Business Technology Roundtable

Impatient CEOs are demanding more innovation from their business technology leaders, as the digital disruption that's already unseating entrenched incumbents can cause real angst. Some have requested their CIO to move quickly and harness the smartphone device that's in nearly every employee's possession. What is your mobile-first business strategy? Are you prepared to accelerate your mobile application development efforts? The right answers to these key questions will become increasingly important. The savvy IT leaders at forward-thinking organizations across industries are already utilizing enterprise mobility software applications to transform their businesses and gain a competitive edge in the Global Networked Economy. Commercial mobile application development is a strategic business tool in the quest to achieve a significant digital transformation . Leveraging Enterprise Mobility Leadership According to the latest global market study by IDC, $901 billion was spe...

It's a given, this year more CIOs will shift their focus from selective IT efficiency to overall IT effectiveness. In 2014 and beyond, enterprise IT leadership will be judged on their ability to meet the demands of tech-savvy Line of Business users. This is the type of meaningful progress that CEOs have been anticipating. But that organizational realignment won't always translate into higher budgets. Here's why. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), worldwide IT spending will increase by just 4.1 percent in constant currency this year -- that's down from their previous forecast of 4.6 percent and also down from 2013 growth of 4.5 percent. IDC believes that pent-up demand should eventually drive more business technology capital spending in the second half of 2014, as some organizations replace ageing infrastructure -- including servers, storage and networking equipment. So, what caused this dip in IT spending? "As smar...

As more business applications move to the cloud, security seems to be top-of-mind for all concerned parties. Also, the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to work trend, along with more smartphones and tablets that require wireless connectivity in the workplace, has increased the level of concern for many IT managers and executives. Keeping business systems safe and protecting the data that they hold has never been more difficult to achieve, according to the latest market study by Ovum. The typical corporate ICT environment continues to be threatened by security attacks -- ranging from opportunistic hackers using pre-built tools through to targeted, well-resourced, state-sponsored cyber activity. Ovum believes that online attack volumes will continue to rise and no business should consider itself immune -- since any type of organization can be targeted by hackers. Even the best-protected government, military and business systems have already been breached, and in 2014 they will to be put...

Are you likely to increase your business technology investment next year? If you are, then you're not alone. Worldwide ICT spending is expected to accelerate in 2014, after dipping to its slowest pace of growth since the financial crisis in 2013, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ). Overall business technology spending is on course to increase by 4 percent this year at constant currency, reaching $2.04 trillion -- that's down from last year’s growth of 5 percent, due mainly to the slowdown in key emerging markets including China and Russia. IDC forecasts that in 2014, a rebound in China and continued momentum in the U.S. and Europe will see a return to overall industry growth of more than 5 percent (reaching $2.14 trillion). The Business Technology That Will Drive Growth In fact, almost half of this year’s industry growth is due to continued strength in smartphone and tablet shipments. Excluding mobile phones, IT spending will ...

Are you one of those independent executives that uses strategic foresight to gain a decisive lead over competitors that tend to follow the crowd? Granted, it takes courage to make bold moves -- and follow the path that's less traveled. Big rewards tend to go to the confident, not the cautious. What's your business technology investment strategy for 2013, and beyond?  Does your corporate foresight anticipate success, based upon your ability to deploy quantum-leap technological advances -- like managed cloud services ? According to International Data Corporation ( IDC ), the economic slowdown in China has driven them to lower their expectations for worldwide IT spending growth this year. IDC now forecasts IT spending growth of 4.6 percent in constant currency for 2013. That's down from the previous forecast of 4.9 percent growth and a sharp deceleration from last year's growth of almost 6 percent. Despite the lower forecast, IDC expects IT spending will reach $2 tr...

We already know that savvy executives and managers everywhere are the early-adopters of a variety of mobile devices. They use these devices to connect to an online world of infinite possibilities. Behind every great device is a great network. The same essential network that's the platform for the emerging Internet of Everything ( IoE ). Exponential growth in the use of these smart devices has led to significant and increased demand for network bandwidth across 84 percent of organizations surveyed globally, according to the findings from a new market study commissioned by BT and Cisco. More than half (56 percent) of IT managers have also noticed a resulting performance decline in some applications, which impacts negatively the productivity gains promised by these smart devices. Almost half (46 percent) of workers with Wi-Fi access in their office have experienced delays logging on or accessing an application, while 39 percent have noticed they are running more slowly now than...

