business value & ICT - Telecommunications - Green IT - Orange Business Live blog

If you want to learn anything about the special challenges global organizations expect to face in 2010, follow the money. At last year's Orange Business Live event, overall cost reduction was one of the themes, and budgetary trends are pointing the way to crucial areas to watch as cuts in IT spending begin to subside. According to IDC, IT spending in 2010 will increase by 3%, reaching US$1.48 trillion in 2010, behind the $1.5 trillion recorded in 2008.

Trends in spending show that global IT departments have different priorities on their minds this year. Industry analyst Forrester points out that instead of there being a general trend towards outsourcing as there was during the last recession in 2001 to 2002, IT directors have mixed thoughts on the way forward. Roughly one-third of companies expect to increase spending on systems integration and projects, one-third increase spending on applications outsourcing and a third want to spend more on infrastructure outsourcing. These spend increases seem to be at the expense of contractors and IT consultancy, which will experience a decline. Even though about 40% of organizations say that they are still undergoing IT security consultancy projects, there's nothing to suggest that budget cuts would translate into greater network security problems or risk management breakdowns.

Risky business

In fact, a refocusing on risk management brought about by terrorist attacks and flu viruses, seems to be the order of the day. IDC says that the usual beneficiaries of offshoring such as Bangalore and New Delhi could be superseded by Shanghai and Beijing as global delivery locations. These Chinese locations are being considered more secure against the threat of terrorism than historical favorites Mumbai or Jakarta. While for many firms that means spending money on diversifying their risk management facilities - primarily data centers - it should be well spent, considering the increasing amount of data that is vital to enterprise profitability. In fact, the desire to offshore data centers has even a rather literal turn in some quarters, with Google filing a patent to build floating data centers.

The latest report from Datamonitor shows that global firms are seeking more traditional locations for their outsourcing, although not the locations widely believed to be best. Datamonitor takes into account a wide number of factors such as the political stability, legal structure and national infrastructure when compiling its results. That's why the BRIC countries, thought to be among the world's best locations, rated distinctly below Ireland and Canada, even though those two countries have higher wage costs. Good alternative locations were provided by Eastern European countries like Poland and the Czech Republic and Hungary, although the usual rules about not underestimating the cultural differences in new locations still apply in 2010.

Optimizing or transforming?

'Transformation' has been such a buzzword in IT outsourcing it's hard to imagine any organization undertaking a project that isn't going to 'transform' their business. Unless, that is, it's going to be 'optimize' it. CIO magazine says that the top outsourcing trend for 2010 is a refocusing by organizations on projects that deliver value, remain within budget, and which get the job done, rather than offering aspirational goals such as transforming how business is done. This suggests that businesses have gone back to the drawing board, thrown away the transformational roadmaps (perhaps drawn up by the consultants they used to employ) and have redefined goals based on how much it costs to get them done.

That's just as well, as Gartner predicts that IT budgets this year will be back to 2005 levels. The analyst firm predicts that times will still be challenging during 2010, but that there will at least be a change from "cost-cutting efficiency to value-creating productivity." That may mean that there is less focus on the wage bill of outsourced staff and more scrutiny of the infrastructure and stability of the country where operations are outsourced. The biggest surprise of all in this scenario, if you follow the money, is that the dollar has slipped so much on international markets that some firms may even consider the US - the inventor of outsourcing - ripe in 2010 as such a country.

So, 28 January 2010 was Data Privacy Day, an event which largely passed without fanfare. But several interesting pieces of information were published to coincide with the event, which indicated that there is still plenty to be done in the enterprise to ensure that increasingly high expectations for data security are met.

Figures from the UK's Information Commissioner's Office reveal that more than 800 security breaches were reported over a two year period, with almost one quarter of these being attributable to "mistakes", and almost a third being the result of thefts. A breakdown of the figures is available here.

According to an enterprise survey, while 80% of organisations are aware of the basics of managing physical records, only 23% have established policies that cover electronic records. This is complicated by "several macro trends" which have made the management of electronic data more complex -- including a sharp growth in electronic information, growing customer concern about how data is protected; the expanding regulatory environment related to data security; and heightened litigation demands.

