|~||~||~|Talk to 10 different CIOs and you will get 10 different issues that top their worry lists today – over and above the regional strife that threatens to upset whatever illusion of stability we might have thought we were living in.
The need to be an agile company is certainly one of the main concerns of CIOs and one that keeps many of you awake at night. Being an agile organisation and talking about becoming agile are two quite distinct things, especially in the very diversified businesses that typically make up corporate groups in the Middle East. There is a lot of talk going on, but very little action relatively speaking. It is not easy to stay as agile as possible to ensure you can quickly get into new markets while at the same time keep on top of existing markets.
It is the same picture with compliancy and good governance. Here, it is not a case of: ‘Am I doing enough, right, wrong, meeting obligations, etc?’ No, it’s more like: ‘Should I be doing it all?’ The vendors will always tell you everyone is becoming compliant because they have to work in global economies. But the fact is, the move to compliancy and governance is slow in the region. It might pick up now that the DIFX in Dubai says it will not allow the big, family-owned, trading groups to list on the exchange until such time as they practice good governance and comply with industry and requirements and guidelines.
Skills levels in the Middle East are also something that can keep you tossing and turning at night. Cisco’s recent report on the growing gap between skills supply and demand highlights a developing crisis. Currently averaging around 27% in the region, a joint Cisco and IDC research report indicates that the gap could widen to nearly 40% in some countries by 2009. Such a skills gap could stifle the region’s growth as it would become impossible to develop and support key IT projects. . So, there’s plenty to worry about there.
Security is also right up there with everything else to worry about, and possibly more so now, from a disaster recovery basis in the light of escalating conflicts in the region. Any CIO who is not too worried about business continuity should have a long hard talk with him or her self. Rest assured they won’t be alone. Survey after survey shows that all but a handful of companies – including a lot who should know better – implement proper disaster recovery and business continuity planning and deployment. In fact, a quick poll carried out on the ACN web site recently showed that nearly 56% of respondents never tested their business continuity plans; a further 33% only backed up once or twice a year; but only 11% did test runs four or more times a year.
Of course, in the case of doing dry test runs, cost is always more than a bit of a worry as it is increasingly with all aspects of IT in the region currently. CIOs, who traditionally have been wallowing in a money-no-object IT environment, are now expected to do so much more with so much less. As one vendor said recently, for every dollar you spend on hardware, you’re going to have to spend at least US$5 over a three-year period just to run and support it. Acquisition and lifecycle costs used to be on par, but what’s really worrying is that despite everything that vendors try to do to contain operating costs, they just keep going up – skills, real estate and power to name just three factors.
So with all these things to worry about, is there anything else that could possibly keep you awake at night? Well, yes. People are beginning to ask: are you really worth it?
This is something really different for you to start worrying about. A recent survey on business value and ROI carried out by CIO Insight asked CIOs if they were measuring value at all. The answer, by and large, was not enough. Of the top corporates surveyed only 60% measure the business value of IT – surprisingly low given that every man and his dog is touting IT a business enabler.
Now to me, that’s worrying. If we can’t prove the worth of the technology and the solutions that are our responsibility, then people – mainly the CEOs and CFOs – are going to start questioning it a bit deeper in future and all your other worries can fall to the wayside.
However, if you think there are more or bigger things to worry about, ones that keep you awake at night, then why not let us know? Drop me a line at [email protected].
||**||
Follow us on
