Business in the 21st century

People are living their lives while getting transformed by the technologies that surround them. There is solution for every need/want. The enterprise is serving the community from years and technology has provided the foundation required to serve the customers. This problem – solution question answers has matured and there is an answer for every question but the feedback or the request – response cycle had been very manual and imaginative. This process has been slow and has many imperfections because of the limitations.

Technology has advanced and mobiles have been the most transformational technologies. Social technologies, social networking sites have catered to the basic fundamental need to connect and express; has provided a kind of vent and are solving most of the social problems in a democratic manner.

This is era of social media and mobiles. There is social media everywhere; lot of people can’t imagine a life without social media. Social media is providing a channel to the fundamental need to connect, communicate. People share and connect when they are happy, sad or just hanging out or killing time. People are constantly looking out for value for the information that they give out.

The enterprise is still busy solving problems of the world. Enterprise is always listening to the world and wants to solve problems. They are spending millions to research the market need and provide value. Unfortunately they might have to shoot in the dark as the information is not complete or not available in most of the cases. Now the enterprises have every chance to use the information provided by the customers and provide near perfect solutions in the shortest time period.

The desktop era, client-server and internet era have solved the problems but not to the extent of pleasing the customer in quick time. So the information needs to be processed and provide a meaningful output in a shorter time for the customers to become better satisfied.

VMware is the leader in virtualization and is enabling the enterprises to solve the problems in an efficient manner. It has accrued immense trust from the enterprise community. Lot of service providers including mobile service providers have opted for VMware solutions. The introduction of cloud-foundry with Feed Henry has been a great enabler in the mobile world. VMware has partnered with many enterprises including Salesforce, EMC, SAS etc...

Google is serving the customers through search and people just google for their needs and wants. It has accrued immense trust from the end-customers with their “don’t be evil culture”. Google provides analytics as well with other gamut of services including the cloud.

VMware and Google are now partners; they have every chance build on the trust and to connect the customer to the enterprise. The work for the highway of information-value has commenced to serve the customers in the 21^st century.

IT - Individual Transformation with VMWare+Google+SalesForce+Mobile

Goal of any business is always to create value in the form of a product or service or combination.

Most organizations follow the process below to create value:

1. Identify Value
2. Create Value
3. Communicate Value
4. Deliver Value
5. Manage Value

There are various software tools available to accomplish different tasks associated with each of the area. These tools are diverse in terms of the technology and the functionality; there are many cross-cutting tasks though. There are tools for Integrating these operations but have not been very successful or have not reached the potential.

There have been road-blocks for creating value and there is a strong need for tools that provide the strategic agility, operational agility and functional agility.

VMWare has been very successful in virtualizing the infrastructure,consolidating and providing a convergent platform, this has provided the required functional and operational agility to a great extent.

VMWare solutions have also provided a open-platform that has reduced the complexity and increased the productivity and develop applications in an efficient and simple manner.

The release of Spring-social, Spring-Mobile, Spring-Android have provided the vmware customers to reach out to the mobile end-consumers.

The VMWare solutions have brought all these features and also reduced the cost of operations and more.

The customer an end consumer or a business customer always seeks value in the form of product or a service.

He tends to follow the Decision Making in the order mentioned below.

1. Need Recognition
2. Problem Definition
3. Information Search
4. Comparison
5. Selection of the Solution
6. Post purchase

There are various software tools and people are using the search engine and social networking sites for this purpose. Google,Apple and salesforce are very well positioned to offer services.

The combination of VMWare,Google,Apple and salesforce will provide the required platform for taking IT to ALL-convergence of B2B and B2C in a revolutionary yet evolutionary approach.

Please find below the summary of the initiative by the US Government and am sure that VmWare virtualization will contribute towards this to a great extent in enabling the individual, business,government, NGO and UN's transformation.

World Digital Nervous System on VMWare.

