Blog - Softtek

In Mexico, mobile payments show potential

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:14:33 +0000

Tim Wilson

A recent report titled “Mobile and Alternative Payments in Mexico” argues that Mexico’s mobile payments industry is on the verge of some significant growth, though uncertainty on the legislative front, as well as cultural and economic challenges, suggest a cautionary view has merit.

The report, from market research firm Packaged Facts, is impressive in its thoroughness. Important findings include the leadership role of Telcel, which is owned by América Móvil, and the fact that all of Mexico’s major banks have ambitious initiatives in place to enable smartphone access.

As a result, Mexico’s banking system could transform itself in short order. The big reason is the penetration of smartphones into consumers’ hands. The report says that the financial system is moving to transform how remittances and branch banking are handled, and that mobile technology has the ability to address regional and demographic disparities.

But the data do not entirely support this presumption. Internet penetration in Mexico is only at 36%, and smartphone penetration at 20%. Smartphone penetration among those with internet access is over 80%. What this says, clearly, is that smartphone use – and therefore mobile banking – is reflected in the digital divide.

Remote areas of the country and the poor – both rural and urban – are unlikely to benefit from this banking revolution any time soon. Another closely linked phenomenon is Mexico’s cash culture. In a country where cash is king, mobile banking may take a little longer to catch on. It will happen, but it will take time, aided by programs targeted at underserved communities like MiFon, a rural telephone banking initiative done in partnership with Banorte.

Of concern is that if mobile banking is geared to those who are already in a position to pay, it won’t transform Mexican society – it will merely entrench the advantages that already exist. To make telecommunications services more cost-effective throughout the country will require telecom reform.

It’s started, with President Enrique Peña Nieto seeking the cooperation of opposition parties in Congress in order to break up monopolies, most notably those controlled by Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world. Slim’s America Movil, which acts as a telecom parent company, now has 70% of Mexico’s mobile market. It’s good money: last year America Movil reported revenue of $16 billion.

The telecom bill, if passed, will give the Mexican government the authority to break up any company with over 50% market share. One way to do that without being too aggressive would be to force the dominant players to provide network access to competitors. That, however, can then become a complicated game, with regulators – in this case the newly-minted Federal Institute of Telecommunications – and companies squabbling over what to charge. The risk is that the Institute, which will be made up of seven existing regulators, will then become bureaucratic and politicized.

But it is still a welcome change. The OECD has reported that America Movil charges some of the highest fees in the world, including in Brazil and Colombia, where it is also dominant. For his part, Slim denies his practices are monopolistic while also saying he welcomes the changes, including a plan to remove all caps on foreign investment in telecommunications.

The changes in Mexico’s telecommunications’ landscape reflect the pragmatic side of President Enrique Peña Nieto and the ruling PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional). Peña Nieto has been described as a man without ideology, only goals. If so, the goal of opening up telecom to empower more Mexicans, and of making disruptive technologies like mobile payments more accessible, seems noble enough. Only time will tell if this trend will benefit the millions of Mexicans still living on the other side of the digital divide.

Global Economic Slowdown Threatens Latin American Growth

Mon, 06 May 2013 16:13:20 +0000

Nearshore Outsourcing

Clay Browne

Global economic growth is slowing to a trickle in 2013. The Economist recently revised its Eurozone economic growth projections from a tepid .4% to a depressing -.7%, and also revised China's annual projected 2013 economic growth from 8.4% to 8%. U.S. 2013 growth is also being revised downward, with the International Monetary Fund retrenching projections from a relatively weak 2.1% annual growth rate to an anemic 1.9% growth rate. The IMF also recently reduced its global economic growth projections for 2013 from 3.5% to 3.3% percent.

Image by Shared Interest.

Latin American Economic Growth

The economic growth rate for Latin America as a whole is still penciled in at 3.3% by The Economist, but that figure is quite likely to be revised downward to close to or below 2012's 3% economic growth rate over the next few months. Decreasing external demand, especially from China and the Eurozone, is expected to continue to pressure the Lat Am economic zone for the next two to three quarters, but barring further worldwide economic malaise, the area should rebound to close to 4% growth in 2014.

