Dare to offer a General SLA

My new column Dare to offer a General SLA is out on Outsource Magazine.

Short break out:

SLA appendices: I’ve seen some bad ones. I’ve seen some good ones. I’ve seen one which was a really good one – and I loved it.

IT service delivery isn’t a senior service provider’s proviso anymore. “We’ve done this for 20 years, no one beats us!” might be a good call but it might also indicate you’re stacked in old habits. Thanks to new service delivery models like cloud computing and techniques like virtualisation etc. almost anyone can deliver quality IT services. It’s really not a problem to deliver for instance an SaaS

Pay, Ask and Prepare

Commented the post IT Outsourcing Customers Get What They Pay for, Not What They Want by Stephanie Overby (@stephanieoverby) on CIO.com.

Short break out:

"When asked to rate their own talent, outsourcing buyers consider themselves strong in tactical areas such as contract negotiation and service provider selection but weaker in the more strategic fields of improving analytics, driving innovation, and defining business outcomes beyond cost

Cloud (summ)arise 2012!

2012 was a remarkable year for me in social media. I’ve gained more than 1 000 followers…without any follow back strategy. More than 10’ visitors on the blog and good traffic and sharing on GP’s around the web. Not bad for a rookie I think. Big THANK YOU to all readers, supporters and followers. I truly appreciate it. And by the way… what a remarkable year it was for Cloud Computing.

And by the way...what a remarkeable year it was for Cloud Computing. Who’s not impressed by true cloud…when it makes sense, fulfill needs and works like it’s supposed to?

This is my cloud, and a bit of IT Ooutsourcing and management, summary for 2012.

MMind ad on Parkannonser.se

Published a MMind ad on the Swedish site Parkannonser.se (in Västerås): http://www.parkannonser.se/ads.php?show=item&id=49

Hope it will bring some local business. :)

Collection 2 of great posts

It's time for my second collection of great posts. These four are, according to me, connected to each other in two ways: career and orchestration. I will link each post up, give you a short break out and add a short comment of mine.

First, when reading; think about how you can be a part of future IT, in the cloud, in hybrid solutions. Customers, whether to an IT department an ITO, MSP or appl operator,  need support from someone they can trust, their IT need to be orchestrated not only techy, its needed to be orchestrated on all levels

Collection of great posts

Some great and even important posts from yesteraday. You should read them to, it might be good for your business or career.

IT sourcing models are shifting: A Deloitte perspective by Karl Flinders (@karlfl). Short break out:

""Are we witnessing the death of the 'mega-deal'? Is it going to get even tougher for the traditional one-stop-shop IT Outsourcing (ITO) houses? Why are so many organisations re-thinking traditional sourcing models all at the same time?

A collection of comments

This is a collection of the comments I've posted today on a couple of sites. Most important one is No. 3. It's time we put pressure and demand true professionalism. New business opportunity in No. 2 - go ahead, time for action.

Comment 1: Commented: Employees Engage in Rogue Cloud Use Regardless of Security Policies

Comment 2: David Linthicums 'Cloud computing: The semi-secret economic equalizer' 

Comment 3: My long comment to: CIOs Say Corporate Directors Are Clueless About IT

Enjoy!

David Linthicums 'Cloud computing: The semi-secret economic equalizer'

Interesting read: Cloud computing: The semi-secret economic equalizer by David Linticum on InfoWorld.

Short breakout:

"As the study illustrates, the cost efficiencies of cloud computing are the same in third-world countries as in the developed world, and up-and-coming nations can leverage data, applications, and infrastructure that were once cost prohibitive. In turn, this increases

Commented: Employees Engage in Rogue Cloud Use Regardless of Security Policies

I posted a comment to the post Employees Engage in Rogue Cloud Use Regardless of Security Policies by Thor Olavsrud on CIO.

Short breakout:

"Employees are increasingly turning to the cloud to get their work done, whether IT has a policy about cloud use or not, according to research studies by Symantec and cloud backup provider

'Doomed?' on Outsourcemagazine

My latest post 'Doomed?' on Outsource Magazine is out.

Breakout:

"I ask myself, will it be a true shift where traditional IT outsourcing providers* becomes outmaneuvered by smaller service provider, cloud brokers, in-house IT departments and non IT service providers acting as orchestrators of future hybrid IT? A shift caused by:

• Smaller SPs are able to change when the market does. Faster and shorter step to new decisions. 

• Smaller SPs are able to operate, manage and orchestrate solutions earlier exclusively reserved the larger ITO providers. 

• Non-IT service providers from mature branches bring money, resources and trimmed processes in to a sometimes immature IT world. 

• In-house IT departments are able to orchestrate their IT solutions. They don’t have to focus on fundamental operations provided by IaaS, PaaS and A-/SaaS; they are able to concentrate on core/special services and work more innovative to bring value to core business. To become the internal trusted cloud broker to avoid de-centralised procurement/adoption of products and services. 

• The act of “Fat and happiness”: instead of working innovative (know, predict and tell what the customer needs in the future) ITOs only focus on now! 

• ITOs don’t use partnership to build success. They build everything on their own." 

Tell me what you think on Outsourcemagazine, here on the blog or just send me a mail.


ITO's, SP's, non-IT SP's, "end-customers": Of course MMind is able to discuss in detail how your business can deal with this.

 

Extreme Outsourcing

My latest post Extreme Outsourcing on Outsourcing Magazine is out. Enjoy!

Short break out - the bullets:

Here are some of my bullets to a good start for a greater outsourcing. 

