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Ride the Flat World
Ride the Flat World
Ride the Flat World
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Ride the Flat World

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Gone are the days when technology used to be just an enabler of business. Technology developments like the Internet and e-commerce are making several businesses redundant at a breathtaking pace. Successful businesses are those that figure out new ways to understand and serve their customers using technology.
In his book Sanjay Maradi using the flat world phenomenon as a backdrop, explains how technology and the teams that work with it have evolved to keep pace with the economy. This historical view helps readers understand how we got here. This understanding provides insights to the path organizations must take to leverage technology for the benefit of their key stakeholder – the customer.
• We have truly come full circle: an earth that was once believed to be flat is now known to be round, while economies, countries and cultures that were once separate, distinct and individual are now globally accessible and interconnected. Leaders of businesses that want to Succeed in the Flat World need only read Maradi’s new book for directions on how to navigate their path.
-Marshall Goldsmith - million-selling author of the New York Times bestsellers, MOJO and What Got You Here Won't Get You There
• “Business Technology has indeed moved from the CIO’s office to that of the CEO – Something which is beautifully brought out by this book!!!”
-Rajnish Virmani, Managing Partner – India, Positive Momentum Limited
• "Realisation of great ideas often dodge great leaders. This book is set to shake them into recognition of the flat world and power of BT. The concept and anecdotes makes it an interesting reading. A must for Start-up’s and business leaders on the rise."
-Sujoy Guha, CEO & MD, CriticaLog (I) Pvt. Ltd.
• “The pace of change today, requires every organisation, big and small, to be nimble footed. Advances in technology have at once been, exhilarating and disconcerting and this book should serve as an invaluable guide to business leaders seeking to navigate the Technology highway.”
-TT Srinivasaraghavan, MD, Sundram Finance
• Getting technology right and getting the right technology will be at the forefront of all enterprises. This book is a must read for all those who need to be accountable for technology.
-Deepti Vijaya, VP, TCS Financial Solutions
• “A must-read for business leaders keen on understanding how to better leverage technology for the benefit of their business.”
-Shanmugam Nagappan, MD, Pride Technologies India
LanguageEnglish
PublisherNotion Press
Release dateAug 22, 2013
ISBN9789383185795
Ride the Flat World

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    Book preview

    Ride the Flat World - Sanjay Maradi

    RIDE THE FLAT WORLD

    Understanding why the CEO needs

    a CIO more than ever

    Sanjay Maradi

    Notion Press

    5 Muthu Kalathy Street, Triplicane,

    Chennai - 600 005, India

    First Published by Notion Press 2013

    Copyright © Sanjay Maradi, 2013

    All Rights Reserved.

    ISBN: 978-93-83185-79-5

    All rights reserved. This book was self-published by the author Sanjay Maradi under Notion Press. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without the express permission of the author. This includes reprints, excerpts, photocopying, recording, or any future means of reproducing text.

    If you would like to do any of the above, please seek permission first by contacting the author at http://rtfthebook.com

    Published by Notion Press

    What People are Saying about

    Ride the Flat World...

    I was delighted to hear that Sanjay Maradi has come out with this book which so succinctly expresses the thoughts that many of us leaders in our industry have been hoping to share within our community of IT professionals. I would heartily recommend it to business leaders as well. The IT industry has progressively been moving up the value chain over time. Today IT can be much more than a mere support for the business. It can in fact be a very fundamental enabler for improved competitiveness delivering value to business. This book provides insights into how today’s professionals and IT leaders can change the perception and operation of their roles, and help integrate the IT function with the business more effectively than ever before.

    Nagaraj Ijari

    Vice President

    Global Head – HiTech Industry Solutions Unit

    Tata Consultancy Services

    I managed to read this before I went on vacation. It was a time well spent. It has a nice flow and provides a good description of how we got here from the very beginning. And with it, it provides the common themes that may not predict the future, but do sketch the lines of how the role of CIO will evolve.

    Frans Jongma,

    Master Technologist

    NonStop Advanced Technology Center

    Hewlett-Packard, The Netherlands

    Mobility, social media, cloud computing, big data, and more........ everybody knows that these are all happening technology areas. But any technology becomes interesting and relevant to a business only when SOMEONE figures out how that business can actually use it as a gamechanger, to become more profitable, or to even become a leader in its field. Any IT practitioner who understands technology but wants to have a much better chance of being that SOMEONE simply must read this book!

    Mario Lewis

    Technology and Operations Advisor

    (Author of "IT Application Service

    Offshoring: An Insider’s Guide")

    A must-read for business leaders keen on understanding how to better leverage technology for the benefit of their business.

    Shanmugam Nagappan

    Managing Director

    Pride Technologies India

    I read with great interest your thoughts on Ride the Flat world and must confess that it was absolutely amazing to read some great insights, extraordinarily well analyzed reasoning and the establishment of a substantive business case on the way the world has changed forever. There is no doubt in your espousal of the fact that transformation in a technology driven world that integrates other functional business facets of the organization is the core to the way people (consumers) will interact and benefit from the changes. The aspect of all of this converging to better scale and substantive value creation is absolutely right.

