IT leaders are always on the lookout for new technologies to keep their skills sharp and satisfy the desire for efficiency. The landscape is consistent in one thing and that is change happens as needs evolve. There are several key players leading the charge to simplify business practices and the long term impacts they will have.
Automation, speed and security
Devoting valuable man hours to tasks that could be automated is not a new concept but it is now moving towards the mainstream. It may sound like the stuff of science fiction but the reality is that AI and machine learning will have real impacts that drastically reduce the time it takes to collate the data that drives decision-making. It is the typical rate of reaction scenario where the rate determining step is the slowest. Yet this step is vital to the outcome and cannot be sidelined. With the data gathering and collation complete, reduced time can allow strategic thinking to work its magic. IT leaders can get on with the business of moving the business forward and instead of being in maintenance mode switch to innovation and forward planning.
It goes without saying that solving the automation problem releases other sticky areas. In business time is often of the essence but what we really mean by that is, speed. Getting to the finishing post or rather to the new product or feature or ? cuts out the competitor. The importance of this factor alone cannot be exaggerated as the race never stops and each moment delayed means that advantage is lost. Fortunately technology advances are consistently frequent and those who keep up with them usually stay ahead of the game. Keeping the foundations of the IT structure current has a direct impact on revenues, this means IT has to have a seat at the table when it comes to strategic decision making. Moving too fast does naturally represent its own set of challenges, the biggest one being security. Is your setup watertight? Have the weak spots been identified and addressed? Who is your security task force if a security threat emerges? This last question is probably the most pertinent in that it actually provides the solution too. We are all responsible for security, and will have integrated it into the psyche rather than relying on a single department to look after issues after the fact.
Collaboration, malleability and agility
As technology marches on unabated the question of who does what will become more nebulous. Imagine that businesses are implementing different tools and updated processes which inevitably come with added cost, can budgets be pooled? How about skills and resources? Can different departments collaborate and become malleable? An example might be the data-hungry marketing team who are now using third party user tracking technology to determine what things users actually use. They are now technically capable of carrying out what might once have been a function of the IT team. The best outcome of this aside from maximizing the allocated spend, is the destruction of siloed thinking, and a greater focus on what the desired outcome is rather than who should do what. Call it interconnectivity and collaboration. Integrating agile practices and methodologies help smooth the path and enables communication between collaborators. Clearly this works and is likely to become more prevalent across departments in the future.