Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 35 | Page 34

FEATURE: 2020, THE CIO’S PRIORITY /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 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? 34 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com