Uri Unplugged

When it comes to leadership, be it political, business, or otherwise, it’s not unusual for a conflict to exist between the previous generation and the more recent one: the ‘old’ versus the ‘new’. The older generation typically offers stability, reliable execution, and a common ground to keep things safe and balanced, while the newer generation brings to the table novelty, a new way of doing things, fresh ideas, progress and a promise to ‘change the world’. This is evolution vs. revolution.

Technology decision makers frequently face a similar 'old vs. new' dilemma when it comes to legacy migration. Do we stay with the 'old', keeping our legacy systems running for as long as possible and only gradually migrating to new networks/systems? Or do we go 'new' by replacing our legacy equipment, ripping it apart and forklifting our infrastructure in order to enjoy a more innovative and current technology?

This type of decision is best made only after you evaluate the risk against the expected rewards, quantifying your migration efforts (time, material, costs) as well as the benefits of a newer technology. Sometimes, it will make more sense to revolutionize. Other times, a gradual evolution will prove best.

The good news is that we at RAD still invest a great amount in developing products that offer an excellent evolution path for many applications. For example, TDMoIP as a path to migrate TDM voice to an IP network. Or, the ability to migrate older protocols and/or older data communications gear (RS-232, V.35, RS-422, HS-UDP to name a few) over current and next generation networks (IP, ATM etc.).

And yes, assessing your scenario and qualifying and quantifying your options is complicated. If this type of challenge is familiar to you, I’d love to hear about your decision process.

Posted by Uri Zilberman at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My family and I just returned from a two-week trip to Argentina. This was a leisure trip for a change, with highlights including Buenos Aires, Iguazu Waterfalls, and Bariloche, to name a few.

Argentina is a great country - beautiful, extremely nice people, and easy enough to travel (even with the kids). Overall, we had a terrific time! Nevertheless, one phenomenon troubled me throughout the trip: rampant price discrimination.

You see it across the board in Argentina: taxis, hotels, airlines, visas, and what not. In some cases, tourists are charged double or even triple the local price for practically the same products and services. To be fair to Argentina, I believe this to be a common practice in other countries as well, especially where huge gaps in GDP per capita still exist compared to wealthier, more developed regions.

In my view, price discrimination is a short sighted business practice that will do more harm than good in the long run. In 2005, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Census, tourism from abroad became the third largest source of income for the country, so it’s hard to imagine that Argentina would want to risk one of its prime industries for short term gains.

Customers always have choices. We could have easily chosen to travel to Brazil, Costa Rica or Mexico on this trip, and I am sure we would have had just as great of a time. That’s why I believe that in order to stay competitive for the long run, prices should be a derivative of actual costs, the value provided, and a reasonable profit margin that will assure your business long term survivability. Any other practice is short lived, especially given today’s proliferation of information on the Internet. In short, discriminatory practices are doomed to fail.

Posted by Uri Zilberman at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Chances are, you’re in the midst or wrapping up your strategy planning for 2007 (as are we at RADirect!). So I thought it would be perfect timing to share my thoughts on this topic.

It’s widely agreed that the CIO role is becoming more and more complex. If you are a CIO or would like to become one, you must consider these three elements as the main drivers:

1. Leadership. You’ve got to be that person with the vision, the one who can articulate goals, garner strong support from your company’s main stakeholders, manage the resources, and have the ability to execute.
2. Business Acumen. Before undertaking any new initiatives, you must have a strong sense of how each initiative contributes to the overall success of your company.
3. Technology. You should certainly understand technology (including emerging ones), and have a strong sense of how these technologies can be applied to, and play a vital role in, your company’s overall success.

In the course of your planning, I am sure that at least some of the following will make it onto your radar:

• Legacy (infrastructure, application) refresh
• Virtualization
• Consolidation
• Regulations/standardization/compliance
• Business continuity/disaster recovery
• Collaboration
• SOA (service oriented architecture)
• Privacy/security
• Information management
• Instantaneous information via increased computing power, bandwidth and storage
• Globalization
• ASP
• Outsourcing

Obviously, each of these high level concepts can and should be translated into more meaningful tasks that are closely related to your own business environment, challenges and strategic planning. So how can this be translated into a meaningful strategic plan?

In my view, each undertaking you consider should be measured against ROI matrices. You should answer and quantify the following questions:

• How will this initiative help my business grow?
• How will this initiative help my business reduce costs (OPEX, CAPEX)?
• How will this initiative help mitigate risks? And the potential loss if I choose to do nothing?

Once you have fully reviewed the various aspects of each of your initiatives, you’ll probably have a better sense of which are most critical, as well as a better understanding of what will be considered a ‘justifiable investment’ to undertake them. Only then is it the right time to start exploring the available technologies and teaming with the right people to execute them.

The good news is, most of the things that will land on your priority list for 2007 will be doable and consistent with your ROI matrices (I call it healthy competition).

Without a doubt, the coming year will bring an even more vibrant economy. If you are comfortable with change and are as excited as I am about technology and its potential to improve our respective businesses, I think we can all expect an outstanding 2007!

Posted by Uri Zilberman at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)