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Why not cloudsourcing for enterprise app user adoption/training?
I was reading a recent blog post from the wise IDC analyst covering SaaS and the enterprise cloud, Mike Fauscette, about the emerging trend of 'cloudsourcing' (full disclosure- also my friend and former boss back in the day). My first thought: yet another cloud thingamajig? Second thought: wow, he's on to something here... Third thought: Mmmm... this kool-aid tastes good and I want to extend its application to what we do for customer training, enablement, and adoption of enterprise applications (BTW- the best kool-aid is what my brother described when we were kids as 'blue flavored').
So what is cloudsourcing? It's the confluence of two key business models in the enterprise: cloud computing + business process outsourcing (BPO)
A couple of descriptions of cloudsourcing- first from Mike, and then from Ryan Nichols, Head of Cloudsourcing and Cloud Strategy for Appirio:
From Mike Fauscette:
"Its really an extension of the business process outsourcing (BPO) business that exists today. There could be significant value generated to businesses by combining the two concepts, cloud computing and outcourcing a business process to a 3rd party. It takes cloud to the next step and offers the valuable combination for business of leveraging cloud computing + a cloud app (or cloud service) + business process execution in one bundle."
From Ryan Nichols:
"Where cloud computing meets outsourcing... It's the natural combination of two trends that have dominated how enterprises utilize information technology over the last 2 decades. The first is a shift in how IT is architected-- from mainframe to client server to cloud-based technology. The second is a shift in how IT is sourced and delivered--from a purely in-house function to a function increasingly delivered by specialized vendors.... Organizations shouldn't be in the business of managing their own data centers any more than they should be in the business of managing their own power plants. (Note: Ryan's description is focused on IT, but I view it as extensible to most other parts of the enterprise)
So what cloudsourcing is- pretty simple: it is the combination of running your enterprise apps in the cloud (and dumping all those servers and HVAC systems you have in the back room), plus outsourcing of the processes and heavy lifting required to implement, maintain, and enable those now cloud-based apps and enable the users of cloud-based enterprise apps. For cloudsourcing you need an organization that not only understands your needs and can fulfill them via BPO, but also understands how to actually fulfill those needs in the cloud. This ain't your father's BPO...
Enable the users? Help the people who actually use the apps to succeed? The one thing that has NOT changed throughout the history of enterprise applications is that people don't use what they don't understand. If they don't get it, they certainly cannot succeed. Thousands of implementations of all kinds have failed not because of the technology, the integration, or the data migration... they failed simply because the users did not have a clue how to use the application so they just didn't use it. Game over before you start. If your users don't succeed with your CRM app, then lost sales. Lost sales lead to lost revenue. Lost revenue leads to... you get the picture. The stakes are high, and the behavior of your users is the both most unpredictable and most important aspect of your application implementation.
So.. you have moved to the cloud for your enterprise app. You don't need no stinking servers... let the experts do it and eliminate a bunch of sunk costs. So why would you even try to build the internal infrastructure to train and enable your users to use that app? Remember, cloudsourcing is about focusing on the expertise of your business and carving out to others all the stuff outside your core business. Unless you are specifically a training company, do you really want spend all the sunk dough needed to build out the team and infrastructure required to have the knowledge and economies of scale to successfully enable your enterprise app users? Really? Or do you want to hand that off to the experts and let them figure it out for you?
Why not cloudsource your enterprise application training and enablement? You already gave up your servers, embraced the cloud for your enterprise, and let the experts deliver the implementation. Take the next logical step- cloudsource the training, adoption, and enablement for your enterprise app users, just like you cloudsourced the enterprise app.
Glen,
I think you captured the natural extension of the concepts quite well. I'm starting to see a real inflection point around the concept of moving non-core processes outside the business. I think the economic nastiness of the last couple of years has made a lot of businesses reevaluate their strategy around a lot of things that add costs but aren't core to the business (and not that these processes aren't important, they are important, just not core). We've talked about BPO for years but adoption was marginal, the difference now is the addition of the cloud computing model. The costs structures are finally at a point where it just doesn't make sense for businesses not to look at these options.
Mike
posted by Michael Fauscette
December 22nd, 2009
Mike,
Thanks for your comment. I am absolutely seeing the same things- the costs for doing such BPO is now less than doing it yourself (even at the micro-level), combined with the the fact that the emergence of the enterprise cloud is driving the concept of "just outsource everything that is not nailed down or core to us". Yet what does seem different in the BPO space, akin to the enterprise cloud concept, is that this cloudsourcing-as-BPO-2.0 is occurring at the same time that the very nature of many of the business processes are themselves changing- with the result being not "BPO because we can do the same thing for less", but rather "let's cloudsource because we can pitch this old process into the sea, as the new process is better more efficient, costs less overall, AND we can start fresh in an outsourced model".
Thanks,
Glenn
posted by glenn
December 22nd, 2009
Great dialog Glenn, Mike--
Glenn, I love your comment that "this ain't your father's BPO." That's exactly the point, especially in IT. CIOs struggle to find a partner to help them make the transition to cloud computing. Their traditional partners have too much to lose to move from the status quo, and have expertise in all the wrong areas-- it doesn't matter anymore how good they are at managing a server farm.
That's going to be true in all areas of cloudsourcing-- companies need a new type of partner to help them move their business to the cloud.
We wrote a whitepaper on the topic a couple of months ago, check it out!
Happy new year,
Ryan
posted by Ryan @ Appirio
December 31st, 2009