Monthly Archives: August 2014

the cloud is here to stay

The next wave of outsourcing could be on this emerging push. There are lot of factors driving major companies pushing into cloud primary driver being cost reduction. But this comes with multiple challenges – new technology, lots of custom work with cutting edge software and the need for 24/7 support that will be a boon for outsourcing firms that can shift there and emerge as niche players.

Over the last few years, we’ve watched the cloud evolve from an imaginative idea, to a unknown reality, to an ongoing presence in everyday IT management and business solutions. The cloud has grown up right before our eyes.

But the growth isn’t stopping here. The cloud experts over at Forrester decided to take a closer look at the cloud’s projected growth over the next few years, and their vision is really quite remarkable. It’s also a vision that MSPs like yourself should keep in mind as you grow your business and offerings, so let’s take a look at a few predictions in particular:

SaaS becomes de facto for buying new applications. SaaS has overtaken on-premise in categories such as HCM, CRM, and collaboration. Solutions once available in multiple deployment modes are now SaaS only (i.e., Oracle RightNow and SAP Ariba seldom offer on-premise any longer). The hold-outs: large enterprise suites are still not available in a true SaaS mode but are increasingly shifting to at least an ASP model.

Public Cloud will be the default backbone for IoT- Whether consumer-led with FitBit, Nike FuelBand and Samsung Gear, or enterprise-led with sensors, medical devices and transportation, the Internet of Things (IoT) will generate billions of data points in 2014 and aggregating this data and acting on its findings will best be achieved by capturing, analyzing and responding from the cloud. If you want to analyze billions of inputs in real- or near real-time, you won’t want to drag the data all the way back to your data center. A longstanding mantra in BI has been that it’s easier to move the compute to the data, than the data to the compute. With cloud-based Hadoop and SaaS-based BI solutions proliferating, it’s becoming hard to justify bringing this data down to analyze it.

Cloud-to-cloud continuity will get serious with SaaS. Disaster recovery (DR) is a leading driver for public cloud use, but mostly by enterprises looking to improve the resiliency of mid- to low-end apps and for smaller companies putting their entire recovery strategy in the cloud. But in 2014, cloud-based DR will go cloud-to-cloud. The first phase will unfurl in the next year with cloud-to-cloud backups for mainstream SaaS offerings. In the SaaS market, enterprises struggle to restore data with steep recovery fees (or in some cases, total lack of service) by their SaaS vendors. A new market of backup solutions is rising to meet this need with early solutions from Backupify and Spanning. These offerings automate the protection of critical data that is stored with SaaS providers so organizations can recover this data if it is accidentally, or maliciously, deleted.

Cloud security will be much more centralized and automated. If you’re resisting the cloud because of security concerns, you’re running out of excuses. The leading public cloud providers have made strong gains in security and compliance, and there are few workloads completely off-limits for public cloud anymore. At the same time, securing private clouds has become safer, more reliable and easier to control through advanced management tools like HyTrust. We’ll see cloud security vendors like CloudPassage, JumpCloud and Illumio – letting you articulate cloud security requirements in executable automation of business policies. Enterprises will achieve better security this way than on their own.

Those individuals and companies with existing concerns about cloud based computing will soon find that their questions have been answered. The Cloud continues to provide solutions and not only effective, but ultimately essential business practices. Right now it may be the early adopters taking a risk on cloud-based computing, but very quickly that will shift, and those that haven’t made the change will find themselves lagging behind. The Cloud is here to stay. Hopefully, you are as well.

Website Development: Outsourced or Outhoused? « Workbox Blog

Nice article – courtesy Workbox…check this out

 

Website Development: Outsourced or Outhoused?

You’re a brilliant marketing consultant and web designer!

The site you designed for your client launched on-time and on-budget. The outsourced development shop did a great job at a great price. Your client loves you.

The trouble started a month later.

Maybe this is what you experienced:

  • The client wants some new features and the developer isn’t responding.
  • You need to update WordPress, but don’t have a staging site on which to debug.
  • The platform or design isn’t scalable for new features or content sections.
  • You and your client don’t have permission to access the web server.
  • You don’t own the Google Analytics account.
  • Who has the domain registrar login?
  • And your client doesn’t want excuses.
  • And your profit margin is shrinking.

