The CIO Profession – Aftermath of the Crisis

Alvin Bol, Summit Producer of the upcoming marcus evans Australian CIO Summit 2010, shares his thoughts on what CIOs are facing in today’s market environment.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The last two years have seen difficult times for businesses with the dynamic and volatile nature of the market environment. With Information Technology (IT) being a strategic backbone of any organisation, it is inevitable that tremendous pressure is put on the heads of technology to ensure that businesses stay on an upward trend of sustained growth and profitability. However, 2010 is seen as a positive year for Australia and New Zealand with IT spend projected by Gartner to grow by 3.3 per cent.

Gartner also stated that Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in Australia and New Zealand were considerably more optimistic about economic recovery than others around the world, with 54 per cent saying that they expected the economy to recover and grow compared to 2009 levels but not reach 2008 levels of growth, compared with 32 per cent globally. Only 28 per cent of local CIOs expected continued economic challenges similar to 2009 in 2010, compared to 41 per cent of CIOs globally.

Virtualisation & Business Intelligence

Virtualisation is set to expand and mature in 2010, as evidenced by a growing number of companies implementing it and sharing their success stories. It offers a wealth and variety of solutions never seen before, as evidenced by the increasing number of ASX100 and Australian based multinational companies that are adopting it. Virtualisation services can be exploited in a variety of ways to develop an application or a solution, thereby bolstering its presence and usability as a cost saving and fundamental business building tool.

Lessons learned from the recent crisis is clear, in that CIOs need to harness critical information to determine a desirable outcome in a competitive business environment. This is where Business Intelligence (BI) comes into play. It is crucial in maximising business process and decision effectiveness by examining alternative outcomes and scenarios, before, during and after complex IT projects. BI allows the CIO to empower even more decision flexibility at the time and place of every business process action. Today’s advanced BI programmes support analytics and data modelling that looks into the future, predicting what can or will happen.

Streamlining & Business Agility

Utilising relatively new technologies such as virtualisation and cloud computing offers multiple benefits. The tangible manifestation of this is that server form factors will progress from towers and racks to integrated appliance-like systems. Integrated solutions that combine multiple layers of IT infrastructure, including servers, storage, networking, and software, will become increasingly widespread. Such a set up is beneficial to the Australian market in particular, whose concerns include minimal negative environmental impact, i.e. less heat generated and less power consumed to run complex IT architecture.

Additional benefits of running a streamlined IT infrastructure include lower running costs, greater flexibility to change with the requirements of the business, and standardisation, wherein different software are more seamlessly integrated to work efficiently.

Contact:
Sarin Kouyoumdjian-Gurunlian
Press Manager
marcus evans, Summits Division
Tel: + 357 22 849 313
Email: press@marcusevanscy.com

About the Australian CIO Summit 2010

This unique forum will take place at the RACV Royal Pines Resort, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia,
2 – 4 August 2010. Offering much more than any conference, seminar or trade show, this exclusive meeting will bring together esteemed industry thought leaders and solution providers to a highly focused and interactive networking event. The summit includes presentations on employing Business Intelligence, mastering risk management and virtualisation.

For more information please send an email to info@marcusevanscy.com or visit the event website at www.australianciosummit.com

Please note that the summit is a closed business event and the number of participants strictly limited.

About marcus evans Summits

marcus evans Summits are high level business forums for the world’s leading decision-makers to meet, learn and discuss strategies and solutions. Held at exclusive locations around the world, these events provide attendees with a unique opportunity to individually tailor their schedules of keynote presentations, think tanks, seminars and one-to-one business meetings. For more information, please visit www.marcusevans.com

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