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6423.html

Executive Summary:

Data.gov is a young initiative of President Barack Obama for making raw data available on the Web. In an HBS executive education class for technology specialists, professor Karim Lakhani and the US Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, sparked dialogue about new routes to innovation. Key concepts include:

• Data.gov makes government data--as long as it does not compromise national security or individual privacy--available on the Web in raw, machine-readable format.
• Data.gov is part of the Open Government initiative launched by President Barack Obama on his first day in office.
• As a lean organization with a mandate to move fast, Data.gov posted the first datasets five months later.
• Its goals are transparency, participation, collaboration, and management of systems and processes.
• The HBS case study of Data.gov, coauthored by professor Karim R. Lakhani, highlights a number of useful applications sparked by the Web site. One in particular creates benefits for taxpayers by sharing information between the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education.

Convergence of IT, Mobile, social networking and VmWare

The business model of individual transformation.

We like it or not we are in the era of social networking and viral marketing with more interactive based communication. The culture of "don't be evil" and the search engine Intent/ Context aware processing is a success and lot of problems of lot of people have been solved and hence it is a social success.we like it or not we have to be in the business of Individual Transformation, in fact there are hardly any people who do not want to be in this business. The convergence is seen everywhere, the success of the devices and applications in the end consumer segment has re-invented Apple and has taken the company to better heights; transformation of the lives of many individuals as the business model.

We need to have devices that can do better than Mobile phones, the success of Tablet and the ebooks related application endorse the fact. Maintain, provision is still an problem that cloud computing can solve to the end consumer and also have scope for availability,vmotion features in the end consumer transformation business model.

The costing is an inherent need for any application, be it cost per acquisition of the customer or the product of application. Charge-back is another application that is easily packaged with this and there are not many applications that are meeting the requirements,we are all set for IT as a service with Individual Transformation as the business model.

Convergence of search,viral marketing,context aware processing with any applications on the iphone,ipad,ipod kind of devices and hosted on scalable,stable,solid cloud computing vmware platform is looking more imminent.

May be it is time for some of the statements,observations of Steve Ballmer a collective response.

VmWare_Transforms_EveryOne-Hello Freedom Any to Any-Part 4

We have been discussing about the transformation and the market oriented transformation as the business model.

This will require more market oriented approach rather than pure technology perspective. There will be a paradigm shift from business-in-the-technology-perspective to technology-in-the-business-perspective.

Let us get some insight into the Achievers and Strivers and the contributions towards the creation of value.

Global perspective

People in the liberated economies like the US tend to take the path of EAT-Innovation. They have had the opportunity to identify their strengths, talents and are looking to build on the same or have achieved a great extent based on various factors. These people would have accrued the necessary knowledge and skills required to complement their strengths and talents. These folks have also had opportunities and have been exposed and have gone through the emotional cycles to achieve level of emotional maturity and intelligence. The social and the educational system help the individual to identify the strengths and the developed world especially the US as a nation is built on the strengths.

On the flip side,not many people in the US are taking up science and math courses even after having created the best technological talent of the world. May be, there are certain cases that require discipline to a certain extent to hone this attitude.

Every country is looking to identify and build on the strengths.

Indian Context

Social and Educational system in the Indian context fosters and encourages discipline. This makes most of the people makers and strivers irrespective of the resources. There are people in the Indian context with less financial resources but high motivation to explore and experience, self-define and achieve. Now with globalization many people are exposed with the information and also have the financial resources to undergo this transformation. There are also people who lack the motivation but have abundant financial resources. There is strong need to be iconoclastic about the educational and other systems to bring about a revolution in an evolutionary approach. Globalization and IT has contributed to a great extent in transformation. There is long way to go. There is a need to do more with less –weaving the political, social, law, economical and educational systems to bring about meaningful holistic development. There is a need for largest democracy to become more liberated democracy. Indian democracy needs to open up more to the educated middle class – achievers / strivers while educating the rural class; making them more self-oriented, self-defined and self-confident individuals. India has proven talent but lacks the motivation and the platform for transformation.

