Author: Greg Spencer

I wish you and your family happy holidays on behalf of the entire Beyond Technology team. Thank you for your continued support and I hope that the challenges ahead in 2020 bring you success and exciting opportunities.

With the start of a new decade comes an opportunity to think about what the twenties will bring. Many may point to climate change and increasing political uncertainty, however as a Technologist I have increasingly been thinking of the years ahead in terms of prioritization. Opportunities for technology to truly transform thinking, markets, and your business are endless – but our ability to consume and manage the required change is the challenge we face. In thinking of the year ahead, the BTC Team has identified key trends and challenges that we feel our clients will be facing next year. As independent IT management consultants, we not only see a variety of different industries suffering the same issues, but it’s our job to help you identify and form the solutions. Please feel free to contact me at any time to discuss how Beyond Technology can help your organisation.

1. Deciding what not to do – Focus and prioritisation is undoubtedly the theme for 2020, with a planning focus of what needs to be done first to support the initiatives of the future. If your organisations executive is yet to review or understand what your IT Strategy means for the business, then now is the time to act.
2. Network Planning 2020 style – With the NBN build completing and the fibre wars largely ending the vision for the new corporate network is clear and its new capabilities are beginning to be assumed within strategy plans. Gigabit to the branch with carrier diversity being standard, SD-WAN is combining with uCPE to make virtual network functions deployable. This along with next generation security requirements and WiFi 6 (802.11ax) has the potential to create the perfect storm for network infrastructure upgrades that will drive large CAPEX requirements if not planned appropriately.
3. Ongoing focus on IT governance – Just ask the now Ex-Chairman and Ex-CEO of Westpac on the importance of IT Governance. The focus on Technology strategy and execution has never been higher, boards have continued to ask questions of organisations executive team on IT strategy, risk management and benefits realisation which has spurred on the deployment of more formal IT governance frameworks. Independent external advisers to boards and steering committees have become common place and IT governance frameworks based on the ISO/IEC 38500:2008(E) are the norm.
4. Digital transformations – IDC reports that 85% of CEO’s believe they have only 24 months to execute their digital transformation before its too late. Second and third order digital disruption is generally focused on an embedded digital engagement capability, with organisations seeking more involvement of IT in defining the business needs. Boards and CEO’s continue to move away from the focus on the defensive play to instead seek out digital engagement and transformational opportunities.
5. Security as an Immune system – With commercially motivated cyber attacks becoming increasingly commonplace we continue to evolve our defensive security posture. As always the trade-off between high security and high functionality continues to be a fine balance, however we need to embed security responses into the core of our environment. We have the conclusion that healthy living through isolation is not feasible and our systems need an immune system that can respond to the inevitable breach.
6. User Experience Instrumentation – Technology is now clearly expected to monitor and remediate the user experience rather than focus on the technology that provides it. UX instrumentation will increasingly provide the required insights that keeps the technology department on the front foot.
7. IoT (Internet of Things) use-cases evolve – With 1.3 billion services in use worldwide at the end of 2019 and Cat-M1 & NB-IOT carrier networks being available nationwide for a few cents a day, use-cases are continuing to evolve and we are starting to see the growing management overhead that this is bringing. New security obligations are being considered by the federal department of Home Affairs which will likely also add pressure to ensure that appropriate management automation is deployed from day 1.
8. LowCode/NoCode Development initiatives spread – with digital initiatives seeking to exploit competitive advantages of from organisations system capabilities we are seeing more and more businesses considering bespoke development as part of their technology strategy. With offshore development team results often leading to disappointment, the LowCode/NoCode approach provides an attractive proposition.
9. Increased penetration of integration platforms – The continued preference for replacing monolithic systems with an integrated best of breed approach has set the scene for a simplified approach to stitching systems together. Different circumstances require different approaches however the age of bespoke point to point integration patterns has definitely past.
10. Further increased board-level oversight of IT operations – The importance of secure, reliable and efficient IT to support the competitiveness of businesses will continue to be a focal point for many boards. Data custody has become an increasing concern as increasingly complex supply chain and IT environments threaten to affect the “line of sight” of organisations to its information. Boards will continue to ask questions on their risk levels for data integrity, information protection and privacy compliance. We expect many more organisations will opt for Independent external review to provide appropriate oversight directly to the board.

Organisations that are not deliberately planning their technology strategy will not be able to prioritise the avalanche of opportunity that they face today. To take advantage of transformation and digital innovation opportunities CEO’s must have confidence in their Technology capabilities. Those that don’t, must act now before being left with an uncompetitive legacy cost base and be in the dark compared to others that will be leveraging digital insights to exploit market opportunities.

