In this week's edition of news for CIOs and IT pros, we touch on the news that is shaping the future of IT.
Reactions and questions to IT's top news
The top news in the enterprise tech world this week was undoubtedly the Dell-EMC merger. Monday's announcement spurred dozens of reaction commentary and opinions. Michael J. de la Merced at the New York Times, calling the deal an “ambitious bet,” said that, “Dell, in buying EMC, would acquire a huge amount of debt. But that money would be borrowed before an expected rise in interest rates. And it would mean making Dell even bigger at a time when companies of all stripes believe smaller is better.”
Others asked questions, and James Niccolai zeroed in on four of them in an article for CIO. Notably, he wondered where the deal would put Dell in terms of the fast growing cloud market. He said, “it's not something Dell has focused on, and buying EMC won't change that. How much that matters is an open question.”
Disrupting the future of IT
Other articles this week focused on the future of technology. Stuart Kippelman, an Enterpriser and the CIO of Covanta, looked no further than his 12-year-old daughter Syd to decode how the next generation of customers and the up-and-coming workforce are shaping the expectations of IT capabilities. In an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, he asks, “Do any of us think Syd’s generation will have the patience to deal with the IT issues we put up with today, such as multiple password logins, security patches, four plus-year-old computers because the initial investment has to depreciate, difficult-to-access corporate data, platforms that are not mobile, and of course email vs. social networking? To them, user experience will be as significant to them as their compensation in terms of job satisfaction.”
Mobile will be a big part of that user experience. According to IDC’s report “Empowering the Workforce for Business Transformation,” companies worldwide are forecast to spend $1.2 trillion on mobile tech in 2019. In an article for Biz Tech Magazine, Ricky Ribeiro says, “Companies should think holistically and strategically about the mobile puzzle within their organizations, because the demand and appetite for better, more integrated mobile technology is clearly on the rise.”
Companies across sectors, both B2B and B2C, are recognizing this shift and the need for strategic IT leadership on the mobile front. Just this week, Chipotle Mexican Grill announced that it hired its first CIO, former Starbucks CIO Curt Garner, in conjunction with a push to expand and enhance the brand's mobile customer experience, USA Today reports.
As organizations look to these and other opportunities for future competitive differentiation, new research shows that the successful “digital disruptors” will have “two times higher revenue growth and two and a half times higher profit growth than 'mainstream' organizations.” Joe McKendrick at Forbes reports on the highlights of a study of 1,442 enterprises released by CA Technologies, including the 10 things the digital leaders do that are helping to set them apart.
More news for CIOs
How the CIOs of 4 Fortune 500 companies got their jobs [CIO Magazine]
NASCIO Day Two: Tech-Powered Productivity [Government Technology]
10 new words you need to know in Silicon Valley [CIO Magazine]
