Speaking at the HP World conference in Sandton, HP executives noted that IT drives all aspects of business today, saying capitalising on the key technology trends depends on business understanding the value they can deliver.
"It's time to 'de-geek' IT," said Paul Muller, HP's worldwide VP for Strategic Marketing. "Business needs to understand the main technology trends - this information needs to be delivered in layman's terms. But there is a burden of knowledge within IT. The IT department tends to assume everyone knows what they are talking about when they use jargon and acronyms. The fact is, they don't. If business is to buy in to the value of new technology, business needs to understand it."
The Regional CTO for HP Software EMEA, Ulrich Pfeiffer, said: "It comes down to straightforward communication. IT needs to simplify and make sense of technology, and these conversations need to start now," he said.
Bridging this traditional divide between business and IT is likely to start with the CIO, says HP. Muller says the CIO of the future will likely be a multi-disciplinary player. "In my opinion, future CIOs will have to participate and oversee design, integration and regulation of systems, but also play a key role in ensuring that IT supports business objectives and helps to innovate across the enterprise. CIOs will have to have broader skills in future," he says.
Pfeiffer said mobility, cloud, big data and security challenges were forcing both CIOs and enterprise management to think outside the box and consider a huge range of new business opportunities. Doing so rests on communication and new skills development, he says.
Also speaking at HP World, JJ Milne, Managing Director and Chief Cloud Architect for Global Micro Solutions, said: "We see fear in the eyes of CIOs, because they don't have the right skills to adopt these new technologies. Enterprises need to empower their people to use the new technologies to innovate."
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