The current fiscal austerity and threat of a double dip recession means that there is a burning platform for change across IT enterprises to manage costs whilst enabling future Business growth.
Peter Sondergaard states that the second recession is about to hit which will impact Enterprise IT spending budgets in 2012.
There is a fair degree of consistency in what the research firms / commentators see as the key trends for 2012. I particularly liked what Frank Gens from IDC had to say and I have also picked out the Outside-In messaging from Deloitte and how it resonates with what Ian Clayton has been banging on about for ages. My own observations appear at the foot of the post.
IDC Predictions 2012: Competing for 2020
“Frank Gens presents the IDC outlook for the overall technology marketplace. In 2012, the ICT industry’s shift to its third major platform of growth — built on mobile, cloud, social, and Big Data technologies — will accelerate, forcing the industry’s leaders to make bold investments and fateful decisions.
- Worldwide IT spending will grow 6.9%, surprisingly solid growth in a fragile, recovering economy. Mobile devices and apps and emerging markets will be the biggest growth drivers, while European debt issues will dominate downside risks.
- Emerging markets IT spending will grow 13.8%, driving a whopping 53% of IT growth. In the second half of 2012, China will supplant Japan as number 2 in the IT market.
- “Mobility wins” will be the top theme of the year as mobile devices outship PCs by more than 2 to 1 and generate more revenue than PCs for the first time. 85 billion mobile apps will be downloaded, and mobile data network spending will exceed fixed data network spending for the first time.
- The strategic focus in the cloud will shift from infrastructure to application platforms and the race to build the largest portfolios and ecosystems around those platforms.
- Spending on public and private cloud services, and the building of those services (the “cloud arms dealer” opportunity), will reach $60 billion. Amazon will join the $1 billion IT vendor club.
- In a mobile, cloud-oriented world, the network is more critical an infrastructure than ever. For 2012, we predict rising demand, disruptive infrastructure shifts (to mobile), intensifying challenges (competition, funding), and expanding opportunities (cloud). In short: a world that will require a lot of adaptability to thrive (or even survive) in.
- Big Data will join mobile and cloud as the next “must have” competency as the volume of digital content grows to 2.7ZB (1ZB = 1 billion terabytes) in 2012, up 48% from 2011, rocketing toward 8ZB by 2015. There will be lots of Big Data – driven mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity.
- Major IT vendors will make “statement” acquisitions in social networking as social technologies become a core part of IT’s next growth platform. Social platform leader Facebook will attempt to leverage its consumer dominance into a much broader role serving businesses in B2C commerce.
- As the number of intelligent communicating devices on the network will outnumber “traditional computing” devices by almost 2 to 1, the way people think about interacting with each other, and with devices on the network, will change. Look for the use of social networking to follow not just people but smart things.
- Much of the money will be made on top of the “third platform” by building highvalue, vertically focused solutions. The buildout of these solutions — in healthcare, energy, government, financial services, and retail — will accelerate in 2012 — leaving IT providers without vertical competency on the sidelines.
Gens concludes by saying that by the end of 2012, we’ll have a good idea which vendors will — and won’t — be among the industry’s leaders in 2020.”
The full report is available to download
Extract from Deloitte Predicts the Top 10 Technology Trends for 2012
Outside-in Architecture: Flexibility in operating and business models is proving more important. As a result, need to share is colliding with need to know and shifting solution architectures away from a siloed, enterprise-out design pattern and into an outside-in approach to delivering business through rapidly evolving ecosystems.
The fundamental shift in focus required by Service Provider organisations away from the current enterprise-out to a new outside-in approach has long been advocated by Ian Clayton. Ian developed the “Outside-In Service Management™ (OI-SM)” term, concepts, and associated methods and services.
Outside In Thinking For Service Provider Organisations
“The Outside-In Service Management™ (OI-SM) program helps service organizations apply “Outside-In” thinking to service management initiatives, ensuring customer centricity, customer thinking, and the creation of value for customers. OI-SM takes precedent over traditional “inside-out”, process, best practice, technology, capability level and service centric efforts.
Traditional improvement efforts, including most IT Service Management projects, work “inside-out”, focusing on what’s happening inside the service provider or infrastructure management organization, how it works, and using internal performance measures.
Outside-In thinking ensures the organization ‘learns to see’ from a customer perspective, and service management and improvement efforts are driven by understanding what a service does for the customer in terms of enabling and supporting their desired results or ‘Successful Customer Outcomes (SCOs)’.”
Gartner – Predicts 2012: Four Forces Combine to Transform the IT Landscape
This Predicts 2012 special report highlights how the control of technology and technology-driven decisions is shifting out of the hands of IT organizations. New forces that are not easily controlled by IT are pushing themselves to the forefront of IT spending.
Specifically, the forces of cloud computing, social media and social networking, mobility and information management are all evolving at a rapid pace. Business unit stakeholders often recognize the value of new technology before IT departments can harness it.
For me, the top three trends for Enterprise IT in 2012 can be summarised as “MoSCo” which refers to Mobility, Social business and Cloud.
Some of my other observations would be:
2012 is not about doing more for less it is about choosing which things you will do and those you have to stop doing altogether. The Business will be directed to cut back on discretionary spending that will impact their key investment decisions. At the same time the Business will need the flexibility to respond quickly to changing imperatives.
In 2012 if the expected service does not meet the perceived service the expectation gap will grow and the Business will go elsewhere. With enterprise mobility will come the need to re-evaluate target service levels which will need to be tiered depending on the device the Business user adopts to access corporate information.
In 2012 there will be increased pressure to craft new and re-negotiate existing contracts requiring best in class Sourcing and Vendor Management capabilities and practitioners within the Service Provider organisation. These SVM professionals must be able to interact with the Business / Procurement whilst actively managing Supplier / Vendor relationships in a multi-sourced environment.
In 2012 the impending “Eurogeddon” crisis will fuel a significant increase in the adoption of cloud based services. As service offerings mature the Business will focus on “Not If, But When” to adopt the cloud especially if it improves project delivery timescales.
In 2012 the Business will examine how, when and what (Infrastructure + Applications + Services) to migrate to the cloud to save cost and resources.
Last Word – I am looking forward to the premiere of “House of Lies” a new American comedy TV show in Jan which is based on the book, House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then Tell You the Time. Survival of the Slickest indeed.
thisiswhatgoodlookslike 