When the benefit is high and the risk is low.

During a meeting with the company that I expect to become a key partner in the solutions we deliver to clients we realized that just about every client we meet with talks about the need to manage the mess that is their collaboration.  Companies, and their employees, are virtually floundering in a sea of data and information. 

But with 87% of IT projects generally failing why are there so few examples of success?  I will step back for a minute and consider the original answer.  All too often in business I've heard talk of the numbers, the ROI, the benefit, or the potential.  Yet in just about every case when I dig deeper I discover that what people are talking about is a statement that barely scratches the surface.  I've worked at organizations ready to change a significant portion of their IT infrastructure to save a few million dollars in licensing, only to discover that the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) was woefully misrepresented and in the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

How can you truly calculate benefit?  In my experience amongst other things it takes a realistic understanding of the business.  Digging deep beneath the surface involves more than a cursory understanding of what the business does.  Not only that but a detailed understanding of risk, and whether it is high or low is something many businesses tend to cut corners on or fail to invest in (just ask the financial sector about Risk Management and the current financial climate - and they're supposed to be one of the experts in this discipline).

This was all prompted by a question I put on the table for my business partner; what was our technology product/service assessment?  If you're curious about this and where we went with it I'd be delighted to discuss it over in our discussion board.

When the benefit is high and the risk is low.

During a meeting with the company that I expect to become a key partner in the solutions we deliver to clients we realized that just about every client we meet with talks about the need to manage the mess that is their collaboration.  Companies, and their employees, are virtually floundering in a sea of data and information. 

But with 87% of IT projects generally failing why are there so few examples of success?  I will step back for a minute and consider the original answer.  All too often in business I've heard talk of the numbers, the ROI, the benefit, or the potential.  Yet in just about every case when I dig deeper I discover that what people are talking about is a statement that barely scratches the surface.  I've worked at organizations ready to change a significant portion of their IT infrastructure to save a few million dollars in licensing, only to discover that the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) was woefully misrepresented and in the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

How can you truly calculate benefit?  In my experience amongst other things it takes a realistic understanding of the business.  Digging deep beneath the surface involves more than a cursory understanding of what the business does.  Not only that but a detailed understanding of risk, and whether it is high or low is something many businesses tend to cut corners on or fail to invest in (just ask the financial sector about Risk Management and the current financial climate - and they're supposed to be one of the experts in this discipline).

This was all prompted by a question I put on the table for my business partner; what was our technology product/service assessment?  If you're curious about this and where we went with it I'd be delighted to discuss it over in our discussion board.