A separate survey put the cost of data loss at £64 per customer record, of which £29 was attributed to reduced customer trust. While the figures for public sector organisations are slightly lower, it was noted that the costs associated with detecting and escalating a breach, and with alerting citizens and dealing with subsequent enquiries are higher, and the principle contributors to the total costs. Private sector businesses are better at detecting problems, but in contrast have to deal with issues related to increased churn and attracting new customers as a result of breaches.

For companies operating in the UK, the cost of a data breach is about to get much bigger. The country's Information Commissioner will soon be able to impose a penalty of £500,000 on data controllers who "seriously contravene data protection principles". Decisions will be based on a "pragmatic and proportionate approach", based on factors including an organisation's financial resources, sector, size and the severity of the data breach. The highest level of fines will be reserved for cases where "there has been a serious breach that was likely to cause damage or distress and it was either deliberate or negligent and the organisation failed to take reasonable steps to prevent it".

We have also already reported that the European Commission is mulling updates to its data security regime.

Wirelessweek presents us an interview of Axel Haentjens about the evolutions of technology in enterprise, he gets onto the connectivity technology and presents the biggest areas of opportunity for enterprises to address sustainability. Later he talks about the change that the IT organizations have to do to be successful and presents three critical success factors in sustainability solutions.

Here is an extract of Axel Haentjens interview:

What do changes like pervasive connectivity and embedded IP in broader devices mean for enterprises?
I have been in the communications business for 15 years at France Telecom [FT]. In 1995, it was very clear that the desktop had to be connected. Now we're at the point where we have laptops, BlackBerrys, PDAs, and more. So in the last two to three years, you could access documents and e-mail through a PDA from everywhere -- from a train, on holiday, etc. For Orange [FT's key brand], that translated into a huge success for our Business Everywhere tool. We have more than 1.3 million users.

But this year, we see something else. We're now at the point of pervasive reachability, where you need to talk to people using various means that are all integrated. We ought to be able to start one way, and then move to another.

And it's not only human connectivity.

Right. There will be five times more objects to connect than people, at the very least. There are mature applications today in tele-monitoring, fleet management and tracking goods. Orange operates mobile networks in 28 countries, including 15 countries in Europe today: 15 percent of our mobile B2B revenue is already M2M. It comes from SIM cards embedded into devices either for fleet management or remote monitoring, and it's growing at a rate of about 20 percent per year.

[...]

Read the full interview of Axel Haentjens by Yankee group on this Wirelessweek article

As president of PMI France-Sud, I was often told by different companies: "We're not very good at Project Management!" And my comment back to them was: "So, what are you going to do about it?".

Indeed, some companies have poor project management capabilities. But are they just "getting what they deserve" for the lack of attention they pay to this tough profession? Developing a robust project management capability is an obligation in most companies nowadays.

The development of Project Management as a profession needs to be:

1. managed: a clear professional development framework for Project Managers.

You need to clearly define an internal certification path for people who are entering this profession in your company. I commented already about the benefits of certifications such as PMP®. In my opinion though, this is only a starting point to ensure that we share a common language; an understanding of PM processes and industry recognized body of knowledge for the profession. Past this initial base ground, you will need to develop your own internal Project Management certification path. Nothing overly complex is required, just a clear and simple model supported by external certifications and/or internal ones. For example, one could implement 4 levels of PM expertise within his company to reflect his projects' complexity based on budget, size, durations, strategic importance. Let's name these 4 levels: Associate PM, Confirmed PM, Senior PM and Executive PM. Moving from one level to the next may happen via certifications, exams, peers or board reviews. To keep it simple: Junior PMs would start as associate PMs, then run their own significant project(s) as confirmed PMs, take on bigger, riskier, more strategic projects as Senior PMs and eventually reach an "executive" PM type level for mission/business critical projects or programmes.

Three years ago, the "Green IT" concept emerged as a way to talk about the positive impact that IT could have on the environment. Breakthroughs such as telepresence or videoconferencing, hardware virtualisation, unified communications, and remote applications like vehicle fleet management or mobile meter reading had all made their debut. Each promised qualitative benefits for the environment. For example, traditionally highly polluting industries could install telepresence rooms in order to speak of their environmental efforts in their annual reports.

