Organisations that are still running Windows XP fleets are debating holding off a desktop refresh (to Windows 7) until Windows 8 becomes available. There are three key considerations to this discussion: product functionality, management, and licensing. In each of these three categories, IBRS concludes that there is no compelling reason to wait for Windows 8.

The implementation of, and ongoing investment in Business Intelligence (BI) solutions have regularly failed to meet organisational expectations, both in terms of business outcomes and cost1. Further highlighting this, the most recent Gartner predictions for 2012 highlight that by 2015, more than 85% of Fortune 500 companies will have failed to effectively exploit Big Data (and by extension BI) to achieve competitive advantage2. As an outcome, consideration of the establishment of a BI Competency Centre is relevant for a large number of organisations who wish to improve outcomes of BI within their organisation. The establishment of the centre of excellence can align resources, focus capabilities and ensure education of projects and processes are shared across the organisation.

Over the last decade, the volume of data that governments and private corporations collect from citizens has been eclipsed by the data produced by individuals, as photos, videos, and messages on online social platforms, and also the data produced by large scale networks of sensors that monitor traffic, weather, and industrial systems. Web users are increasingly recognising the risks of handing over data-mining rights to a very small group of organisations, whist getting very little in return. The pressure is on to develop robust solutions that not only deliver value, but also address concerns about data ownership, privacy, and the threat of data theft and abuse.

The foundation of any BYO device initiative is a robust BYO device policy. The policy must set the boundaries for acceptable use, costs and security. Ensure device security is driven by business stakeholders and is based on pragmatic risk analysis rather than technical concerns from IT staff, or FUD from vendors who are anxious to sell their wares. Robust policy, strong corporate culture and proper training can be more effective than technology in securing corporate data and controlling costs and risk. Use policy, culture and training to drive compliance, minimising the need for complex and expensive technological controls.

Whether in the private or public sector, the fundamental objective of a board should be “building long-term sustainable growth in shareholder value”1. Usually the intention to do this is expressed in an organisation's strategic plan. Increasingly, IT plays a significant part in these plans, yet many Directors remain shy of anything other than superficial discussions on IT, potentially diminishing IT's contribution to the organisation. Through exertion of appropriate influence and by carefully selecting which channels to use to gain board attention, an effective CIO can take a number of steps to correct this situation.

One of the initial soft targets of the Executive when costs have to be cut is the IT training budget. Whilst CIOs might put up counter arguments such as potential impact on IT productivity, project delays and reliance on lower skilled staff, the arguments usually fall on deaf ears as most executives regard training as a discretionary expense. When the cut occurs CIOs have to be creative and find ways to enhance the skills and proficiency of IT professionals and managers, while staying within the amended IT expense budget.

Whether in the domain of IT security, or in corporate fraud, when an organisation has been successfully attacked, what makes the difference is knowing that the attack occurred, and knowing as soon as possible. For organisations working to make their IT security budget go further, having a third party service provider check security logs is proving to be a cost effective form of selective outsourcing. Of course, this service doesn’t make an organisation perfectly secure, but early knowledge is vital to incident response and loss minimisation.

The challenge of servicing customers well through various channels and over many devices has added considerable complexity to operations. The blindness of monitoring how well the IT operation is working has been removed and now data flows in huge amounts. The principal goal is to provide high quality customer experience and not simply rely on dashboards to churn out machine data reports. The skills of analysis and insight should be more keenly applied to the data in order to reveal and clarify the value of the data. How the reams of data can be used for an organisation to deliver a high customer experience remains the main task. Organisations that believe that solely monitoring data to support transactions will likely miss the significance of what the data can yield and strengthen their customer contacts.

The ICT organisation within any enterprise can benefit from a structured approach to understanding business capability of the enterprise. Business Capability Modelling is an Enterprise Architecture technique that IBRS sees playing a key role in transforming the relationship in many enterprises between ICT and the business. In organisations where ICT deeply understands the business we see a close relationship between respected partners, and often this is reflected by a direct reporting link between CIO and CEO. Failure to appreciate the business capability consigns the ICT organisation to be a subservient commodity supplier (rather than a business partner). Where the relationship between business and ICT is fragile, the potential of outsourcing to another provider means that the ICT organisation is not seen as a valued strategic partner.

Deals during the month have been comparatively unexciting, with a real focus on analysis of major issues in 2011 and forecasts for 2012. What is a little disturbing and confusing about this month’s news items were the Federal Government announcements about areas for planned IT spending cuts, and increases. It is shaving costs on some essential IT (such as equipment upgrade and maintenance) and cutting vendor panels and new projects while it continues to invest huge amounts into spending on IT for students. While this appears to be a good idea in theory the value of diverting this spending may be questionable. The perceived need to get technology into student’s hands, within what is a tight timeframe, could be mostly for government PR. However this rush could lead to an inability to negotiate the best deals in terms of price and reduced leverage to procure quality items.