pics, music, movies, etc.) on and off the phone is done through an app that sits on your Windows 8 laptop or desktop. again the app is well designed, and easy to use.

While the app store is not as full as Google Play and Apple’s App Store, it has the apps that I need; primarily productivity and social media apps. There are even several “Siri-like” apps that work very well, although they don’t have Siri’s sense of humor. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress all have apps, and where an app is missing, there is generally a third-party one to take its place.

True multitasking (something you still can’t do on an iPhone) is simple; switching between open apps requires a “long hold” on the back button exposing the open apps, then scroll to the app you want and tap it. The only quirk in WP8 is that the only way to shut off an app is to completely back out of it, or go to the phone settings and kill it there. One would think that a swipe down or an “X” in the upper right hand corner would be appropriate, maybe it will be included with the next Windows Phone release.

As for the handset, the Nokia Lumia 822 works for me. For one thing, it was free (with a two-year contract and $30/month Data plan), and I don’t like paying for stuff when I don’t have to. I find the screen to be bright and easy to read, the screen size is more than adequate, it feels good in the hand and it’s not too big in the pocket. Memory is expandable; the unit will take a microSD behind the removable back cover – which means that you can also replace the battery, two things you can’t do with an iPhone. There are an adequate number of ringtones and alert tones, both from Nokia and Microsoft. An 8 megapixel camera with 1080p video is included, as is a front facing low res camera for video calls and “selfies”.

In all, WP8 is what a smart phone OS should be all about; fast, intuitive, customizable, and easy to configure and use. Being late to the mobile game, Microsoft is truly the underdog, but has the pedigree to make believers out of iPhone and Android fans.

I’m rooting for it.

The PowerPointless Presentation

I recently had the opportunity to speak in front of a small group of IT leadership from a mid-market company. As the Vice President of Sales for TAC (The Advisory Council – www.tacadvisory.com) I was there to “pitch” my company’s services and value to my audience, in response to an RFP. I came prepared, as I always do, with my PowerPoint presentation on my laptop, a copy of the presentation on my tablet (for smaller audiences or for one-on-one’s) and a third copy on a USB memory stick, in case I needed to use their equipment, and to leave behind so that they would have a copy of it to refer to.

As I walked into the room to “set up”, I saw that there were no projectors, screens, or any other A/V hookups in the conference room. It appeared that I would not be showing any slides that day… and I found myself strangely relieved.

If you’ve never given a “PowerPointless” presentation to an audience, try it some time; it’s truly liberating. Instead of standing in front of an audience in a darkened room, I sat at the table with them in a group. Instead of the usual “chalk talk” type of presentation, with the slides holding me “in line”, I got to really focus on the audience, and use their body language and visual cues to move the presentation to where they needed it to go. Instead of speaking to them I was speaking with them. Instead of asking if there were questions at the end of the “presentation”, I was able to look at a person in the audience after I said something, and state, “You have a question about what I just said, don’t you.” That allowed a single question to lead the discussion (it was no longer a presentation) in a direction that my slide deck would not have let me go.

In the end, the prospective client found out what they really needed to know… not about how wonderful our company is (it is wonderful) and how great our services are (they are great by-the-way), but exactly how their company could benefit from using our services and exactly how they would use us. My PowerPointless “presentation” became a series of “what if’s” using the company’s own issues and problems as examples.

At a “presentation” for another company later that day, I was ushered into a room with a larger group. The room was arranged with chairs in rows, people facing the front of the room. This time all the A/V equipment was there; the projector, laser pointer, etc. When everyone was settled, the group leader sat there, arms folded across his chest, and told me that they were ready for me to “WOW” them, that they were ready for my “dog and pony show” (his words). I knew what their expectations were, because they had just, sarcastically, been given to me. They expected me to show a slide presentation, talk at them for 20-30 minutes, and ask for questions at the end, a “typical” sales pitch.

I didn’t show a single slide.

I stood in front of them and spoke with them, again asking them what their issues were, what they needed from me, and how they needed it delivered. We played the “what if” game with their real-world problems, and I told them how my company could help, if we could, and what we couldn’t help them with, if we couldn’t. Again, a presentation became a conversation.

TAC prides itself on the ability to provide highly personalized service to its clients. Now when I go into a company to talk about what we do, I offer a highly personalized discussion on their issues, their problems, and how we help clients. We talk to each other using their “real-world what if’s” instead of me talking at them about how great my company is (and we really are great – call and find out). The prospective client gets the information they need to have, which cannot necessarily be engineered into any PowerPoint presentation in advance.

So now, if they want a PowerPoint presentation (and does anybody really?), I’ll leave them with one to look at after I leave.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, we got the business.

The Value of IT Advisory Services

TAC is Looking for your opinion! The Advisory Council is researching how top IT Executives use advisory services, and what they would like to see in the “perfect” advisory service. We will be sharing the results and analysis with all participants that complete the survey. The survey takes less than 3 minutes to complete, and can be found here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PMYMCZW

Thanks in advance for your time.

Business After the Fiscal Cliff

While the Federal Government seems to want to act out the final scene from “Thelma and Louise” with our economy, we can’t wait for someone to hit the brakes. Regardless of what the government does (or does not do) in the next few days to avert the fiscal cliff, we do know that taxes will go up on those making at least $400,000, including small businesses. We know this because if the government takes us over the cliff (which, in actuality works well for both parties), the “Bush Era” tax cuts will expire, and they won’t all be coming back. We also know that there will likely be changes to the tax code in the coming months as part of the “fiscal cliff deal”, but there seems to be no consensus on what those changes will be.

