Doug Theis - Leave your comfort zone.

Forrester – Forrester Future Fitness: The Big Picture View

This week, we launch a completely new tool to get you from where you are to where you want to go. The tool is called Forrester Future Fitness. It’s an atypical tool for Forrester, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Or maybe, transformative times call for transformative measures.

Note: Want to read the in-depth, article-length version of this post that provides more detail and food for thought? Download the article here, or keep reading below to get to the brass tacks.

The timing is apt. Today we kick off our Consumer Marketing 2019 Forum in NYC. The room is packed and energetic, and in conversations with our clients here, about two-thirds of them tell us they are going through some kind of digital transformation. Some are leading it, others are trying to support it, but they’re all trying to change. In a private council meeting ahead of the event yesterday, we sat in a room with about 50 CMOs and senior marketing leaders to discuss what obstacles they face. The concerns run the gamut, from lack of executive commitment to lack of clarity on what the vision is — something as simple as “What do we want our customers to get out of this transformation?” isn’t being asked as often or insistently as it should be.

More of the Forrester post from James L. McQuivey

CIO Strategy / Digital Transformation / IT Leadership / Risk Management / Technical Debt — Comments Off
18
Mar 19

InformationWeek – Should You Declare Bankruptcy on Your Technical Debt?

Technical debt is a hidden cost that robs your business of its ability to be nimble and make needed changes for your customers
Decision-makers, it’s high time we wake up to the real cost of technical debt. Financial debt is a burden that’s familiar to many people, but for businesses, especially retailers, that burden takes on an additional form: technical debt.

For companies building their businesses on outdated platforms, technical debt is what’s keeping them from evolving to meet the demands of today’s increasingly mobile consumer. According to a study by Accenture, 85% of executives believe that their legacy platforms are hindering their ability to move to a more digital model.

Executives and IT teams often put software migration on the backburner, choosing instead to focus on the kind of projects that result in more immediate monetary returns. Yet the longer technical debt is allowed to accrue, the costlier it becomes. Should your IT department stick with its broken platforms, just to avoid the overhaul, or is it time to pull the plug?

More of the InformationWeek post from Sara Hicks

CIO Strategy / Cloud Computing / Cloud infrastructure / Digital Transformation / Hybrid Cloud / IaaS / IT Strategy / Multi-Cloud — Comments Off
15
Mar 19

GigaOm – Cloud Storage Is Expensive? Are You Doing it Right?

In my day to day job, I talk to a lot of end users. And when it comes to the cloud, there are still many differences between Europe and the US. The European cloud market is much more fragmented than the American one for several reasons, including the slightly different regulations in each country. Cloud adoption is slower in Europe and many organizations still like to maintain data and infrastructure in their premises. The European approach is quite pragmatic, and many enterprises take somewhat advantage of the experiences made by similar organizations on the other side of the pond. One similarity is cloud storage or, better, cloud storage costs and reactions.

The fact that data is growing everywhere at an incredible pace is nothing new, and often faster than predicted in the past years. At first glance, an all-in cloud strategy looks very compelling, low $/GB, less CAPEX and more OPEX, increased agility and more, until of course your cloud bill starts growing out of control.

More of the GigaOm post from Enrico Signoretti

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14
Mar 19

FastCompany – A new generation of young managers is reshaping how we work

No matter where you look, so much rapid change is happening that even how companies manage their talent strategy is shifting. Gone are the days of HR managing workforce planning with an Excel spreadsheet. To remain not only competitive but relevant, more companies are turning to detailed workforce plans, and younger generations of managers are much more likely to be putting these plans in place. As they do, and as they ascend to more senior roles, they’re reshaping the future of work.

More than half of younger generation managers polled see future workforce planning as a “top priority” for their departments–nearly three times more than their baby boomer counterparts, according to my company Upwork’s 2019 Future Workforce Report.

More of the Fast Company post from Stephanie Kasriel

Business continuity / CIO Strategy / IT Leadership / IT Strategy / Risk Management — Comments Off
13
Mar 19

InformationWeek – CIO Survey Shows Shifts in IT Leadership Role

CIOs have made headway towards a more strategic position in the organization, but challenges remain on the road to digital.
It wasn’t too long ago when many IT organizations were still considered to be just keep-the-lights-on cost centers within the enterprise. But thanks to a lot of effort on the part of technology leadership inside enterprise organizations, that seems to be changing. These days CIOs and IT organizations have shifted to contributing strategic value to the technology within the company, even if the business itself is sometimes still slow to recognize it.

That shift is evident in a new CIO survey and report from Grant Thornton, a tax, audit, and advisory services firm. National managing principal for Enterprise Technology Strategy and Innovation at Grant Thornton, LaVerne H. Council, told InformationWeek in an interview that IT has been working to become more than just a cost center. IT needs to move into a critical new role in the age of digital — from cost center to trust center.

