FEATURE: 2020, THE CIO’S PRIORITY
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With the IT world rapidly
evolving with new
technologies entering the
market, we ask leading
experts in the industry
what should be the Chief
Information Officer’s
priorities for 2020.
N
NIRAL PATEL, ORACLE SOUTH
AFRICA MD
There are fundamentally no new areas
for CIOs to focus on in 2020. Instead, it’s
a case of maintaining a grasp on swiftly
evolving existing trends, particularly as
cloud technology enters its next lifecycle.
While greater all-round operational
efficiency remains a north star for CIOs, the
following are the greatest priorities moving
into the next year.
Whole-enterprise cloud
To mine the potential of IoT and other
emerging technologies requires the scalable,
reliable, flexible and far-reaching computing
power that only cloud provides. With next-
generation cloud solutions becoming ever
more accessible, now is the time to cast
aside on-premise legacy systems and move
towards a whole-enterprise cloud.
A cloud-native IT environment is future-
facing, structured around the realisation that
mission-critical applications cannot afford to
suffer any downtime, and therefore need to
leave the traditional enterprise data centre
behind. Such solutions also help companies
make the most of their data by breaking
down silos and creating an integrated
information system that can produce
valuable insights nearly instantaneously.
CIOs overseeing a technology refresh at their
organisation should take advantage of how
Digital Transformation is being streamlined
thanks to a new breed of integration and
migration tools, as well as a growing number
of interoperability partnerships. Oracle has
entered into agreements with Microsoft
Azure, VMware and Linux so customers
can migrate and run workloads for a highly
optimised and reliable experience, whether
going the public or hybrid cloud route.
Tech debt reduction
The pace at which business requirements
are evolving can leave IT platforms
insufficient for the task, holding back
organisational growth and ramping up
spend as urgent quick fixes are adopted.
The result can be a Frankensteining of
software and disparate code that costs
more to integrate, in the long run.
It’s one of the reasons that home
shopping retailer HomeChoice South Africa
chose our Oracle Commerce Cloud solution
when they initiated a technology refresh.
Making the move to cloud also helps to
shift Capex spend to Opex, in line with how
IT budgets are fundamentally changing,
so companies can operate more cost-
effectively and become more agile in their
resource allocation.
What will frame the
CIO’s agenda?
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