Balancing Compliance and the Media

In a world of financial difficulties the media looks to pillory and find those responsible. Regulation and compliance become the popular solution for all our ills. "If things had been regulated better" then this or that would n't have happened. Nearly every day the media is probing and acting like a pack of hunting hounds around one issue or another.

The trouble is that regulation cost money, lots of money. It is evident from contractor job boards that the majority of contracts on offer for change professionals in the UK this autumn are regulatory based compliance projects. Large corporate organisations are doing stuff because they have to, not because they really want or need to. Solvency 2, RDR (Retail Distribution Review) are two of the many regulatory based initiatives rippling through financial services. How much real customer service improvement has been put on hold as a result?

Who pays for all of this- the customer - in higher prices  and also perhaps more significantly in many cases, irritating processes and worsened customer experiences - yet another pointless pre recorded compliance based announcement delaying the call!

I am not advocating that compliance is bad news I am just saying that we need to be careful we "don't throw the baby out with the bath water". It isn't the panacea that the announcers and anchor men/ladies on the Today Programme would seem to suggest.

Compliance has an enormous cost in both hard cash and in how we interact with organisations we buy services from. What we really  need is a bit of balance and a bit of common sense.

Time to go Fishing!

We seem to arrived at that time of year where running a small business whose customers are mostly corporates becomes frustrating!

Loads of people are off taking their annual paid leave, managers aren't around to make decisions to release budget and generally it's " I will call you in September".

So, like Christmas, half terms and Easter it is yet another time that isn't particularly productive.

Annual leave is a serious productivity issue its not just the time off but it is the week before to wind down to finish off and the week after the holiday to read the 1000 or so e mails and to ramp back up again.

An ordinary two week holiday can wreck a month for some. When everyone is taking it and it's usually staggered to "provide cover", the whole place grinds to a halt for the best part of July and August. Funny really cause when I was a salary-man I took it all for granted too!

Oh, and take too long a holiday and its an opportunity for some politics at your detriment whilst you are away!

You can understand in the days before globalisation, well even before doing business outside your local area, meant that whole towns in the North of England closed for a recognised week as the whole workforce went on mass by "charrabang" to "Skeggy" or some where. Bit before my time though hasten to add! - I'm sure Orwell can give us some snippets!!

So perhaps it's best to join the "permies" and go and do some fishing!!

Technology breeds stupidity.

Here's a nice line from an article by Jack Wallen on ZDNet trying to dispel myths about open-source software. This section points out that you don't have to be an expert to use it, and it's as easy to install as proprietary software, if not easier...

"Like all things to do with computers, as the intelligence of the average computer user has dropped, the ease of use of open-source software has increased."

But I suppose it applies to most technologies. The more complex things become under the skin, the more user-friendly and idiot-proof the developers try to make them. The same applies to cars. Thirty years ago you might have had a go at replacing the cylinder head gasket. On modern cars you can't even find the cylinder head. Is technology actually making us less capable? 

Cloud is going to do for operations what the web did for marketing.

The growing capability of cloud software as a service.(SAAS) functionality is looking to change the business models of many small medium enterprises and particularly micro businesses. The web enabled anyone to market to the world where previously only large companies could market with substantial budgets. It has revolutionised marketing and sales over the last 10 years making small businesses able to compete in markets where years ago it would have been impossible.

Cloud is going to do for operations what the web did for marketing.

When you have an idea and uptake could be slow it takes a brave entrepreneur to fork out for expensive software and supporting infrastructure; raising fixed costs and automatically creating as a result high take up to hit the break even point. Many have shrunk back from this and how many good ideas have not developed due to high initial investment costs?

With many SAAS offerings a "freemium" approach is used for low volumes so it is low on up front cost to start trading in a certain way and really good to "just see how it goes".

I think this is going to be a serious stimulant for innovation and the development of smaller businesses.

Cloud is going to revolutionise many business models and create those that historically would never have got of the "fag packet".

It will particularly assist part time business and lifestyle ventures as these low volume options previously could not be sustainable and reduce the risk of start up operations.

Costs bases will be more aligned to variable costs and the costs therefore flexible with the ability to expand or contract due to changes in volume. Scalability both up and down is the benefit.

So cloud is more than just another I.T.fad its going to make some serious waves in business design land.

Tom Graves speaks sense yet again.

I always like to read what Tom Graves has to say on business/enterprise architecture, recently he posted the following which was spot on as usual.

" If you come from an IT-centric architecture background, the first need is to realise that the standard EA view of business-architecture is a mess - it's essentially a random grab-bag of 'everything not-IT'. Tom Graves 2011.

I.T. centric EA is a core problem to us in the Business architecture space because often 80% of represented architecture is I.T and 20% is business which is the wrong way round.

Whilst EA continues to be used incorrectly as a term and job role title then the problems and culture persist in an unhelpful way.

Tom is a business centric business architect so when you see his name in discussions stop and read because, most of the time, its worth reading and take note.