Agility

MARK MUELLER-EBERSTEIN is founder and CEO of Adgetec, whose mission is to help organizations and their leaders realize value globally. He is a recognized thought leader, speaker, mentor, and coach. He also advises start-ups, sometimes hands-on as their COO on business strategy and IP management. Agility was written based on his over fifteen years of global experience in the IT industry working with companies and governments to choose, adopt, roll out, and measure the impact of new technologies. In his responsibility as the director of deployment and adoption at Microsoft, he was responsible for the customers' value realization and deployment experience of Microsoft's Office and collaboration products; the customer and partner engagement during Microsoft's software development process; and joint research with leading academic institutions on technology adoption and its impact on business results. During his career with Microsoft and as the company's advisor, he coached Microsoft employees, customers, and partners across the globe on this and other topics. Prior to joining Microsoft, Mueller-Eberstein was at Hewlett-Packard in leadership positions in business development, marketing, and product management. He received a Master of Business Administration from the University of Technology Berlin and studied at the University of Marburg, both in his native country of Germany.

Preface xiii Acknowledgments xix CHAPTER 1: Leading into the Future 1 Current Landscape 2 Key Forecast of IT Trends and Spends 4 Leading by Example 5 CHAPTER 2: Maximum Ride: Owning Technology versus Just Using IT 11 How the World Is Changing 13 Current Research in Enterprise Architecture 17 Making Quantum Leaps and Not Just Incremental Changes 22 Microsoft s Structured Approach 24 Infrastructure Maturity and the Impact on Core Business Performance 27 Trends 29 Note about Case Studies and the Infrastructure Optimization Model 31 CHAPTER 3: Optimizing for Agility: A Different Way to View Your Business 33 Individual, Organization, or Information Technology: Where Do You Start? 36 Role of Place, People, and Technology 44 Infrastructure Optimization 53 Capabilities: The Areas of Optimization 59 CHAPTER 4: Technology as the Competitive Edge 63 Why Benchmarking? 64 Auto, Finance, Healthcare, Public Sector View Comparison 69 CHAPTER 5: Business Impact: Technology Solutions from the Shop Floor to the Top Floor 109 IT as Business Enabler instead of Cost Center 110 Creating Business Intelligence from Data Overload 113 Improving Customer Contact through Web Site Design and Database Magic 118 Streamlining the Product Development Cycle 124 Retaining Confidentiality while Operating in the Cloud 128 Managing Suppliers and Inventory 132 Security, Security, and More Security 137 Working Anywhere, Anytime 140 Making Sustainability Part of the Bottom Line 143 CHAPTER 6: Assessing Your Situation 147 Where Is Your Starting Position? 150 Analyzing Where You Want to Go 156 Define Where You Want to Be 157 Where to Begin? 166 CHAPTER 7: Making It Happen 171 Big-Picture Goals during Change 173 Optimizing for Simplicity and Agility 181 Off-the-Shelf Solutions versus Customization 187 Building Your A Team 190 Ongoing Upgrades: Moving from Old to Always Fresh 195 Adoption Made Easier: Moving Data, Training People 196 CHAPTER 8: Optimizing Your Workforce: Leveraging the New with the Old 203 Technology Immigrants and Digital Natives 206 Getting Everyone across the Chasm 209 Social Networking: A Tool from Home Goes to Work 211 Sector Influence on Change 213 Old Dogs, New Kids, and the Naysayers 219 CHAPTER 9: Starting Over To Stay Ahead 225 Index 231