Mind the Gap

Xerox to Deliver Customer Communications Savings for Major U.K. Retail Bank / Xerox UK

Xerox Newsroom News Releases

via news.xerox.co.uk

Xerox starts moving into the CMO space with a couple of interesting deals with first Morrisons and now Lloyds in the UK...

Production company Tag acquired by Williams Lea - Brand Republic News

The move will see Tag become a standalone business division of Williams Lea, where it will continue to operate under its own brand and the same senior management team.Tag is currently the largest independent agency of its kind in the world, offering a range of design and creative production services.The company has more than 1,000 full time and 1,500 part time employees, and generates a turnover of around £100 million per year.

via www.brandrepublic.com

My hunch is you are going to see more of these deals...BPO meets agency. Very interesting....

Is marketing becoming a math state? Is that good?

There's a fascinating debate raging in the DigitalNext section of Ad Age that captures some of the current "culture wars" on Madison Avenue between marketers ("mad men") and technologists ("math men"). A few weeks ago, Kendall Allen wrote a piece titled: The Dangers Of Online Advertising's "Math State" that begins with this shot across the bow: Ever notice that in online advertising no one talks about the message? It's all about the mechanics, how an ad is bought, served, delivered because that's where the cool money is. Even though the supporting technology and platforms have never been more abundant, capable, efficient and smart, we remain a math state, which ultimately will backfire and dumb down the agency ranks. The rest of her article rails against the increasing dominance of the "math state" mindframe, especially in the agency community, and the harm that is doing to brands and the DNA of agency talent: With our hyper-focus on efficiency, mastery of the mechanics, tuning of the [tool sets] — what can we really expect to do long-term for the brand? Even though they all have certain performance goals and sales targets, was the brand marketer's ultimate goal always such large-scale ROI? What about competitive marketshare; brand visibility; consumer advocacy; and so on? The way we operate now suggests that mass efficiency and uber ROI are the only imperatives. This cannot be an authentic long-standing objective that clients really have in their heart of hearts. We absolutely bred that beast with our math and our fancy tools. Joe Zawadzki responded the following week with a rebuttal: Why the "Math Men" Will Set Online Advertising Free. He pushes back hard — not that technology should rule the roost, but that rather it's an enabler for the very goals Kendall is championing. He writes, "In the past three years, all of those scary concepts of RTB, DSP, ad exchanges and data exchanges have been about radically fixing digital advertising — using technology and math [to] do what computers and models do best — freeing people up to be able to think." A section of his article that I found particularly compelling: There's no unringing a bell: math and technology are part of [the] future of marketing.

via www.chiefmartec.com

Always some fascinating insight from Scott Brinker

Will CMOs survive the perfect storm....?

Business rewards CMOs with huge budgets to spend on wonky processes and bloated technologies—it’s a fact, its odd and ever so slightly demented but that’s the way it is…or was until the previously untouchable corporate marketing department fell under the corporate spotlight. From what my research is telling me, the switch of budgets from the traditional set of marketing channels to the digital/social channel means that marketing spend has finally fallen under the spotlight. Budget holders (CFOs) are going “hang on, what’s all this for?” and “How much money are our creative agencies burning?” The slew of money CMOs throw behind their brands, campaigns and targeting continues to grow every year—and at a time when many in marketing are asking to increase budgets to run new social media and digital campaigning, budget holders are questioning how efficiently CMOs and their IT counterparts are running the show.

I explore this phenomenon here and my initial title for the piece was “The Perfect Storm Bears Down on the CMO” because there seem to three major forces swirling around and building in strength, and they demand a survival plan. I see these forces as 1) The irrevocable switch to the digital channel; 2) The desperate need to reorganize marketing operations around processes rather than projects and; 3) marshalling the supply chain to enable truly global marketing operations. Switching channels, running processes and globalizing business models create pain points for CMOs that need addressing. Processes need streamlining, integrating and productizing first and foremost to promote operational efficiency. Better brand management that delivers insights across territories and channels requires teams to create, share and manage digital assets and information much more effectively than they do today; while unlocking the value from social media demands new tools and techniques so firms can analyse data, measure ROI and make the right decisions.

