Management / World Citizens / Digital Transformation

July 02, 2020

For the first time in 100 years, the entire world came down to its knees suddenly in March 2020. 90% of planes were grounded, more than 70% of the countries asked their citizens to stay home, 15 to 25% of people lost jobs, more than 70% of street side stores remained shut for few months in most countries. The infection and death rate continued to climb, giving time for people to slow down, think and reflect. Dire, Dire, Dire!!!

However, during the global shutdown, many positive things happened. Improvements in air quality, thriving Ocean life, healing of our planet Earth and more. Everyone was fed, families reunited, lives saved, public services functioned, politicians led selflessly, farmers farmed, logistics remained unbroken and individuals in the food industry selflessly worked to feed the world. Services people which occupies 35% of work, worked from home. And of course, medical health care workers were the heroes, who fought the virus, and helped people win over virus. In most countries, the economy fell by 30% in the 2nd quarter but did not lose 100% of their company.

The fact that most of the economies continued to function was mainly due to technology companies that had enabled digital technologies for employees to work from home. Electronic stock exchanges, Online banking, Insurance services, Online shopping, Digital entertainment, Digital applications, Video Conferencing, etc. kept the lights on.

Are the citizens of the world going back to the old lifestyle or are they beginning to usher in a new lifestyle? Man is a social animal and that is not going to change anytime soon, but the way they interact would change. Many of you are looking for Digital Technologies that help you solve your day to day chores. Online Marriages, Online family events, Virtual Tourism, Online graduation programs, Online Gyms, Online Cooking lessons, Virtual Doctors, Virtual Treatments, more of Online shopping, more of virtual meetings. these are just the tip of the iceberg.

Cloud, Digital application Development, Global resources, desire for change, the key ingredients are all there to digitize even further. Digital Technologies and people are coming together to shape a better world. We are a Digital Technology company ready to help...

If you want to partner in redefining, Lets connect.

Author: Joe Ricottone

Date: July 02, 2020

Management Team / Decision Makers

Updated: 28 August 2019

Most companies are skeptical or suspicious about the prospects of adopting Technologies in general, including Cloud. The promise by Technology companies of selling their bits as “faster, cheaper, better” are mostly run by slower, costlier, and complicated implementations. Companies who learn as they go come out successful and strong according to CIO reports. Cloud adoption started in 2006 and less than 30% of applications and data are on Cloud today, which shows the untapped potential of the cloud.

Let me share a few cloud computing statistics for you and then gain your confidence on how we can assist in your success.
1. Total Cloud Computing infrastructure investment would be over $400 Billion in 2020 to 2022
2. Average Company’s Cloud budget is 30% of their IT budget with average spend of $3 Million
3. Average cost savings by using cloud is 30-40%, average time savings is 4 to 12 weeks

Your challenges are somewhat not unique, they can be generalized into few major stumbling blocks:
1. Privacy and security concerns
2. Shared experiences and industry whistleblowers
3. Slow starters and less innovators

Now from years of experience in assisting companies to adopt cloud, save your hard-earned dollars and be innovative quickly, here are some strategies you want to think about:
1. Have a multi-cloud strategy – experiment and measure the deployments of multi technology, multi applications, measure your thresholds. Output of this exercise is a clear view of costs, timeline, and quality.
2. Take advantage of Cloud strengths – use it for tests, analytics, streaming and global presence.
3. Develop a Cloud Team that is measured on how much they saved, how much innovation and how fast was the team. Watch for Cloud providers moves as they game like gambling houses, i.e. they take advantage when you are sleeping.
4. Lastly be on top of your game, Let IT teams take care of IT and let business take care of business. Sooner or later we will see cloud operating systems, and quantum computing will be at the hands of IT teams.

Would love to hear from you and your views.

Author: Joe Ricottone

Date: Updated on 28, August 2019.

Initial write up: 17 March,2018.

Developers / Development Team

12 February 2019

As a development team supporting your business grow, are you in the lock step with your Business? Perhaps not. Should you not be cognizant about your business minds? As organizations take steps to reduce the gap in understanding and lack of collaboration between IT and business, what has IT been offering today.

You are right, buzz is cloud native development, CI/CD and agility. Let us discuss the urges, the challenges and what can set you up for an agility-fragility development mindset. Here are a few hurdles along the way:
1. “You are your own stumbling block”, my sports coach once told me. Think about this…
2. “Do it all” or “do nothing” or “one size fits all” or “don’t fix if it is not broken” knowledge of the team.
3. Cloud operators want you to lock into their services.

Now let me share some proven strategies to get it right for your team and am not a proponent of the “one size fits all” strategy.
1. Experiment with at least two cloud providers and CI/CD tool sets and measure them against your cost, team mix, technology flexibility thresholds. This is to avoid locking yourself with one cloud provider or CI/CD vendor.
2. Start small and grow. That is take one business application, one development team, one operations team, one business team, one release. Give the team time to slowly soak in the culture, tools, and ways of working.
3. Be light on processes and documentation but be heavy on communication and outcomes. Measure what the release accomplished in business terms was (revenue, customer acquisition, etc.) versus how many releases the team released.

Lastly the quest for team success will guide you to choose the right CI/CD toolset, Cloud native services. Velocity, variety, and volume will increase over time and will set you apart.

Looking forward to talking to you, let’s talk!!!

Author: Joe Ricottone

Date: Updated on 12 February 2019

Initial write up: 17 December,2018