It's a SMAC, SMAC World

Crazy as it may sound, the entire world is going to be SMAC'ed.

Now, now, I'm not a futurist, not even a technologist. But as one who often writes and talks about tech trends that affect enterprises big time, I can bet a few shirts on this: Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud will shake things up like hell. (Or heaven, if you are on top of the stuff.)

It is hard to pinpoint when these four potent forces began to coalesce but, according to an article on Forbes.com, it was Cognizant Technology Solutions researchers who coined the term “SMAC” as recently as 2013. But let's not confuse terminology with technology (I remember one firm had coined a similar but rather ugly “SoMoClo,” for Social, Mobile and Cloud; and there are others who use “Nexus of Forces” and “the 3rd Platform” for similar concepts).

Irrespective of the term, the four mega trends are transforming how technology is developed, purchased, deployed and used. And how employees, partners, clients, customers and other stakeholders behave. It is the combined behavior that is slated to make the most impact—which is why it is difficult to put a dollar value to it and why impact estimates vary so much. To cite but one figure, a Reuters.com report quoting Nasscom director Rajat Tandon says that the value of outsourcing contracts for SMAC is set to soar from $164 billion last year to $287 billion by 2016.

No matter how you cut it, SMAC technologies are slated to leave a lasting impression. A Cognizant report, titled “The Value of Signal (and the Cost of Noise): The New Economics of Meaning-Making,” summarizes the situation neatly. “Nearly every aspect of our daily lives generates a digital footprint. From mobile phones and social media to inventory look-ups and online purchases, we collect more data about processes, people and things than ever before. Winning companies are able to create business value by building a richer understanding of customers, products, employees and partners—extracting business meaning from this torrent of data. The business stakes of “meaning-making” simply could not be higher,” it says.

I often hear murmurs of dissent: “There is more hype than substance to SMAC.” Or, “Big data (or cloud or mobility or social media) is not for us.”

It is possible that one of the big social platforms as we know it ceases to exist one day. Or some term other than SMAC will prevail (like cloud prevailed over service-oriented architecture). But does anyone seriously think people won’t be more mobile going forward? Or the human instinct to extend their socializing to new, emerging media will lose steam? Or, for that matter, we will stop analyzing this and that and what not, for business and for pleasure?

Crazy as it may sound…

The Future of Work

Technologies such as cloud, mobility and social media are changing the way we work

One of my favorite ad slogans is from the satellite communication firm Iridium: Geography is history.

I am reminded of this as I key in thoughts on the futuristic dimensions of white-collar work. Will the physical office and fixed seats be history? How about the 9 to 5 rule or working fixed hours? What kinds of work will get most dramatically impacted?

Reams have been written on the subject and extensive studies conducted, so I will not go into the statistics of a growing remote workforce, home opportunities and the like. Instead, let me focus on how technology is making an impact on the way we work.

One of the biggest changes comes from the increasing interplay of personal and enterprise technologies. CIOs are now talking about consumerization of technology, the movement toward, say, user-centric, friendly apps rather than dense lines of code or cumbersome interfaces to configure resources. BYOD (bring your own device) is already a growing phenomenon and people are frequently switching screens from Facebook and LinkedIn to the intranet and CRM.

Given this growing mix, I think certain companies will need to look at the “work output” as a performance measure rather than hours spent in the office or logged into the system.

Another big change: more workers are going to be empowered down the line than ever possible before. Through the Web and the tools it provides, through user-driven business intelligence and through other means, people at various levels will need to take more decisions more quickly—for the collective enterprise to be competitive.

Social sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are also making an impact on assessment and hiring. Not just in jobs that require social media skills but generally in “judging” the future hires and their abilities through posts, usage patterns and circle of friends and followers.

In my own sphere of journalism, for instance, tech is making a big impact by connecting writers and readers in multiple ways; by bringing the whole blogosphere into the picture; by making it easy for us to find “material” through Google and Bing (and others I'm forgetting) yet difficult to escape the barrage of criticism if we slip; by making the whole writing-reading process quick, transparent, conversational...

On a more futuristic leap of imagination, in keeping with the vendors' fondness for “personalization,” shall we see a day when companies come knocking on your smartphones and say: “Hi there, if we were to offer you the job of the CIO, which of the following amenities will suit you? Please select as many as you like and we will come back with a personalized offer.”

Now, now, I didn't say that job search will be history!

Mobile Device Mess?

The Bring Your Own Device genie is out, causing multiple headaches for IT professionals. Thankfully, applying MDM (Mobile Device Management) can bring some relief

One man's food is another's poison, they say. Applying this old adage to enterprise mobility, while the proliferation of devices comes as a boon to the touch-happy users, it is often seen as anathema to the enterprise tech professionals.

I can almost imagine their nightmares as streams of young new recruits (and young-at-heart bosses) enter the office premises, playing games, chatting, Facebooking, and occasionally answering emails or opening work files—all on their swishy new smartphones and tablets.

The tribe of mobile devices in our midst is growing phenomenally. Each quarter close to 150 million smartphones are sold worldwide and about three million in India. And these numbers are growing pretty fast.

It is inevitable that employees will walk in with their own mobile devices—and insist on using them for work as well.

Thankfully, MDM or mobile device management tools are now at hand. Using these tools, IT professionals can minimize their nightmares, if not completely eliminate them.

The problem with mobile devices is that there are just too many of them! CIOs and IT managers have to deal with a wide variety of OS types, software versions and hardware models. It's not easy taming what's come to be known as the BYOD (bring your own device) phenom, and no one seems to have found the formula to perfectly match the best interests of the company and its employees.

MDM tools such as those from MobileIron, AirWatch and Zenprise (there are scores of solutions available, including many from traditional large vendors, though only a few are available in India at the moment) allow enterprises to provision applications with ease and safely manage access to critical business data.

However, challenges persist. Key concerns include creating a standard environment, rendering apps correctly or elegantly on multiple types of devices, and dealing with the constant barrage of new apps that employees would want to download and use. And then, there are issues concerning company policies (subsidizing the costs, fixing liabilities in case of theft, etc.) and employee turnover (managing the data/device handover process).

Together with cloud and social media, mobile devices and their growing use for work are causing a complete relook of ICT infrastructure for many enterprises. Deployment of a solution is no longer a siloed activity that can be done on a need basis but one that is getting intertwined with other solutions, the overall infrastructure and, of course, the company's “agility” ambitions.

A lot of learning and pain awaits IT folks before the device mess can be sorted out to any desirable degree of satisfaction.

But then, what's life without challenges?