I believe CMOs must urgently ask themselves a set of questions before they get the very same questions by the business: How well do they 1) Run processes rather than projects; 2) Manage the interplays between channels and their digital assets 3) plan to unite a fragmented supply chain of creative processes and structured, logical data processes and drive the collaboration that needs to happen, and 4) Monitor, manage and make sense of social media. But the big question in my mind is this—will CMOs bite the bullet and outsource? Perhaps not at this minute, but momentum is building and building fast. The switch to digital primes a perfect storm for the CMO—a massive disruptive force; multiple technologies and platforms and the shift to globalization—those willing and brave enough will use the switch to transform marketing into proper business processes run in an integrated way. HfS sees similarities with other corporate processes pre-outsourcing and the landscape of the marketing department is fertile ground. The outsourcing spotlight is shining onto the last bastion of corporate functions—the corporate marketing department

CIO's and CMOs must work together...

IBM’s Institute for Business Value (IBM Global Services’ executive research group) announced findings from its huge CIO survey undertaken every 2 years. It’s a massive piece of work involving 3000 one hour face-to-face interviews with CIOs from around the world—this year it has some great news for CMOs.

Basically the CIO study segments CIOs into four main mandates—Leverage, Expand, Transform and Pioneer.  Each mandate delivers on a set of goals to the enterprise such as streamlining enterprise operations and increasing effectiveness (leverage); Refining business processes and enhancing collaboration (expand); Changing the industry value chain through improved relationships (transform) and; Radically innovating products markets and business models (pioneer)—most of the CIOs interviewed for the survey were found to be in the expand mandate.

Where the study gets really interesting are the implications that the CIO mandate has for stakeholders around the enterprise—and in particular the Chief Marketing Officer.  The CMO still warily eyes the CIO after a history of technology squabbles (we have to use Siebel? You’re kidding me right?); They also remember the promise heralded from its flexible CRM systems that ultimately proved to difficult for the old IT model to deliver on. Social media really has put a rocket under the CMO office—reams of online data needs sorting, categorizing and given meaning to unlock the value that it holds. Digital content sits in all sorts of places with vendors, agencies, removable hard drives and CRM folks as content management systems struggle to cope with workflow. CMOs need support and guidance from their CIOs like never before. The CIO study suggests both sides are coming together to understand which technologies can best meet the needs of business—i.e. which tools can extract the highest value from data to enhance knowledge of the customer. The most mentioned CIO innovation plan in the 2011 study? Business intelligence and analytics—83% of CMOs see this as a priority in 2011. And if any member of the C suite needs to use these tools it’s the CMO. Check out IBM’s CIO survey here

 

Are firms ready to buy into the Service Integrator model? Yes!

At last—a meaty deal for outsourced service integration….and it’s a UK utility firm that has done it with the help of HP services:

“HP will establish a multi-supplier governance model to deliver a service-management function that will provide a single point of accountability across all of National Grid’s technology and services suppliers. HP will integrate all aspects of the IT service management processes and tools across the National Grid ecosystem, with comprehensive management of service levels to the business requirements”

I have worked with National Grid’s sourcing team when they were planning this move to using a “service integrator” two years ago so it goes to show how long building the foundations for a systematic multisourcing deal actually takes—I was privy to lots of the discussions, thinking and challenges to the multisourcing model but it was clear that they really wanted it after National Grid’s long single source deal was coming to a close. During discussions it was clear that they didn’t want vendor lock in and they were looking for a new sourcing model that would drive flexibility and really key into their business drivers—things that their stakeholders really care about like leveraging new technologies and co-creating IP. The governance model was going to be essential as would the ability of their chosen provider to work as a partner.  Another key thing to emerge was how essential service cataloguing and the CMDB was going to be to make the service integrator model really work—and so I see HP will deploy its Enterprise Service Management processes and HP Software, including the implementation of HP Universal Configuration Management Database (UCMDB), HP Service Manager 7, and all the requisite policies and procedures. Above all else—the CIO of National Grid is very business savvy guy and represents the new breed that really knows it’s about more sourcing and business partnering.

 

Dell move on Cloud—more IT than Business but it works...

Dell announced an impressive $1billion solution investment to support its Cloud strategy and from what I heard yesterday the story is really shaping up. My take on Cloud has always been it gives providers a narrative that their customers really understand because it can be drawn in many different ways.

