EMC: Transforming business is mission impossible

Rohit Ghai, VP of Products, EMC IIG, presented the opening keynote on day two of the EMC Momentum conference in Vienna this morning, claiming that the transformation of business was the company’s toughest objective yet, calling it ‘mission impossible’.

Ghai presented a strategy for IT transformation in the style of a Hollywood action movie, however the points were far from fiction. He claimed that the major issue for lack of transformation was based on a ‘consumption’ gap caused by three factors; a consumability gap, manageability gap and a value gap.

“We’re here because we believe in transformation,” said Ghai.

“At the heart of transformation is information. Vendors have delivered a lot of capability but only a fraction has been out to use, that’s because of the consumption gap. This transformation business is pretty difficult, some might say mission impossible.”

Ghai claimed the consumability gap was due to a lack of attraction in applications built by vendors.

“To be loved, you must be loveable, so the saying goes. To be consumed, you must be consumable,” he said.

“Vendors have delivered too many fractured features, too many lacking features. This has resulted in a consumability gap.”

The second gap, manageability, comes down to the need for systems to stand up and be configurable, according to Ghai. And the third, the value gap is caused by a space between the delivered platforms of applications and where business actually begins.

“Businesses are filling this gap with coding metaphors, it’s slow and the systems aren’t reusable – a value gap.”

Ghai then continued to break down the products announced yesterday, the business suite Documentum 7.0, and how they address the issues highlighted, bringing up a number of high calibre speakers to give working examples of the releases.

“Big companies in our major verticals are facing shifts in the way they work, this is causing the solutions they have to become obsolete. They no longer require what we give them,” he said.

“We must connect information to work, that’s the new way of doing business. We must provide cloud solutions which are accessible, simple and safe. We must be the best stack in the cloud. We have to offer governable and sustainable solutions which don’t require coding metaphors. We need to disrupt the system. We must obliterate the value gap,” he concluded.

The breakdown of the new products follows the longest simultaneous product releases of its kind, announced yesterday. Ghai and EMC believe that the products address current business environments as well as making a template for future business applications.

Joe Lipscombe is reporting live from EMC Momentum 2012, Vienna. Follow @Computernewsme for live tweets.