If you treat the cloud as merely a way to modernize your IT, that's all you'll get. No matter how creatively and competently that modernization is done, it will not be enough. Broadening the perspective requires enlarging the community of stakeholders and lengthening the list of criteria for success.
Business decision making is becoming more and more ad-hoc. It's a daily necessity. Even the best managers often prefer to trust gut instincts more than hard facts.
The social business moniker is a hot topic drawing a wide range of views. In this post, I am looking at 'social' from the perspective of the needs I see on the ground among practitioners in the professional services industry.
Research suggests that we have reached something of a plateau in the development of what once pigeon holed as 'social business.' Business is understanding that there needs to be much more: enter the Networked Enterprise.
When choosing a Cloud platform for your business, look for what capabilities the platform itself inherently offers beyond what you are able to do today. Examples of these capabilities might include native support for mobile devices, customer and supplier portals with embedded social capabilities, point and click integration and the ability to customize and build your own apps.
