Top IT Trends and Priorities for 2014

Kris Budnik4 December 2013

Modern IT departments have an amazing opportunity. The speed at which technology currently evolves combined with the rising importance of

technology in the business puts IT departments in a prime position to impact their companies more than ever before.

If IT departments hope to maximize their impact in this day and age, they must focus their attention on the right priorities–which falls squarely on the

CIO’s shoulders. So, what key areas must CIOs focus on in the near future?

Background

• The intent of this presentation is to highlight those issues which are expected to be, or should be, top of mind for the CIO

• The top 10 list here has been distilled from the views and opinions of analysts and research houses, opinion makers and bloggers, as well as some informal feedback from local CIO forums

No. 10: Choosing the right partner/service provider

What is this about?• As technology rapidly evolves,

many CIOs feel pressure to apply new technology to their business…just because it’s new

• The true challenge for CIOs is determining which new technologies help the business, and which to avoid

Key risks and opportunities• Getting caught in feature traps

and participating in trends without a plan can be costly

• Underestimating the effort needed to sustain an initative

• Capitalising on new technology involves a deep understanding of the business and the problems business users face

• Choose partners who bring with them a focus on creating value for your business

No. 9: Attracting/Retaining the right skills

What is this about?• Finding smart, talented people is

exceptionally difficult even in a tight job market

• Transformation imperatives compound the challenge

Key risks and opportunities• Rising employment costs• Resource shortages holding up

key initiatives• Compromised succession

planning• High staff turnover resulting in

lack of continuity and erosion of corporate memory

• Partnerships with tertiary institutions – collaboration on key technology projects

• Employment tax incentives

No. 8: Cyber-security and GRC

What is this about?• Government initiatives and draft

legislation across the globe show that regulators consider cyber security a top priority

• Perceived lack of value delivery from IT prompts greater scrutiny and demands for demonstrable governance

Key risks and opportunities• Knee-jerk reactions in response

to compliance directives or over-hyped incidents could result in costly but futile initiatives

• Traditional responses may undermine service expectations

• Security technologies have come of age – secure business enablement is possible

• Access Governance, Security Intelligence and Information Leak Management are fundamental to GRC

No. 7: BYOD with Mobile Apps

What is this about?• Users want to bring in their own

devices and use them for work-related tasks

• Taking advantage of this will require the extensive development of enterprise mobile apps

Key risks and opportunities• Outdated enterprise architecture

not suitable to the new trends• Security exposures• Increase productivity and

improve user experience• Lower cost of end user

computing• Shift focus on data rather then

device protection - makes way for other trends like cloud and collaboration

No. 6: Big Data Analytics

What is this about?• Focus on the value of

information already collected• Advanced analytics to optimize

business processes (pricing, efficiency), identify business risk (fraud, customer churn, defaults) and anticipate new opportunities (cross selling, opening new markets)

Key risks and opportunities• Potential compliance issues –

privacy and ethics• Data quality issues could be

magnified• Exposure of intellectual property• Better fraud and risk

management• Better business decisions• Quicker decision making• Optimal business insights

No. 5: Collaboration and interoperability

What is this about?• Real-time communication is vital

to collaboration. Anytime, anywhere, multi-party access to information is a fundamental need

• The overarching goal: increase productivity and tease out innovation

Key risks and opportunities• Effective and productive

collaboration efforts are complex• Intellectual property challenges• Data security/integrity/privacy• Reputational risk• Improvements in products,

services and the overall quality of a customer’s experience

• Wider geographical reach or access to new markets

• Capacity to replicate success• Resource sharing

No. 4: Prepare for the cloud

What is this about?• As the pressure to cut IT service

costs, or rapidly deliver new business functionality, increases, knowing the organisation’s state of readiness in respect to cloud service adoption is vital

• Considerations include the need for data exchange between traditional and cloud based platforms

Key risks and opportunities• Application migration issues:

– Lack of best practices– Immaturity of PAAS platforms– Cost v benefit not as expected

• Lack of cloud-aware data integration solutions – bandwidth and latency

• Augment legacy systems with modern features via cloud-based offerings

• Improve on security, compliance and service continuity

No. 3: Rethink IT spending

What is this about?• CIOs are expected to shift a big

part of their budget away from supporting and maintaining systems into growth initiatives

• A 20% -30% shift in spend ratio is expected

Key risks and opportunities• Large portions of business

dependant on legacy infrastructure - shifting budget away from legacy can pose risks

• New businesses, new products or new marketing approaches delayed due to lack of required innovation budget

• Opportunity to address server sprawl, unproductive data centres, labour-intensive integration requirements

• Focus on business transformation

No. 2: Business relevance

What is this about?• Without clear and first-hand

awareness of business needs, desires, and concerns, CIOs and their IT teams are at great risk of becoming less and less relevant to the ultimate goals and purposes of their companies

Key risks and opportunities• IT relegated as a back-office

function and a cost centre• Increase in origination of IT

services from independent or cloud based service providers – rise of shadow IT phenomenon

• Opportunity for involvement in new product development

• Become a business enabler and a problem solver

No. 1: Time to Service Delivery

What is this about?• When IT becomes the bottleneck

for new products, capabilities, and expansion, a business’ ability to innovate and outmanoeuvre increasingly nimble competitors is in jeopardy

• There has been a shift in expectations of enterprise IT as a consequence of consumerization

Key risks and opportunities• Key business initiatives aborted

or delayed• Shadow IT emergence• IT positioned as service broker

rather than service provider• IT perceived as flexible,

interactive and iterative through the adoption of “agile” techniques and management principles

In conclusion

• IT have an enormous opportunity to really make a difference in their companies by shifting focus away from maintaining the status quo, and onto key strategic priorities

• The CIO must drive the nimbleness that will be demanded by employees and customers,

• They must do so securely…