We need more discipline and alignment to create more strength based talent so that the Indian folks can contribute more towards global innovation and partner US in the time to come.

Discipline and Talent strengths have proven as a great combination with great contributions to the world.This necessitates a platform that provides a combined, holistic solution that provides answers for what and how, coupled with only market dynamics rather than any technology.

In this era of analyzing the data,information and digitizing or creating collaborative applications in a manner to serve the customers in their transformation with great operational efficiency is a great challenge and responsibility.

There are many reasons for all of us to have more conviction that VmWare-Hello Freedom Any to Any market oriented culture will contribute in a great way in this transformation.

Let us all align towards the creation of Line-of-Business applications or services and transform.

VmWare_Transforms_EveryOne-Hello Freedom Any to Any_Part-2

We discussed about the people who can be the game changers, now the bottom most people of the pyramid who are looking out for change that is something better - survivors.

The transformation of these survivors to innovators of tomorrow will be a great

business model and is futuristic, adaptable to change. Technology wave that couples directly to this business model is bound to have huge impact and hence will be a lengthy one with longest growth and maturity phase.

Survivors their needs, motivation and psychographics.

Survivors

Age	5-25 years
Emotional level	Highly Emotional
Psychological Resource	Low
Education	Sub standard
Career	Not in Sight
Status-quo	Change for better
Social view	Conservative / Tribal
Financial / Economical view	Cost sensitive
Political view	Moderate
Values	Basic Values

Meeting the daily needs - roti, kapda aur makaan - food, clothing and shelter.

Most people do not have access to the fundamental necessities and are deprived of education.

This makes them a little emotional. People who provide them with their basic needs will be positioned as almost Gods and they are the favorite for any person.

Technology that can reduce the cost of their basic needs and provide some money to their hands is a great thing for all the stake holders. It is nothing like making a $ for a person while transforming him for life, it will have great CAGR growth potential.

Global Context:

• Most of the undeveloped world, developing world is in this state.
• High political impact

Indian Context:

• Large population of India
• High political impact
• High Potential for Transformation with exposure to IT and IT_Mobile convergence
• Utilizing the "demographic-dividend"
• Making them more self-oriented

Application Need:

• Cost Effective Education
• Cost effective Solutions that provide scalability and stability
• Agricultural education and commerce
• Food Processing

The people in between these two extremes are very important and play an important role in the transformation while transforming themselves. The demographics of that is greatly inspiring and at the same time intriguing, all need to align towards this transformation and only IT can enable the transformation of this scale.

VmWare_Transforms_EveryOne-Hello Freedom Any to Any-Part 1

World is made of people. Movement to transform people to a better world has succeeded as it only enable the natural phenomenon. Any management theory endorses this simple fact of life.The first wave of digitization has enabled the transformation of the business community successfully to a great extent.Most of the business are web enabled and no business thinks in a local perspective rather global perspective is the default choice. It has increased the IQ,EQ and HQ to a lot of people around the globe. There is lot of information of what, how and why regarding a given place, population. Now the need is to take this transformation wider and deeper.

Social networking is being accepted and now every individual is web enabled and is keenly looking for acculturation, transformation.We are moving towards individualistic world. The communication is moving from interrupt based mass communication towards direct communication. Customization of products, services is the next wave. People are exploring themselves, identifying their needs and deciding about the value in the web world. Each and every person on this planet will be on the web sooner rather than later.

World is a diversified place with many cultures.People are born survivors and are dependent; the educational,social, economic and political system give them independence to explore themselves and their strengths and achieve;people understand what they are,how they are the way they are and what needs to be changed this phase is inter-dependence looking for innovative social change. Values are universal and drive people towards their goals of transformation and these values bring people together in their journey towards transformation to actualization.

Lord Krishna in the BhagavadGita recites different phased transformation of an individual from materialism to detachment in the form of Tamas,Rajas and sattva. People achieve actualization / self realization through karma-yoga (action oriented), Sankhya Yoga(knowledge) and combination of both.

