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.
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