Jeff Kempiners, Top-ranking IT and Business Strategist and Leading Executive, Chief Technology Officer, Avanade Canada Inc.

This week, Stephen Ibaraki has an exclusive interview with Jeff Kempiners.

Mr. Jeff Kempiners, as Chief Technology Officer, leads the strategic direction and growth of Avanade Canada. Avanade has more than 7,200 professionals in 22 countries, including more than 230 in its Canadian business, which has offices in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Montreal. Recently, the company grew its business by 25%.

A seasoned leader, Mr. Kempiners has more than 12 years of experience in IT management and consulting. Mr. Kempiners joined Avanade in August, 2000 as a Solution Architect in the US-Central region. Most recently, he served as Avanade Canada Capability Director for Infrastructure and Application Solutions, overseeing the deployment of Avanade's infrastructure and application development solutions and working closely with Avanade customers. Prior to joining Avanade, Mr. Kempiners was employed with Accenture in a variety of roles, including System Analyst, Project Manager, and Engagement Manager for large customer accounts in all industries.

Over the past five years, Avanade Canada has worked with several enterprises to help them meet their business objectives, including First Canadian Title, PCL Construction, and Future Electronics.

To listen to the interview, click on this MP3 file link

The latest blog on the interview can be found in the IT Managers Connection (IMC) forum where you can provide your comments in an interactive dialogue.
http://blogs.technet.com/cdnitmanagers/

DISCUSSION:

Interview Time Index (MM:SS) and Topic
:00:42:		What is the outlook for unified messaging? "....It's going to become part of the building foundation upon which we start to recompose business processes in order to better leverage concepts like digital collaboration and workflow...."
:03:49:		What value is returned by enterprise content management (ECM)? "....When I think of enterprise content management, eventually we will move back to the space where ECM hosts corporate official documents (for example, public press releases, HR policy documents, quarterly sales reports - things that you are looking for that are one single version of the truth) and we will start to take away from ECM space those things that are currently a poor fit for ECM (just leveraging its search capabilities). I believe that enterprise content management will continue to be misused for at least some time in the new future...."
:07:49:		Can you explain how collaborative workspaces improve all the elements of business agility? "....My opinion on collaborative work spaces is that it's not just about enabling two individuals but rather it's about enabling a knowledge management repository for it to grow in such a way that other individuals can leverage previous collaborative sessions...."
:10:54:		Do you have a definition of business agility? "....Your ability to make change; to measure it against the market you are attempting to serve..."
:13:43:		What does enterprise search mean to the user and ultimately to the business? "....Think of the applications that you use at home - your media players, consumer devices, websites - everything has searches and a search is amazingly accurate and amazingly fast. Then you get to work and it's not at all like that. You sit down in your office and log into your enterprise portal, you're digging 15 file menus deep into a shared "s" drive in order to launch the document that you work on day to day....Ultimately enterprise search means a high degree of efficiency and the ability to get what you are after without any search whatsoever...."
:17:04:		What is meant by workplace transformation vehicles? "....As we have new ways to communicate with one another, we're are then redesigning the business processes that leverage those communications and that's a workplace transformation vehicle...."
:19:10:		How do the elements we discussed weave into the Next Generation Workplace? "....It's collaborative, it allows business insight via business intelligence and it enables crowd sourcing via wikis and via challenges and it has unified communications and unified messaging as the core that all enables a searchable, secure, managed environment...."
:21:04:		Jeff discusses and shares a story about search as being one of the most impactful and disruptive technologies of its generation.
:26:21:		What do you see as the top five opportunities and innovations in IT and how can they be exploited for competitive advantage? "....In no particular order.....Search....Concept of digital collaboration and capture....Service oriented architectures....Dynamic computing....Customer relationship management...."
:33:24:		Can you delve into the top risks for businesses and how they can be resolved? "....A lack of agility....The ability to attract top talent...."
:39:24:		What question would you ask and what would be your answer if you were doing this interview? "....Clarify the Next Generation Workplace and how Avanade differentiates itself in that space...."
:42:10:		Jeff gives his current thoughts on the International Standard for IT Professionals initiative which Avanade is supporting formally. "....The other are truly interested in industrializing software and information technology processes in such a way that we are really adding a sense of professionalism to what it is we do in a measurable and a consistent manner. That is a big part of what the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) is attempting to accomplish. They are attempting to bring a broad professionalism and global consistency to what it is we do...."