In this week's edition of news for CIOs and IT pros, we glimpse into the future, looking at the evolving CIO profile and the growing use of hybrid cloud.
The future of digital CIOs
The 36th annual IT Trends Study from the Society of Information Management (SIM) provided a snapshot of today's CIO based on the responses of 486 executives who currently hold the title. In total, 1,218 IT professionals participated in the study, and the survey results provided insight into top IT management concerns and the biggest IT investments. Notably, the lead researcher for the study, Leon Kappelman, predicted that the profile of the CIO – today, primarily males in their 50s in their jobs for at least five years – will shift as new leadership takes the helm from a generation that grew up with technology. He says, “We could lose a third to half of the current batch of CIOs within the next five to ten years.”
This study underscores the importance of IT leaders to embrace digital technology in their roles. One way to do this is to follow the example set by tech giants like Google, Apple and Facebook, all digital-first businesses that make pervasive use of APIs. In a Forbes debrief of the “I Love APIs” conference hosted by Apigee, Dan Woods recaps the keynote from Apigee CEO Chet Kapoor. Kapoor says that publishing APIs helps organizations empower creativity and foster communities of innovation and learning. He provides three Cs of digital transformation: culture, community, and code – as well as other helpful tips for IT leaders.
Growth of hybrid cloud
In a WSJ special report this week, Steve Rosenbush said, “demand for the so-called hybrid cloud is growing at a compound rate of 27 percent, far outstripping growth of the overall IT market, according to researcher MarketsandMarkets.” Rosenbush spoke with several CIOs and IT leaders to confirm this trend.
For an extensive background on the cloud – public, private, and hybrid – an article in Ars Technica this week does a great job outlining how cloud technology has evolved and where it is going. Author Rupert Goodwins says, “the direction of computing is going in just one way—towards the cloud. As companies and individuals learn what it can do, many new ways of working are opening up.”
Bringing the public half and the private half of the hybrid cloud together, however, can be challenging. Manek Dubash points to complexity around integrating applications in his column for ZDNet, Reimagining the Enterprise. He emphasizes that overcoming those barriers will be key to the future health of the enterprise. Additionally, InformationWeek provides seven key benefits that a hybrid cloud model holds over a model that uses either public or private cloud architectures alone.
More news for CIOs
Gartner 2016 CIO Agenda Survey: Build the Digital Platform [Forbes]
CIO interview: Frans Westerlund, Fiskars [ComputerWeekly]
CIOs reporting directly to CFOs can create massive cybersecurity headaches [Business Insider]
