India Report: The Not So Mighty Dollar


BIZSCI IN BRIEF
With continued weakness in the U.S. dollar and increases in India labor costs due to greater talent competition and wage expectations, I expected to see changes in the shift of U.S. service work to India. Indeed, during a recent trip to India, I did see clear evidence of a slowdown in U.S. outsourcing growth. But based upon confidential estimates from in country contacts, the U.S. outsourcing market is still growing (albeit at a slower rate), and any slowdown in U.S. growth will be more than covered by anticipated growth from Europe, Asia, South America and Africa.


In chatting with the car driver about prices in India, he calculated that the dollar, approaching three to a hundred rupee, buys just a kilogram of the cheap shorter grain rice. Calculating further, he indicated the same dollar buys just a few cups of the prized long grain balsamati used for many local dishes.

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Customer Solutions Profit Form Updated

I think this is the one Profit Form every professional services firm should understand. The Customer Solutions Profit Form is all about studying clients and building full service solutions with multiple services. It's a win-win scenario as 1) the seller gains revenue per customer and benefits from lower marketing and sales expenses while 2) the buyer gains a better product with lower acquisition complexity and cost.

I've significantly enhanced the description of this profit form, adding new examples and new sections including:
Applies To
Use This When
Action Plan
P&L Impact


Link to Customer Solutions Profit Form
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X86 Mainframe Update - Creating a Virtualization Beast - Part 1


BIZSCI IN BRIEF
Virtualization. You think consolidating the work of twenty servers onto one is impressive? Consider that fact that a modern Dell PC can handle billions of instructions per second, more than any thousand employees in most companies could ever task. If that's the case, then maybe your consolidation goal should be ALL servers onto one, .... or two for redundancy ... or three for added Disaster Recovery. You think 100+ to one server consolidation is not possible? Read on ...



We are a large law firm with about two thousand workstations and two hundred production servers in data centers. As a CIO with a Windows shop for most of the last decade, I have leaned to live with the predominant WinTel Cisco IT Infrastructure design. But If you know me, you know I also think that same IT architecture is absolutely nutty. Billion dollar enterprises shouldn't have to eek a computing existence from a slow network of graphical workstations that devote nearly all their tremendous resources to communications overhead, self maintenance, security monitoring, waiting on network, waiting on storage and just about anything but completing the work of the company.

But that's another thread.

Today I want to give an update on an IT topic I am enthusiastic about: Virtualization. Virtualization is amazing because it can help make the nutty, better. More...
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X86 Mainframe Update - Creating a Virtualization Beast - Part 2

This is a continuation from Part 1

Our goal was to move all production and just under one hundred test and development devices to a single environment, then double the equipment in that environment (for redundancy) in the primary SF area data center and add a another environment to the DC DR site. A year ago I calculated minimum computational requirements for the firm (another project) and plugged in the numbers for the entire company. I calculated that between two and four servers (with an x86 mainframe design) could probably cover the entire firm ... that's a ratio of 100:1 or 150:1 depending on how you calculate it.
We budgeted 2-3x redundancy, i.e. 6 servers.

In Jan our engineers, Jim, Tom, Ryan, Chris, Rolando and the rest of Albert's team began working in earnest on the project. As you can guess, the hardware design required a little more than:

Step 1: Pull Dell out of box ,
Step 2: Install VMware
Step 3: Auto migrate servers.
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BizSci Answers: Building an Internet Strategy


BIZSCI IN BRIEF
For most companies, the Internet should not be viewed as a strategy on to itself, but an important component in a total market communications strategy. To improve your Internet strategy, first prioritize the products you want to sell to important market segments. Next, determine where you need to improve your Internet assets to make it easiest for segments to both find and buy your products. This is only the first phase of an overall profit strategy that includes Profit Forms analysis and constant optimization of the product-segment mix. WJones



Question
I am researching options for developing and growing my company's website. Experience has provided me with plenty of opinions on what to do, but I am interested in formalizing to a greater degree my approach and am curious about options for utilizing existing plans or tools for defining Internet strategy.

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In the BizSci Spotlight: Airline Service (part 2)


BIZSCI IN BRIEF
Southwest and JetBlue constantly work to understand the expectations of their customers, then quickly make their businesses a menu for meeting those expectations. As a result, they have been able to focus their service models, generating higher customer satisfaction with simpler, more efficient business design.



