Doing a lot more with a lot less in the current environment

Given the current market conditions all business executives are once again challenging the technology teams to do a lot more with lot less. Following are some of my thoughts around this (nothing new - just going back to the basics).

• Focus on solving your customers needs - independent of the industry.
• Do not scale back on innovation. All markets typically are different when they come out of a recession that what they were before one. It is only those who focus on innovation shall come out as winners.
• Focus on your core business - differ the adjacent market until the market recovers (unless it is related to the innovation)
• Do not focus on developing new infrastructure (unless absolutely needed). Build out the infrastructure incrementally as new products and offerings are either upgraded and rolled out to customers.
• Do invest heavily on large packaged applications. As the entire market is going through a shift - it may not be wise to invest in large packaged applications. It will consume a lot of resources (and $$$) without any major differentiation. It may be easier to subscribe for the same applications from a SaaS provider.
• Do invest in a few strategic initiatives
• Do not attempt to crawl before you run - "run baby run". The company that runs the fastest to meet the customers demand WILL WIN.

Just some of my final thoughts to close out 2008 and as usual please do feel free to drop me line with your comments and/or feedback.

Wishing everyone a very happy and prosperous new year.

Yogish

Key Learning from reclycling

Over the long weekend I decided to recycle all the boxes that were in my garage and following were my observations:

• I had not recycled the boxed for a very long time - so it was complete mess in the garage.
• About a decade back you could just put the boxed out and the garbage collectors would take it for recycling - not any more. We now need to break down the boxes - flatten them and stack them in the provided container in a systematic manner - otherwise they WILL leave them behind.
• As I was breaking down the boxed - realized that the technology has changed. It is very easy to flatten and stack them.
• However, there were a couple of boxes where I need to use brute force, cut them and even stand on them to forcefully flatten them. Some of them were recentely manufactured ones - guess they did not use the latest technology
• These days - eveything seems to come in box, no matter what you buy.
• It is important to recycle the boxed on a weekly basis - instead of waiting for a long time. The longer you wait the worse it gets.

Hmm!! - haven't I heard this before? :)

Yogish