After all, where would the world be if our READ MORE No related posts.]]> Management by cliché is dangerous, if not fatal. But it happens. I am not in favour and I think that it’s high time we ditched a particularly dangerous but well-worn business cliché and accept that routinely and regularly re-inventing the wheel is a healthy practice, not a waste of time.

After all, where would the world be if our ancestors had decided to sit pat, once the early wheel had been invented?

Presumably, if resistance to progress and change had prevailed, our transport and technology would still be like the world of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble.

Thankfully, though, wiser counsel has driven the progress of technology so the wheel has been regularly refined and routinely re-invented, with widely recognised and appreciated benefits.

So why do we still use ‘re-inventing the wheel’ as a pejorative metaphor in our business dialogues?

Very often, in my experience, this has been a quick and dirty way of putting-down a potentially good idea before it has been properly expressed, let alone explored and properly evaluated.

Premature evaluation is a serious [but widespread] business risk, facilitated by the deliberate [but inappropriate] use of business clichés.

Instead of proscribing the re-invention of our business wheels, we should prescribe the regular and routine re-invention of every business process and system in our organisations.

Of course, to make sure this happens, we would not only have to build process reviews into our risk management regimes but also adopt quite a different mindset which genuinely values re-inventing the wheel.

What do you think?

Re-inventing the wheel should be a badge of honour for every forward-looking organisation, not a forbidden thought.

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However, I think that insourcing has long been part of the service delivery cycle (aka the IT hokey-cokey: in, out, in, out, shake READ MORE No related posts.]]> A discussion on Linked-in, drew my attention to an article about Insourcing (bringing services back ‘in-’house’ from an external provider. The article is predicated on a market trend, apparently recognised by Industry Analysts in early 2011.

However, I think that insourcing has long been part of the service delivery cycle (aka the IT hokey-cokey: in, out, in, out, shake IT all about) whereby on a five to ten year cycle, service provision flip-flopped between internal and external provision.

For example, we did this (insourcing) at PowerGen back in 1999, bringing the East Midlands Electricity services into PowerGen IT from Perot Systems. I was the interim Head of IT for EME and had just over 600 FTE on my headcount, less than 10 of these were EME staff – the remaining hundreds were PSE.

I think the issue always remains right-sourcing, rather than a bald choice between internal and external providers. Effective service management requires a service broker model, which provides the business stakeholders with best value, regardless of cap badge.

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Over the years I have transitioned services for many clients and there is no cookie-cutter model for effective IT service delivery, every situation requires its own solution.

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So Apple has actually taken the READ MORE No related posts.]]> I have long thought that Apple’s iDevices are the 21st Century Gillette razors: the value of the device is not in the initial purchase price (although paradoxically the devices do command a premium, rather than being heavily discounted/ given away) but in the life-time revenue streams they enable, i.e. paid apps and content.

So Apple has actually taken the Gillette model and given it a peculiarly successful twist – many people are blissfully happy to buy into a proprietary lifestyle.

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