Business Technology Roundtable

The top predictions for 2014 business technology investment, according to Gartner Inc., include a focus on disruptions brought about by digital business, the Internet of Things, smart machines and the onset of what they call the Digital Industrial Revolution . That forward-looking view can be balanced by their current IT expense outlook. Worldwide IT spending is forecast to total $3.8 trillion in 2014 -- that's a 3.1 percent increase from 2013 spending of $3.7 trillion, according to the latest market study by Gartner. In 2013, the traditional IT market experienced flat growth, growing 0.4 percent year over year. Spending on devices contracted 1.2 percent in 2013, but it will grow 4.3 percent in 2014. Gartner analysts said convergence of the PC, ultramobiles (including tablets) and mobile phone segments -- as well as erosion of profit margins -- will take place as vendor differentiation will be based upon the price of a device. Software Applications Investment Remains Consta...

Savvy executive leaders are already prepared for the shift to more progressive business technology deployments throughout the enterprise. Open hybrid cloud architectures, big data analytics and mobile applications are high-growth platforms at the center of this shift. In particular, the emerging mobile applications must be integrated, flexible, and adaptable to constantly changing business conditions. This is the new normal in many fast-paced industries. That being said, are you ready for the mobile data deluge that's inevitable? According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index global mobile data traffic forecast for 2013 to 2018, worldwide mobile data traffic will increase nearly 11-fold over the next four years and reach an annual run rate of 190 exabytes by 2018. The projected increase in mobile traffic is partly due to continued strong growth in the number of mobile Internet connections -- such as personal devices and machine-to-machine (M2M) connections -- which will exc...

2014 will likely be a year of dual business goals for forward-thinking senior executives. Responding to ongoing needs for business efficiency and growth, but also adapting to exploit a fundamentally different digital commerce paradigm. Commercial digitalization, based upon the latest and most effective business technology advances has already begun, but most chief information officers (CIOs) do not feel prepared for this next era, according to a global survey of IT leaders by Gartner, Inc. Their latest market study showed that many CIOs feel overwhelmed by the prospect of building digital leadership while renovating their core of IT infrastructure. The Gartner survey found that 51 percent of CIOs are concerned that the digital transformation is coming faster than they can cope -- and 42 percent don't feel that they have the employee talent to face this future. "2014 must be a year of significant change if CIOs are to help their businesses and public sector agencies remai...

The ongoing convergence of digital and physical commerce has become a driving force in the success of today's leading B2B and B2C companies. Savvy senior executives are utilizing channel agnostic business technologies that enable them to give customers what they want -- an exceptional, integrated buying experience. The digital commerce applications market will grow at an 18.8 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to $4.1 billion through 2017, according to the latest global market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Although there are multiple scenarios that could unfold, IDC believes the market will exhibit strong growth over the next five years -- as digital commerce apps are one of the fastest growing segments in the overall enterprise applications software market. "New commerce offerings and vendors are launched continually, with retail being only one part of the story as organizations across every industry look to add commerce solutions to their produ...

Throughout 2013 most senior executives have been exposed to the key emerging business technology trends. During 2014, you're going to see and hear a lot more about the Internet of Things (IoT) -- and the impact will reach just about every industry and all the major markets within the Global Networked Economy. Let's consider the forward-looking outlook, from a leading industry analyst. International Data Corporation (IDC) recently offered their predictions for the coming year. "The 3rd Platform's impact was felt throughout the ICT industry in 2013 as a high-profile CEO lost his job, a major IT player went private, numerous vendors endured cash cow stagnation, and billion-dollar bets were placed on new technologies," said Frank Gens, Senior Vice President and Chief Analyst at IDC . In 2014, IDC believes that we'll see big investments to scale up cloud services, mobile internet, big data capabilities, and efforts to attract the independent developers who wi...

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...

Senior executives have been waiting for actionable insight from the mass of information that their IT departments already gather about their customers. But many have become very impatient -- because they want to see results, now. Do you anticipate that data analytics and real-time visualization will advance next year? Ovum expects a significant wave of business technology ramp-ups in 2014, in response to the market demand . They predict a growing third-party vendor and IT services ecosystem that creates Big Data and Fast Data tools and solutions for the enterprise data warehousing and applications markets. This growing trend is occurring as SQL and Hadoop platforms are diversifying, adopting multiple personalities, and providing overlapping functions. According to Ovum’s latest market study, SQL queries can now be run against Hadoop, and many SQL databases will be able to handle JSON document-centric queries. And as silicon-based storage -- DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) and...

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 ...

Given the differences in market maturity, cultural acceptance and local IT infrastructures, considerable regional differences exist in the deployment rates of cloud-based security systems. They all play a part in the level of spending dedicated to this delivery model -- when compared with on-premises business technology deployments. Moreover, privacy remains an inhibitor in the deployment of all forms of cloud-based services by the late adopter market segment. In particular, it's a big issue in those regions and countries with strong regulatory requirements -- such as Europe, with its data protection legislation. Regardless, the cloud-based security services market will be worth $2.1 billion in 2013 -- growing to $3.1 billion in 2015, according to the latest market study by Gartner. "The cloud-based security market remains a viable one, offering providers many opportunities for expansion," said Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner . "Encryption will be ...