This "qualitative" era focused solely on brand image has now come to an end. The arrival of the carbon tax in France - though momentarily delayed by decree of the Conseil Constitutionnel - will soon force companies with more than 500 employees to publish a carbon report, identify the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and take concrete measures to limit these emissions. In short, the tax will take us from the qualitative to the quantitative era.

This paradigm shift will make us move from "Green IT" to "IT for Green", signifying a positive and measurable contribution by Information Systems to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

In practice, the paradigm shift announces the launch of 3 types of initiatives:

The launch of Apple's iPad seems to have split the world into two camps, with the vendor's vociferous supporter base unsurprisingly trumpeting the device as the next big thing, while "others" compare it to an overly large and feature-poor iPhone (a good round-up of the features is available here). As with the iPhone, the device is squarely targeted at the consumer customer base; but like the iPhone, it also seems likely that some devices will find their way into the enterprise, with the various challenges this will bring for corporate IT departments.

IDG News Service conducted a straw poll of enterprises to find out first reactions, finding that "in general most of those we talked with were intrigued enough to want to experiment with the iPad".

Perhaps the biggest question is how the device will fit in to the enterprise device portfolio, especially taking into account the fact that tablet PCs are no new thing - and have so-far failed to set the market alight. There is the potential for the iPad to fill specific market niches, for example as a survey tool for researchers using web-based forms, or for use during meetings and presentations, or in specific vertical markets, such as healthcare - in many cases, where existing tablet PCs have found a home. But the limited functionality of the iPad, including its lack of high-end computing credentials and multitasking support, means that it will not be suitable for use as a primary device.

The iPad treads an interesting line in terms of portability: while it beats a laptop hands-down, it still lags a smartphone in terms of true mobility, with the latter often an ideal solution for remaining in-touch when on the move if intensive data manipulation is not a priority. In terms of competition, it is best placed as an alternative to the netbook, although the netbook has its own advantages, including support for multitasking, operating systems that are common with other enterprise computers, cost-effective devices available from multiple manufacturers and, crucially, a keyboard. In fact, as with netbooks, the iPad may really be best described as a third device for employees who will already have laptop computers and smartphone -- and it is not immediately clear how may corporates will feel the need to equip workers with such an array of computing paraphernalia.

This Christmas season I spent hours reviewing the Kindle, the Sony Reader, the B&N nook, and a few other e-Readers.  My purpose was not to write yet another comparison entry for our readers to gloss over for keywords (I discovered plenty of blog entries on the internet that covered this topic almost ad nauseum) but instead it was a more personal review for a target audience of one, my mother.  Since this is not an article about that search, I will spare you the suspense and tell you we bought her a Sony Reader Touch edition (there is poor 3G coverage in her area).  The following month I found myself pouring over various netbooks for yet another targeted audience, my father in-law.  Again, I will spare you the details, we bought the Dell mini 10 from their outlet web site.
 

Since the start of 2010, one of the hot topics in the IT press has been cloud computing in the government sector. The need to control costs while maintaining high levels of service has led authorities the world over to re-assess their IT needs, and it appears that the flexibility offered by cloud computing has become flavour of the month.

In the UK, the Government's Chief Information Officer, John Suffolk, recently iterated his feelings on the topic, endorsing a hybrid model where a private government cloud (or clouds) co-exists with public cloud services, which can in some cases deliver better numbers due to the sharing of costs across a wide user base -- one of the big benefits touted for the cloud. Suffolk's argument is straightforward: "if it delivers good citizen outcomes at a price you can afford then use the public cloud" but -- crucially -- Suffolk also believes that personal data should not be stored in the cloud.

This highlights one of the primary concerns about cloud adoption, which is data security. The amount of sensitive and private information collected by the government is enormous, including healthcare details and financial information, and security problems can be extremely embarrassing. Problems related to security in government IT were discussed here.

As part of our Autumn video tour of the US, we also recorded a number of podcasts. This is the first of them: a chat with Current Analysis analyst Amy Larsen DeCarlo that we had in Virginia. Amy speaks about where cloud computing is going, what sort of applications and services are suited to this approach, and how much attention enterprises should be paying to this new approach to computing.