IT As A Service: Organizational, Talent, And Process Transformation

As I’ve discovered—and described in my last post—CIOs are much more concerned about how to deliver IT as a service (ITaaS) to the business faster and more transparently than they are about cloud infrastructure. So what are the challenges to doing that? In my conversations with them, they all talked about over hauling the structure and processes of their organizations—and the need to build or attract new skill sets.

 As one executive told me, “People and process are huge challenges. The required skillsets are different from traditional IT. People need to be more script-savvy. Server people have to understand more about storage, network architecture and so on.  We even created a new job description called ‘virtual platform administrator.’”  

A private cloud is by far the most popular approach to providing ITaaS. Private cloud deployments provide the stability, control and security that companies need, but it’s not easy to get there. The technology journey is complex. There are no out-of-the-box solutions—at least not yet. No instant gratification.

 And even if there was, at least on the cloud infrastructure side, reskilling staff and restructuring the organization take time. In traditional IT, everything’s vertical. You have a storage team, a compute team, a network team. You have a system administrator team. And a database team.

 With cloud computing, everything is horizontal.You have a cloud services architecture team and all of the infrastructure is abstracted and virtualized, so everybody works across functions. If you don’t do that, then you actually don’t get the transformational benefits of cloud. You’ve bought the infrastructure, but you haven’t really done anything with it.

 There’s also the cultural barrier. If you’re going to provide transparency and self-service to business users who’ve never had it before—like they’re shopping online to order IT as a service—that’s a big change. You have to be ready to handle that. It means IT really needs a salesforce. They’ve got to build a services catalogue, market it, and be good salespeople. If they’re not, the business won’t use their services. And then they can’t afford to exist and they get outsourced. It’s a completely different game.

 And everyone’s role changes, including the CTO. The CTO becomes the chief broker of the workload.That’s the job: how to prioritize, understand workloads and applications, provide the right solution for each, and manage them.

 Even once this transformation is complete, companies can have difficulty retaining skilled cloud personnel.  “It’s a hybrid skillset,” a publishing executive confided. “These people are rare and in demand. I’ve lost a few because they got better offers. Sometimes we have to go to service providers because we can’t keep the talent in house.”

 Given the complexity of the transformative task, it’s no wonder public cloud solutions can seem more attractive. It still requires work for IT, but not the long-term organizational re-engineering that can come with a private cloud initiative. The implementation is less involved and carries a lighter organizational footprint while providing comparable service levels. That’s why many executives find that a hybrid approach, which combines private cloud deployments and public cloud services, delivers the greatest value and most effective path to ITaaS success. I’ll explore that in more detail with my next post.

Worried You're In A Dead-End Job? Here's How You Can Find Your Dream Career

EDITOR’S NOTE: Forbes launched an e-book on finding your dream jobtoday. In it you’ll find everything you need to succeed in your job search. Some of our best careers writers penned the original articles used in this compendium. Even if you like the job you currently have, this job guide offers tips and tricks for becoming an indispensible worker and making the most of your career.

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In life we’re taught to plan for the worst, to be prudent and hedge our bets. We’re told, “Be realistic! Keep your dreams in check.” For the most part that advice is sound.

However, these “words of wisdom” may be keeping us from pursuing our dreams, particularly in the job search arena. In many ways, finding a job is a job in and of itself—it’s time-consuming, stressful and contingent on demonstrating your skills and mettle to others.

Your dream job, unfortunately, won’t fall into your lap out of the blue one day. That happens, but it’s so rare that nobody should ever bet on that boon befalling him. No, finding a job first involves assessing your current station. Do you like your job right now? Is there room for growth? Does it capitalize on the skills you’re best at?

The Forbes E-book: Find And Keep Your Dream JobThe Definitive Careers Guide From Forbes encompasses every aspect of the job hunt from interview to promotion. Written by some of Forbes’ best careers and leadership writers, it is available now for download.

If your job doesn’t pass muster on these fronts, don’t just send out your resume en masse. “What works best in any market is for the job seeker to take a pure, entrepreneurial approach to their job search process,” executive resume writer Mary Elizabeth Bradford says. “Go around H.R. That’s provocative, right? Well, it works.”

There is a right way and a wrong way to get a great job, and many, in their eagerness to find new work, fail to realize that the shiny new thing may not always be better. Best to research the companies you want to work for, smartly target the people who can open doors there and arm yourself with a flawless job application.

Find And Keep Your Dream Job, The Definitive Careers Guide From Forbes is a blueprint for doing just that during one of the hardest periods to find a job in recent history. Despite the economic headwinds, there are battle-tested, effective ways to secure good job leads (and no, they don’t involve resume blasts or job sites), and our best careers and leadership writers have collected this sage advice here. In fact, they were so good at synthesizing the ins and outs of smart job hunting that they have each scored new jobs in the last year.

