Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 35 | Page 29

EDITOR’S NOTE H ello and welcome to the last edition of Intelligent CIO Africa for 2019. I hope you’ve had a great year and are looking forward to what the next 12 months have to offer in the world of IT. You don’t need me to tell you that the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is as important as ever, especially with new technologies entering the market. With that in mind, the front cover this month focuses on the work that the CIO does at a leading financial services group. Johnson Idesoh has been at Old Mutual Limited since 2014 and was tasked with changing the paradigm for technology at the company from ‘a back office’ function to a ‘customer facing and enhancing’ one. He goes on to explain that leadership is about creating belief and having the confidence to achieve a strategy and purpose, adding that aspiring CIOs need to focus on the space between outcomes and technology. We also look at the role of the CIO at what their priorities should be for 2020 in a special feature that starts on page 34. www.intelligentcio.com We hear from Niral Patel, the Managing Director of Oracle South Africa; Ian Jansen van Rensburg, Lead Technologist for Sub-Saharan Africa at VMware; and Indi Siriniwasa, Vice President at Trend Micro Sub Saharan Africa. Our second feature focuses on Software- as-a-Service (SaaS) and how it can benefit organisations. I spoke to Ken Ringdahl and Michael Cade, from Veeam, who gave me an overview of the model and how it can be used, while Ian McAlister, General Manager at CRS Technologies, talks about how an enterprise-focused approach, whether it’s Enterprise Application Software (EAS) or SaaS, is fundamental to business success in the digital world. As always, there are our other regular features and news items, which includes a focus on Morocco and a ‘Get to Know’ with Pieter Bensch, from Sage. I hope you enjoy the read and, as always, if you have anything you want to send for future editions, you can get in touch by emailing me at paul@lynchpinmedia.co.uk Paul Rogers Editor The recent state of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on several South African financial institutions has once again highlighted the importance of having an integrated cybersecurity approach reflective of the requirements of the always-on world. In ‘Industry Watch’, a number of experts have given their tips on what organisations should do if such an attack occurs. INTELLIGENTCIO 29