I wrote about “SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, and Cloud” in my previous blog, and I said that any IT jargons should be re-defined by ourselves with utmost preciseness before we use them.

You may know what the word “transformation” means.  If a car changes to a fighting robot, we call it a transformer!  Yes, I agree it is a sort of transformation.  If an aH1N1 virus all the sudden changes to a violent one, I think it is a transformation too.  In my mind, something drastic and very aggressive change in scale is a transformation.

IT is “Information Technology” that everybody knows. So, IT Transformation is a Technology Transformation in Information Processing world.  Hence, it should be something a big change.  I could say that the change from transistors to ICs is certainly a “transformation” in Information Technology.  A solid wire connection between point A and B to the “Internet world” is truly a technology transformation also.  Do you agree with me?

These days, people (IT companies) started to call their small scale changes as IT Transformation.

I would like to say they are just a sort of renovations, but never a transformation.

Do you disagree with my opinion?  Then, how about BPO?  There are many operation process components in business.  Distribution or procurement logistics is one of them.  HR process is certainly an indispensable process (or say a function in a company) to run business.  I agree that such an operation process or function can be strategically outsourced.  However, if a company outsources the Business Process (it is the business itself), I assume that they give up to run the business, don’t they?

Therefore, I say that the Business Operation Process Outsourcing (BOPO?), or Business Function Outsourcing (BFO) seems much more reasonable, but the BPO sounds nonsense.

In English world, many jargons were created to date especially in the IT world.  I still would like to believe that the original creator of those jargons had clear definition or intention to use in a proper way; however, when the word becomes popular, it becomes potentially abusable, i.e. those words are taken indiscriminately by many other people.

In summary, what I would like to say is “We must respect the words. Each word has in depth meaning that our ancestors polished in their history.  I hope the readers of my article are more careful about the usage of English words.”

Note: Chinese words also!  I wonder why the original meaning of 『朝三暮四』 was lost in the modern generation in China, but not in other countries.  You may check it (^_^!)