I wish you and your family happy holidays on behalf of the entire Beyond Technology team. Thank you for your continued support and I hope that the challenges ahead in 2019 bring you success and exciting opportunities. In thinking of the year ahead, I thought that I would share with you what the BTC Team has identified as the key trends and challenges that we feel our clients will be facing next year. As independent IT management consultants, we not only see a variety of different industries suffering the same issues, but it’s our job to help you identify and form the solutions. Please feel free to contact me at any time to discuss how Beyond Technology can help your organisation.

1. Compliance cost focus – After a year where the Australian Privacy Principles were cemented into the consideration of many boards and the true cost of compliance to the requirements of the GDPR out of the EU became understood to those with clients or operations in Europe, many have predicted that our local compliance burden will soon mirror that of Europe. Armed with this prediction and observing the challenges in the EU we expect that a more mature approach to compliance will be formed in 2019 that seeks to avoid additional compliance costs by baking the consideration of privacy directly into the business processes and technology solutions. Those organisations that have taken this approach have successfully demonstrated an improved responsiveness of technology to the business and a reduced compliance cost.
2. Less “Geeks” in the office  – The importance of technology engaging with the business and aligning its priorities has never been higher, and with the ongoing simplifications efforts there are less a less technicians required to keep the light on. Technology departments will increasingly focus on IT business analysis skills and engage more directly with efforts to assist users to get more productivity from technology investments.
3. Ongoing focus on IT governance – The importance of technology strategy and execution has never been higher, boards have continued to ask questions of organisations executive team on IT strategy, risk management and benefits realisation which has spurred on the deployment of more formal IT governance frameworks. Independent external advisors to boards and steering committees have become common place and IT governance frameworks based on the ISO/IEC 38500:2008(E) are the norm.
4. Digital Engagement transformations – As second order digital disruption became common place over the last few year the organisations response continues to seek more involvement of IT in defining the business needs. Boards and CEO’s continue to move away from the focus on the defensive play to instead seek out digital engagement and transformational opportunities.
5. Decline in MPLS networks – With carrier diversity increasingly considered the best approach to business resilience the deployment of MPLS based networks is expected to see an acceleration in its decline.  With Hybrid Network and Internet based SD-WAN quickly maturing the use-case for MPLS networks will become increasingly rare.
6. Initial 5G deployments – With the battle lines drawn and the major telco’s all seeking new opportunities for better margins I expect to see the rollout of 5G technology this year primarily in the fixed line broadband replacement space. Although this will only be with Mid-band spectrum, the use of pole-top densification will ready the networks for mmWave deployment in the future.
7. IoT (Internet of Things) – With Cat-M1 and NB-IOT carrier networks being available nationwide at around 10 cents a day, new use-cases will develop and we can start to expect all new field assets to come standard with centralised telemetric capabilities.
8. NBN Matures and 10G becomes mainstream – with the mainline NBN rollout due to complete in the next 24 months and a likely change of the federal government providing some blame shifting opportunities we expect to see the NBN offering mature significantly. With FTTC set to be the upgrade path for FTTN and with the completion of the HFC rollout we expect to see 1G consumer connections become feasible. Similarly with telco’s around the world starting to work with the retail equation of “double the price for five or ten time the bandwidth” and the market increasingly being able to distinguish between congested and contented bandwidth, we think that commercial users will increasingly deploy 10G connections.
9. Further increased board-level oversight of IT operations – The importance of secure, reliable and efficient IT to support the competitiveness of businesses will be a focal point for many boards. Data custody has become an increasing concern as increasingly complex supply chain and IT environments threaten to affect the “line of sight” of organisations to its information. Boards will continue to ask questions on their risk levels for data integrity, information protection and privacy compliance. We expect many more organisations will opt for Independent external review to provide appropriate oversight directly to the board.
10. Security as an Immune system – With cyber criminal gangs proving to be the most digitally agile organisations on the planet we continue to evolve our defensive security posture. As always the trade-off between high security and high functionality continues to be a fine balance, however new approaches seek to embed security responses into the core of our environment. We have reached the conclusion that healthy living through isolation is not feasible and our systems need an immune system that can respond to the inevitable breach.

Organisations that are waiting to be digitally disrupted will simply not survive into the future. To take advantage of digital innovation and transformation opportunities CEO’s must have confidence in their Technology capabilities. Those that don’t have this confidence must act quickly before being left with a legacy cost base leaving them uncompetitive and be in the dark compared to others that will be leveraging digital innovation to exploit market opportunities.