Finally, a Flight That Meets Expectations
Of course I was sad to leave Grande Lakes Orlando. It's a beautiful property and I had completely missed every opportunity to enjoy it for three days as I attempted to prepare a budget and meet with suppliers.

Just before checking out, I realized I had booked a slow connection through Raleigh when there was a better direct flight to Baltimore. I had arranged the trip late and too quickly picked the first flight after my last conference session. Now I realized my seven p.m. flight would land only minutes before a later direct flight. So, an hour before check-out, I began to consider the possibility of a warm dinner (and even a dip in the pool) and changed my flight. Fortunately I had flown Southwest and was charged only a small fare difference (max fare was just $70 more). Changing the flight and checking-in online (from my room) was fast and uneventful. I saved my boarding pass as a PDF and e-mailed it to myself. I then put on a swimsuit, grabbed my conference dinner ticket and made optimal use of my momentary time windfall.

Ninety minutes later, dry and fed, I checked out of the Ritz. I had expected to use a PC or printer near the front desk to print my boarding pass, but the system was locked. There was no access to webmail or direct access to the printer. Unfortunately, the hotel and I had been out of sync all day (a first). Earlier that day, the cleaning staff had mistakenly disposed of all my personal toiletries and then hid my wireless headset in a drawer. After discovery, I had to make two calls and wait two hours simply to get a replacement toothbrush & shaving kit from the front desk. Cutting my losses, I skipped a five minute walk to the business center and jumped in a car for the airport.

Attempting to circumvent a stand in the Southwest ticket line, I sought help from a kiosk agent with a brief attempt to explain that I had printed but did not have a boarding pass. The kiosk agent didn't understand my situation (or so I thought) and pointed me to a kiosk as if I hadn't checked in yet. Knowing that it is easier to show than to explain. I inserted my credit card expecting a quick check-in failure and a Go Directly to Counter Agent card. Instead a virtual button appeared on the screen titled "Re-Print Boarding Pass". As soon as I touched it, the boarding pass fluttered into my hands. I looked up to see the nicest, "we know our stuff" expression on the kiosk agent's face.

That brings me to today's topic.

There may be just two U.S. domestic airlines that really get domestic passenger aviation: Southwest and JetBlue. More...
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On the Road: VoIP IP Telephony RFP Presentation ILTA (Updated)

Whenever I am invited to speak at an event, there is always the risk that I will receive a bad time slot (like the last of the show) or a boring topic. Fortunately I had the opportunity to speak in the "next to last" time slot of the show and was offered the exciting topic below.

ILTA is by far the best legal technology conference in the US, and the Orlando Ritz one of my favorite places to stay. It was at this same hotel that my youngest son learned to walk, and it was also this hotel that treated my mother like a queen on the last full day I would spend with her before her passing. Several people asked why I skipped the popular shorts and tee shirts during the week and stuck with my customary Armani business attire. The simple answer is that I wore what felt best.

ScreenSnapz

Topic: IP Telephony / Voice Over IP Implementation and the RFP Process
Venue: International Legal Technology Association's 2007 Conference in Orlando.
Data/Time: 2:00 pm, August 23, 2007
Speakers:
  • Warren Jones, Chief Information Officer, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
  • Dean Leung, Director of Information Technology at Davis LLP

Downloads
Presentation
RFP Requirements List

Dean's presentation and full ILTA event content will be available on the ILTA '07 website.
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Downloads: VoIP Requirements List (Updated)

It's much easier after finishing a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) implementation (than before) to understand the requirements for a successful IP Telephony implementation. As an aid to your effort, download this list prepared a list during a 2006 - 2007 implementation. It outlines requirements and a few notes from the Pillsbury implementation. It's not comprehensive but may be useful when preparing a VoIP RPF.

It may also be useful when preparing a project plan or performing project due diligence either as part of contracting or an audit of an implementation partner's plan.

