Viva Las Vegas!

Elvis sang about it. He also starred in the movie. The town remains an unbelievable attraction despite all of its warts and all of the other craziness in the world. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I hate the place. However, say what you will, a trip to Las Vegas is always illuminating.

Early May was the time for the annual Networld + Interop in Vegas. It is a shell of its former self because all the things we all know about. And while I wandered around what should have been, and used to be, bustling halls, it really was not the lack of attendance that I found so depressing. What was most discouraging was that N+I turned out to be a magnificent showcase for why all of IT is stuck, and is likely to remain so for some extended period of time. The juxtaposition of the industry’s messages with the venue was startling. Let me explain.

Las Vegas, if nothing else is a shining and over-the-top icon of what unbridled capitalism is all about. One can’t help but marvel at the town’s singular ability to constantly reinvent itself based on a single proposition. That proposition is that if you create compelling experiences you can separate people from their money. In fact, not only can you separate them from their money in increasingly ingenious ways, but you can make them feel so good about the experience that they become habitual consumers of the experience and look forward to whatever comes next.

Therein lies the problem with the computer and communications industries. Despite all of the agony of the past two years, the captains of our industries have still not learned that the path to glory is paved with creating desirable outcomes for the customers -- experiences that are so compelling in real-time that consumers crave for more and are willing to pay a premium for the privilege. The problem with N+I – indeed, the problem with the current raft of marketing messages and products coming out of the computer and communications industries -- is that the gap between what buyers say are the compelling experiences they crave are not the ones the vendors have teed up for them as the ones they wish to continue to sell. Worse, despite all the rhetoric of the industry about being customer-centric, the way in which they sell is stuck in the practices of when the industry was flying high, e.g., technology for technology’s sake, and trust us that the outcomes will all work out. In other words, the return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO) will all work out, just trust us.

The real issue is that the bond of trust has been broken, and little more than lip service is being paid to its restoration. The industry still compensates it sales forces on filling quotas for stuff even as it talks about solutions and creating desirable cash flow and productivity outcomes. The pain of the last few years has gotten the vendor community to realize that they need to be better listeners instead of evangelists (hucksters might be a better term depending on whom one is talking about), but the vendors have yet to understand the subtle difference between listening and hearing.

This is no mere semantics. I can listen to you, even acknowledge that I understand your concerns, yet still come back with a “value proposition” that says, “Here is my box/software/solution to your problem, now what was your problem again?” That is actually the recipe for creating distrust. It is the way in which a gap is created between customer expectations and vendor deliverables. It is the foundation of bad experiences. Good experiences come from hearing what the customer is saying and then collaborating with them on a customized solution. It comes from building on this success by repeating it over and over again. We are a long way from there.

What customers are saying is they are willing to pay for networking solutions that are easy to use and maintain, provision and alter rapidly, and solve their well-understood issues: cutting costs, solving intractable business process issues, increasing productivity, pleasing and retaining customers, creating differentiated and sustainable value, opening up new opportunities. Accelerating bit movement is nice but not without the justification.

What the customer is also saying, and what Las Vegas understands implicitly, is that the customer is the king. Las Vegas knows that people have lots of entertainment and travel options, and that if they don’t give the customer exactly the experience they want they will go elsewhere. In fact, the pending bankruptcy of the newly constructed Aladdin Hotel, which occupies prime real estate on “The Strip” demonstrates how failure to stay in touch with what motivates customers is everything. It is not just about location, it is about how the location is experienced.

I have mentioned this many times. Our industry must understand that the era in which technology sales for technology sake that promised unimaginable new kinds of value is over. It has been replaced by one that says we are living through a massive realignment of value chains where new value will be accelerated by the proper application of technology. In other words, it is about value first and technology as an enabler second, and not vice versa. Until this sinks in, there will be continued pain with no gain.

Viva Las Vegas!