So for Dell that narrative is about Data. How firms deal with their corporate data (the deluge that keeps on growing); making sure their data centers are fit for purpose (take a look at how chaotic and about to burst many actually are) and see how mobility abstracts users from desktops (ipads, smartphones) and the change in work patterns and you get a perfect storm that maps to Dell value proposition for Cloud—data management; next generation data centers and next generation computing. 

Logan McLeod, Dell’s Director of the Public Cloud laid out the path for customers to Cloud as either evolutionary or revolutionary--incremental savings versus step change efficiencies. But I predict customers will take a blended approach between public and private clouds and their in-house systems and processes--and get their governance completely tied down. An interesting point raised was the difference in private cloud between the US and Europe with the former preferring to build on their own infrastructure and Europe’s firms keen to build private cloud on their providers. Suffice to say the move to public cloud needs multi-vendor strategies and an ecosystem approach to work. What's exciting is that this looks to be slowly happening as witnessed by the success of the openstack.org initiative led by Rackspace but its early days https://www.cloudkick.com/openstack/?_kk=open%20stack&_kt=e754551a-f1d1-4d2b-80bb-570d6049c2ff&gclid=CP7M2_bGjKgCFQoa4QodvhElCw My latest report Whose Winning at Cloud Services will attempt to segment the providers in the cloud market into three distinct prototypes—and it clear to me where Dell belongs—Data-centric. 

Why the UK Government is getting in on the Cloud?

By Nick Heath, 30 March 2011 10:13

via www.silicon.com

For those of you doomsayers that think its all vapour? Just goes to show how revolutionary this stuff is...

Cisco to Acquire newScale, Cloud Service Catalog Provider | WebProNews

Cisco announced its intent to acquire newScale, a “self-service, service catalog, and lifecycle management software” provider for cloud-based IT. newScale claims to have over two million users globally, and counts companies like AT&T, American Express, Boeing, and Allstate among its customers. It fact, its customers come from a wide range of industries, including: automotive, chemicals, consumer goods, education, energy, financial, healthcare, insurance, IT outsourcing, manufacturing, oil/gas, pharmaceuticals, public sector, retail/hospitality, services, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. “Cloud computing represents a major shift in the evolution of the Internet, and as more customers migrate from traditional IT infrastructures, the need for rapid self-provisioning and efficient management becomes increasingly critical,” said Parvesh Sethi, SVP of Cisco Services. “With the acquisition of newScale, Cisco will be able to accelerate the deployment of cloud services through a service catalog and self-service portal that allows customers to easily manage their IT infrastructures.” Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The acquisition is expected to be complete in the second half of Cisco’s fiscal year 2011. newScale’s team would report to Cisco’s Advanced Services organization.

Check this one out: A really interesting acquisition linking into client interest around service catalogues.

I know more clients are really interested in how they can standardize IT services to their stakeholders around a range of business catalogues and this links right into that....

Are Italy's CIOs getting the Cloud?

I’ve just got back from the Innovation Group conference on the Cloud in Milan—a huge turnout (over 250) but at 41 years of age I was one of the youngest there. I did feel some skepticism in the rook about the potential of Cloud and this got me thinking about what type of customers or companies are really going to harness what Cloud can offer. No offence to the crowd but will it be the grizzled technology veterans shaking things up or younger breed of tech savvy businessmen?
I will never knock maturity with the right attitude and from what I can see Italian CIOs are at least contemplating a change (explaining why so many attended a conference on the Cloud). Chatting to the delegates I got the feeling that Italy is at a turning point in all sorts of ways. A change in administration may help but a more profound change will work its way through the economy once a new generation of connected, globally conscious industry leaders assume the reins of power in the countries commercial sector—and I met some of them at the conference. Innovation seems to be the preserve of the smaller, niche industry players rather than the big guys from what I heard at the conference but it could be so different. And this brings me back to the Cloud—only those individuals and customers deadly serious about IT and business alignment will drive investigations and adoption of Cloud; these guys will be deadly serious about transforming their business processes with new, agile and responsive IT services. These guys will see Cloud enabling quicker, faster and more responsive technology; they see Cloud working as a change agent; they see Cloud reinventing the relationship between CIO and the business. Good luck to them.