Brocade isn’t the loudest networking vendor on the block, but more than two weeks ago it released a subscription switching service that should have sent a shockwave through the industry. With Brocade Network Subscription,customers pay for their network infrastructure on a monthly basis.  Sadly, the new service was not some new xfabric or new-fangled technology, the industry was quick to dismiss the news as anything more than another cloud announcement, and so Brocade’s subscription program registered only a murmur. What was missed was that the service helps to solidify I&O as a business unit on the same level as manufacturing, services, energy, and other businesses.

I’ve written extensively about how networking solutions need to support two business realities: 1) Enterprises are embedding themselves in their customers’ lives, and 2) businesses are forming symbiotic relationships with their vendors. In regard to the latter, businesses want to ensure that their vendor is creating products and solutions that are in the best interest of that company, and so there is an expectation that their partners will carry some of the financial risk and burden, ensuring that they will stay committed. On the vendor side and with respect to embedding themselves, the reasoning is twofold. First, Wall Street rewards recurring revenue streams, and this is more likely if the vendor can create something the customers can only get from that particular source. Second, vendors know it costs ten times as much to find new customers and would prefer to have a customer keep coming back to keep their operating costs as low as possible.

As a result, there has been a shift to a subscription service model. Take for example three distinct markets that support this strategy:

Perhaps no one understands better than Dan Ranta, Director of Knowledge Sharing at ConocoPhillips, that the challenge of sharing knowledge is very real — while the potential payoff can be large. Seven years ago, ConocoPhillips launched a large initiative to create internal communities of practice that would enhance knowledge sharing within the firm. With operations in more than 30 countries, encompassing job sites often in remote locations, the international energy company knew that to continue on its success trajectory, it needed to rapidly and effectively harness the knowledge of its highly skilled but geographically distributed workforce.

Today, the ConocoPhillips' knowledge-sharing program — built upon 150 global "networks of excellence" — is ranked as best-in-class across industries, and has documented hundreds of millions of dollars in estimated cash flow from its start in 2004 to the present. To learn more about how firms can drive business excellence with formal, global networks, I spoke with Dan in preparation for his keynote this week at Forrester’s Content & Collaboration Forum.

1) Can you explain the reasoning behind the proactive and reactive components of your networks of excellence?

I’ve always looked at technology not just for technology’s sake, but for what it can enable for the business across the board. While speeds and feeds are important to some extent, I need to understand how technology adds to the top line, plain and simple. In today’s enterprises, your technology platform is part of your competitive advantage. It’s been a challenge to link business and IT together, but we’re starting to see it happen. 

There’s no other place I’m starting to see it more and more than in the area of "Big Data." Although already a hyped term, whatever you want to call it, big data, small data, ANY data, the reality is that it’s exploding. Consumers are empowered by social media and sharing honest feedback.  Sales and marketing organizations are hungry to analyze, as close to real time as possible, all this sentiment and feedback, and other external data from blogs, wikis, online surveys, Twitter, Facebook and the tons of other consumer sites. This in turn allows them to re-iterate, revamp, revise and/or further tailor their products and offerings for a more targeted audience. Other areas, such as finance and HR, also want to analyze their own internal data from enterprise applications and internal collaboration tools, in order to better service their employees/customers and maintain employee satisfaction. The reality is that there is data coming from everywhere, in every way shape and form. 

A growing number of workers own personal smartphones that they might want to use for work. However, IT support costs and security implications for personal mobile devices connected to the corporate network are unclear.

As a result, sourcing and vendor management (SVM) professionals need tools to improve visibility into the real costs of their firm's mobile program. Moreover, this challenge will grow as most firms expand their bring-your-own mobile programs during the next three years.

SVMs also want tools that improve transparency and accountability around mobile work apps for things like enterprise software license compliance by personal device users. Smart SVMs at firms with many or a fast growing population of mobile information workers have already studied or are studying ways to mitigate mobile cost and security risks associated with allowing employees to use personal devices like smartphones and tablets for work.

See my report, “Personal Device Momentum Will Challenge Traditional Mobile Sourcing Strategies” for a more detailed discussion about what companies are doing to address these challenges, and empower employees in new ways by offering more options on how – and where – they do their jobs.