Decreasing Commodity Prices Will Impact Several Latin America Countries

Several of the fastest growing Latin American economies over the last few years have been fueled by historically high commodity prices, especially the prices of oil and metals. Declining oil prices are expected to have a significant impact on the economies of countries including Brazil, Mexico and Ecuador, but will have an especially strong impact on Venezuela, given their almost exclusive reliance of their economy on the oil industry.

The recent across-the-board-declines in metals prices, particularly precious metals, is also providing stiff headwinds for some Latin American economies. Chile, Brazil and Peru are the countries most significantly impacted by the slide in metals prices, but the price declines have been large enough to create a measurable negative economic impact in Argentina and Bolivia as well.

Most analysts feel that commodities prices are likely to remain under pressure for at least the medium term, with the global economic slowdown reducing the demand for oil, and the relative strength of the U.S. dollar also tending to tighten the spigot on new commodities investments.

Domestic Economies Will Drive Economic Growth in Some Latin American Counties

Given that Latin America as a whole can't count on increasing external demand to drive regional growth, countries with stronger domestic economic dynamics are the only ones likely to see much growth over the next few quarters. It boils down to countries with strong domestic demand and a business-friendly regulatory and tax environment such as Chile and Peru are not as dependent on external demand for growth, so they will still show strong economic growth despite lower commodity prices and this year's global economic slowdown.

The diverging economic paths of Brazil and Mexico illustrate the vagaries of the Latin American economic ecosystem. Brazil had been the rising star of the region for a number of years, but its economy has sputtered lately due to policy missteps leading to capacity constraints. Mexico, on the other hand, had been a bit of an economic laggard over the last half dozen years, but the worm is clearly starting to turn as Mexican businesses are finding more ways to leverage their relationships with U.S. businesses and the government is fostering reforms that are kickstarting domestic consumer demand.

It should be noted that economic reforms, including fiscal stimulus and lowering interest rates instituted in Brazil over the last few quarters, seem to be taking effect. Current statistics indicate the 2013 economic growth rate in Brazil is projected to increase to 3.4%, up from just .9% in 2012.

Mercado de TI na América Latina é promissor, diz F&S

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:30:00 +0000

The Process of Creating

Daniel de Souza

O Brasil, há alguns anos, era tido como o moto propulsor do crescimento na América Latina. Muitos países vizinhos, como Argentina, Uruguai, Chile, Peru e Colômbia se beneficiavam da maré positiva da economia do gigante sul-americano, que agora passa a caminhar a passos bem mais lentos. Esses “hermanos”, entretanto, têm conseguido se desenvolver plenamente com seus passos próprios, com boas taxas de desenvolvimento e crescimento – e isso também é válido para o setor de tecnologia da informação (TI) em cada um deles.

A empresa de pesquisa Frost & Sullivan (F&S) informou há poucos dias que o mercado de TI na América Latina (ao se considerar o conjunto de produção de hardware, software e serviços) aumentará 7% ao ano até 2014. A empresa de análise considera que, com a maioria dos países da região em crescimento inferior a 3%, os investimentos na área podem impulsionar o PIB (Produto Interno Bruto) da região como um todo. É uma aposta ousada, mas que faz totalmente sentido.

O estudo mostra que, com o movimento positivo para as empresas de cada um desses países, que passam a se desenvolver cada vez mais tanto no mercado interno quanto em países da região, fica cada vez mais evidente a necessidade de investimentos em data centers próprios, ou buscar parceiros locais para entrar no mercado.

A expectativa da F&S é que o mercado de serviços de data centers no continente latino continue crescendo, mesmo que entre um solavanco ou outro. Estima-se que este mercado, que atingiu um total de US$ 2,3 bilhões em 2012, cresça 9,6% por ano até 2017 e alcance US$ 3,6 bilhões. As cifras são robustas, mas é preciso haver comprometimento das empresas locais com parceiros ou clientes para que de fato se concretizem.

