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?




Right now many companies are fundamentally changing their sourcing models to develop a smarter approach that will maximise the benefits of competition. Some of our clients have recently moved from a single supplier managed service to a layered approach with a Service Integrator, managing a small cluster of vendors. Many companies are moving toward multi-sourced models with shorter contract durations, increased flexibility and outcome focussed commercial models. Others are transitioning from best of breed supplier mixes toward "Tower-Sourcing"; "Layered-Source" or "Guardian Vendor" approaches."

Definitions are described, trends in ITO and Cloud is predicted and well explained. Please read this one whether you are a provider, user or advisor.

With SaaS, it's not just about your apps -- it's how you connect those apps, too by Ross Mason (@rossmason), Mulesoft, on GIGAOM. Short break out:

"For this to be possible companies need an integration platform that provides connectivity for all their applications whether it be SaaS applications such as Salesforce.com, NetSuite, or Workday; or on-premise such as SAP, Microsoft and Oracle. But its not just about connectivity, its about reliability and agility. The connections between your applications need to be working silently in the background. You need analytical visibility to the information running through your applications to help tune your business and discover new insights. And you need to be able to respond quickly to changes in your business model, processes and applications.

In short, your company’s competitive advantage is no longer in the applications you use, it’s in the platform you choose to connect them with." 

One of the biggest challenges in future IT is how to connect the silos and make them work together. Cloud services, on-premise, services from ITO and MSP's; The IT landscape and behavior changes (read IT sourcing models are shifting (above)). IT isn't one source delivery anymore and absolutely not in the future. Users will be less faithful. Etc. How you connect and operate IT and services is top priority: Integration and Orchestration.

What do you look for in your IT services provider? This one also by Karl Flinders (@karlfl). Break out:

"Over the last two days I have reported the findings of a survey looking at the IT services plans of businesses in Europe and North America.

Part one looked at how IT services budgets will change next year. See it here.

Part two revealed what the drivers for I service budget increases and decreases are. See it here.

Today in part three, I can reveal the main influences on supplier selection in Europe.

Unsurprisingly price is one of the most important factors with 62.8% of respondents putting it down as an influence on supplier choice. But the biggest influence, with 71.5% selecting it is deep expertise in the technology or application. see table for more."

Interesting stats.