IT Infrastructure Directions in 2015

Alex Mags

A recent Microsoft TechNet Flash email links to a Forrester report about what CIOs should be doing in 2015. Part of it mentions hybrid cloud architectures (read Azure) Forrester Research Predictions 2015: CIOs Accelerate the Business Technology Agenda

“In 2015, digital disruption will change the nature of competition, forcing firms to obsess about creating superior digital experiences across the entire customer life cycle. Many CIOs have the technical expertise and cross-functional business purview to help drive this level of innovation, but they are too often still seen as nothing more than the leader of a cost centre. In 2015, CIOs will finally connect their team’s technical and business know-how to the CEO’s focus on company growth and customer obsession by accelerating their firm’s business technology (BT) agenda and establishing themselves as a digital business leader.”

I saw this at a recent conference where it was highlighted that in 2014, Business Priorities and IT Department Priorities were not well aligned: See Business aims v tech aims We’re already seeing the IT department’s obsession with Infrastructure maintenance and stability being refocused towards Business objectives instead. Stop worrying about uptime and put changes in more quickly!  The DevOps movement, where IT departments help/empower developers to accelerate the software test and release process, is an example of IT Departments focusing on Business priorities. In summary, this Forrester report suggests that in 2015:

  • IT departments will focus on “Business Technology”
  • Be more customer focused
  • Boost software engineering skills. Agile development. Continuous delivery
  • Embrace hybrid cloud architectures to drive simplicity and time-to-benefit
  • Standardisation and simplification of systems
  • Moving non-differentiating processes to commercial off-the-shelf solutions
  • Cut through organizational silos with service orchestration
  • Unlock data-driven business opportunities
  • Mix existing internal data that they already control with the vast and growing array of external, third-party data from sensors, social media, open or public data
  • Run point on rising data security and privacy issues. Ensure that it is a top enterprise business issue
  • Stretch their data strategy and orchestration skills. Strategic focus on data opportunities will also shift the skill requirements for the CIO’s organization
  • CIO will support chief marketing officers gain customer insights with the right processes and technology systems

I’m looking forward to what 2015 will throw at IT Infrastructure. The report here  

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