More of the InformationWeek article from Jessica Davis

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04
Mar 19

Continuity Central – CTO? Why updating your backup strategy should be on your 2019 to-do list

Backup technology has evolved over the years, but the time has come to take a completely fresh approach, says Avi Raichel. In this article Avi explains: Why backup is a CTO concern; What CTOs need to do to update the backup strategies in place; How CTOs can help the business become IT resilient.

It’s no secret that backup is one of the most important things that a business can invest in, and it’s because of this that the evolution of backup has been such a grand one. The very first computer backups were made on to large reels of magnetic tape (punch cards), and have consistently evolved – from tape, to spinning disk, and then on to flash. However, what hasn’t changed with backup is the central idea of creating ‘golden copies’ of data, to be used ‘just in case’.

This idea is now, arguably, archaic. These traditional backups that only provide a snapshot in time are no longer compatible with the modern times. In this age, businesses, particularly digital ones, need to be ‘always-on’ – 24/7, 365 days a year. Because of this, the requirement for recovery point objectives (RPOs) of seconds, and recovery time objectives (RTOs) of minutes is essential.

More of the Continuity Central post from Avi Raichel

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01
Mar 19

Forrester – The Search For US Tech Talent Will Get Harder And More Costly In 2019

Forrester has just published our forecast for US tech employment and compensation (see “2019 US Tech Talent Market Outlook”). It has some foreboding news for CIOs and for tech vendors: Tech talent will be harder to find and more expensive over the next two years.

The good news is that the supply of tech workers has largely kept up with demand — annual wage growth for tech workers has generally hovered between 2.0% and 2.5% since 2015. But the current data available for 2018 suggests that wage growth is starting to accelerate. This acceleration poses a special threat to CIOs, who could find themselves paying premiums for certain tech roles in high demand.

Here’s a summary of our forecast for the US tech labor market over the next two years:

Tech employment growth will slow to 1.7% in 2019 before recovering to 2.4% in 2020. The growth of tech employment, as estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Occupational Employment Statistics (OES), has grown by rates slightly above 2% over the past two years.

More of the Forrester post from Andrew Bartels

Business continuity / Disaster Recovery / IT Security / IT Strategy / Risk Management — Comments Off
28
Feb 19

Continuity Central – 2018’s outages: what are the lessons for 2019?

Doron Pinhas looks at the common factors behind various high-profile technology outages in 2018 and proposes a practical approach which will help organizations reduce unplanned downtime in 2019.

Flying these days is almost never a pleasure, but in 2018, it was a downright nightmare with dozens of glitches and outages that kept planes grounded. 2018 wasn’t such a great year for other industry sectors as well. Financial service customers also had a rough year accessing their funds and performing urgent financial transactions. In the UK, for example, banks experienced outage after outage. Three of Britain’s biggest banks – HSBC, Barclays and TSB – all experienced outages on a single day, making online banking impossible, and there were dozens of other incidents peppered throughout the year.

And if your business lives on cloud platforms and SaaS, you might have found yourself running ragged at times trying to access your IT with all of the major cloud platforms suffering from outages throughout the year as well.

It may be 2019 now, but the fundamental gaps that led to those service disruptions haven’t been resolved, so we can expect more such outages this year, and probably every year until companies figure it out – which, if you’re a business continuity or IT professional, raises the question: what should I do to avoid outages?

More of the Continuity Central post from Doran Pinhas

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27
Feb 19

ZDNet – IT strategy: How to keep your best staff happy and motivated

Attracting staff is one thing, keeping them happy is another thing altogether. While career promotions and wage increases can go a long way to ensuring your workers stay motivated, IT professionals will quickly become bored if their roles aren’t fulfilling.

With demand for skilled technology workers higher than ever before, businesses must work hard to ensure they retain their top talent. High turnover of staff is expensive, can rob projects of expertise just when they need it, and can hurt morale.

So, how can CIOs keep their workers happy and eager? ZDNet speak to the experts and finds out their best-practice tips for keeping staff motivated.

TALK ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF CHANGE
Julie Dodd, director of digital transformation and communication at Parkinson’s UK, admits she wishes she had the “magic answer” to the question of how to keep people motivated. “It’s a challenge — especially for charities, where financial reward isn’t going to be the answer,” she says.

More of the ZDNet article from Mark Samuels

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26
Feb 19

CTOVision – The Average Ransomware Payment Is Rising

The average ransomware payment is growing as criminals become more sophisticated in their attacks, according to a report released by ransomware incident response company Coveware. According to Coveware’s Q4 2018 Global Ransomware Marketplace Report, the average ransom increased by 13% to $6733 in Q4 2018 compared to Q3’s $5973.

Doug Theis Leave your comfort zone.