The Information Explosion (and the case for Business Process Integration)
"These vast size of data being generated, archived, managed and exchanged is driving the need for business process improvement and business process integration."
Rollin Ford, Wal-Mart’s CIO, earlier this year stated “Every day I wake up and ask….how can I flow data better, manage data better, analyze data better”. Not surprising when you consider that Wal-Mart processes over 1 million client business transactions every hour and manages databases over 170 times the size of the entire Library of Congress (the largest library in the world). However, Wal-Mart is not an isolated phenomenon. We are in an era that has been referred to as the “Industrial Revolution of Data”. The Economist calls it the “Data Deluge” and describes data as “the new raw material of business, on a par with capital and labor”.
In 2005 we created 150 billion gigabytes (or 150 exabytes) of data globally and this year (2010) a whopping 1,200 billion gigabytes (or 1,200 exabytes) of information is projected to be generated. Digital data is increasing at a compounded growth rate of 60% per year and this growth rate is expected to increase dramatically going forward. Google now manages 35,000 queries each second and processes more data in half a day than the US Postal Service is expected to manage and deliver all year (about 5 petabytes worth, or 5 million gigabytes). Corporate America is expected to archive 27 billion gigabytes (or 27 exabytes) of data this year alone.
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How to Justify Application Modernization to your CFO – Episode 2
In our last episode, our hero (you, of course) was preparing to make an ROI-powered business case for Application Modernization to your CFO. We covered your current resources, your goals, and steps 1-4 in the process.
This episode unveils Step 5 – Conducting a Project Scope.
A Project Scope may also be called a Project Study or a Requirements Analysis. The name is not of importance; the Input, Activities and Output are. So let’s go through each of those in some detail.
Input to a Project Scope
Before starting on a Project Scope, we need some basic ingredients:
- A sensible modernization initiative with promising ROI potential
- Significant interest from the business
- At least a small mandate from the executive level
If you haven’t yet achieved these necessary inputs, I encourage you to review steps 1-4.
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