A new golfing season awaits at Augusta!
For the majority of golf fans, this Thursday marks the start of the golf season with the first “major” of the calendar. Most of we amateurs can only dream of playing at Augusta and attending the event as a spectator is almost impossible, but even watching it on the television is quite a spectacle. Fortunately, there is a lot of analysis and expert opinion but it never ceases to amaze me as to how good the elite golfers are at navigating one of the most challenging golf courses on the planet.
It’s only recently that I have been lucky enough to meet some of the experts that support the “tour professionals” and they have given me a fascinating insight into how analytics and coaching really can make a difference at elite level. As the difference between winning and coming second can be down to minute details, the top players increasingly turn to technology and performance coaching to gain that critical advantage that makes the difference between winning and losing.
The top players know that when the pressure is really on having a reliable framework with accurate feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of their game is invaluable not just in the cauldron of events such as the Masters but also as they continue to try and improve.
The more research that I do on this has convinced me that great analytics and the interpretation of the results can also have real benefits within our own IT industry. As CIO’s grapple with Micro-services, Agile techniques and Shadow IT, having an overall clear view of the state of the infrastructure becomes an imperative. However, correlating the right data in the right place is still a very large challenge. All too often data is contained in individual silos and each IT manager will very often protect this which inevitably leads to “finger pointing” when things go wrong.
That’s why Mark Chillingworth’s latest Horizon Innovation Podcast is so fascinating as it helps to illustrate how correlating data from several sources and then correctly interpreting this can achieve results very quickly. I am not suggesting for one moment that my golf handicap will come down or that I will be in contention to win the Masters, but it does enable you to get a clear idea where you can improve.
My swing being analysed prior to Horizon’s podcast
From an IT perspective, this is really insightful and we can certainly learn from this approach which the elite sports professionals are taking. Surely the same principles of data correlation can be used to solve a number of problems for the IT leader? For example, I have been talking to several CIO’s recently who have been saying that the problem of “
Shadow IT” is one which is causing great concern. Those who are addressing the issue see it as an opportunity to get closer to the customer and to use analytics and behavioural analysis to remove the need for users to become frustrated with the service. As services become more complicated and micro-services and Cloud Computing are a good example, the requirement for monitoring and management becomes an even bigger challenge without a thoughtful and diligent approach.
Bringing Shadow IT into the sunlight by utilising world class analytics and performance improvement
Our expertise at Intergence has always been about delivering world-class IT infrastructure and monitoring and managing the applications that run across multiple systems. Which is why Stratiam was a logical progression of combining our expertise with great technology to give that “end-to-end service view” and put the CIO back in touch with the “voice of the customer”. We then use our analytics to help IT leaders pinpoint areas for improvement. This can be highlighted in one of the “birds eye views” below, entitled Stratiam’s correlated “Global CIO View”. More details on Stratiam and how it helps to solve the problem of Shadow IT and getting closer to the user are contained in our new e-paper “How to bring Shadow IT into the sunlight- 5 tips on how CIO’s can gain direct visibility of their users’ experience.
Stratiam’s correlated “Global CIO view” dashboard
Stratiam enables CIO’s to put a data governance model around their critical IT assets and to remove silos of data. This helps to reduce the impact of Shadow IT and connect the CIO’s back to the user by understanding the overall picture. Just as my golf swing and associated faults were correlated and analysed with immediate performance improvements, Stratiam aims to improve the CIO’s view and operation of his IT estate. We do this with a unique integration layer which brings a variety of selected plug-ins together and then correlates the data into a set of easy-to-view data sets which can be customised for each service owner.
Intergence’s team of experts then take the data and provide feedback and guidance to deliver a better service to both the CIO and the end user in a similar way to how correlated data is used to enhance and improve performance in the sporting arena. For more details on Stratiam visit www.intergence.com and for the podcast, www.horizonbusinessinnovation.com