From my conversations with customers it is evident that CIO’s are continuing to strive to be at the heart of value creation. Generally speaking the top three goals for CIO’s in 2013 are: -

1. Protecting corporate data
2. Improving business productivity  – and giving business stakeholders transparency as to the cost of the IT services they are consuming
3. Lowering the cost to serve of IT services – and moving spend from CAPEX to OPEX

With Cloud Computing firmly ticking numbers two and three on the CIO “to do” list, is it just fear of failure around the first point that is preventing much wider cloud adoption than is currently occurring? Inevitably, as with all things “IT”, it isn’t quite that straight forward. Clearly, having confidence as to the protection afforded a corporations most precious asset (its data) is a potential barrier Continue Reading

Russell Poole runs EMC’s Service provider business in the UK & Ireland. In this clip Russell talks about why they set up the business and what EMC and its partners provide to the market. Come and see Russell’s session at EMC Forum in London on September the 11′th! Register here

Probably obvious I know but one of the most important aspects of the Olympics has been money. Or more specifically, the ability of consumers, retailers, banks, restaurants, hotels and transport companies to handle transactions without interruption.  Although there have been some signs that systems have been put under strain, key systems have proved to be robust.

London banks had already tested their systems against cyber attack towards the end of last year and the aim was to see how quickly the financial sector could restore services to ‘business as usual’ after major disruption.

The ‘proof of the pudding’ as they say, will be in the delivery of a successful ‘economic games’ and we will be able to claim that all the planning and investment Continue Reading

In my last article I suggested that regulation of the financial sector should be looking beyond the balance sheets of organisations and ensuring that their IT is being run in line with good practice and that undue risk isn’t being taken. Clearly I am not the only one with this train of thought. Just days after that post we have Continue Reading

There is  a lot of truth in the adage of what I was taught in the RAF and what has stayed with me in the form of the ‘5 Ps’ – previous planning prevents poor performance, and the work over the past 7 years that has gone into delivering and securing the Digital Olympics is a great example.

The core digital infrastructure, much of which was locked down months ago, has been relentlessly tested to ensure it can cope with the huge demand placed on it during the 17 days of the Summer Olympics and 12 days of the Paralympics.  Organisers of the London 2012 games are confident that the investment in testing the vast array of IT infrastructure and equipment deployed across London and the Olympic venues, and recovery processes in the case of a major cyber attack, will pay dividends.

With all this data flashing around the networks it is hard to visualise Continue Reading

The traditional Western view of China as the ‘workshop of the world’ is rapidly melting into the mist. The consumer classes are buying more and – supported by their government – making less. Labour costs are rising at 20% a year:

“In this decade, China will be driven by consumers, not manufacturers”

– Anna Stupnytska, executive director of Goldman Sachs’ Investment Management division.

But this is not a one-way street, and China is not a blank cheque – we should see this more as the start of new ways of innovating, bringing products to market and the creation of new business relationships. At the recent ‘Retail Futures 2012’ event at the Future Laboratory, the developing economic, consumption and production picture was painted as much more nuanced, complex and multi-tonal than a set of crass ‘x’ and ‘y’ axes.

The buzzwords INDOVATION (pertaining to India) and SYNDOVATION (pertaining to China) refer to innovation and products Continue Reading

…Continued from Part 1 in the previous edition of Thoughtfeast’s ‘The Omnichannel Supply Chain’…

We now understand that there is no magic bullet in the shape of overseas production – where labour costs are no longer crushingly competitive, lead times are far too long and unpredictable; consumer inquisitiveness (“Where did this come from? Who made it? What’s the impact of this being made?”) is becoming more confident, vocal and insistent.  Consumers want to be involved in the conversation around the products that they spend their money on: when their purchasing decisions are no longer carefree and spontaneous but more thoughtful and drawn-out, consumers want a greater stake in the bargain.

But one of the biggest Continue Reading

Last week I found myself doing some analysis around how I spend my time and established that I spend over 70% of my time on customer related topics – either direct customer meetings or preparing for them or doing follow ups based on the conversations. So, that was the good news, but the data also showed that I am not a prolific blogger – although I didn’t need to look at data to know that: My absence from the Thought Feast site since January says it all! So I apologise for that. I’d make a New Year’s Continue Reading

The top suppliers of IT to government have changed little over the last decade. Sure, HP toppled BT when it bought EDS, and CSC moved pretty dramatically up the list when it won significant NHS business and further up when it took over Accenture’s contracts.

The names in the Top 20 will be familiar to anyone in the IT industry – they have been referred to as an oligopoly and even a cartel (though apparently not in the legal sense of the word). Together, the top 5 (HP, BT, Fujtsu, Cap and IBM) have something like 60% of the total that government spends on IT. EMC isn’t to be found on the top 20 list and probably not on the top 50 list – but other product companies are, including Dell, Cisco, Microsoft, and Oracle as well as emerging solution organisations such as Computacenter and SCC who are looking to expand beyond their legacy offer.

But government is changing its buying approach. Its recent actions make it plain it is looking for a change Continue Reading

More and more content is moving onto the web.  Everyday millions of people put their trust in Facebook, Google and others to store treasured family memoires and photographs.  We know this trend is exploding exponentially.

But what about organizations?  Will engineering, pharmaceutical and financial services companies feel confident enough to put their trust in some centrally managed service?  Will they embrace OnDemand computing services to store and process business critical content and data?  This is now serious stuff, not holiday snaps.

The short answer is yes.  Many are already doing it.  Oil & Gas companies needing to share information on a new joint venture, and needing a place to collaborate with partners, suppliers and Governments, Continue Reading