Surprise: top executives are really bullish on virtualization, survey says

Executives and managers at all levels are overwhelmingly pleased with the benefits and results virtualization has delivered to their operations. However, while the people on top see the impact of virtualization as a game-changer, this broad perspective dampens as you drill further down into organizations.

Photo credit: CERN press office

That's one of the conclusions of a new survey of 150 managers and executives on virtualization trends, jointly sponsored by Cisco, FlexPod and NetApp. While everyone seems to be pleased with the nuts-and-bolts advantages virtualization across their environments is providing, they typically aren't quite tuned in to the impact it may be having on the way their organizations are doing business. Bear in mind that the survey's sponsors have a huge stake in the virtualization market, so there's definitely a point of view presented here. Still, it is notable that upper management seems to be so enamored with virtualization.

Top executives do appear to be aware of the broader impact, which is actually surprising for a technology survey. Let's face it, virtualization is not one of those topics that comes up in strategic board meetings -- unless the discussion is being framed as "cloud." Most notably, 75% of top executive managers believe there will be organizational changes within their firms as a result of the adoption of virtualization solutions, compared to only 25% of middle managers.

What is puzzling is that while 76% of upper executives say their organizations have achieved full  forecast cost-savings after virtualization implementation, only 43% of middle managers say this is the case. In addition, 70% of top executives say virtualization caused significant impact on efficiency and cost-savings, compared to 42% of middle managers.

The study's authors say the reason for upper executives being so much more bullish on virtualization than middle managers may be attributable to the fact that "virtualization cost-savings could very well be those middle manager’s salaries" and a "reduction of IT employees."

I don't know how threatened middle and IT managers feel by virtualization, and I suspect that most favor virtualization approaches that remove much of the manual and mundane operational aspects out of their colleagues' jobs. What this data may be telling us is that managers closer to the ground may be seeing some of the uglier integration and implementation challenges associated with virtualization. It's rarely a smooth ride.

A lot of the technical ugliness is hidden from business leaders. (Hey, isn't what virtualization is all about anyway?)

In fact, IT and middle managers are much more sesntive to the costs and security issues that arise when tasked with virtualization. The majority of firms that do not employ virtualization list cost of adoption as the number one issue holding them back. Middle managers were particularly concerned with costs as 61% listed it as the largest barrier to entry while only 33% of upper management cited cost first. Security was also a common concern as 51% of respondents named it a barrier.

Areas of IT being virtualized include the following:

Server virtualization  59%Virtual desktop infrastructure   57%Storage virtualization  44%Network virtualization   42%Remote desktop access  40%Application deployment  37%Thin clients  25%

Über collects former Google executives of Facebook to accelerate the growth of the company

Uber, arguably the leader in service to share trip that took the car to the masses, is completing its management team.

The start-up start-up based in San Francisco has picked up a trio of experienced executives from some of the best-known companies in Silicon Valley: Google, Facebook and Klout.

Brent Callinicos, who has been hired as first Chief Financial Officer of Uber is.

Callinicos, who recently served as vice President, Treasurer and accountant general manager at Google, will begin in über on September 9.

Callinicos hiring is also leading to more speculation that demand for cars could be directed towards an IPO, now that you have a Chief Financial Officer on board.

Callinicos is accompanied by previous Klout COO Emil Michael and Ed Baker, previously Chief of the international growth of Facebook, as well as co-founder and CEO of friend.ly.

Michael has been recruited to serve as senior Vice President of business in the Uber, while Baker has been hired as head of growth.

Both Baker and Michael begin immediately.

The moment probably couldn't have been better or more urgent.

Uber said it was worth about $3.5 billion from mid-August following investment of $88 million made by private equity giant TPG and another $250 million from Google Ventures.

Although the company has climbed to serve more than 35 cities around the world since its launch in 2009, level c-level of Uber has been very small so far, made up of a handful of people - including founder and CEO Travis Kalanick.

Image via Uber

They are executives, cultivating their own marketing departments?

In a report just published, Accenture says that there is a gap of embrace between (official information) CIOs and CMOs (Chief marketing officers). With marketing will strongly digital and demand for big booming data analysis, not surprising that marketing leaders are building their own fiefdoms of technology - and some even have budgets of larger technology CIOs.

Office of the CIO, photo credit NASA

And both it and marketing departments are taking responsibility for marketing capabilities. The Accenture survey of more than 400 executives from marketing and 250 senior executives finds more than one-third of the CMOs and CIOs spend more than 30% of their budgets for marketing with technology.

But it makes no sense having two of you parallel departments under one roof, which seems to be where things are going. And worse still, these two departments you may be competing with each other - for resources and executive support.

Is there room for compromise? The survey reveals that CIOs are more acute in aligning efforts between the two departments to CMOs. Almost eight of every ten CIOs agree that alignment is required, with slightly more than half of the CMOs. Only one of every 10 marketing and it executives say cooperation is at the right level.

"CMOs and CIOs have a confidence problem," the report said. "Both functions focus on building other relations executives before investing in the relationship of marketing-IT".

And marketing are not seeing eyes on things. For starters, CMOs are not happy with the status quo of technology in their organizations. While 61% of CIOs feel that their companies are preparing for the digital future, only 49% of CMOS shares this optimism. Their dissatisfaction is reflected by the survey - CMOs expect much faster drawing and higher quality, with a greater degree of flexibility to respond to the needs of the market.

Approximately 47% of CMOs complain of the complexity and difficulty in the integration of solutions, while 37% of CIOs complain that marketing is avoiding the and contracting directly with technology providers. The list goes on and on.

The key takeaway from this must be: forget turf battles and focus on one thing: the customer. Technology must be designed for the best possible experience and customer service possible. You have to deliver this, and marketing needs to deliver this. It is a basic, simple rule that everyone seems to forget.

Accenture makes the following recommendations to the CIO and CMO back together for this common purpose:

The CMO are identified as the Chief Officer of experience (managers): Accenture makes this recommendation based on the thought that the experience of consumer and consumer-centered should be in the domain of the com.

Accept that as a strategic partner for marketing, not only as a "provider of the platform": "Both functions must work together to understand what systemic changes in their operating model must occur so that they can take advantage of new technologies rapidly reducing the cost and complexity."

Agreement on key issues of the business, such as access to the data of the customer against the privacy and security: Together, both it and marketing "must manage, measure and optimize marketing investments, resources and campaigns. Sitting in their own silos with independent perspectives only continue the downward trend in the success of the business".

Change the mixture of ability to ensure that both organizations are more marketing - and tech-savvy: The best route is to build skill sets mixed in which both it and marketing employees are knowledgeable about it and the business.

Develop confidence by doing just that - relying on: "Consumers do not have the time or interest for the mishaps that arise when marketing and works at cross purposes and inefficiency", warns the report. "Consumers can take their business elsewhere — and will do so. CMOs and CIOs should open the floodgates of communication, pollinate cross marketing teams and it professionals, and accept each other in the suite.