In my all-too-infrequent spare time, I took up furniture making as a hobby. Yes, it's about as far from IT as you can get! One thing you learn quickly, however, is that it matters very little which brand of tools you buy — good furniture comes from the skill of the maker far more than the tools he or she uses. Anyone involved in a discipline with a high skill content will tell you the same. Sure, a great musician sounds better on a great instrument, but a great instrument certainly doesn't make for a great musician (another hobby gone), and a great musician can make a poor instrument sound pretty good.

So, is there a lesson for the IT organization? Our industry has been obsessively focused on building better products with improved capabilities, improved reliability, reduced costs and so on. IT products were like early automobiles — each one worked differently, required a different set of tools to keep it running and only with a combination of luck and good judgment could you be assured of arriving at your destination. But things do change, products do improve and many IT products are now "good enough" to serve the majority of users most of the time. Just as with automobiles, if you want to set the land speed record or get from zero to 60 in six seconds, then you need something unusual — but most of us don't.

And the consequence — in many, perhaps even most, cases — is that it doesn't matter which product you buy. Spend the minimum amount of time ensuring it does the job you want (don't buy a car if, in fact, you want a truck) and then spend most of your time figuring out how best to use it to achieve the maximum benefit for your business. You should then expect your suppliers to spend a lot less time and energy persuading you that they have more and better features than the other guy and a lot more time helping you take advantage of the features they offer.

So, does this mean the end of competition and product differentiation? Of course not. I can still choose between 10 models of cabinet saw, and I researched carefully before buying one. But having got one, I know that the particular brand and model I chose has no impact on the quality of my furniture. So … back to the wood shavings.

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Simon,
great article, it supports our approach and it is a support that is very welcome!!

If the focus is on maximising/improving the use of software, what do you think the importance is of:
1. intensifying the relationship with the vendor of that software?
2. focussing on integration of the business software (i.e. SAP, Oracle etc) with the more personal productivity tools (i.e. MS Office and exchange or Lotus Notes)?

Ton van Dijk
Heineken

Ton - I'm glad to hear this resonates for you. I think you raise two great follow-on points.

I think there is certainly an opportunity in intensifying the relationship with software vendors - but only if they step up to the challenge of building skills and business models that will enable them to genuinely support their customers after the software is installed and up and running. And there is no doubt in my mind that there will still be additional sources of expertise from consultants and systems integrators that you will want to tap - although these have also to date tended to focus more on helping you get software set up, than what you do with it once you've got it.

Regarding the issue of integration with personal productivity tools, we do indeed see that as a major new focus area. Take a look at the Research Note titled " Person-to-Process Interaction Emerges as the 'Process of Me'" to see where our thoughts are developing on that topic.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Regards

Simon Hayward

Some time back it became clear to me that newer standards such as web services and service-oriented architectures, create an interesting side-effect: the need for vendors to produce not better technologies but better customer relations. I even went so far as to suggest to colleagues that this would become the great differentiator among IT vendors and suppliers in the not distant future.

It appears that future has arrived. Yes, it is important to have the features and functions required of an application. But what is truly required and what is baggage? This is the key. Massive applications are rarely fully used or even understood by most users. Targeted applications are often perfect for a problem domain, but are perceived as 'too specific and limited'.

The solution is binding application functionality as required. This is not as hard a problem as it may first appear. And in fact, it is likely this will happen on an ever-increasing basis in the world of IT - both in the commercial as well as the internal development sectors.

The ultimate effect and impact is that the problem of buying the 'right features and functions' will finally become possible. Already SAP has refactored its massive R3 system in such a manner, making many of the interfaces available as web services. This is an indicator of things to come. And as these new paradigms emerge, it will in fact be the case that setup is trivial and time-to-benefit of any software package will become a key differentiator.

However, even in the absence of the innovation described, there is still the importance of the vendor and the vendor relations to customers large and small. Individuals, SMBs and large enterprises all share a common need to experience the highest quality customer service possible. This will be the true differentiator in years to come. In fact, it has historically already altered the course of computing history as customers have repeatedly demonstrated loyalty to vendors even in the face of extraordinary negative press.