The Data Driver

Communications and IT services provider, KCOM, has warned that the enterprise IT Request for Proposal (RFP) process requires urgent review if it is to enable organisations to use technology to meet business challenges effectively. Its analysis shows today’s RFPs are overly IT-focused, neglect wider business goals, stifle partner innovation and fail to guard against the future.
KCOM carried out a detailed examination of RFPs it received in 2016 and 2017 for strategic IT projects in order to determine the degree to which they encouraged innovation, established a platform for future technology developments and supported overall business goals such as improved customer experience.
Key findings: ·         Just 14% of RFPs showed any evidence of collaboration between IT and the wider organisation in their construction ·         With few RFPs allowing suppliers to suggest innovative solutions to enterprises’ challenges, and even fewer permitting a strategic partnership, it appears that just…

Employees in Western countries report themselves to be happier in their jobs, more loyal to their employers and more productive in their work compared to their counterparts in Eastern markets, according to the “Mobility, Performance and Engagement” report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.

In the recently held award ceremony of ‘Most Influential CIO/CTO’s of India’, Mr. Dinesh Kumar, CIO of Wave Infratech has won the honor of ‘Most Influential CIO of India’ for his outstanding contribution in the field of technology.

In today’s mobile world, companies need a strong combination of policies, training, device management, controls and application security. To help IT and security professionals implement a successful mobile strategy for both company-owned and BYOD devices, global IT association ISACA is presenting a free virtual conference, titled “Mobile Security Matures: Managing the New Mobile Enterprise 2.0,” .

Tata Docomo, the unified telecom brand of Tata Teleservices, has issued a statement that the company’s Chief Information Officer Ashish Pachory has been named one of the most influential technology leaders in the country. Pachory received the honour at the Centre of Recognition and Excellence’s (CORE) 2015 CIO Power List ceremony held in Pune.
Speaking on the occasion, Ashish Pachory - Chief Information Officer, Tata Teleservices Limited said, “This is an incredible honor. I would like to dedicate this recognition to my stellar team whose creative thinking and diligent execution has given our business the edge it needs to succeed in an increasingly dynamic customer environment. As individuals and enterprises continue to embrace smart technologies at a rapid pace, it is critical for providers to have agile IT support to meet their demands. At Tata Teleservices, we are committed to nurturing the seamless integration of new technologies as one of the key pillars of our business.”

As the technologies and trends that power digitalization move to center stage, CIOs are being presented with a unique opportunity to become digital leaders according to a global survey of CIOs by Gartner. The survey showed that CIOs are fully aware that they will need to change in order to succeed in digital business, with 75 percent of respondents saying that they need to adapt their leadership style in the next three years.

With the rise in complexity due to more and more connected devices and definitive influence of Cloud Computing, Big Data, Mobility and Social Media on the business outcome of the organizations, the role of the CIOs are becoming very different. They have become more business outcome influencers than only decision makers of technology implementations. So there was a requirement of concerted effort to bring together the CIOs under one roof to exchange learning and best practices with their peer group apart from discoursing about the threat landscape and evaluation of futuristic technology. Keeping this in perspective, Cyberoam, a leading global provider of network security solutions, organized an Elite Circle CIOs’ forum known as “Inner Circle” to deliberate on security challenges and mitigation, industry best practices and more at the plush Ambay Valley in Lonavala, Maharashtra.

IT is more and more a key component of all business initiatives and is becoming an important part of those budgets, according to Gartner. CIOs must work with business executives and the CFO to ensure that the critical contribution of IT is incorporated early in the strategic planning and budget planning processes.

"In the past, the use of IT to support the business came almost as an afterthought, long after the business strategy and strategic initiatives for the coming period had been designed and sanctioned by top management," said Cassio Dreyfuss, research vice president at Gartner. "Over time, IT has graduated from being a support tool to being a business enabling and a business creation tool. Under that much broader and inclusive perspective, it makes more sense to talk about IT-related expenditures in each and every business initiative and respective budget. In this way, the CIO is challenged to adopt a higher profile and actively engage in opportunities to influenc…

Brings 25 years of IT leadership experience to help continue company's focus on improving operating performance Polycom announced that Scott McCool was promoted to the role of Group Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer. He is now responsible for Polycom’s global Information Technology (IT) organisation and prioritising the company’s IT spend to investments that deliver the greatest value. McCool reports to Chief Accounting Officer and interim Chief Financial Officer, Laura Durr, who is responsible for managing all financial, accounting and IT functions at Polycom, and is focused on driving efficiency as Polycom looks to accelerate its momentum in the market.

McCool has more than 25 years of experience in building and managing IT organisations. McCool joined Polycom in July 2013 as the company’s Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Security Officer.

It is no surprise that businesses are being transformed by new technologies, especially those that bring more intelligence and mobility to their operations and products. Some companies - known as “Innovation Accelerators”- are driving this transformation by pursuing IT-enabled business innovation as a core strategy throughout their organization, according to the results of the “Business Transformation and the CIO Role” survey announced today by Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions.
The survey of 420 global business leaders, commissioned by Red Hat through Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, found that these Innovation Accelerators (32 percent of survey respondents) are anticipating significant change over the next three years, particularly in how they engage with and learn about customers, as well as in their business models, products and services, and end user processes.

CIO Agenda, highlights the top 10 predictions for the CIOs through the year ahead.  The predictions provide insights on long-term industry trends along with new themes that may be on the horizon that will most impact the role of the CIO.  While the 3rd Platform of mobile, social, big data, and cloud services is just beginning to mature, it will require an entirely different set of IT skills and roles — many of which are yet to be invented.

“The digitisation of the corporate world is accelerating, and with new technologies enabling the process, CIOs have an unparalleled opportunity to emerge as true business leaders. They will need to step up to the role of Chief Innovation Officer or risk becoming irrelevant in the years to come. " Says Jaideep Mehta, VP and Country General Manager, IDC India

Digitalization is beginning, but most CIOs do not feel prepared for this next era, according to a global survey of CIOs by Gartner, Inc.'s Executive Programs. The survey showed that many CIOs feel overwhelmed by the prospect of building digital leadership while renovating the core of IT infrastructure and capability for the digital future. The survey found that 51 percent of CIOs are concerned that the digital torrent is coming faster than they can cope and 42 percent don't feel that they have the talent needed to face this future.

The IT industry has always moved on and brought interesting careers over the years. The latest is about data scientist. The world is grappling with the huge flow of data and is a lot of data tools, analytics to streamline and manage it. There is equal emphasis on big data in many organizations in India and globally. Many research agencies such as Gartner, EnY and others have predicted that big data would be a ruling tech trend in the years to come since the growth in data is huge. Hence the demand would put a lot of pressure on enterprises to hire data scientists.

The CIO focus on business intelligence (BI) and analytics looks set to continue through  2017, according to Gartner. 
Gartner said that the benefits of fact-based decision-making are clear to business managers in a broad range of disciplines, including: marketing, sales, supply chain management, manufacturing, engineering, risk management, finance and HR.
"Major changes are imminent to the world of BI and analytics including the dominance of data discovery techniques, wider use of real-time streaming event data and the eventual acceleration in BI and analytics spending when big data finally matures," said Roy Schulte, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "As the cost of acquiring, storing and managing data continues to fall, companies are finding it practical to apply BI and analytics in a far wider range of situations."

Forbes magazine bitterly commented on Google CIO's comment on the usage of third party services. It has written with reference to an interview by Ben Fried, CIO, Google to AllThingsD in which he talks about the risks to an organization like Google of using third party cloud products. Fried had certainly made a conflicting comment since the company itself promotes the usage of third party apps and cloud applications through its platform.