Author: Gregor Hohpe

By Annina Neumann, AI/ML Strategist and Gregor Hohpe, Enterprise Strategist at AWS We routinely underestimate the effects that new technology has in the long run while also overestimating its impact in the short term. What has become known as Amara’s Law, in honor of the late researcher and scientist Roy Amara, is playing out now […]

Today’s executives have a lot on their hands. Not only does the business environment change more rapidly and dramatically than ever, but the set of available technologies also evolves at a stunning rate. Those technologies are no longer “things that IT does far down in the engine room”; they have become a critical ingredient for […]

You don’t hike up a mountain in a straight line. Rather, gentle slopes and switchbacks allow you to make a gradual ascent. Even though you aren’t heading straight for your goal, you keep an eye on the top of the mountain and track your progress by the changing scenery or elevation. If you haven’t encountered […]

My peers and I carry the ominous title of Enterprise Strategist at AWS. While perhaps we aren’t entirely immune to title inflation, one could reasonably assume that we know a thing or two about enterprises and strategy in particular. After all, we are former CIOs, CTOs, Chief Architects, and IT leaders and have executed major […]

When I discussed a customer’s IT strategy the other day, they highlighted how the “unbelievably good deal” that their outgoing CIO had negotiated with a major IT outsourcing provider became a major liability. Being in the travel and transportation business meant that they were severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, having to pivot to new […]

This mini-series of blog posts has highlighted the nuances of one of the most common and seemingly straightforward IT decisions: whether to build or buy a piece of software. We learned that common notions of cost and lock-in can be misplaced (Part 1), that differentiators are by no means static and can be found in […]

In my third installment on digging deeper into deciding between buying software and building it in house, I want to describe how organizations can transition from a “mostly bought” environment to one where they can productively build bespoke solutions. As an industry we are mildly guilty of repeatedly showing great target pictures but then falling […]

My previous post highlighted that even seemingly straightforward decisions can become challenging in the context of the vast scope and complexity of enterprise IT. For example, when considering whether to build a bespoke software in house over buying a commercial one, many companies overlook several critical nuances: You pay in opportunity cost, not just direct […]

Many enterprises anchor their IT strategy on buy vs. build decisions: what software packages or systems they buy versus which ones they prefer to build themselves. Buy over build is the default for most organizations, which is a sensible approach when considering that the majority of the IT estate doesn’t differentiate the business. For example, an […]

Your cloud migration was off to a good start: you set out with a clear plan, used the “Six Rs” to segment your workloads by the different strategies of moving to the cloud, and have closely tracked core metrics like number of applications migrated. However, your stakeholders have become increasingly doubtful as to whether the […]