Avoid Abrogation and/or Disintermediation on the journey to Outside-In

Two of the most dangerous aspects of the Outside-In journey are Abrogation and Disintermediation. So how do these two concepts relate to Outside-In?

Firstly, it is important to understand that the Outside-In frame, identified by the Leading Edge Forum, is an important new business trend, the antonym of Inside-Out, that results from the confluence of social connectedness and consumerized devices, that are empowering customers and partners. Organisations that understand this trend and are starting to explore its implications, and learning to live with the new frame, should become aware of the new opportunities, as well as the barriers and risks that the confluence also brings. Remember often the best data is "out-there", not inside your own organisation.

Abrogation is the result of choosing to allow rights over, or access to key data and / or business processes to be transferred to external entities or simply let go. This is very different than the act of choosing to make such data publicly available. Once an organisation has abrogated their rights over such data or business processes, it is very difficult to regain those rights.

Disintermediation has a similar result, ie the loss of rights over or access to key data or business processes, but in this case through the deliberate acts of external entities to gain control over those rights.

It is important to remember that much of the key data used to run an organisation profitably are actually owned by external entities, either partners or customers.

It is critical that Outside-In business processes are architected to allow the control over such data to be in the hands of the most appropriate entities, while maintaining access to such data.

This is arguably a security question, though clearly it is a question that involves collaboration and  co-operation with partners and customers. As identified by the Jericho Forum the future is "Collaboraion Oriented", and so we need Architectures that are also collaboration oriented.

Given we recognise that most current business architectures were developed for an Inside-Out frame .

Are the architectures your architects are developing focussed on the Inside-Out or Outside-In?

Do your architects have the skills and knowledge to develop architectures that enable your organisation in an Outside-In world?