International research firm Gartner predicts that more than 20% of chief information officers will cite real-time enterprise (RTE) as one of their top five investment areas, and will have to sell it to their organisations` leadership.
"RTE will bring a new results-driven focus that will unite business and IT in time-based transformation of costs, services and transparency to compete in the 'now` economy," says Gartner analyst Peter Sondergaard.
According to Gartner, RTE competes by using up-to-date information to progressively remove delays to the management and execution of critical business process.
Sondergaard was wrapping up Gartner`s ITXPO symposium held in Cape Town this week. The event was attended by almost 1 000 delegates from large and medium organisations and companies located in SA and surrounding countries. About 10% of the delegates were CIOs and 30% were senior management.
A key issue that emerged during the symposium was the need to reduce the cost of IT to organisations, while at the same time planning to build more capacity and utilise existing technologies.
Sondergaard listed a number of things that CIOs should try to complete before the end of this year. These included the removal of at least 10% of legacy systems, setting a timetable for re-negotiating supplier contracts, preparing for some of the suppliers to either consolidate their businesses or to cease trading, and building value through credibility and service delivery.
He says CIOs should also review recruitment and retention strategies for key skills, establish leadership coaching and mentoring programmes, and understand the impact of offshore sourcing.
"Investing for the future should include the piloting of two key RTE technologies - instant messaging and Web services - and to prepare to implement simultaneous security and transparency."
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