Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 58 | Page 72

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At VMware , we find that customers are currently investing time and money in cloud strategies , security and the development and running of modern applications .
What do you currently identify as the major areas of investment
in your industry ?
At VMware , we find that customers are currently investing time and money in cloud strategies , security and the development and running of modern applications . Modern business will run on modern applications . Some of our customers are planning to make use of a single cloud provider – they want to run their entire business within this single cloud provider . This is like saying , ‘ I will go with x hardware vendor and stay there for the foreseeable future ’. The customers that have a multi-cloud strategy and aren ’ t committing their entire business to a single cloud provider are the ones that will have more choice , better financial options and the ability to move back to their private data centre if needed . At the end of the day , it is all about agility , time to market and cost .
What are the region-specific challenges you encounter in your role ?
There are many challenges that customers face to move to cloud or a complete software-defined architecture . Some of these challenges are people and process-related . Company politics , job security and the hunger for career growth are to name a few . Rigid silos exist in the IT department ( server , network , storage , security ) and each silo has its own team culture , brand and red tape . If a company can break these silos and learn to work as one digital team , the business will benefit from it . The IT department can then start moving from a cost centre to a profit centre .
What changes to your job role have you seen in the last year and how do you see these developing in the next 12 months ?
I have seen many changes in my job role in the past few years . Technology is moving at a swift pace and one has to keep up . The ‘ super customer ’ of today do their research on the Internet , but they are still interested in the vision , strategy and complete solution set from VMware . We have changed from a point solution company to solving a customer ’ s biggest business challenges . VMware can support any cloud , any application and device , and any worker . p
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