I wish you and your family happy holidays on behalf of the entire Beyond Technology team. Thank you for your continued support and I hope that the challenges ahead in 2017 bring you success and exciting opportunities. In thinking of the year ahead, I thought that I would share with you what the BTC Team has identified as the key trends and challenges that we feel our clients will be facing next year. As independent IT management consultants, we not only see a variety of different industries suffering the same issues, but it’s our job to help you identify and form the solutions. Please feel free to contact me at any time to discuss how Beyond Technology can help your organisation. 

1. Machine Learning and AI (Artificial Intelligence) – Will start to make itself known in Australian Business Processing – Big cloud providers have been making machine learning accessible to masses for the last couple of years, however we think that the time is right for this to start making itself known in the Australian workplace. Either being used to provide business insights in the analysis of big data sets, or in the automation of customer service – the ability for computers to learn from its mistakes will provide an enormous opportunity for transformational innovation.
2. SD-WAN becomes the WAN technology of choice – As its proved itself in 2016 as one of the major innovations for replacing highly expensive international MPLS networks we are likely to see it drive firmly into the domestic space. The ability of the technology to intelligently choose between two alternate links to both improve resilience and bandwidth, together with it effectively re-engineering TCP flow control to more intelligently handle modern network dimensioning has proved compelling. This will team up with the increasing availability of both NBN tails and competitive fibre from TPG and Vocus to change the perception of business grade WAN links.
3. Ongoing focus on IT governance – With an increased visibility of high profile information security and IT project failure events, boards have continued to ask questions of organisations executive team on IT strategy, risk and benefits realisation which has spurred on the deployment of more formal IT governance frameworks. During these deployments, questions are asked about the organisations skills, experience and independence. Independent external advisors to boards and steering committees are becoming common place and IT governance frameworks based on the ISO/IEC 38500:2008(E) are the norm.
4. Digital Innovation & transformation becomes mainstream – While digital disruption was the buzz word of 2016, a new focus on a proactive response will be the norm going forward. Boards and CEO’s move away from the focus on the defensive play to instead seek out digitial innovation and transformational opportunities.
5. Collaborative cloud – As the industry take up and approach to the cloud matures we expect to see a continued trend towards communities of interests in cloud offerings. The opportunity to take advantage of common requirements and service levels will be augmented by the ability for inexpensive data interconnects and integration points.
6. Virtual and Augmented Reality Growth (VR & AR) – Although it will take some time for the exact use-cases to be derived, the technology with the help of massive technical advances in the consumer space will start to make an impact in many businesses in the later part of the year. We have already seen AR been used effectively in some high tech specialist manufacturing processes, however we are likely to see it rolled out into proof of concept environments in warehouse workplaces with the help of better recognition of the possible OH&S improvements.
7. Mandatory Cyber-breach reporting – The likelihood of mandatory cyber-breach reporting appears to be nearing certainty during 2017. This will not only mean that incident response plans will need to be urgently revisited, but will also cause some added levels of anxiety when many find out the extent of the problems in existence.
8. Further increased board-level oversight of IT operations – The importance of secure, reliable and efficient IT to support the competitiveness of businesses will be a focal point for many boards. Data custody has become an increasing concern as increasingly complex supply chain and IT environments threaten to affect the “line of sight” of organisations to its information. Boards will continue to ask questions on their risk levels for data integrity, information protection and privacy compliance. We expect many more organisations will opt for Independent external review to provide appropriate oversight directly to the board.
9. Information Arms race – the old adage, you don’t need to swim fast to escape a shark, just faster than the guy next to you is true in the quest for business intelligence. Organisations are seeking to leverage their ongoing investment in Data Warehousing, CRM, BI and BigData to apply competitive pressure to their market. Those organisations that have failed to invest in automation and analytic technology are increasingly being left flatfooted as competitors are able to drive efficiency and take advantage of market insights provided by new predictive analytics.
10. Revisited Outsource models – We expect to see increased incidents of large IT outsources being reconsidered in a cloud world. Where legacy incumbent providers are set maintaining the status quo and maintaining management of large data centre environments, we can expect boards to demand that independent review be used to define how cloud service delivery can be exploited to significantly reduce the cost base.

