Expectations and reality can’t be one and the same? Oh really?

[#1]

While dining with friends recently, we had an animated conversation about how expectations rarely live up to reality. Everyone at the table shared favorite horror stories about travel; usually centering on how the actual event did not represent the glitzy advertisements we’re bombarded with. When the topic of air travel arose we began to verbalize how different it would be if we ran the business. Experiences were shared about traveling nightmares and the scenes created by stressed out travelers. However, we slowly came to our senses, deciding there was little we as individuals could do and as often as not we would just continue to roll with the punches. We concluded how we take the act of traveling across the world in a day as acceptable and the fact that the experience is expected to be as flawless as possible. The moment passes and the conversation moves on.

We begin discussing phones, and a complaint is shared that a particular phone will not auto dial in numbers when clicked upon Outlook–a HUGE disappointment. Like air travel, we expect seamless delivery for all services and Instant On for all aspects of our interactions at our fingertips to be simple.

I am also reminded daily of my expectations as I think my car navigation is touch screen.. It’s not. I’m spoiled by other interfaces in my daily journeys. I sometimes have foolish expectations that if it works this way on that device why it can’t work that way on all of the devices.

So what’s the point of all of these rants about expectations? There’s been a lot of talk recently in my larger umbrella group here at HP about foundational solutions for our new demanding digital era. It’s called the Instant-On Enterprise. HP recognizes that we are in an era in which everything is mobile, connected, interactive, immediate and fluid. Bottom line, we EXPECT new levels of responsiveness from IT and it MUST work!

See the Instant-On Enterprise site for all the details or download the The Instant-On Enterprise: Business and Government white paper.

Share with us; what are the daily foibles you encounter that you expect to work? What are the pain points in your data center that you expect IT to solve now? Does the HP Instant-On Enterprise sound like something you would like to talk to an HP expert about?

Thanks for reading and sharing if you choose (your reaction and feedback are appreciated)!

[#2]

My key expectation from IT relates to the availability of infrastructure so that work can be performed. Whether this comes down to LAN access, power, network resources, applications, or desktop reliability, as someone who uses IT resources to do my job, I expect to be able to do that. If I am blocked because something is unavailable, my own performance is impacted and it hits my personal bottom line.

This also comes down to who provides hardware service. For large companies, repair labs can be maintained to service defective units and a stock of sufficient duplicate machines must be maintained. For small companies, repairs to failed units are problematic. Units are almost never retained when out of warranty. However, as the line between consumer and business computers blurs, warranty service times to units becomes absolutely critical to small business continuity. In fact, it can be argued based on recent vendor behavior, that warranty service is ineffective and worthless to small business survival. Unless a defective unit can be repaired or substituted within hours, significant business damage can result to workers and customers.

Sincerely,

Randall Becker

(Posted by Kristie Popp: Randall had difficulty posting to the blog)

[#3]

Thanks Randall for your comments and sharing your experience. Excellent perspectives that I will share with our team.