"Not every enterprise is digital - but every enterprise needs to become digital," says Patrick Shields, Software AG South Africa's Chief Technology Officer and speaker at this year's IDC CIO Summit.
South Africa's business landscape has drastically transformed in recent years due to the availability of new technology. South Africans today are connected and expect businesses to offer digital environments that enhance their customer experience.
The local IT industry is also still experiencing the effects of the global economic recession. CIOs today face the challenge to find effective technological solutions that are cost-effective, engage various audiences and improve operations.
At the IDC's sixth annual CIO Summit, highlighted as South Africa's largest gathering of CIOs, attendees will explore the environment CIOs are faced with in 2014 as a result of third platform technologies.
Regardless of the industry, company size or business function, third platform technologies - namely mobile, social, cloud and big data - are transforming business processes and technology platforms in fundamental ways. "Global digital businesses like Amazon, Salesforce and Twitter are leveraging current mega-trends to create new markets and topple industry titans," says Patrick Shields, Software AG's Chief Technology Officer.
Not only are these technologies creating new opportunities, but also creating new challenges for South African CIOs. "Digitisation has globally reshaped how CIOs manage and maintain security, loyalty, support, public service, supply chain management, talent and other critical functions," says Shields. "These technologies are fundamentally affecting the role of IT in organisations, as well as the responsibilities of the IT department. South African CIOs need to implement new solutions throughout their organisations to take full advantage of this technology."
Megha Kumar, IDC's Research Manager for Software in Middle East, Turkey and Africa, agrees that the four transformations are no doubt creating disruptions, with companies trying to manage organisational clutter with mobile, social, big data and cloud adding to the complexity of management and security.
"While initial challenges will exists, these technologies will create environments that will enable companies to improve productivity, adopt a predictive attitude towards decisions and security, have better collaboration, and most importantly, achieve total cost of ownership," says Kumar. "In addition to streamlining processes, companies will be able to leverage new age technologies to achieve business goals and contain costs."
Shields concludes that the era of questioning whether technology is the answer for South African businesses, regardless of the industry sector, has lapsed. "Now is the time for African CIOs to also take full advantage of transforming into digital enterprises."
For more information about the IDC's 2014 CIO Summit, please click here.
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