Organisations that are waiting to be digitally disrupted will simply not survive into the future. To take advantage of digital innovation and transformation opportunities CEO’s must have confidence in their IT capabilities. Those that don’t have this confidence must act quickly before being left with a legacy cost base leaving them uncompetitive and be in the dark compared to others that will be leveraging digital innovation to exploit market opportunities.

I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas on behalf of the entire Beyond Technology team. Thank you for your continued support and I hope that the challenges ahead in 2016 bring you success and exciting opportunities. In thinking of the year ahead, I thought that I would share with you what the BTC Team has identified as the key trends and challenges that we feel our clients will be facing next year. As independent IT management consultants, we not only see a variety of different industries suffering the same issues, but it’s our job to help you identify and form the solutions. Please feel free to contact me at any time to discuss how Beyond Technology can help your organisation.

1. Emergence of the “Hacker Industry” – An increase in unreported business impacting cyber security events of over 350% in the last 9 months of 2015 has set the scene for 2016. Relying on perimeter defence and rule-based security is now clearly inadequate. Application self-protection, as well as user and entity behaviour analytics, will help fulfill the adaptive security architecture.
2. Ongoing focus on IT governance – With an increased visibility of high profile information security and IT project failure events boards have continued to ask questions of organisations executive team on IT strategy, risk and benefits realisation which has spurred on the deployment of more formal IT governance frameworks. During these deployments questions are asked about the organisations skills, experience and independence. Independent external advisors to boards and steering committees are becoming common place and IT governance frameworks based on the ISO/IEC 38500:2008(E) the norm.
3. Gen 3.0 Flexible working – Ongoing improvements in enabling technologies and greater acceptance by corporate Australia has reached a point where adoption is accelerating. Combining improved take up of digital collaboration tools, activity based working technologies in the office and improved availability of supportive broadband speeds provided by the NBN has improved the business cases for mass deployment of hyper-portable PC’s (such as SurfacePro’s etc), and has seen working from non-office locations more mainstream.
4. Multi-point Collaboration – The Microsoft Office ecosystem has made significant progress with Office2016 and Skype for Business supporting real-time document co-editing and room based conference integration. BlueJeans and other technologies are bridging the gap between traditional conferencing technologies and the more widely deployed and cost effective desktop conferencing setting up 2016 to be a tipping point for collaboration technology deployment.
5. Information Arms race – the old adage, you don’t need to swim fast to escape a shark, just faster than the guy next to you is true in the quest for business intelligence. Organisations are seeking to leverage their recent investment in Data Warehousing, CRM, BI and BigData to apply competitive pressure to their market. Those organisations that have failed to invest in automation and analytic technology are increasingly being left flatfooted as competitors are able to drive efficiency and take advantage of market insights provided by new predictive analytics.
6. Ongoing digital disruption – All organisations cannot hide from competitive innovation lead by technology. Simple examples include company’s leveraging social media to engage with their customer base (in product development, promotion and general customer engagement), or professional services organisations leveraging collaboration tools to make teams more productive and agile. The form will change depending on the industry however the increased reliance on technology driven innovation will be constant.
7. Human Firewall Engagement – Users has always been the week link for information technology security. With the emergence of the “Hacker Industry” and the increasingly targeted approach to their trade the requirement to engage more directly with users to demonstrate the vulnerabilities and educate with respect to their responsibilities.
8. New business applications for augmented and virtual reality – With Samsung, Oculus, Microsoft and others seeking to bring consumer electronics global scale and pricing to the new generation of technology in this space there is increasing potential for useful deployments outside of the entertainment industry. Much in the way that 3D printers has had unexpected industry impacts, firms in the property development, construction and engineering sectors are seeking to use new visualization technologies to provide insights prior to physical construction.
9. Increased board-level oversight of IT operations – With information security likely to be in the headlines again in 2016, the importance of secure, reliable and efficient IT to support the competitiveness of businesses will be a focal point for many boards. Data custody has become an increasing concern as increasingly complex supply chain and IT environments threaten to affect the “line of sight” of organisations to its information. Boards will continue to ask questions on their risk levels for data integrity, information protection and privacy compliance. We expect many more organisations will opt for Independent external review to provide appropriate oversight directly to the board.
10. Robotic Process Automation – Realising increases in both efficiency and effectivity recent implementations of this technology has produced incredible ROI numbers. Although the technology is considered “inelegant” by many technologists, the pragmatic approach to systems integration for work flow value chains means that the complexity, cost and risk of the implementation projects is far more attractive than most alternatives. We expect to see RPA being a common project is 2016.

