Perhaps hate is too strong a word, but let’s keep it. At the eComm show, an audience member asked me after my talk why I focused on communications enabled business process, and not unified communications. My honest answer was “I have four kids that aren’t in college yet, and I have to find some way to pay it.” What I was trying to say was that I personally find the unified communications business cases to be weak, in contrast, the CEBP business cases to be quite strong. My years of engineering taught me that the best ideas don’t mean squat unless they are deployed. My years of sales and management taught me that every rational business person rank orders the opportunities before attacking them. Thus, in order for your product or service to be accepted, you have to not only have it make business sense, but it has to make more business sense than anything else not on the list.
Unified communications is all about making a person more efficient. In and of itself, that’s a good thing. In a nearly universal fashion, unified communications business cases are built on efficiency models. I can take calls 15% faster. Good for me. CEBP is a different approach alltogether. Instead of making the person the focal point of the technology, it makes process the star. This has a critical and demonstrable impact measured in hard results, dollars and time – not efficiency – because it changes how business is done. CEBP business cases are typically measured in dollars – in days – in results. I find it easier to sell money than anything else, and when I sell CEBP I sell money: “I can reduce your missed deliveries tenfold. This will save you X dollars a year. I will charge you X/2. OK?”
And that’s why I gravitate towards CEBP. If I was in a room with a CIO, and I was telling him a story, I would rather tell him “I can reduce the cost to reset a password by a factor of ten” than “I can help Dorie in accounting lose my expense report 15% faster”. Wouldn’t you?
As I settle into my new chair, I find my life to be anything but settled. So much to do – so little time to do it – find a window – jump out of said window. That said, in my copious free time, I am continuing my blogging here, but probably more slanted towards industry and personal opinion. I’ll do more writing on the Jaduka blog about CEBP practice and success… so please be on the look out for that.
You see, I think this is a great marketing opportunity for General Mills. You can put a smiling, hazy eyed picture of him on a box of Count Chocula – and everyone wins. The children get their Olympic Hero, Michael gets his contract and college aged kids get the first corporate sponsored munchies. I’d surely buy at least one box if they had the guts to pull this one off. And you see – the count looks a little stoned himself, doesn’t he?