Many industries are facing accelerating pressure for fundamental business process transformation -- including embracing digital business technology, in order to survive and stay competitive -- according to the latest market study by Gartner. "Transformation remains a critically important phenomenon across all industries. Many industries will face intense challenges in 2014 and beyond, and will have no choice but to radically change their established business models," said Kimberly Harris-Ferrante, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner . Last year saw many industry decision-makers focusing on adopting new technologies to improve business operations by addressing developments such as the convergence of social, mobile, cloud and Big Data. Gartner believes that this trend is driven in part by the challenges of consumer empowerment and market commoditization, which in many ways are greater than in the past, and are particularly difficult for traditional enterp...

In the third annual Global Cloud Index, Cisco forecasts that global cloud traffic, the fastest growing component of data center traffic, is expected to grow 4.5-fold -- that's a 35 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) -- from 1.2 zettabytes of annual traffic in 2012 to 5.3 zettabytes by 2017. The Cisco Global Cloud Index (2012–2017) was developed to estimate data center and cloud-based Internet Protocol (IP) traffic growth and trends. The Index serves as a complementary resource to existing network traffic studies, providing new insights and visibility into emerging trends affecting data centers and cloud architectures. The forecast becomes increasingly important as the network and data center become more intrinsically linked in offering cloud services . Overall global data center traffic will grow threefold and reach a total of 7.7 zettabytes annually by 2017. Approximately 17 percent of data center traffic will be fueled by end users accessing clouds for web surfing,...

Around the world, market leaders in all industries have already deployed managed cloud services. Seeking to use business technology as a strategic lever to advance past their competition on multiple fronts, the senior executives at these leading companies are eager to learn about the next phase of cloud service development. Worldwide spending on public IT cloud services will reach $47.4 billion in 2013 and will reach more than $107 billion by 2017, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Over the 2013–2017 forecast period, public cloud services will have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.5 percent, that's five times the IT industry growth as a whole. As one of the key technologies enabling the industry-wide shift, cloud computing has played a crucial role in changing the way companies consume and use business technology. IDC believes that there are signs that cloud services are starting to shift into a the next phase -- where the ...

There once was a time when many business leaders around the world stood on the sidelines, while the early-adopters of cloud computing reaped the rewards with their first-to-market deployments. Today, managed cloud services are considered a mainstream business technology for all takers -- with only the most uninformed laggards still disputing the apparent benefits. With 90 percent of companies claiming some form of cloud usage, many organizations have moved to the next step, leveraging multiple cloud models in different combinations to optimize benefits and efficiencies, according to findings from the latest market study by CompTIA . As cloud computing becomes a default part of the business technology landscape, more companies are relying on cloud computing for business processes such as storage (59 percent), business continuity and disaster recovery (48 percent) and security (44 percent). “Once companies hit a stage where they are using cloud systems as a standard part of IT ar...

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...

The young and savvy business executives of tomorrow will have high expectations and won't embrace or tolerate obsolete processes. As a new generation is entering the management ranks of companies worldwide, they will bring with them their own preferred ways of communicating and collaborating. A global market study by Cisco Systems has revealed that the majority of these next-generation executives intend to depend heavily upon business-class video to connect with their teams, colleagues, suppliers, customers and prospects -- as well as to help their businesses deliver new products and services. The 2013 Cisco Global Young Executives' Video Attitudes Survey gives insight into what management-track leaders aged 34 and under think about business-class video, which delivers high-quality, reliable, and highly secure lifelike video to users. Cisco commissioned Redshift Research to conduct the survey of more than 1,300 global respondents. "Today's leaders are often tec...

We’ve certainly come a long way. Over the last couple of years, we’ve witnessed the trials and tribulations of the early-adopters of managed cloud services, and we’ve observed how the offerings have matured to attain broad-based market acceptance. Cloud computing has become pervasive within today’s forward thinking companies. It’s already a transformative force throughout the global networked economy. Every enterprise that uses Business Technology is either considering or implementing cloud solutions -- to create a strategic advantage over their late-adopter industry peer group in the marketplace. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ), about 77 percent of North American companies were already using at least one public cloud service in 2012. IDC believes the companies that are spending on cloud-based capability have reached a deployment pace that’s unmatched by any previous business technology transformation. Moreover, they say that those ...

When you follow the proven methodologies of the market leaders, and deploy business technology for competitive advantage, you can fine-tune your current online business processes, improve operational performance and increase productivity . But if this is the extent of your efforts to date, then I have good news for you -- we now know that there's huge upside potential for new value creation that's far greater than we ever imagined. The Internet of Everything ( IoE ) is expected to enable global private-sector businesses to generate at least $613 billion in global profits in 2013, according to the "IoE Value Index" study released by Cisco. The report -- announced via a global TelePresence event that connected more than 10 international locales -- found firms that optimize the connections among people, process, data and things will generate the largest profits. The study of 7,500 global business and IT leaders in 12 countries reports that the United States, Chi...

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...

The realm of Retailing is currently undergoing significant changes across the globe.  Cisco Systems, Inc. released the results of a new market study, focused on the evolving retail shopping experience.  Their report examined the impact of automation, self-service and omni-channel shopping experiences -- plus, consumer views about providing their personal information in exchange for more personalized services. The majority (61 percent) of global consumers are open to shopping at a fully automated "self service" store with vending machines and kiosk stations offering a virtual customer service.  Additionally, when "checking out," the majority of consumers globally (52 percent) prefer self-check-out stations in order to avoid waiting in line to make purchases. The younger consumers were the most accepting of this retail shopping experience : 57 percent of Generation Y (aged 18-29) and 55 percent of Generation X shoppers (aged 30 to 49) prefer self-ch...