Organisations that are not embracing recent advances in their IT Strategy planning will be left behind with IT that slows the business down rather than facilitates improved business velocity. They will be left with a legacy cost base leaving them uncompetitive and be in the dark compared to others that will be leveraging better data analysis and social media tools to inform them of market opportunities.

I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas on behalf of the entire Beyond Technology team. Thank you for your continued support and I hope that the challenges ahead in 2015 bring you success and exciting opportunities. In thinking of the year ahead, I thought that I would share with you what the BTC Team has identified as the key trends and challenges that we feel our clients will be facing next year. As independent IT management consultants, we not only see a variety of different industries suffering the same issues, but it’s our job to help you identify and form the solutions. Please feel free to contact me at any time to discuss how Beyond Technology can help your organisation.

1. Next Gen Security Concerns– Information security experts are now advising organisations to prepare for cyber security breaches rather than just their depth of defence. In 2014 we saw zero-day malware attacks increasing to 70% of reported attacks. This requires an entirely new approach to network security and a change of cultural acceptance of user impacts. While awareness and education campaigns remain the most effective tool, new technology approaches will be a big focus on 2015.
2. New focus on IT governance – boards have continued to ask questions of organisations executive team on IT strategy, risk and benefits realisation which has spurred on the deployment of more formal IT governance frameworks. During these deployments questions are asked about the organisations skills, experience and independence. Independent external advisors to boards and steering committees are becoming common place and IT governance frameworks based on the ISO/IEC 38500:2008(E) the norm.
3. The new wireless carrier wars – 2015 brings the introduction of the 700Mhz mobile spectrum into the Optus and Telstra network which will at last bring in-building capital city coverage onto a level playing field. Telstra has leveraged the technical superiority of their 850Mhz 3G spectrum without mercy leaving its competitors floundering. With both the iPhone6 and Samsung S5 both already supporting the APT700 band the typical wait for devices will be avoided and all carriers are spending big on expanding their 4G coverage and capabilities. Adding to this the opportunity for WiFi calling and VoLTE that is also supported in new devices, we can expect to see significant improvements in effective coverage and competition across the board.
4. The beginning of the end for the desk phone – Although many organisations have been questioning the need for a desk phone for some time, they have proved difficult to remove on mass. Our prediction is that the combination of improvements in mobile and softphone technologies will provide a level of reliability and functionality to match the humble desk phone, and with the ongoing uptake of collaboration and video technologies, we will see 2015 be the point of decline for desk phone deployments.
5. Data considered a corporate asset – Big Data and self service BI tools has driven the technical capability, however the cultural change within the business is only just beginning. As the organisation starts to recognise their data as a corporate asset the expectations on IT to protect and help facilitate the organisations exploitation becomes a key focal point.
6. More external advisory – The only thing increasing faster than the opportunity for IT to improve business productivity and competitive advantage is the number of things that can go wrong. The rate of change in the IT industry spurred by the growing diversity of “cloud” offerings and sourcing options seems to be increasing exponentially. Organisations are seeking access to experience and insights  from independent advisors to cut through the complexity and protect from potential catastrophes.
7. Changing desktop – The new year promises several areas on innovation for how knowledge worker interact with their PC. From wireless docking stations (including wireless power), 4K monitors and improved Hybrid PC form factors, we will start to see changing expectations of users within the workplace where mobility and desk based productivity is no longer seen as a trade-off.
8. New Privacy Act considerations – The new Australian Privacy Principles (APP) came into force March 2014. Some organisations have taken steps to address their obligations, however many have deferred technical privacy audits until the new year with critical steps such as developing a personally identifiable information data inventory not being completed.
9. Ongoing digital disruption – All organisations cannot hide from competitive innovation lead by technology. Simple examples include company’s leveraging social media to engage with their customer base (in product development, promotion and general customer engagement), or professional services organisations leveraging collaboration tools to make teams more productive and agile. The form will change depending on the industry however the increased reliance on technology driven innovation will be constant and ongoing.
10. Technology based business productivity improvement opportunity to support growth – As was seen in 2014, IT is being asked to do more with less. We are continuing to see boards focusing on understanding how they can deliver organisational capacity for more sustainable growth through productivity improvements.  Mobility, collaboration, CRM and real-time business intelligence capabilities will continue to be an ongoing technology focus to deliver these improvements.

Organisations that are not embracing recent advances in their IT Strategy planning will be left behind with IT that slows the business down rather than facilitates improved business velocity. They will be left with a legacy cost base leaving them uncompetitive and be in the dark compared to others that will be leveraging better data analysis and social media tools to inform them of market opportunities

I look forward to working with you in the new year and hope that you get to enjoy some time off before then.

