Automating Management – Cloud computing and the frictionless future

ATN-300InsightaaS: In all of the (hundreds of) previous ATN posts, we’ve highlighted material from third party sources. Today, though, we thought we’d take a different tack, and highlight a LinkedIn post from InsightaaS principal Michael O’Neil. In it, he makes a point that is central to his recently-published book, “The Death of Core Competency”: that as cloud reduces the cost and effort associated with new automation to (nearly) zero, it will create enormous opportunities and challenges for executive management – and that as a result, cloud will become much more a management than a technology issue.

We are of course biased towards a POV that is at the core of the first book issued by InsightaaS Press. Beyond our natural sympathy, though, we feel that the cloud’s ability to deliver new levels of business automation should be more widely discussed. If the book’s core premise is correct – that in the “day of cloud,” only the first 90 minutes is about technology, and the remaining 22.5 hours is about management strategies around the technology – then the kind of cloud debate contained in this post, and in the book, will become very common. Today’s ATN feature provides our readers with an opportunity to get a preview of the larger cloud discussion!

There are several phrases that most of us will hear throughout our business careers: “Work smarter, not harder.” “Stay close to your customers.” “Budgets are tight.”

One that most of us have heard is “Focus on our core competencies,” or “Those who have too many priorities have none.” But executives who doggedly pursue excellence in a handful of areas are about to become dinosaurs, eclipsed by managers who are in tune with the efficiency gains, the expanded reach and the vastly improved business insight that a cloud business infrastructure delivers.

The cloud is generally considered to be an IT issue, but today IT has morphed into an executive challenge. We hear of IaaS/PaaS/SaaS and public/ private/ hybrid, but these are tactical, temporary debates. The more important discussions are about how corporate managers can use cloud to reshape their businesses; how executives can use cloud for addressing broader corporate objectives.

Cloud is an ideal platform for business automation. Cloud-based applications cost much less than on-premise software, and because cloud is delivered as a service, it is not constrained by available IT bandwidth. InsightaaS has identified more than 40 areas where cloud-based automation can be usefully applied to business operations – meaning that the scope of potential deployment is ‘enterprise-wide’. Considering all of these factors – low cost, reduced internal IT demand, and scope – it’s clear that cloud will be increasingly used to automate business tasks, processes, departments and enterprises.

This presents a unique opportunity – and a unique challenge – to executives…

Read the entire post on LinkedIn: Link

Find the book in paperback or for Kindle on Amazon, for Apple on iTunes, or for other e-readers on Kobo  

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