Jim McDonnell

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time you’d know that I frequently share my thoughts and insights about multisourcing and service integration. Often I discuss Cisco ServiceGrid, our flagship integration platform in the cloud that enables multiparty service collaboration. ServiceGrid is a…

There are two mindsets in business – one of scarcity and the other of abundance. A scarcity mindset believes much, if not everything, is limited. A business with a scarcity mindset holds everything close to the vest and is uncomfortable or unwilling to do business beyond its own walls. The thinking…

Do you remember the childhood game Gossip? Maybe you played it. A secret message is whispered from one person to the next until it reaches the last person who says out loud what they believed they heard. Whether by an honest misunderstanding or intentional sabotage, often the end message is nothing…

You probably did a double-take when you read the title and asked yourself, “What is SOAM?” Let me start by telling you what it is not. It is not service integration and management (SIAM), which emerged more than a decade ago to address the highly complex contract and governance processes introduced…

“We are at the intersection of doing great things for the world. We have the ability to change people’s lives.” -Chuck Robbins, Cisco CEO Virtually every industry is undergoing digital transformation. The retail, manufacturing, energy, and transportation industries, to name a few, are all seeing maj…

In Simon Sinek’s now famous TED Talk, How Great Leaders Inspire Action more than 25 million views served as the catalyst for his book, Start with Why. Sinek explains that for a person or an organization to be successful, they must be intentional about creating a compelling message that others are in…

In technology, things happen at the speed of change. “Evolve or get left behind” is a familiar phrase we’ve all heard. Technology is advancing at warp speed and companies are finding it difficult to manage their ever-growing and ever-changing support ecosystems. Now more than ever, companies are mov…

This year, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC), 3rd Platform technologies (i.e. cloud, analytics, mobility, social) have been responsible for one-third of all IT spending and account for virtually 100% of all IT spending growth. As more enterprises engage in digitally collaborative…

The rise of multi-sourced IT delivery models is well documented, and multi-sourcing is now accepted as the new normal. Today’s outsourcing market demands solutions that anticipate and respond to business activity inside and outside the organization while simultaneously dealing with a rapidly shiftin…