Even if you don’t think you need a new job, anyone in the workplace can benefit from the sections that identify your skill set and strengths, along with the sections suggesting tips to becoming a better worker, like this infographic on how your boss is judging your appearance.

KU School of Business research presented at annual conference

In early August, before another school year strapped them down, 11 highly dedicated researchers from the University of Kansas School of Business made a memorable trip to Boston.

Faculty and doctoral students at the School of Business presented their works at the largest annual conference of management scholars in the world, the 2012 Academy of Management (AoM). The conference was held in Boston, August 12 and 13.

The conference theme was "The Informal Economy." Business managers and scholars from different countries were invited to examine organization and management questions on the informal economy by identifying and using concepts and theories through qualitative and quantitative research.

In their research, "A Multiplex View of Conflict and Team Performance," by Jay Lee, Daniel Gregory Bachrach and Anthony C. Hood, the team developed and tested a multiplex theory of conflict. The research addresses how these relationships are impacted when intragroup conflicts could be damaging to team performance. They studied 12 teams engaged in conflict. Four-month business simulation indicated that task conflicts occurring between friends were negatively associated with team performance. In comparison, non-friend task conflicts were positively associated with team performance. Lee is an associated professor and teaches Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management at the School of Business.

"Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Outcomes: Toward an Employee-Centered Model of CSR," by Young Kyun Chang, Douglas May and Jong-Seok Cha, focused on the two potential roles of employees through their interpretation of corporate social responsibility (CSR). There are two potential roles of the employee, an evaluator or a recipient. The results revealed how employees' CSR perception affects organizational commitment. An individual thrives at work through organizational identification and interactional justice, in addition to meaningfulness and gratitude. The research expands on current theorizing and presents an in-depth description of the employees' perception of CSR. Chang is a doctoral student at KU. May is a professor and director of KU's International Center for Ethics in Business. Cha is a KU professor.

"I Like What I See: How CEO Service on Other Firms' Boards Influences R&D Spending," by Won-Yong Oh and Vincent L. Barker, examines how Chief Executives at public companies that spend money on R&D tend to have selective copying patterns. The study states that these particular firms do not copy the spending patterns of large firms and unprofitable firms, because their CEOs serve as board members. Oh is a KU doctoral student. Barker teaches at the MBA level in strategic management and Implementing Strategy, in addition to teaching at the undergraduate level in General Management Processes & Change and Business Policy & Strategy.

"It's Not Only Wins and Losses, It's When You Play the Game: Chief Executive Dismissal in the NFL," by Clinton Chadwick and Donald J. Schepker, was conducted to study how context affects factors that lead to top management dismissal. The research compares how head coaches in the National Football League (NFL) were dismissed before and after the institution salary cap in 1993. Chadwick is an associate professor at KU, who has taught human resources management and strategy classes at the undergraduate and MBA level. Schepker is a recent KU doctoral program graduate.

"The Effect and Antecedents of New Product Development Motivation: A Process Model of Strategic Orientation, HRM Practices, Motivation, and New Product Development Performance," by Jane Zhao and Clinton Chadwick, addresses how firm-level employee motivation and innovation combined knowledge is critical to developments of a new product. The significance of motivation in innovation has been overlooked because of focus on knowledge management and capabilities. Zhao is a KU professor who has taught classes at the MBA level in strategic management, management of technology, the study abroad program, and undergraduate level business policy and strategy.

"The Relationship between HR Functional Investments, HRM Practices, and Organizational Outcomes," by Mahesh V. Subramoney, John Dooney, James Guthrie and Andrew Mariotti, examines the "returns" in association with investment in the HR department regarding budget and employees. The research pinpointed that these investments could potentially yield reductions in employee turnover, leading to improvement in productivity. The effectiveness of HR practice could be enhanced by investments in HR departments, especially practices that emphasize an internal labor market. Guthrie teaches undergraduate, MBA and Ph.D. coursework at KU in human resources management.

"Toward a Multilevel Framework of Engagement and Performance at Work," by Matthew Luth and Douglas May, analyzed the employee engagement process across organizational levels, which links to important attitudinal outcomes. It studies the individual and group perspectives on engagement to develop and test a multilevel model of engagement and performance in groups. Group work engagement was found to be distinct, but also positively related to personal engagement, which included proficiency, adaptivity and proactivity. Individual engagement outcomes included performance, organizational citizenship performance and pro-social rule breaking. Luth completed his doctoral degree at KU last spring. May is a KU professor and director of International Center for Ethics in Business.

As the largest annual gathering of management scholars in the world, the AoM features research and expertise to be shared through various events such as competitive paper sessions, panels, symposia, workshops, distinguished speakers and speaker programs for doctoral students.

"Participation by our Management Area faculty and doctoral students in the Academy of Management is vital," said Ron Ash, area director of management.