VoIP Requirements

VoIP Requirements List for IP Telephony RFP
PDF
Multi-Format Archive - Includes PDF, Text, HTML, OPML, and OmniOutliner formats (80kb)


More in Projects - Pillsbury Law - Telecom
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In the BizSci Spotlight: Airline Service (part 1)


BIZSCI IN BRIEF
Many U.S. domestic air carriers still struggle to stay one step ahead of bankruptcy, despite the examples of standouts like Southwest and JetBlue. These airlines have yet to fix holes in their service infrastructures that result in frequent unmet customer expectations. Until these airlines inventory all customer expectations and ensure they are met at each customer touch point (ticket counter, web, call center, gate, and aircraft), their businesses will continue to suffer.



What's Broken?
It's 11:30 pm. After a two hour delay, I had finally boarded a commuter plane at Atlanta's Hartsfield International en route to Dulles and home. Instead of taking off, it seemed that something was very wrong. Although the passengers had been asked to take their seats, fifteen minutes had passed with no one to close the door. Worse still, the flight attendants looked like anxious parents at a child's birthday party hoping it really was a good idea to reserve a clown just returning from rehab.

Lemmings Can Stay Seated
A meticulously dressed business woman in the isle seat to my right was more than concerned about the delay. She first asked and then demanded to know what was going on. I paused my iPod long enough to determine she was not armed, and continued listening to an audio rendition of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Twenty minutes later, I noticed the passenger had returned, her black pumps slightly wobbly and her matching skirt slightly wrinkled. She was quietly saying something with an expression that begged attention, so I paused my wireless headset again. With a tenor that could have been a sob if her tear ducts were working, she quietly heaved,
"They said I have to leave the plane. ..... Was I threatening?"

A woman behind her, seemingly fully occupied with the tag team effort to subdue a two-year old lifted her head and offered, "Yes, you were rude."

The Entertainment Arrives
Before the passenger was removed, she had been successful with short words to gain an attendant's assistance in "allowing" her to remove her seat-belt and pose a question to a person in-charge. She had then walked to front of the plane, unfortunately finding the person in charge was the same efficiently listening attendant. Incredulous that there was no pilot or co-pilot AND that she was expected to sit indefinitely without explanation, I surmised that she began making quiet demands ... first that someone call to find out what the !*_k happened to the pilots and then that someone tell the passengers when the !*_k they would be departing.

I didn't hear her directly, but the next two announcements told the story. Three minutes after she left her seat came the first announcement,
"This is the flight attendent. As I am sure you have noticed our departure is delayed. Unfortunately, our pilots have not yet boarded the plane, but they should be arriving shortly. Thank you for your patience."
Five minutes later came the second announcement,
"I am pleased to announce that our pilots have arrived! After a short pre-flight checklist, our plane will depart momentarily."

Based upon the short time between the arrival of the pilots and the ejection of the passenger, it seems the pilots must have been greeted by the same senior attendant, requesting authorization to immediately remove a disorderly passenger.

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Comic of the Week - Branding

Branding Comic (marketing)
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Part 2: WinTel, the Luddite Revolution

Forward to the Mainframe?

This is the second article in the
Forward to the Mainframe? series
Part 1: Revisiting the Mainframe Utility Computing Model
Part 3: A Virtualization Machine - the X86 Mainframe

The history of the Luddites is a interesting study, particularly for practitioners in the computer industry. In the early 1800's, Ned Ludd's textile culture defended hand looms over the new large knitting frames. This was despite the fact that the larger looms produced much more cloth with far less skilled labor.

Instead of looms, today's Information Technology workers repeatedly choose servers without the virtualization or processing redundancy needed to keep critical applications running. And they choose these servers over commercially available mainframes and other highly available systems with proven track records.

Let's look at the factors that led and continue to lead an intelligent and informed business computing market to chose lesser technologies.
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On the Road: Hosted Telecommunications Keynote

Spoke in Atlanta as a keynote along with Dan O'Connell of Gartner on Voice over IP. Good session with good questions.

HOSTED VoIP EDUCATIONAL LUNCHEON
LEARN HOW A PRESTIGIOUS GLOBAL LAW FIRM—VOTED BY FORTUNE MAGAZINE READERS AS A TOP "GO-TO LAW FIRM” EVALUATED AND IMPLEMENTED A HOSTED VOIP SOLUTION

The presentation in flash format is here.
The event notice is here.
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