New eBook - Four Boxes, Clear Thinking: The Art and Science of Matrices That Drive Decisions

Four Boxes, Clear Thinking: Release Now Available

I'm pleased to share a release of my latest eBook at amazon, Four Boxes, Clear Thinking: The Art and Science of Matrices That Drive Decisions.

Almost every strategy deck has a two sided matrix in it. Some are brilliant: they turn a messy argument into two lines and four boxes and help a room agree on a direction in minutes. Many more are decoration, with axes that overlap, lines drawn by eye and boxes that never tell anyone what to do.

This book is about the difference. It is a practical guide to building your own matrices from first principles, so they hold up when an executive, a procurement panel or a board starts asking questions.

This book explores:

• Why the two by two matrix has outlasted its critics, and the science of why four boxes fit the mind
• A seven step method: question, axes, thresholds, quadrant names, plotting, testing and the so what
• Twelve common traps and how to avoid them
• Commercial uses including company analysis, organic growth, risk and return, account planning and sourcing
• Technology uses including architecture, cloud, digital transformation and networks
• Industry playbooks across healthcare, care services, financial services, government, telecom, energy, retail, manufacturing and education
• When not to use a matrix, and how to use AI to build and stress test one

Every matrix has been drawn fresh for this book, drawing on more than 26 years of business and IT advisory work.

Whether you are an executive, consultant, sales leader, strategist or anyone who builds decision slides, I hope you find it useful.

Download the Sample Chapters here: Link

 

New eBook Release: The AI Bottleneck Shift From Chips to Credit

I'm pleased to share a preview release of my latest eBook, The AI Bottleneck Shift: From Chips to Credit.

Over the last three years, the AI conversation has focused on chips, GPUs, models and data centres. But a new bottleneck is emerging. The question is no longer "Can we get the chips?" but "Who will fund the trillions of dollars needed to build the future of AI?"

This book explores:

• Why the AI bottleneck has shifted from silicon to capital
• How Nvidia evolved from a chip supplier into a financial backstop for the industry
• The rise of neoclouds and AI infrastructure financing
• The impact of bond yields, interest rates and US government borrowing on AI
• Why Anthropic's IPO may become the most important financial event in AI
• Why OpenAI is waiting and what it tells us about the next phase of the market
• What business leaders, investors and technology buyers should watch next

Drawing on research from SemiAnalysis, Aswath Damodaran, public market data and industry analysis, the book connects technology, finance and strategy into a single narrative.

Whether you are a technology executive, investor, entrepreneur, consultant or simply interested in where AI is heading, I hope you find the insights valuable.

Download the eBook

📖 The AI Bottleneck Shift: From Chips to Credit - Download here: Link

I welcome your feedback, comments and perspectives as the AI industry enters what may become its most important phase yet: the battle for capital.

The Future of Software is New SaaS

The Future of Software is New SaaS - powered by Services, AI Agents, Sharing

This POV is available for download below.

Business Plan Should Answer

 

From HBR, By William A. Sahlman 

When I receive a business plan, I always read the résumé section first. Not because the people part of the new venture is the most important, but because without the right team, none of the other parts really matters. 

 Fourteen “Personal” Questions Every Business Plan Should Answer 

• Where are the founders from? Where have they been educated? 
• Where have they worked—and for whom? 
• What have they accomplished—professionally and personally—in the past? 
• What is their reputation within the business community? 
• What experience do they have that is directly relevant to the opportunity they are pursuing? 
• What skills, abilities, and knowledge do they have? 
• How realistic are they about the venture’s chances for success and the tribulations it will face? 
• Who else needs to be on the team? 
• Are they prepared to recruit high-quality people? 
• How will they respond to adversity? 
• Do they have the mettle to make the inevitable hard choices that have to be made? 
• How committed are they to this venture? 
• What are their motivations? 

Source: HBR

5G Evolution and Positioning to Sell

 5G Evolution and Positioning to Sell   

IT Economics for Business - II

Real Options Valuation (ROV):
A complex technique than TCO, ROI and EVA. It is based on the financial estimation techniques used in stock options theory. ROV is used to modify the ROI calculation by considering the value that the current project could contribute to future projects. This approach typically enhances the ROI of projects such as IT infrastructure. The cost of implementing a whole new infrastructure for just one project for one business unit’s needs is so burdensome that no one business unit could ever justify starting the new infrastructure. However, the overall value of the new infrastructure to all the business units in the organization could be huge. ROV provides a technique for justifying that first project based on the future derived value.

Return on Assets (ROA):
A popular measure for the performance of companies, ROA can also be applied specifically to IT assets.ROA for IT assets can be calculated by isolating the IT-specific assets from the organisational assets and the net income due to IT assets from the overall net income. This can be hard to do, and the accounting systems need to be set up appropriately to provide any chance of achieving this on a repeatable basis. ROA approach has deeper implications than might be immediately obvious.

