Digital Lifescapes

With large enterprise business technology decision-making and budget spending now residing with Line of Business (LoB) leaders, rather than traditional IT leadership, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) role must demonstrate strategic skills. By 2028, 80 percent of CIOs will leverage significant organizational changes to harness AI, automation, and analytics, driving agile, insight-driven digital businesses. CIOs must become key players in shaping the future of their companies, guiding them through new trends while putting data at the heart of their business strategies, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). CIO Business Skills Market Development IDC research identified the top 3 concerns among C-suite executives were in digital skills, the lack of LoB trust in IT, and the lack of digital business know-how of C-suite executives. Given this backdrop, the major challenge for CIOs is transitioning from being a technical manager to a strategic archite...

Forward-thinking CEOs create a digital business transformation agenda. They're eager to develop and deploy new digital business models. However, their IT team often lacks the skills and experience to reach key business outcome objectives. There's growing demand for skilled digital talent in 2023, and beyond. As a result, 81 percent of large enterprise (LE) CIOs plan to increase their IT headcount in 2023, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Meanwhile, only 14 percent expect their IT staff to decrease and 5 percent expect their headcount to remain the same. Enterprise IT Talent Market Development "Attracting and retaining technology talent remain critical areas of concern for CIOs," said Jose Ramirez, senior principal analyst at  Gartner . Even with advances in artificial intelligence (AI), Gartner predicts that the global job impact will be neutral in the next several years due to enterprise adoption lags, implementation times and learning curve...

Historically, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) role was considered the leader of enterprise Digital Transformation initiatives. The belief was based on the notion that the primary skill set required was Technology expertise. However, IDC now predicts that the focus has shifted to Business expertise, talent development, and digital growth strategy. This revelation is just one of IDC's predictions for 2023, and beyond. Digital Transformation Market Development CIOs who demonstrate a mix of strategic purpose and people skills can now co-lead with their business counterparts -- to demonstrate and align new technologies for sustainable business outcomes. "In this new world, the role of the CIO has evolved to be one that is a digital business enabler using technology to compete," said Linus Lai, chief analyst at IDC A/NZ. IDC's top CIO Agenda predictions are as follows: Chief Business Technology Officer: By 2026, 60 percent of CIOs will find their roles being challenged...

More organizations across the globe are investing in business technology that streamlines enterprise workflow. The quest for business process automation is gaining new momentum, due in part to the increased demand for digital transformation. Global robotic process automation (RPA) software end-user spending is projected to reach $2.9 billion in 2022 -- that's an increase of 19.5 percent from 2021, according to the latest market study by Gartner. "By achieving a growth rate of 31 percent in 2021, the RPA market grew well above the average worldwide software market growth rate of 16 percent,” said Cathy Tornbohm, VP analyst at Gartner .  Robotic Process Automation Market Development Organizations are leveraging RPA to accelerate business process automation initiatives and digital transformation plans, with the anticipated intent to improve their operational efficiency. Although growing at a slower pace than in previous years, the worldwide RPA software market is projected to con...

The forward-thinking CIOs and CTOs have already acknowledged that Line of Business (LoB) leaders will continue to be the primary decision-makers of new or emerging business technology selection and adoption. That said, those who refuse to let go of the obsolete notion that 'Shadow IT' is a threat to their organization are likely to fail. There is no place for myopic thinking in a progressive enterprise's digital transformation agenda. Digital Talent Leadership Market Development For the past four years, the strongest demand for digital talent with artificial intelligence (AI) skills has not come from the traditional information technology (IT) department, but rather, from other business units in the organization, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Gartner data shows that although the IT department’s need for AI talent has tripled between 2015 and 2019, the number of AI jobs posted by IT is still less than half of that stemming from other busi...

