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Audio Management Briefing: IT GovernanceAdvisor: Rob Mackinnon Date: April 7th 2010 Time: 11.00am - 12.00pm AEDT |
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Current Research |
Azure: why not all clouds are equalIn the short-term, the soon to be launched Windows Azure platform is
likely to be misunderstood by IT enterprise architects and
under-estimated by in-house software developers. The notion of “cloud
computing” has become ill-defined and confused. In order to
understand where Azure and other cloud based solutions can benefit an
enterprise, it is vital to have clear definition of the different
classes of cloud computing and the trend of clouds towards greater
simplicity at the expense of flexibility.
Bridging the CIO confidence gap - the three dimensions of adding business valueMany CIOs seek to be seen as visionaries in their organisations.
Usually bestowed with higher than average intellect and with unique
insight into the workings of their organisation and its role within
its ecosystem and society, they are well-placed to make a significant
contribution toward organisational growth and innovation. Yet
curiously, this rarely happens.
Aspiring
CIOs wishing to be regarded as peers within upper echelons of
management requires that they are not only seen as delivering
business value, but they have competencies that transcend mere
technical management expertise.
Overcoming infrastructure inertiaMoving from today’s Layered
Component model to an Integrated Systems model of IT infrastructure
will bring many benefits such as lower operational costs and a more
agile infrastructure. However there will be many challenges in
undertaking this change, and at the top of the list is the IT
infrastructure inertia created by people’s resistance to change
and the scale of the investment in the existing technologies.
Rather
than focus on the technology IT executive need to work on the people
issues, (resistance to change, competency traps, fear of the unknown)
and the capital investment issues, that are typical in any major
program of change.
CIO and CFO – Working together winsThe GFC (Global Financial Crisis) has forced most organisations to
reduce their operating costs to stay viable, and have given the task
of achieving it, by challenging spending proposals and trimming
budgets, to the CFO.
To
ensure the right areas of expenditure are targeted CIOs must work
with the CFO to not only assess impact of reduced spending but also
develop a fallback plan in case IT spending is cut. CIOs who adopt an
adversarial approach or are slow to co-operate with the CFO are
putting their careers at risk.
You have been hacked – what now?A less frequently considered aspect of protecting an organisation’s information assets is the preparation required for the immediate aftermath of a successful attack. This is the crossover point between incident response and crisis management. The prudent organisation
with valuable information assets has already planned what steps will
be taken in the event of a successful attack. Most of these decisions
must be made by senior executives from business units other than IT,
and they must be made well in advance of the attack occurring. IT
will merely be executing their instructions because decisions
concerning the information assets are not IT’s to make.
Performance Management: Getting the most from your suppliersOne of the key activities in Contract Management is the governance
and performance management process that is used to ensure that
suppliers meet their contracted deliverables.1
Despite the importance of this process to the achievement of the
goals surrounding the contract, in many situations contract managers
report that the performance targets and related governance processes
have not worked, and in some cases, actually hindered contract
performance.
Uncertainty makes for a far better business case than hopeIt is tempting to seek out easy solutions for hard problems. Many
others must have had similar problems, and a large part of the
solution development effort can be short-circuited by selecting an
appropriate productised solution – that’s hope. But
similarities between problems in different organisations are easily
over-estimated – that’s uncertainty. Business cases are
strengthened by highlighting key differences to other organisations,
and by proposing a path that incrementally removes uncertainty.
Government 2.0: Between platitude and policyGovernment does not
only want to supply information and transactional services, it wants
engagement from within and outside its ranks. But that ambition may
be already too late.
Sourcing Monthly - January 2010 – February 2010It’s been a fairly hefty month in terms of IT outsourcing: lots of great deals and news! There have been a lot of announcements about planned government IT projects, and spending allocations – all potential future tenders.
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