• Only demand things you really need. Ask for the rest. 

• Let the service provider explain how to solve glue, integration, add on services with their standard procedures and services instead of demanding your nitty gritty procedures. Core business for service providers is to know how to solve things in their environment: let them. 

• When you outsource, be prepared for change.

Comment to 'Europe: Lots of cloud opportunity to tap'

Added a short comment to Barb Darrow's (@gigabarb) post Europe: Lots of cloud opportunity to tap on GIGAOM, or maybe more a comment/answer to the comment posted by Davetrw87: "It would be interesting to delve into why cloud computing has developed slower in Europe compared to the US."

Short break out:

"European cloud adoption has happened slower than in the U.S., but there are signs that it’s about to rapidly accelerate. At Structure:Europe, cloud luminaries will talk about how they see this change unfolding and what’s motivating it. Hint:

Cloud Compliance: Part 1 - The Basics

My first part about Cloud Compliance is now available on KnowYourCloud.

Short break out:

"Just for fun; a tricky question: What happens if an SaaS provider from Country A put its service on a PaaS provided from Country B? And, scary, the PaaS from Country B resides on an IaaS from Country C in Continent D? Is your organization cloud compliant in this scenario? Will any of the XaaS providers guarantee you’re cloud compliant? Let’s hope these scenarios won’t be frequent in the market in the future"

Please share if you like it.

"Customisation of IT: sorry, but it’s NOT the future. Customerisation is!"

My second and latest column on Outsource Magazine: Customisation of IT: sorry, but it’s NOT the future. Customerisation is!


Short breakout:

"What to do (1) 

IT businesses have to walk away from seller-centric and buyer-centric scenarios to “swap-centric”, "customised standard", Lego-bricks or whatever you would like to call it.
IT providers have to listen to their customers and offer open standard services from which a customer can choose add-on services – either from the provider or from other service providers. Build up services in block: don’t customise a service if your goal isn’t to be that special services provider who will get paid for the effort you put in it. Plus,

comment to a comment to my comment...

...on the post Working On A Cloud Software Service Level Agreement on CloudTweaks by Rick Blaisdell.

Read the full story + comments.

I'm not sure if sarojkars comment was intended to comment my comment or comment the post...I think the later one. But what the h... I answered it. :) My comment/answer:

"@sarojkar Do you mean like a complete chain with several services included in a "full" ITaaS/XaaS? Or do you mean net, servers etc within the DC included in a SaaS? (Then it definitely should be included in the SLA) If ITaaS; it's definitely cool to deliver the chain of services from DC to user. It's a risk but definitely cool, you will certainly differ from many other SP's.

What’s Your Green Cloud Plan?

My latest post What’s Your Green Cloud Plan? on KnowYourCloud 

Please take a moment to think about your engagement in a better IT environment, but nevertheless - enjoy!

Short break out:

"And when Greenpeace is on your case there’s really nowhere to hide; as a big cloud service provider you get bad publicity = less money. That’s it. Always. The IT industry’s black sheep

Columnist on Outsource Magazine

I'm very happy to tell: As from today I'm writing as a columnist on the UK Outsource Magazine site. I will concentrate on IT outsourcing and publish about one post a month.

Since about two months I publish Cloud related posts on KnowYourCloud.

My special thoughts will remain here on In Max Mind.

All posts, comments on other sites etc will as always be linked up from here.

Please contact me on Twitter or mail (see About) if there's something you would like to have a comment on or read about as an article.

Cheers

/Max

Update about the garden wall’s

So what happened with the garden wall’s I wrote about in the post ‘My friend Mikael, the carpenter…’?

Recap:

“Yesterday I talked to Mikael about building two walls in the garden. I asked him: “Do you think one bag of concrete (20-25 kg mix) is good enough for each pole?” Mikael: “Nooo…. You know, when the wind starts to blow… its quite powerful… you should dig quite deep and use quite a lot of concrete. But, don’t you have something to fasten and secure it to, like…the house?” Me: “Yes,

My comment to 'How to negotiate a contract with a cloud or SaaS provider'

Yesterday I read a wise post in InfoWorld: How to negotiate a contract with a cloud or SaaS provider by Mary Shacklett (@MaryShacklett).

I really think it's important we enlight the market on a reasonable level! So I wrote a "short" comment.

Seems like it takes some time (too long time for post momentums) to approve my comment (most probably because of my attached link). I post it here anyway...

Short breakout:

"What's important?Large enterprises have their own legal departments, but most small businesses don't. Small businesses and even enterprises are also very likely to not have a complete file of all of their contracts or not read all of their contracts end to end. A good practice is to

Cloud Washing…does it REALLY matter

Look at it from another perspective… The customers’ perspective. Does cloud washing really matter then?

I’m working at a Nordic IT outsourcing provider and have together with them delivered IT as a Service since 1997 (I'm now more on my own: MMind.se). I’m personally very into cloud services and how and why companies should adopt it. I’m also very into how IT service providers (cloud or “classics”) should think to give customers value and increase efficiency to become more productive. Therefor I’m not only talking cloud.

When I, with the option of three different subjects, asked what readers wanted to read as my next post they all (3…hm…well) pointed at Cloud Washing with the comment that it is important that people become aware of washed cloud services. The post was published in the beginning of this week on Know Your Cloud as Cloud Washing – Don’t End Up Washing Your IT with False Clouds. Though; from the beginning my intention was to talk about whether the washing of a service to a “cloud service” really matters as long as it kills customer pains.