Blazent’s critical role within Technology Business Management

I recently joined Blazent as their VP of Marketing. My first day on the job I flew to Chicago to attend the Technology Business Management (TBM) Conference sponsored by Apptio. On your first day on the job, you are, of course, supposed to be pumped (particularly if you’re a VP of Marketing). I have however, also been in technology marketing a long time, and a certain amount of cynicism is inherent after a while. In spite of this, the difference on my first day with Blazent was immediate and very apparent. When we described what we did and why it mattered, people understood right away (no justification, no rationalization), and the level of interest I saw from both prospects and partners was stunning. So why did this happen?

For those who have not had exposure to TBM, it is the next phase of evolution for the IT ecosystem as technology infrastructure and its management race to keep pace with accelerating business requirements. Similar to ITIL, which defined and contextualized the alignment process of IT with business services, TBM defines the standard elements of managing the business of IT, focusing on organizational considerations, core disciplines, value optimizing decisions, and requirements for a performance based culture that drives an effective TBM program.

Technology, like the business it supports, is (in reality) completely dependent on accurate, current, and contextualized data for making informed decisions at both the tactical and strategic levels. There are multiple forces hitting the business of IT, and the implications are game changing. Billions of people are uploading the minutiae of their lives on a continuous basis; there were actually a few minutes recently where there were one billion people on Facebook at the same time. And that’s just people; you start adding in machines (e.g. sensors, RFID tags, telemetry systems), the number of input sources jumps to the trillions. The volume of data is already beyond huge, and is nowhere near where it’s going to be. Same exact thing with Velocity and Variability of data. All of this impacts the business of technology, which is why TBM is getting so much traction. Industry leaders are seeing what’s happening, and an updated operational framework is needed.

The challenge with managing all the Vs (volume, velocity, variability) falls directly into IT’s lap. There are indescribable amounts of data entering the system, and all of this data is being used to make decisions – data drives information, information drives business. The real problem is actually a matter of alignment; data coming in at high volume from so many different sources is bound to have inconsistencies, and inconsistent data leads to inaccurate information, which can lead to poor business decisions. Which bring us to the other core element (also a V), Validation. Validating the data by contextualizing it and aligning it for consistency is a foundational requirement for business success, and for the success of TBM.

TBM is a great operational framework that is getting a lot of traction across a broad range of industries. It is the business of IT. Business relies on information, which relies on data, which relies on Validity. This is an area where Blazent’s value-add has a direct and immediate impact on TBM and the companies that are increasingly depending on it for the success of their business. By correlating and validating data across all the disparate data sources that drive business (humans, machines, siloed data, all sorts of processes, etc.), we focus on the foundational element that changes everything – Validated, and hence, accurate data. Valid data leads to valid information, which leads to valid business decisions, which is the core premise associated with Technology Business Management.