CIO Agenda in 2009

• Compliance & Risk management: Compliance and regulatory oversight will increase in 2009 and Risk-driven regulatory initiatives, like Basel II and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, will provide both challenges as well as opportunities to institutions. This also includes everything from intrusion detection to authentication; from patch management to analytics used for security. Institutions with larger footprints are forced to formulate a more integrated response and to cater to different operational risk and compliance requirement "flavors". In a world where cost reduction will top the agenda, and IT teams will be smaller than in the past, the CIOs have to deliver complex integration projects as well as we see merger integration activities becoming commonplace; that will also be a key area of risk management. Companies will have to organize compliance efforts into a cohesive corporate-wide strategy ensuring its treated as a program, not as a project. Also, the organizations need to ensure their partners, customers and suppliers, which form an extended network, are complying with relevant standards and regulations. Surprisingly, a key challenge is one of perception, not technology. “Companies must get over the idea that security and compliance systems are simply insurance against problems, and that they don’t improve the business in any measurable way,” says Anthony Noble, vice president of IT Audit, at Viacom.
• Master Data management technology: Gartner analysts say that despite the current economic crisis, ongoing requirements for businesses to increase effectiveness, reduce costs and meet compliance requirements are driving the adoption of Master Data Management technologies. “MDM technology can help organizations achieve and maintain a single view of master data across an entire enterprise, enabling business and IT initiatives to perform in better unison, allowing for opportunities to increase revenue, reduce costs, achieve effective compliance, reduce risk and improve business agility,” said Chad Eschinger, research director at Gartner. Unfortunately, most companies don't have a precise view about their customers, products, suppliers, inventory or even employees. Whenever companies add new enterprise applications to "manage" data, they unwittingly contribute to an overall confusion about a corporation's overall view of the enterprise. As a result, the concept of master data management (MDM)—creating a single, unified view of an organization—is growing in importance. Organizations will more and more understand that improving their data—and building the foundation for MDM—requires them to address internal disagreements and broken processes. With the impact of cloud computing, a shift in the balance of power for BI, additional focus and urgency on delivering simple solutions and a few new challenges arising around data interpretation, 2009 is going to be a very interesting year for Business intelligence & Master Data management technologies.
• Doing more with less: These challenging times need IT leadership in organizations to focus on making technology work harder and smarter to get business goals’ achievement. Year 2009 is all about productivity. Some of the key areas of accomplishing the agenda will be virtualization, leveraging Internet Protocol technologies, Software as Service ( Saas) and alignment of IT with business, growth and innovation. Additionally, companies can choose which functions to keep in-house and which to hand off to a third party. Flexibility, the need for specific skill-sets and globalization will make selective out-tasking the preferred model. With managed services, companies can focus on what they do best and leave some of the highly specialized work such as IT, security, networks and call centers, to experts. This also calls for measuring the value of IT, i.e. ensuring that IT dollars are spent wisely using comprehensive metrics to measure ROI for IT initiatives.
• Introduction of lean-manufacturing principles to data center operations: Data centers have grown tremendously over the past 10 to 15 years as IT spending has increased and cost-conscious CIOs have consolidated smaller centers into fewer and larger ones. According to Mckinsey Quarterly survey, 2009 will witness a drive towards application of lean principles to help reduce waste and improve labor productivity by as much as 40 percent in some processes.
• Green IT: According to Gartner: “Shifting to more efficient products and approaches can allow for more equipment to fit within an energy footprint, or to fit into a previously filled center. Regulations are multiplying and have the potential to seriously constrain companies in building data centers, as the effect of power grids, carbon emissions from increased use and other environmental impacts are under scrutiny. Organizations should consider regulations and have alternative plans for data center and capacity growth.” Pressure on power and cooling requirements at the network layer will drive IT managers to consider the inherent benefits of the physical layer. Many technologies can fit this bill, including virtualization, cloud computing, increased use of Web conferencing and collaborative tools, and telecommuting. In 2009, companies will bent towards adopting “green” technologies that also help them to cut costs in a lean economy.
• Web 2.0: The current and emerging array of Web 2.0 applications is completely revolutionizing the enterprise. Web 2.0 tools and solutions will be further utilized in diverse ways to build next-generation applications to improve customer satisfaction, drive business agility and deliver business value. The growing use of interactive maps, blogs, wikis, mashups, social bookmarking, enhanced search engines, RSS feeds and social networking is peaking organizations’ interests to making strategic tasks such as managing data, tasks and business processes comprehensive. Organizations want their employees to get their jobs done no matter where they are located. For that reason, companies will continue to recognize the benefits of enabling mobile teleworkers or at-home teleworkers to remain securely connected to corporate resources. However, organizations will need to put organizational change management plans in place to evangelize and rollout Web 2.0 all across internally.

Building a global IT Organization

• Communication is the key- Between:
• Client & Service provider management
• Client & Service provider personnel
• Properly structured contract/outsourcing agreement - To ensure both the parties are at the common platform of understanding and the scope of confusions regarding scope and efficiency of work is minimized.
• Strategic Vision- The offshore partner should relate to the organization's long-term goals, thus going beyond understanding the transactional picture. This would help the offshore company define, build and manage the service best suited to the client's objectives.

Outsourcing trends in 2009

• Focus on core business & Improvement in services- With trust on operational efficiency in an offshore engagement model building up gradually in the industry, 2009 will witness a greater speed with which core business areas' operational processes would be outsourced. This would be almost similar in nature for Life Sciences, Banking & Financial industry and others. Companies would strive to derive improvements in services through outsourcing. Best practices and use of methodologies such as six sigma would be almost taken as granted while outsourcing so as to ensure the present processes are improved upon.
• Knowledge process outsourcing- KPO is one step ahead of Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO). KPO firms provide domain-based processes and business expertise, rather than just process expertise. Cost savings, operational efficiencies, access to a highly talented workforce and improved quality are all underlying expectations in offshoring high-end processes to India. According to trusted resources, India has a large pool of knowledge workers in various sectors ranging from Pharmacy, Medicine, Law, Biotechnology, Education & Training, Engineering, Analytics, Design & Animation, Research & Development, Paralegal Content and even Intelligence services. This talent will soon be discovered and tapped by leading businesses across the globe resulting in the outsourcing of high-end processes to low-wage destinations.