Executing

Entrepreneurs, Executing, Investors, Management, Organisation, Strategy

What Tim did after Steve

There were a lot of naysayers about the future of Apple when Steve Jobs died in October 2011. Few were confident about the Company he’d created and its future under Tim Cook, who’d just been promoted up from Chief Operating Officer to CEO. Even fewer had any idea about the rocket ship that the business…
Digitalisation, Entrepreneurs, Executing, Management, Strategy

How to fix the business issues created by Public Cloud

Public Cloud – on-line computing resources from the big brands – was seen as the obvious choice for many and technologists love them, but several key problems have emerged for business users: Costs can become prohibitive when usage gets underway Lock-in strips away business flexibility and choice Privacy and security issues concern many Support is…
Covid-19, Digitalisation, Entrepreneurs, Executing, Investors, Management, Organisation

How to stop Cloud costs strangling business

Once the tech is running, it’s the business that matters in the Cloud Once the devs have worked their magic and the tech is running and doing what it should, the challenges move to business: getting the service to customes and users reliably, at scale, and profitably. This is where the business challenges begin as…
Digitalisation, Entrepreneurs, Executing, Management, Organisation, Strategy

How Cloud creates business problems that can be solved

Business challenges begin once the technology is running Dev and test are all about getting new functionality to run to spec. Once it’s running and doing what it should, it must move to Production and get delivered to the intended customers and users. This is where the business challenges begin as the costs issues and…
Entrepreneurs, Executing, Investors, Management, Organisation

Face to face meetings are a whole new thing

I’ve just agreed my first face to face business meeting for almost fourteen months. I’m looking forward to the familiar, productive push and shove that you get when you get into open debate and press the search for the right idea or solution. None of that stuttering audio as Zoom or Teams tries to make…
Covid-19, Executing, Investors, Management, Organisation

Managing occupational health issues in the new normal

Few businesses would doubt that the pandemic has had a challenging impact on the way businesses and sectors have needed to revise how work is undertaken, not only in the UK but across the world. Probably one of the most far reaching changes in this regard is the increasing use of technology platforms in the…
Entrepreneurs, Executing, Management, Strategy

Why Cloud now matters for the CFO

Back in the day, Cloud was just a technology for technologists. It had some business benefits, maybe, but they came anyway, regardless of the Cloud solution. The design choice was a technical one. This picture is changing as the use of Cloud has extended through deeper and wider penetration across the organisation, and as the…
Covid-19, Entrepreneurs, Executing, Investors, Management, Strategy, Trend Spotting

The angry mob of Covid issues coming in 2021

We will look back on 2020 with some nostalgia as a year when life was challenging but simple. The strategy was Hope and Cope, and this would all be over soon.  That myth will evaporate in 2021. At one level, the twelve months ahead looks like a straightforward journey with obvious steps to take in…
Entrepreneurs, Executing, Management, Strategy, Trend Spotting

Navigation aids for decision makers in a Covid World

For a few months in the Spring of 2020 it was hard to see what any sort of future looked like. Business decision making was strictly about securing survival and, as they say in Formula One: “If you want to finish first, first you’ve got to finish”.  Often, the amount of time this survival effort…
Digitalisation, Entrepreneurs, Executing, Management, Strategy, Trend Spotting

Is Cloud deployment a Slam Dunk?

It’s never been easier to spin up Cloud infrastructure and get going. The obvious brands are, well, obvious – the Hyper-scalers, as they’re known – and they grease the on-ramp with free credits for start-ups; uploading and storing data is free; firing up a few instances is so simple. What could go wrong? Three trends…
Covid-19, Digitalisation, Entrepreneurs, Executing, Management, Trend Spotting

How Covid-19 caused an IT support issue

The jury’s in, and it’s good news for tech: Coronavirus gave everyone a great big shove and now everyone’s online for almost everything. It was always going to happen eventually, but Covid-19 made the transition of the next five years happen In five weeks. Consumers and business, Enterprise and SMEs, commercial and public sector. It…
Digitalisation, Entrepreneurs, Executing, Investors, Management, Strategy

The days of getting online are over

Robert Mason described it well. He said that when his flying instructor first gave him control of the pedals, the machine started swinging about wildly, and he hadn’t done anything! So true. You’d think that flying can’t be that much of a challenge, but it is, especially helicopters. My instructor gave me a stern talking…