Economic uncertainty surrounding the U.S. government sequester, European debt crisis and weakening GDP in China has resulted in volatile spending patterns across most segments of the market. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ), as a result of the current economic climate, business technology spending was slightly below expectations in the second half of 2012 and first quarter of 2013. IDC now projects worldwide IT spending growth of 4.9 percent this year in constant currency, down from the previous forecast of 5.5 percent growth -- and representing a slowdown from the 5.6 percent growth recorded in 2012. As a result, IT spending will reach $2.06 trillion in 2013. Including telecom services, ICT spending will increase by 4.5 percent to $3.7 trillion. So, what are the key trends that are shaping the updated global forecasts? Deteriorating PC Shipments The reduction in IDC’s overall forecast for 2013 is largely driven by rapidly deteri...

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2012 to 2017 , worldwide mobile data traffic will increase 13-fold over the next four years, reaching 11.2 exabytes per month (for an annual run rate of 134 exabytes) by 2017. The expected steady increase in mobile traffic is partly due to continued strong growth in the number of mobile Internet connections (personal devices and machine-to-machine applications), which will exceed the world’s population (United Nations estimates 7.6 billion) by 2017. The forecast’s annual run rate of 134 exabytes of mobile data traffic is equivalent to: 134 times all the Internet Protocol traffic (fixed and mobile) generated in the year 2000, or 30 trillion images (e.g., via MMS or Instagram) — 10 images daily from each person on earth for one year, or 3 trillion video clips (e.g., YouTube) — one video clip daily from each person on earth over one year. “By 2017, global mobile data traffic will continue it...

Cisco released findings from two global studies that provide a vivid picture of the rising security challenges that businesses, IT departments and individuals face -- particularly as employees become more mobile, blending work and personal lifestyles throughout their waking hours. Despite popular assumptions that security risks increase as a person's online activity becomes shadier, findings from the Cisco 2013 Annual Security Report (ASR) reveal that the highest concentration of online security threats tend to target legitimate destinations visited by mass audiences -- such as major search engines, retail sites and social media outlets. Cisco found that online shopping sites are 21 times as likely, and search engines are 27 times as likely, to deliver malicious content than a counterfeit software site. Security risks rise in businesses because many employees adopt "my way" work lifestyles in which their devices, work and online behavior mix with their personal liv...

Across the globe, during the holiday season, more people purchased a new media tablet or smartphone equipped with Wi-Fi connectivity for broadband internet access. Some will want to use these powerful mobile devices at work -- in addition to using them at home or while on the go. According to the latest market study by Ovum, employees in high-growth markets are more willing to embrace the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) to work phenomenon, and adopt the personal productivity benefits of enterprise mobility. Ovum believes that the BYOD trend is driven by professionals in high-growth markets that seek to live and work much more effectively than their peers -- and the fact that there's less corporate provision of mobile phones or tablets. As part of a large study that assessed employee behavior and attitudes towards a BYOD solution , Ovum revealed that across the 17 markets that they surveyed, 57.1 percent of full-time employees engage in some form of BYOD activity. Yet, when ...

A comprehensive enterprise mobile device and application strategy, if executed correctly, can become a significant competitive advantage. But, there's a growing need for answers to the questions troubling many IT executives -- with regard to their mobile device policies, the adoption of media tablets, and mobile application development costs and practices. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), corporate-liable devices still prevail with 77 percent of survey respondent organizations providing smartphones to their employees and 49 percent providing media tablets in 2011. Of these corporate-liable devices, 70 percent were purchased by the organization and issued to the employees while only 7 percent were purchased by the employee with full or partial reimbursement. The goal of the study, based on responses from CIOs and IT professionals in the U.S. and Europe, is to provide IT organizations with insight into how their peers have addresse...

