Jansen van Rensburg, Lead Technologist for Sub-Saharan Africa at VMware<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nChanging corporate mindsets and learning how to effectively leverage disruption will frame the CIO agenda in 2020. To manage this, they must be at the forefront of the business challenges their companies face, understand the financial implications, and link everything back to digital imperatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All businesses want to grow\ntheir profitability, be more competitive, protect their brand, nurture customer\ntrust, and be more innovative. Fundamental to tying these elements together is\na CIO willing to transition from solely being a technologist into one that\nhelps deliver on business strategy. Providing the impetus to affect this change\nis the growing digitalisation of business. Technology is no longer limited to\nsoftware and infrastructure support. It now permeates every facet of the\norganisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As we head into 2020, several\nkey imperatives will frame this change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Digital meets cloud<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIt all starts with the\ndigital strategy. CIOs must carefully consider how digitalisation is not only\nimpacting the company but also its stakeholders. The connected environment\nrevolves around creating a smooth user experience across multiple touchpoints.\nSo, while it is easy to be tempted by simply rolling out the latest and\ngreatest technology, there must be a strategic reason behind it. Getting to grips\nwith the business case of technology is therefore a priority. If it makes sense\nto implement, then the technology must be embraced, and solutions developed\naround it to maximise the investment made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is where modern\ncloud-native applications built with the Kubernetes open source\ncontainer-orchestration system become an important asset. By being able to\nleverage from the high-performance computing capabilities of the cloud through\nthese applications, CIOs can bring their business ideas to life. These more\nsophisticated technologies also make using a multi-cloud strategy a more\neffective way of addressing business challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To optimally use this\nmulti-cloud environment, the CIO must understand the costing models, the\nsolutions that best integrate into the current corporate strategy and identify\nthe areas where it will be possible to save the most money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cost optimisation is a vital\nbenefit especially when it comes to using edge computing technologies to supplement\nexisting data capturing, analysis, and intelligence. Part of this relies on the\nInternet of Things and making better sense of the data at hand as well as how\nto optimise products and services at the edge. Next year will see a significant\nfocus on decentralising computing resources with the edge becoming essential in\nthis regard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Security and innovation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nCybersecurity must keep pace with all these changes and become reflective of the completely connected business environment. This means CIOs will have to focus on adopting an intrinsic security approach as Digital Transformation initiatives start maturing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is not only about having\nnetwork edge protection from the outside, but an integrated cybersecurity\nstrategy throughout the IT infrastructure. It will factor in every connected\ndevice, every data access point, as well as the link between the organisation\nand the cloud provider(s).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Providing the peace of mind\nthat data is protected will further enable the CIO to examine other innovative\nways of unlocking business value. The expectation is that things such as\nmachine learning, artificial intelligence, and the blockchain will finally gain\nthe momentum needed to change Digital Transformation initiatives in the\ncountry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The coming months will be eventful for CIOs irrespective of industry sector they are working in. Becoming digitally empowered and linking that to solid business principles will grow the competitive environment and position organisations for continued growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indi Siriniwasa, VP at Trend Micro Sub\nSaharan Africa <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nDigital Transformation has\nbecome a customer experience strategy as much as it signifies an evolution that\nrequires organisations to embrace more innovative technologies. Driving this\nchange is the CIO who must ensure business operations more accurately reflect changing\nclient expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To do this, data needs to be leveraged\nin new ways to not only extract its maximum value but also identify\nopportunities for growth. Research shows that more than 40% of all data\nanalytics projects will relate to customer experience by 2020. Furthermore, two-thirds\nof these initiatives will use IT by 2022, up from half in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consequently, business\noperations must become digital if they are to operate efficiently and be\nquickly available to serve customer demands. This requires CIOs to understand\nwhat is needed to successfully digitise their organisational environment while\nnot forgetting the all-important security aspects during this transition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If data is compromised, the\ncompany faces not only significant financial damage, but also a loss in\ncustomer\u2019s confidence in the brand. In an ultra-competitive environment, this\ncould prove to be crippling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Security imperative<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nHowever, with data driving\ndecision-making in businesses, traditional cyber-defences are no longer good\nenough. The focus simply cannot remain only around protecting end points, but\nrather integrating cybersecurity in all aspects of the business. Fortunately,\ncorporate culture around this is maturing partly due to recent well-publicised\nlocal malware attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have also seen Artificial Intelligence (AI) having a big impact on the cybersecurity industry. This technology empowers users to more proactively detect attack surfaces. AI and Machine Learning are becoming increasingly prevalent in cybersecurity solutions. And while it is still early days, their effectiveness will grow as the technology becomes more mature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AI has also impacted on how users\ninteract with their devices and data. Chat bots and voice assistants are common\npractice while smart home speakers will be a trend to watch in the coming\nmonths. All these contribute to the level of user sophistication in the digital\nenvironment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fundamentally, a business\nmust embrace this cultural shift while being cognisant of keeping data safe. CIOs\nmust therefore walk a tightrope between leveraging AI and other technologies,\ndelivering shareholder value, and not opening data up to compromise. However,\nthis is essential if they are to future-proof their businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gone with tradition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nGiving further impetus to\nadopting more sophisticated cybersecurity solutions and analysing data more\neffectively, is how the traditional ways of working have changed. Many\ncompanies are shifting from an on-site \u20189-to-5\u2019 approach into one that sees\nemployees work from anywhere and at any time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cybersecurity policies must therefore\nreflect how these increasingly mobile ways to access the corporate back-end is\nsafeguarded. From protecting the mobile devices of employees to being able to\nremotely wipe data should a device get lost or stolen are just two examples of\nthe business basics that are required in the digital world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The constrained\nway of working is being replaced with a more agile framework where business\noperations must move faster than ever. CIOs will be the glue that link the organisational\nstrategy with a more sophisticated, technology-led, mobile environment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the IT world rapidly evolving with new technologies entering the market, we ask leading experts in the industry what should be the Chief Information Officer’s priorities for 2020. Niral Patel, Oracle South Africa MD There are fundamentally no new areas for CIOs to focus on in 2020. Instead, it\u2019s a case of maintaining a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":30247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4950,843,328,136,6,399,262],"tags":[496,386,1512,440,164,492,388,389,11739,8589,6369,155,390,624,1750,392,433,5257,1514,300,11740,11741,409,94,11738],"class_list":["post-30244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-editors-choice","category-features","category-industry-expert","category-insights","category-more-news","category-used","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-capex","tag-chief-information-officer","tag-cio","tag-cybercrime","tag-cybersecurity","tag-digital-transformation","tag-homechoice-south-africa","tag-ian-jansen-van-rensburg","tag-indi-siriniwasa","tag-internet-of-things","tag-iot","tag-kubernetes","tag-linux","tag-machine-learning","tag-microsoft-azure","tag-niral-patel","tag-opex","tag-oracle","tag-oracle-commerce-cloud","tag-oracle-data-safe","tag-trend-micro","tag-vmware","tag-whole-enterprise-cloud"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30244"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30271,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30244\/revisions\/30271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}