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- and simplicity advantages can be overwhelmingly positive and often can provide the shortest and least perilous path to results. My family loves a home cooked feast on the holidays, but as the chief cook in my home I can tell you that there are times, after all of the long hours and hard work, that it would be nice if someone else did the cooking and cleaning so I can just eat and enjoy the presents. Consider SaaS in the same light – there’s something to be said for focusing on business needs instead of wrestling with another in-house implementation and integration project.
- Trim the fat. If any same contractors, partners, suppliers, consultants or even employees are foolish enough to slack off in this economy, then the time to cut them loose is before a new initiative kicks off. I realize this isn’t a happy holiday thought, but business is business and there’s a lot of unemployed IT talent available. Think of it like trimming the fat off the holiday roast. That’s what’s best for your family. Trimming the fat out of your IT department and budget is what’s best for the company. Responsible managers will set clear goals for their teams and create achievable incentives to keep everyone motivated in the post-holiday slump. But evaluating performance and holding people accountable is critical as executives increase their scrutiny of budgets, business cases, and ROI measurements.
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In 2010, CSPs face a market that’s competitive in ways no one predicted a decade or so ago. |
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- Don’t party like its 1999. ’99 was a great year. The dot-com bubble hadn’t burst yet. The World Trade Center still stood. And everyone was certain that real estate values would grow forever. Soon reality set in and the telecom industry found itself in what was considered an industry-wide depression. I don’t believe we’re seeing the same phenomena and market conditions today, but I do see an awful lot of hype flying around the business like we did back then. With all due respect, consultants, analysts, advertising gurus, and columnists like me get paid to tell an exciting and positive story. But the traditional players in our industry, who feed the whole food chain, face real competitive threats from the Internet and entertainment industries. Buying into hype is hubristic – it leads to painful downfalls. Now is a time for realism. Buzzwords don’t pay the bills. Just because the whole industry is screaming “content,” “apps”, “data services” and “personalization” doesn’t mean that’s the best or most realistic path to success for your company. Focus on core strengths, economies of scale, and doing right by customers. No company can afford to overlook those fundamentals, even if the path to glory is where the hype says it is.
Putting the quips aside, the reality in 2010 is that CSPs face a market that’s competitive in ways no one predicted a decade or so ago. We’ve all done a lot of talking though about where CSPs need to go to compete with threats enabled by the Internet. The good news for people in the BSS realm is that success depends on driving customer loyalty and optimizing billing and payment capabilities. But, if 2010 is just another year of business-as-usual, those threats will overtake the CSP industry. So, enjoy the holidays, celebrate the New Year, and recharge those batteries for a super-competitive 2010.
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