Digital Transformation

Bi-Modal IT / CIO Strategy / Cloud Computing / Cloud infrastructure / Digital Transformation / IaaS / IT Security / IT Strategy — Comments Off on TechTarget – Serverless technology obfuscates workflows, performance data
25
Apr 18

TechTarget – Serverless technology obfuscates workflows, performance data

I’m hearing that IT infrastructure is dead. And who needs it anymore, really? The future is about moving up the stack to microservices and serverless technology, as we continue to abstract, embed and automate away all the complexities of explicit infrastructure layers, such as storage arrays and physical servers.

On-premises, Capex-style IT is shrinking, while rented and remotely managed hardware and cloud transformation set new standards for modern IT. All the cool kids use end-to-end orchestration, advanced machine learning, real-time management data streams, microservices architecture and insanely scalable container environments. And now we even have serverless computing, sometimes called function as a service (FaaS).

More of the TechTarget article from Mike Matchett

CIO Strategy / Digital Transformation / IT Governance / IT Security / IT Staff Retention / IT Strategy — Comments Off on Future of CIO – The Digital CIO as the Gap Minding Role
11
Apr 18

Future of CIO – The Digital CIO as the Gap Minding Role

CIOs are the gap-minding role as IT is in the unique position to oversee underlying business functions and structures. IT leaders have to look things from all different angles.

Nowadays, information is permeating into every corner of the business and technology is often the disruptive force of digitalization. The CIO is not a static management role, but a dynamic leadership role due to the changing nature of technology and overwhelming growth of information. Especially now more and more enterprises are leveraging IT for revenue-generating initiatives. The IT leader of the future and the exemplars of today must move away from pure IT manager, and become a trustful business partner and an insightful strategist to bridge the gap between IT and business, and between the industrial age and the digital era, The important component of IT leadership success has to do with the definition or scope of the role that the CIO is playing and the profundity of IT leadership influence.

More of the Future of CIO post from Pearl Zhu

CIO Strategy / Digital Transformation / IT Staff Retention / IT Strategy — Comments Off on CIO.com – Q&A Conagra CIO: In IT, our job is to remove the friction
09
Apr 18

CIO.com – Q&A Conagra CIO: In IT, our job is to remove the friction

Mindy Simon, CIO of Conagra Brands, focuses on being digital with her business partners, not doing digital to them.

Digital is more than marketing at Conagra, the $8 billion global food manufacturer whose brands include Orville Redenbacher’s, Reddi-Wip, and Peter Pan peanut butter. As CIO Mindy Simon discusses in our Q&A, digital is variable infrastructure, shorter technology lifespans, and knowing all about the consumer.

What does “digital” mean to Conagra Brands?
Simon: To Conagra, digital is technology-enabled innovation and transformation — from delivering to consumers who shop digitally to our cloud enabled infrastructure, and everything in between.

Digital is marketing in the right place, time, and context for the consumer, whether that’s social, email, or some other channel. We need to be on the digital shelf and meet consumers wherever they are.

More of the CIO.com article from Marthe Heller

CIO Strategy / Cloud Computing / Digital Transformation / IaaS / IT Governance / IT Security / IT Staff Retention / IT Strategy — Comments Off on InformationWeek – How New Technologies Can Spell Disaster
30
Mar 18

InformationWeek – How New Technologies Can Spell Disaster

IT compensation expert David Foote warns that outdated HR models threaten to destroy companies as they try to implement emerging IT concepts.

The warning stirs distant memories of the recessionary year 2008 and the Dotcom bust a few years earlier. So many companies, from startups to one-time Blue Chips, laid off thousands of workers or simply disappeared through bankruptcy or acquisition. Their IT teams, entrenched in dated technologies, went from unemployed to unemployable.

These weren’t layoffs of 10 people but 10,000 at a time. Picture 10,000 people, sort of like a small town, with everyone out of work. Could something similar happen in the near future? David Foote says that is a real possibility, but that there is an opportunity for companies and IT professionals to change their paths.

Foote, founder of IT workforce and compensation research firm Foote Partners, issued an analysis of the company’s Q4 2017 compensation data. On the positive side, the market value for more than 400 IT certifications rose for the first time in four quarters, growing by 0.3%, so that the average certification now represents a 7.6% premium on an IT pro’s base salary. Also on the positive side — for employees and the employers who have to recruit them — Foote says the market volatility that we have seen for many IT skills is calming down a bit.

More of the InformationWeek article from James M. Connolly

CIO Strategy / Digital Transformation / IaaS / IT Strategy / Shadow IT / Technical Debt — Comments Off on Future of CIO – What are the Real Challenges of a CIO to Build a high-performing IT?
28
Mar 18

Future of CIO – What are the Real Challenges of a CIO to Build a high-performing IT?

Information is permeating into every corner of the business, technology is often the driving force of digital disruptions. IT is impacting every business unit and is becoming the driver of business changes. The business paradigm is shifting from the industrial era with the scarcity of knowledge to an information-abundant digital era. And therefore, the role of IT in the current business environment should reflect such a significant shift. However, many traditional IT organizations are overloaded and understaffed, running at the transactional role and still get stuck at the lower level of the organizational maturity. What are the real challenges of a CIO to build a high-performing and high-mature digital IT?

