Enterprise LOBs are rushing to implement cloud-based SaaS solutions, often without support from IT. However, although initial pilot costs may be minimal, as applications begin to scale, their financial impact becomes significant. What steps can CIOs take to address this problem?
As 3rd Platform technologies continue to expand and evolve, businesses will need to continue to develop their digital transformation strategies to better provide customers the digital services and experiences they expect. Enterprise organizations are taking note; in the next two years, the number of “Digitally determined” organizations with a fully integrated enterprise-wide technology architecture will grow from 33% to nearly 90%. These organizations are committed from moving from an era of experimentation to multiplied innovation, the second chapter of IDC’s 3rd Platform technology framework.
No one questions that companies should do more to get a better Return on Investment in Data (ROID) – but…
A little more than a year ago I was gifted a smart speaker by a friend for Christmas. At the time I was suspicious of installing an always-listening device in my home and had no streaming subscriptions or other smart home devices. Fast forward 12 months and I’m excited to say that I now have several smart speakers throughout my house that allow me to stream my favorite music on demand. Best of all, since they allow me to control other devices with just my voice, I also have a host of smart home devices ranging from robot vacuums to lights and cameras and streaming sticks to name just a few.
It’s my favorite time of the year – the moment when our Global IoT Decision Maker results come back from the field. We’ve been fielding this primary research study for 6 consecutive years, and this year we captured feedback from our biggest sample yet. This year we have inputs from almost 5,000 IoT decision makers in more than 25 countries. The dataset is rich with perspective on deployments, including the challenges and successes these organizations are experiencing. But this year, we are diving deeper into the key metrics they are using to measure success as well as their perspectives on how to truly monetize the IoT.
More than 3 years ago, I wrote a IDC Community post, “Using Robots to Curb Labor Shortage in Chinese Manufacturing” highlighting a factory in China that replaced 90% of the people in the factory with automation and robots. In that case the workforce was reduced from 650 employees down to only 60 people, those remaining were doing drastically different work than those jobs that were replaced. The jobs shifted from manual labor to oversight, maintenance, and support of the automation and robotics systems.
With Halloween now firmly in the rear view mirror, I – along with numerous retailers – am turning my attention to holiday shopping. Naturally, the tech fan in me expects all number of smart compute devices to make it on many consumers’ lists from tablets to smartphones, from PC’s to smart speakers, and even some of the emerging products like AR/VR and drones.
While Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is more than 10 years old, the technology has not captured a level of market success commensurate with its mindshare – and has indeed lagged either SaaS or IaaS in terms of market presence. Yet in spite of its slow market growth, PaaS technology has continued to diversify and evolve to support the intensifying developer need for agility and productivity, especially as developers have assumed a front seat at the enterprise digital transformation table.
IDC has been tracking technology spending in the Worldwide Black Book since the 1980s, and you’d be forgiven for thinking there are fewer surprises and unexpected statistics today. The technology industry is now a much more mature sector of the global economy, even compared to as recently as the early 2000s.
Overall IT spending may be more predictable than in the past, as an increasing share of end-user tech spend moves from volatile Capex to relatively stable Opex thanks partly to the growth of cloud and mobile, but the key to gaining competitive advantage still lies in being first to recognise significant shifts, anomalies and surprising trends. Here are just five of them.
