Insights & Opinion

The Net Kids Are Coming: Tapping the Power of "Generation Y" – The tech-savvy, socially-networked members of Generation Y are the future of our businesses, and they're pointing us in a new direction. But if companies are to to tap their power, they must accept fundamental changes to corporate IT and the wider business culture. The article argues CIOs are best placed to ensure firms can open up sufficiently without losing control.

Turning Cloud Services into a Business Reality – Cloud computing technologies have reached a tipping point for adoption. Concerns over security and availability - common with 'public' cloud services - do not apply to the 'private' cloud models developed by experienced enterprise suppliers. Such infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings can effectively give businesses computing power 'on tap', and promise rapid ROI from proven, repeatable approaches.

Setting the Pace in the Mobile Banking Race – With the mobile web poised to become the channel for ecommerce, mainstream retail banks must now act now to ensure they don't get left behind. With the transition to m-banking, they won't just be competing with each other: high-tech start-ups and mobile network providers have already proved they can disintermediate banks in markets such as South Africa and Japan.

Intelligent Investment Cycles - An end to boom or bust – Retailers have a reputation of running their IT systems into the ground – no matter the cost in terms of reliability, usability and lost competitive edge. But their businesses will be much better served by the adoption a rolling strategy of renewal, based on the shelf life of systems and timed around business obsolescence rather than technical obsolescence. 

The mergers & acquisitions challenge – breaking up is not so hard to do – With economic upheaval triggering a flood of acquisitions, divestments and business break-ups, organisations are counting on their IT leaders and partners to ensure that underlying systems and services can be separated, migrated and re-combined – with minimal upheaval and to fixed deadlines. The application of lean IT principles and sound project governance can prove critical in the pursuit of such successful outcomes.

Re-inventing the desktop... in the data centre – Desktop virtualisation is the next wave of IT optimisation. While the centralised delivery of desktop services promises major gains, there are still plenty of pitfalls.