The main part of the IT budget is sunk in the existing IT-systems for keeping the light on: “Keeping the light on” is always fundamental for running IT smoothly.

More of the FutureOfCIO post from Pearl Zhu

CIO Strategy / Digital Transformation / IT Governance — Comments Off on The Register – Why isn’t digital fixing the productivity puzzle?
07
Mar 18

The Register – Why isn’t digital fixing the productivity puzzle?

Analysis Oh dear. If all this new technology is so amazing, why isn’t it translating into productivity gains?

The question has been bothering economists and policy-makers for almost a decade. Since the 2008 financial crisis, productivity in many major Western economies has been flat. A hefty new examination by McKinsey’s eponymous think tank the MGI offers a few reasons why – and explains why “digital” doesn’t seem to be helping.

The authors of Solving The Productivity Puzzle: the Role of Demand and the Promise of Digitisation at the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) depart from the sunny forecasts typically made by “thinkfluencers” and tech hypesters.

More of The Register article from Andrew Orlowski

CIO Strategy / Cloud Computing / Cloud infrastructure / Digital Transformation / IT Security / IT Strategy — Comments Off on Infoworld – SaaS-ifying your enterprise application? A quick-and-dirty guide
22
Feb 18

Infoworld – SaaS-ifying your enterprise application? A quick-and-dirty guide

Many enterprises see a need to SaaS-enable applications, making them into a product for customers and partners. But most have no clue about what to do.

Lots of people called it SaaS-enablement, some call it SaaS-ification of software. Whatever you call it, more and more enterprises are looking to turn some enterprise application into a SaaS cloud application.

There are several reasons to SaaS-enable an internal application. Enterprises need to expose a software system to their partners and/or customers to better automate the business. Or, they are looking to monetize applications they view as having value to other companies.

Whatever the reasons, there are a few things to consider first. I call this the SaaS-ification reality check:

More of the Infoworld article from David Linthicum

CIO Strategy / Digital Transformation / IT Strategy — Comments Off on CIO.com – IT-business alignment is out; anticipators are winning the day
20
Feb 18

CIO.com – IT-business alignment is out; anticipators are winning the day

One of the best articles I’ve seen this year on how IT can enable real transformation in the business.

Business leaders want IT to be more than strategic partners. The goal now is for IT leaders to actually drive business opportunities — to be innovative anticipators.

For years, IT leaders have been striving for one thing: “IT-business alignment,” in which IT serves the business not as a basic utility, but as a strategic partner. Although important, that is no longer the ultimate goal.

By the way, have you ever heard a CFO say, “I need to get finance aligned with the business”? Of course not! So, let’s stop talking about IT-business alignment and start talking about what the relationship really looks like.

Strategic partnership is just one admittedly advanced step on a larger continuum, and CIOs who have not figured that out already will be getting the message from their boards and CEOs — soon.

More of the CIO.com article from Dan Roberts and Larry Wolff

CIO Strategy / Digital Transformation / IT Strategy — Comments Off on CIO.com – What should CIOs leading digital transformation focus on in year two and onward in the journey?
16
Feb 18

CIO.com – What should CIOs leading digital transformation focus on in year two and onward in the journey?

Year one of a digital transformation program has its challenges. To get a transformation started, CIOs must get an executive team to formulate a strategy, agree on the program’s leadership, and establish a budget. There needs to be agreement on a roadmap of initiatives that deliver improved customer experiences, empower the data driven organization, transition to more nimble technology platforms, prioritize opportunities to automate, and engage the workforce on driving change. To pull this off, many CIO are maturing agile processes, product management disciplines, data science skills, and other foundational practices that drive innovation, speed to market, and data driven insights.

As hard as year one is, year two and beyond has its own challenges. The initial excitement of transformation programs begins to wear off and the grind of execution starts to consume participants.

More of the CIO.com article from Isaac Sacolick

Bi-Modal IT / CIO Strategy / Cloud Computing / Cloud infrastructure / Data Center / Digital Transformation / IaaS / IT Governance / IT Security / IT Strategy / Shadow IT / Technical Debt — Comments Off on InformationWeek – For IT in 2018, Think Change and Change Again
15
Feb 18

InformationWeek – For IT in 2018, Think Change and Change Again

Even with the ongoing new developments in core technologies, IT organizations are facing dramatic changes in how they work in 2018 as they embrace new business concepts and strategies.

We just might be at a point where IT professionals — from the overworked help desk staffer up to the CIO in the fancy office — long for the good old days. You remember those days, when technology, that “T” in IT, ruled the day.

That was when the to-do list was filled with tasks such as configuring hardware, testing compatibility of software packages, upgrading databases, responding to “stupid user” complaints, and fighting to keep hackers out of a system. Even the move to the cloud often was a bits and bytes and connections challenge. Today, a whole new layer of IT complexity has landed on top of all those pure tech issues.

More of the Information Week article from James M. Connolly

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