The rise of CraaS, ‘Crap idea as a Service’

How many Flexible Consumption Models (FCM) are there on offer now?

Who knows!  

Everyone is trying to find new ways to offer their products as a service.  SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, LMNOPaaS (okay, I made that one up).

Throw in non-IT related products (Oops, sorry. ‘IT’ is a dirty word, we are all “digital” now) such as mobility as a service (Uber, Lime Scooters), and soon we will run out of “as a service” acronyms and have to resort back to binary “1011001010-aaS”.

I recently helped a client look at the various options for upgrading their desktops, laptops, and tablets across the organisation.  

Excited to dip our toes into the XaaS (‘anything as a service’) waters, we investigated the relatively new device as a service model (DaaS - think leasing with the provider managing the end-to-end lifecycle and granting more flexibility regarding swapping out hardware).  

Although DaaS would be a compelling option in some circumstances, the specifics of our operating model and hardware usage made it not the best option for our situation.

This experience got me thinking about the old adage “all that glitters isn’t gold”, and the importance of doing your homework – not just getting caught up in the hype of a new thing.  

It also drove home the importance of the unchanging fundamentals of human nature, economics, and good business practices.  

In fact, these fundamentals act as the foundation on which successful innovation and business growth is built.  While technologies and operating models change, the laws of supply and demand do not.

Regardless of how exciting an idea is, it still must meet a customer need, be operationally feasible, and financially viable for buyer and seller.

There is a difference between a good idea, and the right idea.

Just because something is new doesn’t mean it is useful. The factors that make something successful at another organisation may not exist in your business – and vice versa.  

By applying the fundamentals and asking the right questions, we can avoid “Crap as a Service”...  or any such glittering pile of bad ideas.

Chris Pope is a consultant specialising in strategy, business transformation and delivering large organisational change programmes.  He has spent the last 20 years leading complex projects and programmes, running a PMO, and improving practices in industries such as airline, local government, education, internet and healthcare in the USA and New Zealand.

He can be reached at chrispopeconsulting@gmail.com or on LinkedIn http://nz.linkedin.com/in/chrispopepmp  Twitter: @chrispopenz

Credit: Dreamstime