CIOs in Africa have identified corporate governance, risk and compliance as top of their agenda for 2011.
CIOs from large African companies and international businesses operating in Africa yesterday mapped out the challenges and opportunities facing IT decision-makers on the continent.
Representatives from Nashua, Absa, Ricoh and Gartner were present at GDS International's inaugural advisory board meeting, CIO Africa.
George Ambler, advisory board chairman and executive partner at Gartner Africa, said the global economy is entering a period of recovery, and decision-makers are hard-pressed to consider strategies to work more efficiently and productively.
In light of this, the advisory board identified five key issues that will be top of the agenda for CIOs in 2011.
The first is corporate governance, risk and compliance; the second is access to connectivity; third is the role of IT in a recovering economy; fourth is dealing with cost pressures; and the fifth issue is the role of enterprise architecture in driving innovation across Africa.
Dodging experience
“The key question is how we can use IT to drive development and growth. It is important that we need to move from regarding IT purely as a cost issue to an integral driver of innovation. This year CIOs should place more emphasis on developing flexible infrastructure and delivering growth projects,” said Bradley Coward, group CIO for Sappi.
Ambler said that in this regard, late adoption is an advantage for Africa since it does not have to be concerned with the learning curve that the western world had to go through.
However, Coward added that although the right technology is in place after leapfrogging the learning curve, it's the skills shortage and change management that need to be addressed.
He said e-government, in particular, falls down around change management; for example, the Johannesburg billing issue. “We've got the right technologies but it's exploiting those technologies that needs to be addressed.”
Slow cloud
Ambler expects that competing demands for business in terms of limited budgets and sustained growth targets will see the transformation of infrastructure in the coming years.
“The technologies at front-of-mind for CIOs today are cloud computing, virtualisation and mobile technologies, when just a few years ago they prioritised business intelligence and enterprise applications. There is a real opportunity for Africa to leapfrog technologies by embracing these new developments and drive a digital revolution across the continent.”
However, he noted that Africa lags a bit in terms of cloud computing although virtualisation has picked up well.
“There is more interest in the private cloud here. With the public cloud there are issues around security and regulation. It's still viewed as high risk by CIOs.”
He added that 70% of a CIO's budget is still in running the business and keeping the lights on. This leaves only 30% for innovation and the cloud can make a difference here.
Disruptive tablets
Another issue that CIOs need to address is the arrival of disruptive technologies, according to Coward.
He said no technology has ever grown at the speed of tablets and this is an example of disruptive technology.
Ambler explained that employees now want these devices to be connected to the network but it's difficult and security is an issue.
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