Talent development was a reoccurring topic at the WEF 2020 event in Davos this week. In related news, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) full-time employment (FTE) will reach 55.3 million worldwide in 2020 -- that's an increase of 3.9 percent over 2019, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Moreover, the global ICT FTE workforce will maintain this pace of growth over the 2019-2023 forecast period, reaching more than 62 million people in 2023, with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.8 percent. ICT Talent and Emerging Staffing Trends IDC believes a person can, as part of an occupation, perform several roles and split their time across those roles. The combination of roles for an occupation may vary over time between industries and organizations, even though the activities performed by a role remain relatively stable. Within ICT job roles, activities are performed within projects, programs, and lines of busi...

Across the globe, CEOs and line of business leaders are seeking new ways to adopt business technology that enables digital innovation. However, American organizations are forecast to invest 1.75 times more than European organizations on information technologies (IT) from 2018 through 2022. According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), China is also set to outpace Europe in key areas of business technology investment. While European entities will invest more in IT than their Chinese counterparts through 2022, the latter will invest 47 percent more into innovation accelerators. Digital Business Market Development "That Europe trails the U.S. in its use of digital technology is often accepted as a given. What's worrisome is the size and potential widening of the gap between the two," says Mark Yates, research manager at IDC . "And, of course, there are companies out there that are able to do more with less or that have n...

In North America, more CEOs encourage their whole organization to embrace applying business technology for commercial advancement and digital growth. Traditional IT vendors are responding by exploring relationships with their customer's CIO, CTO and/or Chief Digital Officer (CDO). Worldwide corporate IT spending funded by Line of Business (LoB) units will reach $609 billion in 2017 -- that's an increase of 5.9 percent over 2016, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). They also forecast that LoB spending will achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.9 percent over the 2015-2020 forecast period. In comparison, technology spending by IT buyers is forecast to have a five-year CAGR of 2.3 percent. By 2020, IDC expects LoB led technology spending to be nearly equal to that of the IT organization. Moreover, the trend is gaining momentum across the globe. Why LoB Leadership of IT is Accelerating "The Innovation Accelerators h...

A new type of commercial infrastructure needs to be built that reshapes business, according to the latest market study by Gartner. Moreover, they believe that enterprise CIOs are the builders of this infrastructure, which Gartner calls the "civilization infrastructure" for the next decade. Clearly, many CIOs now feel the need to redefine their role, as IT strategy shifts to other executives. Meanwhile, Gartner has forecast that worldwide IT spending will total $3.4 trillion by the end of 2016 -- that's a 0.3 percent decline from 2015. In 2017, however, global IT spending is projected to grow 2.9 percent and reach $3.5 trillion. Growth will be driven by the software and IT services segments. Worldwide spending on software is projected to grow 7.2 percent, and IT services 4.8 percent. Garner analysts believe that software and IT services will be key to the development of the civilization infrastructure. That said, in many organizations today, Line of Business (LoB) le...

Organizations with smaller IT teams, and many others, have already adopted hyper-converged technologies. According to the latest market study by 451 Research, hyperconverged infrastructure is used at 40 percent of companies, with more deployments expected during the next two years. Nearly one quarter of survey respondents indicated that they have these systems either in a current pilot, or included in future plans. The research uncovered that hyperconverged systems are evolving from prior network edge applications into a primary component of Hybrid IT infrastructure. The latest quarterly survey results indicate that 74.4 percent of the respondent organizations currently using hyperconverged have deployed the solutions in their central data centers, signaling a key transition. Hyperconverged Systems Market Development "Loyalties to traditional, standalone x86 servers are diminishing in today's IT ecosystems as managers adopt innovative technologies that eliminate multip...

As more enterprises embrace the Internet of Things (IoT), we're seeing an increase in demand for analytics apps that can extract insight and meaning from sources of big data. Vendors are now busy identifying opportunities for software and professional services to assist buyers with their transformation projects. According to the latest market study by Technology Business Research (TBR), 57 percent of analytics software customers in IT departments believe analytics adoption 'significantly' or 'very significantly' changed their internal operations and their relationships with lines of business (LOB) leaders. Additionally, 28 percent of surveyed IT buyers reported a moderately significant impact. Big Data Analytics Software Market Development "IT and LOB decision makers play important roles in analytics purchasing and implementation," said Andrew Smith, software analyst at TBR . However, the unique demands of IoT require organizational and operation...