Steven Zolman

Jul. 19,2011

Governance of outsourcing agreements can be complex and challenging. There are ways to simplify the governance process, however, by crafting agreements which take into account the business drivers, tolerances and environments of both the client and the supplier. It is interesting to note that many (if not most) organizations seeking to (re)negotiate their outsourcing (and other IT-related) agreements typically only do so every few years. Changes in the marketplace from supplier tolerances and market value perspectives are fast and furious. That said, doesn’t it make sense to level the playing field? Bringing in an agnostic outsourcing ...

Steven Zolman

Jul. 19,2011

Clients dealing with complex issues generally understand there is no such thing as “Too Much Information”. Our world’s information is currently doubling every two years, and in 2010 alone, we created more information than in all of recorded history. This ongoing data explosion inundates all our clients, but can also be an enormous opportunity. NET(net) specializes in IT Investment Optimization, an area where the information is convoluted, the answers are obfuscated, and the rules are unintelligible. In our world of supplier marketing presentations, supplier pricing models, supplier support policies, and supplier contract provisions and ...

Steven Zolman

Jul. 19,2011

For many years, so-called industry experts have advocated reverse auctions as a means to commoditize highly differentiated solutions like we often see in technology buying. The thought is to document your requirements, build an ‘apples-to-apples’ comparison of multiple solutions, and reverse auction the buying process to get the best price. Proponents suggest that these techniques will ‘devalue’ the differentiations of the competing solutions, and Clients will benefit from increased economic value at the point of purchase. However, our research seems to contradict this so-called conventional wisdom. As NET(net) has compared the results of ...

Steven Zolman

Jul. 9,2011

Are you familiar with one of the ugliest spats in Silicon-Valley – Oracle vs. HP? If not, I would be surprised, as most of their dirty laundry has been airing everywhere other than in private. These two former ‘partners’ used to pitch a best of breed strategy while competing directly against the likes of IBM, and told customers to buy HP servers and Oracle software, instead of buying bundled solutions from IBM, because they made better respective point solutions, and by partnering together, their bundled solutions were performance optimized, and due to their strategic collaboration, their service and support was every bit as good as IBMs. ...

Steven Zolman

Jun. 20,2011

IT contracts: getting them right the first time sounds simple enough. But in a cyclic economy, organizations often realize too late that they do not have correct contract governing dials, and given a fundamental change their business, they are unable to adequately control costs. For example, an organization may realize that because of downsizing, they own more licenses than they actually deploy, and want to reduce the license maintenance. Not so fast. For example: A client, who three years prior, bought 4,000 licenses of enterprise software and was only using 3,000 may want to cancel support on 1,000 licenses. The client was paying $4 ...

Steven Zolman

May. 17,2011

Microsoft’s enterprise customers have been left scratching their heads over last week’s acquisition of Skype. Microsoft has spent years pitching their “unified” messaging system that’s built on Windows, Exchange, SharePoint, Office Communication Server (now called Lync) … and a few other products I can’t recall… that, in total, are supposed to allow users to instant message, web/video conference, and generally collaborate “at the speed of thought”. But now has Microsoft decided all that stuff wasn’t good enough and that Skype, a company that’s never even turned a profit, is better? Industry punditry has been generally positive on the news. ...

Steven Zolman

May. 17,2011

You have to work hard to find a more demanding job in IT than that of today’s Global Enterprise Network Manager. There was a time perhaps, before the wide adoption of TCP/IP, that this job was a little less demanding, but even then as the potential of networking computing systems in enterprise became apparent and reached a tipping point that we are still adjusting to, this job has always been a challenging one. The role of the network manager is evolving, and is typically delegated to many individual niche responsibilities, but the accountability required to manage today’s increasingly global and ubiquitous networking infrastructure has ...

Steven Zolman

May. 17,2011

It’s May, 2011 and do you know where the value in your outsourcing agreement has gone? A couple of years ago, everything was fine. Your organization decided to outsource a department or function. You helped them conduct a market scan and selected a few suppliers who fit your needs. An RFP was developed and conference room pilots were conducted. You may have even hired a third-party to help with the RFP and negotiations and you got a great deal. It was everything you wanted in an outsourcing agreement. Now roll forward two years… what happened? At NET(net), we monitor the outsourcing environment and we have found that typically one or more of ...

Steven Zolman

Apr. 21,2011

“Wait!" you say. “How did you know my Oracle renewal was coming up?” At NET(net), we’d like to respond that it’s magic – a result of doing thousands of deals and the development of a sixth sense about these things. We’d like to point to our Federated Market Intelligence as an example of the type of value we bring to clients on a daily basis. But the truth is that virtually ALL Oracle deals renew in May, not just yours. “So? Lots of deals renew in the spring. What’s so special about May?” Actually, while some suppliers do use the actual anniversary date of your original agreement(s) upon which to base their renewals, Oracle, if given the ...

Steven Zolman

Apr. 20,2011

NET(net) is often engaged with our European clients after their Data Centre migration/transition phase has completed and the initial glow of clients and suppliers 'moving in together', 'redecorating' and ‘renovating’ and really getting to know each other has worn off! Ideally, for clients to maximize their strategic and economic benefits, it is better to get NET(net) involved much earlier in the process, even prior to the client/supplier matchmaker/courting process, but when we get involved later in the relationship, these are typical challenges we see: 1) Variance from initial sizing assumptions. This is to be expected with large, ...