A empresa de pesquisa e consultoria ainda considera que o Brasil é o líder na região, mesmo diante dos números mais fracos recentes da economia brasileira. O país respondeu por 58,5% de participação em serviços de data center em 2012, mas pode chegar a 59% até 2017, segundo estimativas da empresa. As principais oportunidades foram em big data, cloud computing e mobilidade, que exigem serviços de data center para garantir processamento e armazenamento maior de dados.

“Os investimentos em TI estão não só aumentando, como ajudando as empresas a se posicionar no mercado como provedores de serviços de valor agregado. O mercado está diante de uma nova era de modelo de negócios, onde dados ou informações não são suficientes para diferenciar uma empresa da outra”, disse Mauricio Chede, analista de tecnologia da Frost & Sullivan.

Em entrevista à agência IPNews, ele ressalta que a diferença é na forma de desenvolver insights que possam garantir às empresas uma vantagem competitiva no mercado, “impulsionado pela Tecnologia de Negócios e não mais pela Tecnologia da Informação”.

Latin American Digital Literacy Gradually Improving

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 23:36:49 +0000

The Process of Creating

Clay Browne

Digital literacy rates, that is, the percent of the population that has regular access to the Internet, hit 80% in North America (U.S. and Canada) in 2013. Worldwide digital literacy rates are thought to approach 40%, with U.N. estimating that close to 50% of the world's population has little to no access to the Internet or even to a computer.

Although the recent trend shows improvement, Latin America continues to lag behind much of the rest of the world in digital literacy rates at just 48%. Not surprisingly, digital literacy rates are especially low in many rural areas. According to the UN's Global Information Technology Report 2013, the reasons for Latin America's laggard status are three-fold. "Although the region is vast and heterogeneous, three shared reasons for this lag can be identified: these countries all exhibit an insufficient investment in developing their ICT infrastructure, a weak skill base in the population because of poor educational systems that hinder society’s capacity to make an effective use of these technologies, and unfavorable business conditions that do not support the spur of entrepreneurship and innovation."

Image by Wesley Fryer.

Latin American Digital Literacy Rates

Argentina leads the way among Latin American nations with a respectable 66% digital literacy rate. Brazil's digital literacy rate is just 46%, but recent initiatives mean Brazil is now connecting its citizens to the Web at a faster rate than most other countries in the region. Mexico also lags behind, with a mere 37% digital literacy rate; experts within and outside of the country attribute ineffective government and the ongoing drug war as major obstacles to infrastructure development in Mexico. Digital literacy rates in urban areas in Mexico actually compare with those in the U.S., but rural areas are extremely underserved. Underdeveloped Nicaragua comes in at the bottom of the digital literacy rankings in Latin America, with an appalling 14% digital literacy rate.

Information and Communication Technology Infrastructure Deficits

Experts and policy analysts point out that that Latin America lags all other parts of the globe except Africa in information and communication technology infrastructure, and that this deficit poses a significant challenge for future development, particularly education. Some countries, notably Brazil, Chile and Peru have taken significant strides in terms of ICT infrastructure development in the last few years. Others, including Belize and Bolivia, continue to fall further behind. ICT infrastructure is critical in enabling remote education, which most experts agree is the single most important factor in bridging the digital divide.

Digital Literacy Initiatives in Latin America

A number of digital literacy-related initiatives have been rolled out by both national governments and international organizations in several Latin American countries over the last few years. The UN has recently begun a program encouraging computer literacy and empowerment among rural Latin American women. Brazil has also launched an ambitious program designed to provide low-cost Internet service to 70% of the nation's population by the end of 2014. Panama's government has also had a program to provide free Internet access to the poor in place for several years, and Chile, Uruguay and Argentina each have their own version of a "notebook for every child" programs that have given away over two million laptop computers.