So, assuming that is the case, business must still go on. Because of the continuing uncertainty, the likely scenario will be more belt-tightening, fewer hires, and maybe even a few layoffs, depending on how long the government allows this to go on. In the IT world, most organizations have already cut to the bone, and many are unable to keep up with demand as it is, and we all know that demand is likely to increase.

So what can an IT director or CIO do to ensure minimal impact on their organization?

• Increase efficiency – collaboration and better use of time makes the need for overtime hours or more staff unnecessary.
• Re-prioritize – look at what is important rather than merely urgent.
• Find high-value/low-cost services that make it easier for you to make decisions, and faster for your team to get things done
• Structure your financial model to be lower fixed-cost with more variable cost options.
• Get more and better buy-in for projects from the business stakeholders.

As we move into the new year, IT needs to be able to plan for the unknown, be ready for changing demand, and become a more flexible and agile organization.

The Advisory Council can help.

Superstorm Sandy and Business Continuity

We at TAC, with our own headquarters here in the Northeast US, hope that those affected by “Superstorm” Sandy are well and unhurt. While the damage to property is still being assessed, and cleanup is bound to take some time, one must be thankful that it wasn’t even worse. We hope that the journey back to “normal” is swift for you and yours.

This recent severe weather in the Northeast has knocked out significant infrastructure that enterprises rely on for the operation of their businesses. Sites hosted by some service providers disappeared from the internet; servers and data-centers that are still up and running have had their connections to the internet severed. Because of this, many companies have been affected, and even those that have not, are taking a long hard look at their business continuity and disaster recovery plans.

I spoke with a prospective client about their business continuity and disaster recovery plans last year after Hurricane Irene pounded the east coast. The people I met with told me that they had a number of data-centers for redundancy in separate locations, so that in the event of a natural disaster, their data would be safe, and they were, in fact, in the process of building yet another data center. This company, and one of its data-centers, is located in lower Manhattan, and the “separate locations” were two locations in Northern New Jersey, their new center was being located a bit further down the east coast. I have not spoken to them recently, but at that time I had questioned why their data-centers were not dispersed throughout the country, so a catastrophe in one area of the country would not compromise their business. They had no answer.

I would advise businesses of all sizes to reexamine their disaster recovery and business continuity plans.

• If you are using SaaS or IaaS, make sure that you have redundancy, and that your data is being securely held in multiple locations. Also make sure that those locations are scattered in different geographies.
• Make provisions for workers to be able to work from home if necessary. This may need to include VPNs, ring-over phone services, redundant email servers in multiple locations, etc.
• Your own data-centers should be as far-flung geographically as possible. A catastrophe in one area of the country should not compromise the integrity of your data or your access to it.

I know that we here at TAC are looking at how we fared during this disaster and how our own business continuity and disaster recovery plans can be improved.

We can help you do the same.

Contact us by phone for more information about our Business Continuity consulting and advisory services.

A Learning Curve with Windows 8? Much Ado About Nothing, but Stick With Windows 7 for the Enterprise

I try to be an early adopter, as long as the cost is low. So when I had the opportunity to upgrade my personal laptop to Windows 8 for $15 (I had recently purchased 2 laptops, and Microsoft offers the $15 upgrade to recent purchasers of machines running Window 7), I took the plunge. After reading about the increased security, I knew I should do it for that reason alone. And after reading all the reviews about a steep learning curve, new “Apps”, and how it would be so different running it on a laptop as opposed to a tablet or touch screen device, I decided to do the upgrade anyway.

The upgrade itself was no big deal. The installation was effortless (I created media from which to do the install, one of the options available) but took a long time, since I elected to keep all of my files and settings. Once the laptop rebooted, I took to conquering the so-called steep learning curve, how the new Metro interface would change things forever on the laptop.

For anyone using a tablet of any kind, the learning curve is minimal. For those that have never used a tablet, the learning curve could be steeper, but it really isn’t that daunting.

Microsoft has essentially set up an “invisible” start button in the lower left hand corner of the screen that, when clicked with a mouse, opens the start screen instead of a start menu. Microsoft also starts you on the start screen instead of your old desktop. When on the desktop, nothing at all changed for me. It looks the same as my windows 7 desktop, minus the start button. All of the old keyboard commands and shortcuts work as they used to, all of my applications are the same, the only two real changes were that there is no “Aero Glass” look to the windows, and all the rounded corners are gone.

I haven’t really come up against anything I don’t like about windows 8. Boot times are much faster, the start page is easy to navigate, and the opening screen, with clock and background apps, gives me a great first glance at the day ahead, without even unlocking my account.

That being said, I would stay with Windows 7 for new desktop and laptop upgrades for the enterprise. Here’s why:

Eye candy aside, Windows 8 really doesn’t bring anything new to the table of advantage to the enterprise. From a productivity standpoint, why introduce change and a learning curve, steep or otherwise, that returns no net return on productivity? The new Metro “Apps” have no useful place in the enterprise and were designed primarily for the consumer market, and for administrators, locking down these apps looks daunting. The new version of IE10, while pretty, also takes time to learn to use properly and effectively, another learning curve with no net gain.

So while I will use Windows 8 on my own personal laptop, Windows 7 remains the choice for the enterprise.