Spending on EMS? “Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand.”
Posted by Rick Pandolfi on Mon, Jan 31, 2011 @ 02:49 PM
Spending on Enterprise Monitoring? “Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand.”
In Paul Newman’s off handed and iconic take, “sometimes nothing is a real cool hand.” Of course Cool Hand Luke doesn’t always come out on top. So, I’m both respectful and skeptical of Nothing – having it or doing it.
In my last post I pointed out that enterprise software sales professionals have to deal with the “Do Nothing” option whenever they’re plying their craft. It’s the most common and powerful competitor; and its chosen far and away more often than Brand X or Brand Y. You can hear the note of disdain when sales guys throw it around in weekly forecast calls, “Quarter end is coming up and they may just decide to ‘Do Nothing’.” Of course what they really mean is that the prospect is going to do something else. Meaning they’re not going to buy something for this particular project at this particular time. They may buy something for a different project or they may choose to advance this project through other means. But to a sales guy hawking products, it looks, tastes and feels like Do Nothing.
Today CIO’s and VPIT’s would be well served to consider Doing Nothing or Doing Something Else when they are presented with another big ticket ITSM platform spend. But don’t just take Cool Hand Luke’s word for it. Doing Nothing has a long and illustrious history. The Buddha made a virtue of doing nothing. Teenagers and couch potatoes, a life style. Seemingly overmatched by history and gender, Queen Elizabeth I famously enjoyed one of the longest and most popular reigns of any English sovereign by living by the motto video et taceo
The benefits and options today’s IT Leaders have:
● Buy Nothing – Rent: look to the Cloud there are strong ITSM/ITIL solutions offered in the SaaS model, including: Nimsoft and Service-now.
● Buy “small” (which is closer to nothing than huge): look to the all-in-one ITSM appliance market. There is some very slick, easy to deploy and hyper cost effective solutions coming out in this area. Consider ScienceLogic as a leader in this area.
● Do Buy Nothing one better: Don’t Rip and Replace. Just rip. Don’t replace. Be judicious -- chances are high that your Tools inventory is already too large, too costly, and underperforming.
● Automate, automate, automate. Many Service Providers and Enterprises already own enough ITSM software to alert and alarm an army of Jeff Spicoli’s (no mean task). But they haven’t channeled them into extended automated machine commands and branch logic. While your machines are working overtime your Engineers can enjoy some Do Nothing time, or they can be working through that development punch list sitting on their desk.
Is it better to Do Nothing and Look Busy or Look Busy and Do Nothing? More on this imponderable later. And don’t forget to Automate.
Rick Pandolfi