Joseph Sweeney
Dr. Joseph Sweeney is an IBRS advisor specialising in the areas of workforce transformation and the future of work, including; workplace strategies, end-user computing, collaboration, workflow and low code development, data-driven strategies, policy, and organisational cultural change. He is the author of IBRS’s Digital Workspaces methodology. Dr Sweeney has a particular focus on Microsoft, Google, AWS, VMWare, and Citrix. He often assists organisations in rationalising their licensing spend while increasing workforce engagement. He is also deeply engaged in the education sector. Joseph was awarded the University of Newcastle Medal in 2007 for his studies in Education, and his doctorate, granted in 2015, was based on research into Australia’s educational ICT policies for student device deployments.
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Shadow IT sounds like a covert — quite possibly dark — force. And to some people it may well be. But the truth is both far simpler and more complex.
According to Cisco, Shadow IT is the use of IT-related hardware or software by a department or individual without the knowledge of the IT or security group within the organisation.
“Shadow IT is a term that originally came from people having little apps they brought into the business themselves. Dropbox is the classic one, but there are plenty of them,” says Dr Joseph Sweeney, advisor at leading Australian IT research firm, IBRS.
“Today, shadow IT extends beyond consumer apps to the as-a-service delivery of enterprise business capability, such as Human Capital Management.”
- IT Operational Excellence
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23 July 2019
Conclusion: On 16 May 2019, IBRS conducted a peer roundtable on issues related to data, analytics and business value. The focus of the roundtable was to allow senior IT executives to explore how different organisations are leveraging data to achieve tangible business benefits.
IBRS conducted the Domo-sponsored event, under the Chatham House rule. Participants included senior IT executives from a broad range of Australian organisations both in the public and private sector.
This paper provides a summary of the key learnings from the event.
- Strategy & Transformation
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05 July 2019
- IT Operational Excellence
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02 July 2019
Organisations that are resisting the shift to Cloud computing are often basing their decisions on common misconceptions around security, price and integration.
That’s a key finding in a recent report conducted by IBRS, The State of Enterprise Software Report 2019.
The Security Myth
Many of the organisations surveyed declared security as the primary reason for not moving to Cloud services.
Concern over the security of systems — and, critically, of the data they hold — was common in the early days of Cloud computing and it seems at least some of that legacy remains. But it’s a myth.
- Read more: How will the shift in how enterprise technology procurement effect your business? Download the 2019 State of Enterprise Software Report.
- Learn more: Watch an in-depth analysis by Dr Joe Sweeney at the key findings webinar
Dr Joe Sweeney, author of the report said cloud service providers exceed most organisations’ budget and capacity to manage complex cyber security risks.
That’s certainly the view of the Commonwealth Government, which is moving to Cloud-delivered enterprise solutions aggressively.
- Strategy & Transformation
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12 June 2019
Conclusion: Business executives in different business units are bypassing ICT with enterprise Software-as-a-Service. Two early leaders in this trend – marketing and human resources departments – are now rediscovering age-old challenges of uncoordinated software selection. CIOs must transform the ICT group to run IT-as-a-Service to help the organisation avoid information and process fragmentation, as well as reposition their teams as consultative partners. There is no time to wait.
- Strategy & Transformation
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03 June 2019
Demand for chatbots – automated conversational agents that may be deployed across multiple digital channels, including websites, social media feeds, instant messaging, voice assistants etc. – is growing. As outlined in Chatbots Part 1, organisations should take an evolutional approach to develop an understanding of chatbots, and the skills and capabilities needed to harness them.
- Strategy & Transformation
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29 April 2019
Conducted by Australia’s Intelligent Business Research Services (IBRS) and commissioned by TechnologyOne, the survey of 261 business leaders in ANZ has shown that business functions are having more sway about technology decisions and are increasingly opting for Cloud-based applications.
But it is not always a case of “shadow IT” in the traditional sense where a business unit goes behind the technology department’s back to buy a product or service.
Instead, it is “enterprise shadow IT” selected with the blessings of IT, said Joe Sweeney, principal analyst at IBRS, adding that in some organisations, CIOs have transformed and are more supportive and consultative.
- Strategy & Transformation
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14 April 2019
Conclusion: Chatbots have become a hot topic among senior executives, especially in HR, customer services, citizen service, marketing and sales groups. Chatbots, powered by the increasingly accurate natural language processing capabilities, hold the potential to radically change the way people interact with an organisation without human intervention.
Separating chatbots into two aspects – clients and engines – provides a basis for very low-cost proof of concepts, while also protecting investments in the most valuable asset of the bot: the training data.
- Strategy & Transformation
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05 April 2019
- IT Operational Excellence
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27 March 2019
- Strategy & Transformation
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15 March 2019
Conclusion: Media played up the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digital Transformation in 2018. However, the potential AI remains underestimated and its limitations misunderstood. In short, AI is reaching peak hype with investments sporadic and confused. In contrast, Digital Transformation remains a primary driver for investment, though it means very different things to different organisations and even different stakeholders within organisations.
Australia’s CIOs remain focused on tactical issues: upgrades of core systems, adoption of hybrid Cloud (as opposed to simply Cloud migration, which was a dominant theme in early 2018) and changing the culture and structure of the ICT group to support “as-a-Service” operational models entity
It is important to note that these tactical priorities of CIOs all have one thing in common: they are aimed at providing a technological infrastructure for the organisation to adopt “Digital Transformation”. In this sense, Digital Transformation is being used as a way to secure agreement and investment in more fluid, responsive and modern tech infrastructure and operations, rather than a specific, measurable business outcome.
In 2019, Digital Transformation is a rallying call, more than a discrete program of work with measurable outcomes. This rallying call will be heard by all stakeholders, but interpreted differently. The challenge for senior ICT executives will be to leverage the short opportunity the Digital Transformation call has to deliver genuine long-term benefits and update infrastructure and operating models to be more flexible and responsive to changing business needs.
- Strategy & Transformation
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05 March 2019
- IT Operational Excellence
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28 January 2019
Conclusion: Increasingly, IT departments are looking for ways to divest their operations of undifferentiated activities – that is, activities that are common among most organisations. One technology that is ubiquitous across every organisation, in every vertical sector, is end-user computing. Theoretically, it should be an easy area of IT to be deployed via a fully managed service. In reality, IBRS has seen more failures in the space than successes.
The reasons why fully managed (aka “as-a-Service”) end-user computing initiatives fail is a result of the initial rationale for the go-to-market strategy and the resulting request for proposal (RFP).
- IT Operational Excellence
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07 January 2019
- IT Operational Excellence
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26 December 2018