Yeah, you went cheap, and now that $500, $2,000 or even $5,000 isn’t looking like such a bargain after all!

You “outhoused” your website development.

Don’t get me wrong – a lot of marketing and design consultants have great success with inexpensive website development outsourcing. They’re successful because they did their homework and clearly defined the project, not just for the developer, but for their client as well.

There are some big issues that inexperienced consultants have with outsourced developers.

> The developer isn’t going to warn you about or protect you against things that will cause problems later on, and may actually have an incentive to NOT warn you (issues around hosting, content management systems, analytics systems, domain registration).

> The developer isn’t going to tell you things you don’t want to hear or say “no” to any request.

> The developer will not “fill in the blanks” if instructions aren’t accurate or clear.

This isn’t necessarily the developer’s fault. They make money by quickly and efficiently building websites – and assume you know what you want. When they get a request that doesn’t fit into their basic model, they get confused and unresponsive, and don’t know how to pull clarification out of you. Also, they may use a simple, inflexible solution to solve a problem you don’t understand or want to deal with so they can keep the project on-time and on-budget. Sure, some are flaky jerks, but most are really trying to do a good job.

Here’s the deal: you’re not getting a true partner with many inexpensive outsourced development teams. You’re getting worker bees. Clearly and accurately define the task and everything works great. Deviate and get stung.

Here are some tips so you can avoid “outhousing” your web development project:

  • Discuss hosting and be sure you are permitted to have access to the live website code.
  • Understand your client’s long-term plans (1-2 years is enough) for the website and be sure to account for them in the design and technology platform.
  • Confirm that your client has the logins for everything! Hosting, domain registrar, analytics accounts, third-party service providers.
  • Define a website software update process. WordPress and other software needs to be updated regularly for security purposes.
  • Require a development or staging site to test software updates and technical enhancements.

The good news is that if you do your homework, clearly and accurately describe your project and requirements, and manage your development team correctly, you can build a great relationship with an outsourced developer. Then you get a reliable partner – and you and your projects won’t fall into the outhouse!

 

Developing Talents at Rank and File levels in Outsourced Engagements

In any outsourcing engagement, developing talent is directly related to improving maturity, gaining efficiencies and increase productivity on teams.

Managers who invest time and effectively develop talent have

• 25% better performers
• 29% more committed
• 40% more likely to stay than their peers

For exactly the above reasons, Building Talent” is one of the important dimensions in any outsourcing engagement. Building Talent over a period of time helps develop maturity on the teams and pays immensely to retrain other resources as new recruits join. If you understand the pyramidal structure in any relationship, the longer the resources stay and move to the top of the pyramid, they help guide others at the next levels helping with maturity.

Here are three ways you increase your own effectiveness in developing the talent on your teams.

1. Make work meaningful – Many associates know what they should be doing, but they may not understand how what they do makes a difference to the business. Your job is to connect the dots. People who understand how their work fits into the bigger picture are more engaged, higher performers, and more likely to stay with the account. Take every opportunity to help your teams understand the impact of their work on your outcomes and how what they are doing is helping them develop professionally. Don’t assume it’s obvious!

2. Check-in regularly and deliver feedback in real-time – Performance feedback, whether positive or constructive, shouldn’t be limited to formal mechanisms, via their Managers or during mid-year or end-of-year discussions. Checking in with your direct reports on a regular basis and delivering real-time feedback creates transparency and encourages two-way discussions. And when you check in, don’t just talk about performance. Take time to ask questions about your associates’ overall experience as well—you’ll likely learn something new and insightful, and they will feel heard!

3. Assign a variety of projects to build capabilities – know the 70-20-10 rule? 70% of our development comes from our day-to-day work, 20% comes from mentoring and coaching, and 10% comes from formal training. Day-to-day work activities are the best opportunities to help associates strengthen and develop new capabilities. Assign a diverse set of projects that will challenge your associates to continue adding to their personal portfolio of skills and knowledge.

Don’t forget to use collaboration tools if you cannot get face time, if you do get an opportunity to meet use that to your fullest advantage.