SMB Security Outsourcing Trend Gains Steam

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 19:38:17 +0000

The Process of Creating

Clay Browne

Larger businesses have been outsourcing aspects of their IT security operations for decades. This had not been the case for smaller businesses until just the last few years. Aside from using third-party network security monitoring services, the large majority of SMBs have relied on their in-house IT teams for almost all of their security needs.

The advent of the cloud, and the growing realization of their vulnerability and the consequences of a security failure among SMB owners and managers, has led to a growing interest in security services among small businesses. According to Symantec’s 2013 Avoiding the Hidden Costs of the Cloud report, more than 90% of SMBs were at least discussing moving some services to the cloud, and over 80% of the 3000+ SMBs surveyed were actively considering email management or security management via the cloud.

Image by osde8info.

Cloud Security Trends

Global spending on cloud security services is expected to expand by almost 40% between 2012 and 2016. Access Markets International Partners reports that cloud security spending topped $3.3 billion in 2012, representing 17 percent of the total IT security market. That amount is expected to increase to $7.7 billion in 2016, representing 24% of the security market.

Small businesses are adopting various cloud-based security-as-a-service offerings relatively rapidly. The flexibility to mix and match services to meet individual customer needs is a big plus, and most businesses find cloud-based offerings offer significant long-term savings compared to keeping all security functions in-house. It is therefore not really surprising that SMBs are increasingly passing off security functions such as messaging and email protection, web security, data loss prevention and encryption and authentication to cloud-based providers.

More comprehensive platform-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service security offerings are growing in popularity among medium-sized businesses, typically providing more security functionality at a lower price with much less management required. However, it is also important to keep in mind that cloud-based security offerings only represent a limited subset of the total business IT security needs of most businesses.

Determining What Security to Outsource

The first step in getting a real grip on what security functions you can/should outsource is to develop a thorough understanding of your business and your security needs. You need to rationally categorize your security needs, decide what you are going to keep in-house, and then thoughtfully examine your options regarding which functions to outsource and what provider to use. Most IT experts advise that security is not the place to cut corners on your IT budget, and that it is generally worth paying a little extra to work with a well-regarded industry provider.

Switching from in-house email and web security to using a cloud-based provider is pretty straightforward, and is certainly within the purview of a reasonably competent IT professional. But if you are making a major security upgrade or are undertaking business-transforming initiatives, it might be a good idea to work with a value-added reseller or bring in a security consultant.

For larger security initiatives, the final step -- contract negotiations -- is potentially the trickiest step in the whole process. This is especially true if you are not working with an experienced consultant. Key issues to make sure to consider in contract negotiations include ownership or leasing of hardware, software licenses, employee transfer, intellectual property, audit rights, billing, recourse and remediation, as well as terms for renewal or termination of services. It is also critical to thoroughly investigate any potential conflicts of interest before you get to the final stages of contract negotiations.

The Three Types of Outsourcing Relationships

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:21:09 +0000

Nearshore Outsourcing

Dan Berthiaume

While no two outsourcing relationships are alike, some broad generalities can be drawn about different types of common relationships. For example, HfS Research identifies three main types of outsourcing relationships in its recent white paper, “The Great Talent Paradox in Outsourcing.”

As the type of outsourcing relationship you have plays a crucial role in determining how much (or little) value it will deliver, it is worth reviewing these three categories. Which one best describes your own outsourcing relationship, and are you satisfied with the result?

‘Lights On’ Outsourcing
As defined by HfS Research, a “lights on” outsourcing relationship is marked by a buyer seeking to simply drive out cost without incurring any “disasters.” As the buyer sees little to no strategic value in outsourcing, they see no need to pay for high-level talent or expertise. The “lights on” buyer is satisfied with basic execution of outsourced processes at a cheaper cost and governance typically consists of enforcing SLAs and otherwise meeting essential goals.

