While looking into various areas inside the organization is important, it’s equally important to look around while preparing for the year 2016. As a CIO you would have planned your organization’s IT landscape considering your business needs, IT budget and IT trends and must be ready to go ahead full steam. One of the key preparations for a successful IT journey is to look around, which gives useful insights on some of the key areas. Here are some of the factors which would certainly help CIOs in their journey:

1. Open Source impact 

While you are preparing for your technology landscape, it is worth noting that today Open Source software does not mean just for edge of the network applications or for non serious applications. While many large enterprises are adopting of Open Source software, some of the recent events show how all technology vendors are readying themselves to co-exist (instead of competing just for the sake of it) with Open Source software. Microsoft and Red Hat alliance is the most recent example. Microsoft under Steve Balmer had described Open Source as cancer and the now under Stay Nadella is working with Red Hat to offer hybrid solutions to the enterprises.
Even in the field as diverse as Automobile, there is a huge impact of Open Source not just the software but Open Source concept – of sharing the design so that world can become a better place. In an industry which thrives on patents and tightly guarded designs, Tesla Motors stunned the world with a breakthrough design technology patent which is made open for everyone.
While the first news would make you consider Open Source software in your IT landscape more seriously, if you have not done so, the second news would make you think how you can apply Open Source lessons into your organizations. More about that later.

2. Data-Driven decision making

Another area that is shaping the industry is, the increasing reliance on varied set of data, which at times is seemingly unrelated data while making key business decisions. Gone are the days when many times decision were based on wise old men and their anecdotal data points. Even though datawarehouses and dashboards have been used for some time to look into historical data, things have changed by leaps and bounds related to sources of data, storage and analytical capability. An entire new industry of Big Data has emerged and become an important tool in business strategy. It would be an important area for the CIOs to embrace if they have not yet planned to do so.

3. Agile IT

The IT projects are less lengthy as compared to the ones in past. wherein the project execution from initiation to go-live, period used to be minimum 2 to 3 years. This required the CIOs and their teams to have single minded focus on projects such as ERP implementation preceded by management consultant’s survey and blueprint or core banking application implementation etc. Today no CIO or for that matter no organization can afford to have a single project running into 2 to 3 years. Organizations are now to follow Agile Methodology, which enables embracing new projects faster, evaluating and implementing new technologies in a controlled environment, making a decision -to -go or not-to-go and giving your organization an ability to stay ahead of the competition.
For example, CIOs have to be ready with their cloud strategy and the set of technologies that would enable them to harness Big Data and Analytics. In addition to this, they also have to evaluate and decide if Containers are going to be part of their landscape and be ready with relatively newer Software Defined Data Center and so on and so forth. There is a fast paced development happening on every front and CIOs have to make decisions all the time.
By carefully balancing these factors along with a few others such as need for multi-skilled manpower in your team, changing landscape of suppliers, security needs and fast diminishing desktop web and rise of mobile web, you can make the most of your IT strategy. We would look into these areas in coming days.
Once again wish you a very successful 2016!