Like it or not, some enterprises have already entered a post-PC world -- where their business communication network must accommodate new user-driven choices. These include traditional applications, mobile apps, social apps and operating systems; various server architectures; and an array of mobile devices ranging from smartphones to tablets and other mobility tools. Are you experiencing this phenomenon? If not, you will soon. Moreover, this latest business technology trend has huge ramifications. Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) conducted extensive research and analysis to uncover key insights about BYOD (“bring your own device”) and desktop virtualization trends in U.S. enterprises. The Cisco IBSG Horizons BYOD and Virtualization study surveyed 600 enterprise IT leaders from 18 industries. The Top 10 Market Insights Insight 1: Mobility Is Pervasive Seventy-eight percent of U.S. white-collar employees use a mobile device (e.g., laptop, smartphone, or tablet...

According to a new market study by Cisco, a majority (60%) of IT decision makers from North European countries believe the ability to work remotely leads to increased productivity -- and it is no longer necessary to be confined to an office to be productive. Although these IT decision makers believe technology (such as business tablets ) allows them to be more mobile and flexible, more than half (56%) of those surveyed -- led by those in Norway and The Netherlands -- work one or more extra hours per day as a result of the ability to work remotely. In Northern Europe, there is a growing need for remote access to the company network, social media access in the workplace and for the freedom to use personal devices for business purposes -- also known as "Bring Your Own Device" or BYOD. This trend can have a significant impact on the IT policies of organizations and among end users who are employed by companies with IT policies -- as the study also found that nearly half (47...

Market leading companies are embracing enterprise talent networking practices -- to gain a competitive advantage within their industry. While Online collaboration tools have been readily available for some time, few IT managers proactively combine them into a cohesive strategy to advance their organization's productivity. That being said, it's been the tech-savvy forward-thinking executives that have led the cause to date -- enabling their organization to join the ranks of the early-adopters, and paving the way for others to follow. Cisco announced that Virgin Media, the UK's top entertainment and digital communications company, is deploying the powerful combination of Cisco Quad , Cisco WebEx and Cisco Unified Communications to its eager employee base. The solutions are part of the Virgin Media progressive "Flexible Working Initiative" that will enable thousands of employees to collaborate and work remotely -- utilizing video calls and shared documents, a...

More capable smartphones and media tablets are now joining a variety of highly portable netbook computers that have already invaded the workplace. Many are being combined with mobile apps that tap into cloud-based productivity solutions. According to the latest market study by ABI Research , healthcare is one of the most dynamic sectors for mobile technologies, and manufacturing is now the largest sector for mobile enterprise applications worldwide. By 2016, manufacturing will generate approximately 23 percent of the nearly $5 billion in mobile enterprise application service revenues. Mobile enterprise applications, also called mobile B2E applications, include dashboard apps, work flow approval apps, and line-of-business applications for both the smartphone and tablet. ABI's mobile services practice director, Dan Shey, says, "Manufacturing beats healthcare for B2E app adoption and revenues because of its large employment worldwide and the breadth of occupations ...

Media tablet and smartphone software applications (apps) have entered the mainstream of business technology. In fact, results from recent market research by International Data Corporation ( IDC ) demonstrates that service providers are already reporting increasing enterprise and independent software vendor (ISV) activity -- centered upon the new commercial mobile apps ecosystem that has emerged. These latest developments are establishing mobile initiatives for a variety of horizontal and industry-specific business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) application scenarios. Enabling Mobile Enterprise Agile App Development Furthermore, third parties are increasing their mobile application life-cycle investments to meet the growing demand for mobile applications -- such as native, Web-based or cross-platform -- with an emphasis on accelerating client mobile applications to market at lower total cost of ownership (TCO) with higher productivity and quality. An insightf...

Small businesses account for two-thirds of all new employment in America, according to the historical U.S. government statistics. Developing trends within this key sector are therefore a leading market indicator of the nation's economic stability and forward-looking performance. That said, new U.S. business spending research, that was performed by In-Stat, would indicate that some things are starting to trend upwards. According to the latest market study by In-Stat , small and medium businesses (SMBs) plan to increase their spending on wireless data services by 42 percent from 2010 to 2015. Moreover, U.S. small office and home office (SOHO) businesses will lead the category, forecast to increase their spending by over 46 percent on wireless data from 2010 to 2015. New Productivity Oriented Wireless Data Applications "Voice has become a commodity, with growth in voice services essentially being stagnant across all sizes of business," says Greg Potter, In-Stat Dat...