"Culture," Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year in 2014, is one of the most overused and least understood terms in the tech industry.
As solution providers grapple with an epochal shift to the cloud -- with many aiming to transition toward a strategic service provider model -- they're coming to the realization that to successfully pivot their business models, they first need to get a handle on their company culture.
Understanding the culture is how a company earns buy-in from its employees and managers, which is necessary for them to make the right decisions affecting strategy, said Adrian Jones, president and chief operating officer at SLAP Company, a business management consultancy.
"Our objective is to help partners really understand what's going on inside their companies, with their employee base, their managers, and their customers, to understand how to make the right decisions as they transition to the cloud," Jones told IT Best of Breed.
"We believe that if you understand the culture, and what's happening, you know how to put the right strategies in place to drive the right business model."
That cultural mastery yields improvements in productivity, revenue, and employee-manager relations, he said.
SLAP, founded by business management guru Stan Slap, has been around for decades. The company nurtured a technology presence, advising Google and Facebook.