 Return on Infrastructure Employed (ROIE):
 ROIE is similar to ROA, but it focuses on IT services rather than IT assets. With ROIE, IT service cost (including depreciation) is the basis for computing a return. While ROIE can be used for a single project, it works best when calculated for aggregations of projects. For example, it might be used to compare the performance of different in-house or outsourced IT Providers. ROIE might be improved by providing the same IT service at a lower cost or by containing the cost growth of providing a particular IT service to less than the rate at which the organisation’s net income is growing.

Part 1 is here

Source/Credit: The Business Value of IT

Business Performance Framework

Credit: Gartner

My popular post on Digital Transformation 

Thoughts For Nike Strategy - 2010

Cloud Computing For Enterprise IT

Cloud Computing  

Top 4 Probable Digg Buyers

Rumours are hot again about Google/Microsoft planning to buy Digg. When I wrote about Top5 probable Digg buyers in 2006 it was a rumor, but this time reports coming out suggest that this time Kevin Rose might sell it, esp when the stock market is going down and the US is technically in recession. The only difference between now and then is, that one of the suggested 5 players, Yahoo itself is in trouble. So only 4 players remain in the race and these are :
1. News Corp
2. Time Warner
3. Microsoft
4. Google

I'm quoting from my previous post here with some modifications on why these 4 players are after Digg:

News Corporation - Newscorp would love to have this esp; after their acquisition myspace has lost traffic/users and momentum to Facebook. And as a media company it makes sense to have the most popular portal for news/technology/current affairs to be in their armour.

Microsoft - Microsoft will be the obvious choice because Microsoft is lagging in this Web 2.0 phenomenon. There hasn't been any decent/buzzing service offering by Microsoft in this space. If this comes on board, it will provide them a kick-start, which they are hoping for a while. Microsoft has got all the ingredients the to make this happen. Only problem i see is they are offering less money than what Google is offering and they are tied with Yahoo acquisition.

Time Warner - Time warner group which own Netscape will be other contender. Netscape has launched their portal on digg style but is not popular as digg is. Netscape previously asked top digg contributors to join and get paid for their contribution. Netscape would definitely like to acquire this.

Google - If nobody can buy digg than Google will definitely try. It will be more of a strategic move, to not to allow, Microsoft or News corp to buy this. Google can pull this off. Also Kevin Rose would love to be part of Google rather than Microsoft.

I can think of only these 4 contenders, what do you think? is there any other company (media) that might be interested in?

Unholy alliance - Microsoft, Novell partnership

Microsoft has announced its partnership with Novell to put Suse Linux (2nd no Linux distro) on a Windows desktop. As part of the deal, Microsoft will offer sales support for Suse Linux and also co-develop technologies with Novell to make it easier for users to run both Suse Linux and Microsoft Windows on their computers. Microsoft plans to distribute 70,000 coupons for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server maintenance and support to customers that want to run both Windows and Linux in their environments. In addition to this, Novell and Microsoft will work together to improve interoperability between Windows and Novell's SuSE Linux.

Some insights from infoworld why this partnership has come along:

Scenario one: Looking to the future and seeing the proverbial handwriting on the wall, stops the bleeding of Windows to Linux desktops.

Scenario two: Did the desktop OEMs push Microsoft toward this deal?
More of their customers want Linux and so the PC manufacturers want this technology so they can give them both.

Scenario three: The most intriguing possibility of all.
Did increasing sales of Apple Macintosh which now has Intel inside and uses OS X which is a form of Unix, have anything to do with this decision.

All this sounds very compelling for Linux enthusiasts, but in reality, it's not, esp when Microsoft talks about interoperability. Microsoft over the years has been opposing Linux and open source solution and now this deal doesn't ring a bell to me. Novell and Microsoft have come together because they both want to screw Oracle and Red Hat. This unholy alliance of arch-rivals getting together is to strike on the head of other guys.

Is this alliance going to help Novell? In short term yes, but in longer term no. As Foley from zdnet adds, "Microsoft is not conceding that desktop Linux is gaining ground. It's not admitting that its closed-source strategy has failed. Sure, Microsoft is licensing to customers' requests for better interoperability. But if you think the Redmondians are throwing in the towel, vis-a-vis open source, you are underestimating severely Microsoft's well-proven ability to come out ahead on any partnership to which it commits." And that, I think, maybe the real take-away from this, aptly described in this post from ZDNet's Mitch Ratcliffe. Microsoft is not changing its license to GPL, it is still going to sell it s/w under strict license, but Novell has opened the gates for Microsoft to sell to its customers.
This alliance is a win-win situation for Microsoft and it proves again, it has no soul at all when it comes to business.

Looking ahead, this deal and Oracle's recent unbreakable Linux move has definitely put a lot of pressure on RedHat.
It will be interesting how RedHat responds to these changes in the marketplace. Until now there hasn't been much pressure on its share price, it is holding up, which suggests the market has a lot of confidence in RedHat. Let us wait and watch how this unholy alliance comes out in future.