Regards,

Greg Spencer BE(Hons) MBA
Principal Consulting Partner
Beyond Technology Consulting
Mobile: 0448 866 801
Office: 1300  469 909

 wish you and your family a Merry Christmas on behalf of the entire Beyond Technology team. Thank you for your continued support and I hope that the challenges ahead in 2014 bring you success and exciting opportunities. In thinking of the year ahead, I thought that I would share with you what the BTC Team has identified as the key trends and challenges that we feel our clients will be facing next year. As independent IT management consultants, we not only see a variety of different industries suffering the same issues, but it’s our job to help you identify and form the solutions.

Please feel free to contact me at any time to discuss how Beyond Technology can help your organisation.

1. Fortress Datacentre – with the continued race to the cloud for commodity application and infrastructure we expect many organisations to cross the line where more services will be accessed from the internet than from their own infrastructure. This is leading a security paradigm shift where rather than having a private network connected to the internet, some organisations will start to only secure the endpoints rather than the network.
2. Death of the SOE and the 3 year refresh – large corporates have been holding onto the notion of command and control standardising PC’s in an effort to reduce support efforts. App store style application delivery and cheaper more mobile devices will reinforce the desire of users to not be controlled by IT.
3. CYOD – Rise of the “Choose your own device” infrastructure model. The enormous variety of form factors combined with the management tools developed to support BYOD computing will combine to move traditional IT service to let users define their own consumption model.
4. Increased digital disruption – All organisations cannot hide from competitive innovation lead by technology. Simple examples include company’s leveraging social media to engage with their customer base (in product development, promotion and general customer engagement), or professional services organisations leveraging collaboration tools to make teams more productive and agile. The form will change depending on the industry however the increased reliance on technology driven innovation will be constant.
5. Finally the end of Windows XP and Office 2003 – As the end to support and security updates finally arrives early in 2014, thankfully most organisations have plans in place to remove these systems from the production network. Unfortunately there is increasing levels of evidence that hacker groups are stockpiling XP exploits to unleash once they are safe from a Microsoft response, increasing the security risk for everyone from increasing numbers of rouge “botnets” across the globe.
6. New Privacy Act considerations – The new Australian Privacy Principles (APP) will come into force March 2014. This formally outlines the responsibility of organisations to take effective steps to protect the information security of private information and has mandatory disclosure requirements for security events.
7. Increased Security threats – The face of Information security crime is changing rapidly. While previously your biggest threat was malicious insiders or board teenagers, international crime gangs now threaten even the most innocuous organisations. Motives range from stealing your data to denying you access to your systems for ransom, or even using your systems and PCs as a platform to launch an attack on another target. Reported breaches of information security have been rising 50% annually, we expect this to escalate in 2014.
8. Technology based business productivity improvement opportunity to support growth – The Australian economy is forecast to hit rough waters in 2014. We are continuing to see boards focusing on understanding how they can deliver organisational capacity for more sustainable growth through productivity improvements. Mobility, collaboration, CRM and real-time business intelligence capabilities will be an ongoing technology focus to deliver these improvements
9. Increased board-level oversight of IT operations – With information security likely to be in the headlines often in 2014, the importance of secure, reliable and efficient IT to support the competitiveness of businesses will be a focal point for many boards. Data custody has become an increasing concern as increasingly complex supply chain and IT environments threaten to affect the “line of sight” of organisations to its information. The cloud or managed service providers false claim of “you don’t need to know the complexity behind the curtain” has been exposed with several high profile failures in 2013. Boards will start to ask questions on their risk levels for data integrity, information protection and privacy compliance. We expect many more organisations will opt for Independent external review to provide appropriate oversight directly to the board.
10. NextGen Workflow Automation – We expect to see continued work in organisations updating Application Strategies and growing deployments of next generation workflow automation and other technologies to reduce business lag and improve accountability.

Organisations that are not embracing recent advances in their IT Strategy planning will be left behind with IT that slows the business down rather than facilitates improved business velocity. They will be left with a legacy cost base leaving them uncompetitive and be in the dark compared to others that will be leveraging better data analysis and social media tools to inform them of market opportunities.

I look forward to working with you in the new year and hope that you get to enjoy some time off before then.

Regards,

Greg Spencer BE(Hons) MBA
Principal Consulting Partner
Beyond Technology Consulting
Mobile: 0448 866 801
Office: 1300  469 909