Evaluating new technologies which will make a difference
to one's business requires a well-defined process and criteria,
according to IS executives at the CIO Symposium.
United Parcel Service (UPS) set up a process and a group for
evaluating emerging technologies in 1996.
So much new development was under way that in some cases one
group might be developing the business case for a new technology
while another was already evaluating it, said Jim Medeiros,
vice-president of IS shared services at the delivery company.
UPS' process first involved an evaluation of a new technology on
paper, then a decision is made on whether it is worth investing in
a prototype. If the prototype meets the approval of the governance
group, a development group writes the application, which must meet
final approval before deployment.
"One of the big wins we had was using Linux," Medeiros said.
UPS felt it was important to stay ahead of the business needs
for emerging technologies, and the open-source operating system was
put through the evaluation process and a production-hardened
version was ready a year before it was deployed.
At Verizon Communications the first question which must be
answered about a new technology is whether it will have a positive
impact on the company's earnings, said Shadman Zafar, senior
vice-president of architecture and e-services.
The final element in making a case for an emerging technology,
in particular one involving next-generation communications, is to
"explicitly seek out power users as our advisers", Zafar said.
Power users can corroborate the need for a new service or
technology, "they have the ability to verbalise needs ahead of
other customers", he added.
Both executives, however, acknowledged that the processes they
have created for evaluating technology are not always followed.
When the technology is one that will allow for market creation -
not just market penetration - the initial phase does not always
follow the programme, Zafar said.
Sometimes only 30% of the process is followed through, he
said.
"In market creation you have to sometimes break the process or
it won't happen."
Elizabeth Heichler writes for IDG News Service