More IT competence in management

In the foreword to the renowned IT trends study by Capgemini write Uwe Dumslaff, Chief Technology Officer Germany, and Peter Lempp, COO Application Services Germany:

"The management has caught up in terms of IT expertise and refers the CIO almost back to its traditional role as a service provider."

The relativization is noteworthy.

So there is still hope for a brilliant CIO-career, but it won't be easy.

One key to success is certainly the precise analysis of the Capgemini-study, which is available as a free download via the link at the end of the article.

Also Gartner sees potential for development if the CIO to CDO, Chief Digital Officer. Gartner postulates the digital tsunami due to the exponentially growing business opportunities created by digitalization.

Three terms characterize current events:

• Big Data
• Realtime Enterprise
• Internet of Things.

For a SAP-These concepts are not new to existing customers, but the SAP–Community still inexperienced in the practical application of these Technologies.

Big Data and Realtime Enterprise will be Walldorf subsumed under the term in-memory data management (computing), the real form of which is the Hana-Database/Platform is.

The Internet of Services and Things was already preached by the visionary SAP-Ex-CEO Henning Kagermann. Many years ago Kagermann heard, but not understood.

Today, everyone in the SAP–Communitythat he was and is right.

Gartner predicts that in a few years, every consumer good that costs more than 100 US dollars will have a sensor in it.

This sensor does not necessarily have to be armed, but it can become a thing on the Internet (with its own IP address) at any time: Temperature, motion, light, odor sensors, etc.

Uwe Dumslaff and Peter Lempp see the CIO's about-turn, who has almost taken a seat at the top management table, only to a limited extent:

"For years, CIOs have hoped to one day become a business partner to management. [...] Management refers the CIO has now almost returned to his traditional role. [...] But only almost. Because although IT efficiency is still at the top of CIOs' list of requirements this year, they are also expected to focus heavily on improving business processes. At the same time, there is increasing pressure from specialist departments to deliver faster and react flexibly. However, only a few companies are agile in this sense, as the newly launched Capgemini-index shows"

CIO-Opportunities and obligations

Capgemini has been observing the role of the CIO for several years now, and the question has been raised time and again: Will the CIOto leave his role as a service provider behind and take a seat at the management table?

CapgeminiIn an interview with E-3 editor-in-chief Peter Färbinger, CIO manager Peter Lempp confirms the desire of CIOs to always also become business partners.

"This CIO project is currently stagnating"

says Peter Lempp based on the evaluation of the IT Trends Study 2014.

He sees one reason for this in the fact that the management has internalized and understood IT itself.

"Today's managing director knows what is possible with IT"

specifies Lempp.

Furthermore, the Capgemini-The study shows that specialist departments are increasingly working with external service providers on their own responsibility.

And Peter Lempp knows the practice:

"The specialist departments then overtake their own IT in the use of innovative software."

The CIO now has the task of recapturing this unplanned use of IT in the specialist departments.

Peter Lempp points out that CIOs want and need to achieve significantly greater efficiency in IT. Specifically, the study describes the role of the CIO as follows: "Cooperation between the business and IT sides has improved noticeably in recent years, as can be seen from the low number of CIOs for whom business-IT alignment is still an important requirement this year.

This progress is partly due to the management's increased IT expertise, as a result of which IT issues are now discussed more frequently by the Management Board.

The CIO However, the number of CIOs with a permanent seat at the table has fallen by more than ten percent this year.

For Peter Lempp, the wheat is separated from the chaff where the IT manager has his own department under control to such an extent that he can act as a CIO can discuss innovative topics at the management table.

However, some CIOs will remain trapped in operational IT activities this year. The industrialization of IT is not enough here, warns Peter Lempp, and in the Capgemini-study can be read:

"Departments are demanding greater speed in the development of new applications and the adaptation of existing ones. They want more agility in order to be able to react quickly in a fast-moving world. These requirements cannot be met without industrialized IT, but this alone is no longer enough.

Ultimately, it's about managing quality and flexibility, says Peter Lempp, summing up the new challenge of agility.

The love of money

The IT Trends Study 2014 states that German CIOs in particular will benefit from budget increases in the coming year, while the situation in Austria will stabilize at a high level.

In the Switzerland In contrast, many IT managers will have to reduce their expenditure in the coming year. 38.3 percent of the Capgemini respondents stated that reducing IT costs is important to them.

This puts the topic in third place for IT requirements in 2014, behind increasing IT efficiency and improving business processes.

However, as can be read in the study, reducing costs does not necessarily have to correlate with budget cuts, as a cost reduction is usually preceded by an investment that ensures greater efficiency or automation, for example.

In addition, newly developed applications or innovations must first be standardized after the pilot phase in order to be able to operate them efficiently.

This also costs resources in the first instance. Because of these two phenomena, CIOs are basically constantly busy cutting costs.

In-memory, cloud and mobile computing

An important topic for CIOs in the SAP–Community is in-memory data management (big data) based on the Hana-database andPlatform.

The possibility of a real-time enterprise (real-time responses) is derived from this.

Almost all in-memory databases offer the opportunity to experience business processes in real time. Hana but certainly has for the SAP-customers are of particular importance.

Capgemini was thus, among other things, the sponsor of an event organized by PAC Hana-study, in which PAC analyst and author Frank Niemann writes:

"For over 40 percent of the companies surveyed, using the SAP Business Suite powered by Hana already relevant. One in three companies is discussing its use. It's not just the technology itself that is driving its use, but also the database strategy, innovations and cost considerations."

Among the top topics of 2014 in the Capgemini-study, the topic of virtualization.

On the one hand, the topic is naturally part of the constantly topical and necessary increase in efficiency in IT; on the other hand, it is a precursor and pioneer for the Private Cloud computing.

The top 2014 topics of malware protection and security compliance are also covered.

Uwe Dumslaff and Peter Lempp in their foreword to the Capgemini-study:

"Among the technology topics, security dominates the agenda this year, but not only because of the NSA affair. Increasing digitalization means that IT failures and security breaches are becoming ever more expensive and risky for companies, so they are making every effort to avoid problems. Accordingly, the Switzerland The use of external clouds is still very much in decline, but they have greatly expanded their own capacities over the past twelve months. The motto now is: Cloud yes, but above all your own."

And the study goes into more detail: Companies are providing more services from their own cloud. In recent months, private cloud capacities have almost doubled, meaning that they now provide almost 30 percent of all IT services.

However, CIOs are still skeptical about the public cloud or third-party services. On average, they only use just over four percent of total IT performance.

Anyone who sees mobile computing under the topics of Bring Your Own Device (ByoD) and App Store for employees will find themselves among the flops of 2014.

Nevertheless, tablets and smartphones have of course made their triumphant advance in business IT. Capgemini explains: Just under 13 percent of those surveyed currently allow the use of private end devices in the company, while a further eleven percent are currently working on a ByoD policy.

The reason for the moderate enthusiasm is the security and support problems that the topic poses for the CIO entail. In addition, many licensing, tax, data protection and data law issues have not yet been clarified.