1. Tamas-driven by emotion and actions with least control of senses
2. Rajas- action, emotion with knowledge and control
3. Sattva - Detachment - above all and full control of senses

The books describe the phenomenon and categorize people according to the VALS theory;the two dimensions are:

1. Horizontal Dimension-Motivation:Ideals,Achievement, Self Expression
2. Vertical dimension-Resources: Personal traits that is dependent on demographics, energy, innovativeness,leadership.

Horizontal dimension-Motivation:

The concept of values is universal, relative and values bond individuals.

Vertical dimension-personal traits:

Traits are formed based on the origin, culture and various social,economic and political factors.

Thanks to globalization,people are exposed to various cultures; exchange ideas and information about the transformation. The internet has further kind of flattened by the readily available resources - the world is flat with the information available for "all".

This is not coerced instead a motivated individual searches for the information and act towards transformation.

The people belonging to any country origin are driven towards liberation, transformation with the existing resources. Resources are confined to a given country based on social,economic and political factors.

Global Context:

Any given country or region that provides the space and environment for all these transformations is a great place.Most countries try hard and have achieve this feat.Unfortunately or fortunately only world can provide such a holistic solution, but the internet has been successful in providing this virtual world.

Indian Context:

India is a developing country and was poor earlier to the liberalization of the economy. Today we are on the global map and working closely with the oldest democracy, the richest and most powerful countries of the world.We are much more liberated, our education,social and political system has improved to a great extent post globalization. The exposure has made us much more individualistic society and our psychographics have reflected our values. We are getting a perfect blend of US, Indian values;transformation has been really "effortless" - Thanks to globalization.

Let us delve more about the VALS theory.

	Innovators – Happy Successful Liberated
High Resource Energy	Enthusiastic Experiencers’	Career Focussed Achievers	Liberated Fulfilled Thinkers
Low Resource Energy	Self-sufficient Makers	Career Focussed Strivers	Conservative Believers
	Strugglers – Self sufficient Striving Conservative

We all like to live in a world of experiencers-achievers-Thinkers. We have seen that Internet has provided a platform for all of us to exchange information.Let us explore how we can make this more successful with cloud computing-virtualization.

It is great for every one and even greater for IT.

Innovators - High Resource and high innovation

Age	Any Age
Emotional level	Mature
Psychological Resources	High
Education	High
Career
Status-quo	Change Agents
Social view	Liberated and Open Minded
Financial / Economical view	Moderate not price sensitive
Political view	Moderate
Values	Control,Order,knowledge and responsibility

People who have had it all and only thing that motivates them are niche oriented products and services that hard non internet demographics offer. They are looking out for opportunities to express themselves in effecting a social-change. They understand what they are,how they got there and what changes are needed. They are proud of their achievements and are also humiliated with the status-quo and are change-agents.

Global Context:

• The UN and the US as a country realizes the need for climate change
• Support the developing countries in their initiatives and climate change.
• The US understands the strength of democracy and the value of liberty; it is helping countries like IRAQ, Afghanistan achieve democracy.
• Great philanthropic activities by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet
• • Great humane gesture by Madonna, Angelina Brad Pitt and others to adopt children

Indian Context

• Philanthropic activities of Bill Gates and other people - "philanthro-capitalism"
• Grameen Foundation is another initiative working towards the progress of the poor in the area of micro-finance.
• Philanthropic activities by the successful business people and the bollywood stars

Application Need:

• Right Information regarding the survivors, makers,strivers and believers.
• Right information about the innovators looking for people
• Right and meaningful offerings
• Right people get the right benefit at the right time
• Technology in Governance, Administration and Social welfare

It is really inspiring,heartening to see the philanthropic activities of Bill Gates and other people. Technology can create many more innovators and also make world a great investment destination for philanthro-capitalism.

The world needs many more innovators to transform people to self respecting individuals - creating a better world with technology-IT for all.

Thanks to all these folks and other great people too.

This is Part-1 of the series.

Let us take IT to all and transform the world.