‘Efficient’ Outsourcing
The “efficient” outsourcing relationship includes a buyer that recognizes developing a management plan to facilitate continuous improvement and efficiency gains can deliver more strategic value. However, the buyer does not see the potential for true competitive differentiation that higher-level outsourcing can provide.

Thus these buyers may be willing to invest in specialized talent to execute efficiency programs such as Six Sigma, but are not willing to invest in widespread talent upgrades. HfS Research estimates that some “efficient” outsourcing buyers will take an immediate 20% savings gain from an outsourcing initiative and reinvest 10% to ensure future efficiency improvements.

'Strategic' Outsourcing
Usually more experience outsourcing buyers will enter a “strategic” outsourcing relationship. This relationship category is characterized by a recognition on the part of the buyer that simply offshoring work to reduce upfront costs is a short-term measure that will not produce longterm savings without onshore-to-offshore staff exchanges and process improvement investments.

In addition, strategic outsourcing buyers make decisions on what work to outsource based on internal needs and goals (rather than simply offshoring whatever they can to produce upfront savings), collaborate with provider staff to define and improve business outcomes, and take a flexible approach to setting goals, milestones, SLAs, etc. These buyers see provider talent as an important resource that needs to be developed and evaluated according to a set of jointly developed metrics that change as the scope and goals of the project change.

So which of these three categories best describes your outsourcing relationship? Ultimately you should be aiming for a strategic relationship, but they take time and practice to develop, and almost everyone starts out trying to keep the lights on. Just remember where you start is a lot less important that where you finish!

Do You Have IT Awareness?

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 10:03:14 +0000

The Process of Creating

Dan Berthiaume

You might assume that most IT decision-makers have a firm awareness of their IT assets and how those assets are used and provide value to the enterprise. You would be wrong.

A recent survey of IT professionals from systems integrator Kovarus, Inc. indicates that less than four in 10 (38%) respondents specifically make their investment decisions based on true alignment and value to the business. This means that for more than six in 10 IT professionals critical decisions are being made without the correct business insight, putting the IT department at a disadvantage with other better-informed business units.

IT Pros Lag in Awareness, Capabilities
The survey also shows that large percentages of IT professionals are lagging not only in awareness of their IT assets, but even of the capabilities to gain awareness. For example, 40% of IT professionals were not aware of their IT assets – a slightly higher percentage than make investment decisions based on actual business value and alignment. Thus a large portion of the IT budgets at these organizations are not allocated for correctly, leading to inflated costs.

Especially as many companies place their IT organizations in open competition with third-party service providers, this type of unnecessarily increased cost can be deadly to the viability of an in-house IT unit.

Furthermore, about two thirds (65%) of survey respondents said that they did not have the time, practices or tools to collect information on the utilization of their IT investments. That is, they did not have the capability of determining performance and capacity used on daily basis. Kovarus advises this situation is especially damaging to virtualization efforts (and who isn’t virtualizing or planning to virtualize systems these days?), as collective capacity needs cannot be determined, which can lead to environments being overconfigured by a factor of as much as 15.

And 44% of respondents surveyed currently have a “mish mash” of technology solutions in their data centers: most of the rest have defined some standards along with consistent purchasing practices. A technology mish mash can result in added risks and costs due to increased complexity and difficulty in achieving potential economies of scale that virtualization can deliver. At a minimum, Kovarus recommends that IT executives define IT standards based on unique internal business needs and enact strong governance to ensure best practices are followed.

Don’t Get Left Behind
The advice here for IT executives is simple: don’t get left behind when it comes to having complete and detailed awareness of your IT environment and how it relates to the business as a whole. If senior management simply refuses to give you the time or resources to conduct a thorough IT assessment, devote personal time and resources if necessary. The positive impact on your career will be worth it.

Also remember that selectively outsourcing certain IT functions – such as low-level routine tasks as well as highly specialized areas that require costly internal hires with specialized skills – can strengthen your department’s overall performance and should be as a complementary, rather than adversarial, move.