    Dr. Ganesh Shermon

    Partner - Markets - KPMG

    (Author of Competency Based HRM,

    Star Track 100 - Talent Management and

    Knowledge HRM - Strategy - Structure Interface)

    "The book efficiently gives a 360° view of the flat world concept. In today’s world where VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) is the new normal; the book lists down the inventory of the setting trends and also of those on the horizon. It is interesting to read that technology is no longer viewed as an enabler but as a Business technology and is increasingly used for making business critical decisions. Some of the forward looking CEOs are conscious about these undercurrents and are making provisions in their strategy for it.

    One of the effects of flat world on the service industry is that the ecosystem is more receptive to the startups offering niche solutions which in a way are creating new challenges for the big technology players.

    It will be more interesting to experience the convergence of business & technology in the new flat world. The key take away can be keep Focus… Leadership… Alignment… Timeliness intact in your organization to ride this FLAT world"

    Kishor Chitale

    CEO – Local Business Services

    India & Middle East

    Capgemini

    To my wife, Martha and

    our daughter, Pranathi

    Contents


    Title

    Copyright

    Dedication

    Foreword

    Introduction

    Why this book?

    Who is this book for?

    How is this book structured?

    Evolution of BT

    Wave 1: Discovery and The First Step

    Wave 2: Building Blocks Move into Place – Mid 50s to The Late 80s

    Wave 3: Internet Makes Computers More Personal – 80s to 2010

    Wave 4: The world Got Flatter

    Looking Back Before Looking Forward

    Who Will Pull It All Together?

    For Technology Buffs – More on The History of BT

    Acknowledgements

    Endnotes

    Foreword


    I met Sanjay when I was looking for people to build Sourcing Advisory practice at KPMG. He was recommended by a colleague who had worked with him at Arthur Andersen. We met in a hotel I was staying at over breakfast and it did not take me long to decide to take him on board. His deep understanding of technology, outsourcing capability and especially Business perspective on where technology can be leveraged really impressed me. He came across as a thinker…

    So when he called me few months ago and said he was writing a book, I was not surprised. Since the topic he chose is very pertinent today, I agreed to review his work and guide him. When I read the draft manuscript, my first reaction was, Sanjay continues to be a student. In this hectic, busy world one tends to forget to remain a student seeking knowledge.

    As we all know, technology is rapidly changing the world around us. It has become so crucial to business that it is at the heart of most discussions I have with my clients, primarily leaders of large corporations. Despite the importance of technology, few companies seem to get it right. And although technology has become a commodity, the art of getting it right remains, well… an art.

    The technology sector employs many highly skilled people. With business environments becoming increasingly dynamic, their ability to understand clients’ business challenges so they can help them to craft appropriate technology solutions is going to be the key to their career success. This book is a good starting point on the journey to understanding how technology affects business.

    Also, this book highlights the CEO-CIO partnership really well. Both roles need to overlap, so much that I will not be surprised if many future CEOs come from CIO ranks… like they have come from CFO or CMO ranks in the past.

    I believe this is a good guide for leaders wishing to build BT-enabled organizations and for those wishing to contribute to that process.

    Pradeep Udhas

    Partner and Head of Sales & Markets

    KPMG, India

    Introduction


    During the past five years, the bends in the economic road have become more frequent and prolonged. As a result, not only companies, but entire industries are being destroyed. Business managers will have to think about strategy differently, because the old style of industry analysis will be of little benefit. For CEOs, the next five years will be about how to deal with uncertainty. It’s important to look at the people using technology to change the game. Technology itself doesn’t change things; those who use it in a new way do.

    —Ram Charan

    (Globally renowned CEO Coach)

    The companies that will survive the current long periods of economic uncertainty are those willing to approach things differently. In the case of Business Technology¹ (BT), doing things differently implies using BT beyond its traditional role, that of being an enabler of business. Companies that do things differently use the power of BT to help them create and sustain Blue Oceans².

    The days are fast receding when companies can consider technology merely an enabler. It is not just about the technology, but also (as Mr. Charan so eloquently states) about those who use it in a new way. Many companies that ignored these changes are struggling to stay relevant. In some cases, they have gone under, and in others entire industries have come under pressure.

    Borders³ was the second-largest bookstore in the United States after Barnes and Noble. In February 2011, Borders applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and began liquidating 226 of its US stores. The collapse of this 40-year-old company cost 11,000 jobs.

    People have not stopped buying products like the books and music Borders used to sell. More books and music are being purchased now than ever before. Borders simply overlooked the changes that technology was bringing to its business, changes affecting how the products it sold were bought and consumed.

    Like most companies, Borders set up an online business in the early stages of the dot-com boom. In 2000, when the online venture ran into trouble, Borders’s management saw the company’s online foray as a distraction and outsourced that side of the business to Amazon.

    In doing so, Borders lost a key capability and an opportunity to transform its organization and to develop the skills required to survive in the new world – a world where technology was rewriting not just the business of books and music, but every aspect of retail.

    When Borders eventually decided to take back control of its online business, the company did not have the necessary capability to build its e-commerce presence. With the help of a group of IT vendors, a website was developed to provide a bookstore-like⁴ experience to Borders’s online shoppers.

    By then, customers had moved from buying physical books online to buying digital books, and from buying CDs to downloading songs. The cost of running hundreds of bricks-and-mortar stores with reducing footfalls and being unable to scale the online business fast enough bled the company to bankruptcy.

    The story does not end with the

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