Doing more, faster with less means a new IT environment

Manufacturers need to reconsider their IT and network infrastructures if they’re to survive and flourish in the changing, faster, web-centric world. And that means anything from speeding up and strengthening integration programmes, to building flexible, yet resilient web-based supply chain engines, and revisiting open and more modern platform technologies. Alan Hewitt, who heads up IBM’s e-business ‘on demand’ initiative, reckons business leaders need a different “state of mind” for the challenges ahead. Speaking at an IBM Business Realities event in London yesterday, he said that to become part of the ongoing market and technology evolution, they must embrace the notion of the real-time, on-demand business. Part of that involves companies coming to regard their IT not as a necessary evil, but as “a business enabler”. He paints the picture of, at the limit, a 24/7 global business world, with competitors able to access companies’ customers, and vice versa, anywhere any time, and customer preferences and loyalties even more important than they are today. His messages are redolent of those on the run up to the bursting of the dot.com bubble. But his point is that the world and technology have now caught up with the ideas, and that the barrier to entry is way down – at a level where SMEs, can and must take advantage. IBM suggests that all businesses need a strategy that deals head on with the new order, essentially positioning them to manage rapid change. The firm calls it becoming a real-time, on-demand enterprise. Hewitt says management needs to look at four linked areas. First, they need to gear up to be more responsive to threats and opportunities as they happen. Second, they have to become more flexible so they can enter and exit markets, grow and shrink as events dictate. Third, businesses need to be more resilient in the face of unpredictable events at every level – so that’s about security, surges in web demand, viruses and so on. Few companies can afford downtime in any aspect of their operations, he says, including their web activities, particularly as they’re increasingly joined up and inter-dependent, and end customers can simply click off to competitors. And fourth, companies need to regain their focus on core competencies, ensuring they tie up with partners for the rest. All of which, unsurprisingly, has implications for their IT environment – it needs to be strong, flexible, low cost – and how, and by whom, it’s managed becomes a moot point. Technologies IBM suggests as right for the new age range from virtualisation and optimisation of networks, storage and the rest (to improve utilisation and gain the efficiencies of consolidation), to harnessing grid computing, Web services and systems like Blade servers and clusters. The firm also majors on its integration engines, WebSphere and so on, as key to getting real time information flowing within sites and organisations, particularly with increasing merger and acquisition activity. But Hewitt also suggests considering outsourcing and managed services. And he suggests a renewed focus on open systems like Linux, and on integration, not only of the IT but of business processes and people supported by the IT. It’s a compelling message that’s bound to go down well with current enlightened business thinking. “On-demand mans being able to align your resources where new markets are – not letting your IT be an inhibitor because it takes too long to set up,” he insists. Everything from the CRM (customer relationship management) systems to the web catalogues and ordering mechanisms, to the engineering and production systems and the supply chain systems – it all needs to be geared to handling innovation faster than it physically can today. It’s not ‘just’ about speed either. It’s about improving the user experience both internally and externally so that customers come back, and reducing the cost of ownership. In fact, the requirements for the IT are virtually identical to those of the rest of the manufacturing enterprise – do more, better with less.