“New normal” of IT defined at CA World 2011

CA World - CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) Executive Vice-President and Group Executive, Customer Solutions, Group, David Dobson, defined the “new normal” for IT organisations experiencing the confluence of trends, technologies and events in a world dominated by an anytime, anywhere, uninterrupted customer experience.

Andrea Lodolo, CTO, CA Southern Africa, says CA Technologies EVP explored how key trends, technologies and events are creating a transformative moment in IT.

“David Dobson emphasised CA's strategy aimed at helping customers achieve success by providing customised value roadmaps designed to deliver targeted business outcomes,” says Lodolo.

Speaking to IT professionals attending CA World 2011, Dobson explained how this new normal is a transformative moment for IT that is shifting CIOs' focus from managing infrastructure, maintenance and operations, to optimising the delivery of business services for innovation and growth.

Dobson expanded on how cloud computing, virtualisation and the consumerisation of IT, combined with the global economic slowdown, have converged to create this new era.

“We experienced accelerating demand at the exact same time as IT budgets shrank in response to the recession,” said Dobson. “Everyone is scrambling to do more with less, to become more agile and to find more cost-effective ways to support the business. The result is a transformative moment that offers a tremendous opportunity for competitive differentiation - as well as a huge strategic challenge.”

The unique value proposition offered by CA Technologies, Dobson maintained, is that it can empower CIOs to mitigate complexity, automate essential processes and make more informed planning decisions for their entire IT environments across vendors and platforms - from the mainframe to the cloud. This enables them to successfully shift resources to innovation and growth, rather than remaining bogged down with maintenance and operations. As a result, CA Technologies customers can excel at the new normal.

“The reality is that we're all dealing with a huge amount of IT complexity,” he continued. “You're managing a large data centre with infrastructure from multiple vendors. You're experimenting with applications and infrastructure in the cloud. But whether you're adopting a private cloud, a public cloud, or a hybrid of these models, you're going to need to manage and secure a multi-vendor, multi-platform, cloud-enabled environment.”

Dobson also outlined the company's model for Business Service Innovation - which CA Technologies is delivering by helping customers optimise their technology planning in the context of their particular business goals.

“CA Technologies uniquely offers customers the ability to realise the benefits of Business Service Innovation through our value roadmaps and the differentiated solutions that underpin that roadmap,” said Dobson.

According to Dobson, this framework has guided the company's acquisitions over the past 18-plus months.