Roundtables

Sending innovation out to the edges

IT departments will not exist as standalone entities within three to five years, says a recent survey. That's a good thing.

21 June 2016

Just what is the future of IT as a standalone organisation? A 2016 study commissioned by VCE, the converged platforms division of EMC, has some startling findings. "Three-quarters of CIOs believe that five years from now, they will need to be able to launch new products, services and applications in half the time it takes them today, says EMC in the report. "Forty-one percent say that extracting value from ever greater volumes of data is the top IT challenge facing the business, with 37% expecting this to still be the top challenge in 2019."

The CIOs surveyed believe that IT will not exist as a standalone entity in businesses within the next three years. Is IT starting to be marginalised as more functions get embedded into organisations? How do CIOs redefine themselves? Chandima Miyanadeniya, CIO, AON SA, agrees that in information technology and communications, the focus is changing.  "What you used to concentrate on ten years ago is not what you focus on today. Ten years ago, you'd be worried about base infrastructure, procurement methods and server uptime. Those are now outsourced to competent providers. We see ourselves going more towards innovation, analytics, governance, security and contracts management."  {youtube}i345wXp-Mo4|300|150|0{/youtube}

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