IBM Bluemix: A digital innovation platform

Since transitioning from mobile payments into another exciting area of technological innovation, I have been heads down exploring and developing much-needed expertise in explaining the value and tenets of innovative platforms. In this post, I am going to discuss the foundational elements of innovation and the collaborative efforts between enterprise IT and business to foster a culture of innovation. I will also discuss IBM Bluemix, a digital innovation platform that can help an enterprise establish the building blocks that fuel high growth. High-growth companies are the ones able to deliver value and experiences on the user’s terms. 

So what is innovation exactly?

David Briar in his blog post discusses innovation and draws inspiration from the Sir Richard Branson mantra A-B-C-D (Always Be Connecting the Dots). These dots are fundamentals that form the foundation of an enterprise. It is only when we start connecting the current dots with the new dots—and even with dots that do not yet exist—that we are building a foundation for innovation.

I imagine the dots to represent ideas and concepts. Linking these ideas and concepts enables a synergy that propels an enterprise toward a path of continuous innovation. But does this notion of connecting dots translate into a connected enterprise that becomes a fertile ground for new dots? The most successful and innovative enterprises seem to see the dots that others miss. Therefore, isn’t innovation the ability to see the dots that are absolutely necessary to move the enterprise forward?

What helps to foster innovation in a company?

While many CEOs and business leaders see innovation as a necessity and a primary focus for an enterprise, very few are able to understand the dynamics or ingredients needed to stimulate a culture of innovation. Silicon Valley, which is a beacon for innovation and creative minds, often talks about failing fast, failing often, and promoting a culture of risk and experimentation.

Here is a list of what I see as the necessary ingredients required to foster a culture of innovation:

·       Strong commitment from leadership for funds and resources

·       A platform that enables ideation, proof points and synergies across the organization

·       The ability to fail fast and fail often without breaking the bank

·       Agile enterprise systems, balanced by the consistency of traditional enterprise systems

Innovation leads to disruption, and companies of all sizes have the opportunity to disrupt or face the prospect of being disrupted.

Bridging the gap between business agility and IT consistency

As strategic and operating conditions become increasingly turbulent due to factors such as hyper-competition, increasing demands from customers, regulatory changes and technological advancements, the ability to sense relevant change and respond readily becomes an important determinant of success.

While the business seeks agility to deliver new “stuff” faster across multiple platforms and devices, IT seeks consistency in standardizing integrations while securing access, data and identity.

While the goal of IT is to enable business agility, these concepts are often at odds. Business agility is usually driven by sensing the environment (dynamics such as market, competition, product demand and so forth) and responding with new and improved products, services and varied offerings that meet the demands of a changing market. IT services, on the other hand, are focused on achieving consistency in processes, technology, deployments and operation of the machinery that supports the business. IT is therefore less about innovation and more about technology as a business support service. This argument leads a hypothesis that business agility is an innovation agenda.

Ideally, if IT entities can enable a frictionless operating environment, IT can facilitate the business innovation agenda, while keeping up with innovations in the technology landscape and providing tools that help the business to take advantage of innovations.

The following points are a few tenets of a frictionless IT operating environment:

·       A “fail fast and fail often” environment: This means an environment where more time is spent in experimentation than request processing and provisioning of resources, an environment that can go from proof of concept to production in a few days.

·       Fast deployment: Compute resource contention and provisioning have often been an innovation bottleneck due to time and resource consumption. Even in most cloud environments, provisioning of basic building blocks is an ordeal, so faster deployment is essential to create a more frictionless environment.

·       Polyglot environment: Innovation is not confined to a specific programming language (Java, JavaScript, Go and so on) or runtime (Java, Ruby, Go and so forth). When creating a platform for a connected enterprise and fostering a culture of collaboration, a diversity of not only people but also technology should be welcomed.

·       Continuous integration: If enterprise IT platforms aspire to take seconds to deploy, continuous integration of development and operation practices (or DevOps) will support the faster deployment paradigm. This means continuous integration of not just IT resources but also the business policies and practices enabled by robust technology practices.

·       Choice of tools: A frictionless environment means providing a canvas to an artist with all the tools and building blocks needed to foster creativity. These tools include not just a rich set of platforms, runtime and services but also access to external ecosystems for service consumption.

·       Ecosystem of APIs: The API economy is playing a vital role in innovation by harnessing the synergy among internal ecosystems and sourcing aspects of innovation from the external and rapidly growing API ecosystem.

·       Mobile focus: Given that mobile is the primary channel for services consumption and engagements, mobile delivery is a prime consideration for any enterprise IT.

IBM Bluemix attempts to bridge the gap between business agility and IT consistency, asserting itself as a digital innovation platform. By addressing all the tenets of a frictionless IT with a rich ecosystem and mix of services, IBM Bluemix becomes integral to business agility. In Bluemix, IT entities can expect a consistent, open-platform-based operating environment that will allow businesses to experiment and connect the dots.

In closing, I’d like to cite Steve Jobs: “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

Let’s connect the dots and let the innovation journey begin! Connect with me on Twitter @nitingaur to share your thoughts on innovation or talk more about IBM Bluemix.