The phrase “ignorance is bliss” is credited to 18th century English poet Thomas Gray. Today’s IT executives can certainly enjoy the poetry of earlier centuries, but should probably turn to more current and better-informed sources for advice on their jobs.

This survey was conducted by TeleVerde on behalf of Kovarus. The sample included North American CIOs, IT directors and IT managers.

Can São Paulo Break Its WiFi Bottleneck?

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:00:00 +0000

The Process of Creating

Daniel de Souza

When arriving in São Paulo - the biggest city in Brazil and the economic heart of the country - your smartphone will probably recognize countless Wi-Fi signals. But you'll find most of them are locked and closed - and the ones open might not be very safe to connect to. Many times, when you pay to get a password and connect to one, the quality might not be as good as initially thought. In other words, Sao Paulo is far from being a WiFi paradise.

But a major transformation may soon arrive in this vast city: government leaders are moving forward with a plan to provide free Wi-Fi all over the city. That is an important step for the local IT industry, considering it will be a looked at as a ‘test’ for other cities in the country that will be hosting either the World Cup or the Olympics.

The City Government and Federal Government, represented by the mayor Fernando Haddad (who took office in January) along with the Communications Minister, Paulo Bernardo, have started conversations with telecom players and broadband service providers to implement IT infrastructure and networks to improve wireless services in the city as a whole, according to Agência Brasil, the local public news agency.

The idea is to create partnerships with private companies that are already building wireless infrastructure in different parts of the city, and group them. The City Hall will establish rules on how the networks should be conceived and how the companies will implement it. It is important to mention São Paulo's geographic proportions are quite challenging: 11 million inhabitants in the city and 8 million more in the larger metropolitan area.

"We believe it can be done in a partnership model. Instead of the City Hall being responsible for the implementation the Wi-Fi network, we will lead the construction of the infrastructure necessary and will reserve parts of the networks for the implementation of public policies," said Mr. Haddad in a recent interview.

The idea is may sound like a good one, but it is may be overly ambitious. It is good to see local authorities interested in improving the quality of the local Wi-Fi – especially given the fact that millions of new visitors from abroad will visit Brazil for the first time in the next few years – and technology savvy will be a yardstick visitors will use to determine the level of Brazil’s sophistication. However, the sheer size of the project as well as a relatively short time frame (the first World Cup matches start less than 15 months from now) needs to be factored into the equation.

In 2010 there were 20 million mobile devices connected to Wi-Fi in the country, according to official data. Today, official numbers estimate there are 67 million, and the forecasts for 2014 expect around 130 million. Before the World Cup, all of the 12 host cities, spread throughout the Brazilian territory, will have to install about 9.000 new antennas to provide 4G services. Even the Communications Minister, Paulo Bernardo, acknowledged the current IT infrastructure is overwhelmed. "We need to provide quality of services," Mr. Bernardo declared.

The WiFi project could be one huge public relations score – or a defeat that Brazil’s leaders may not easily forget.

IT Offshoring Trend to Continue through 2020; But Positions Suitable for Offshoring Shrinking

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 08:54:00 +0000

The Process of Creating

Clay Browne

The number of IT employees at larger businesses continues to decline, but there is an end in sight to the multi-decade trend. According to the Hackett Group, the ongoing decline in U.S. and European IT jobs is directly attributable to offshoring, and is probably going to continue for at least the next several years. That said, the IT offshoring trend will likely dry up over the next 10 years as companies run out of jobs suitable for offshoring to low-cost countries.

Image by USDAgov.

Declining U.S. and European IT Employment

The job numbers speak for themselves. There were 8.2 million IT jobs at the top 4700 U.S, and European firms in 2002. That number has dropped to just under 5 million in 2012, and according to the Hackett Group, the number of jobs in these fields will have decreased to around 4.5 million by 2016.

Reasons for Decline

The large majority of the lost IT jobs over the last few years can be attributed to offshoring because the number of jobs lost because of productivity improvements has been generally offset by the number of new jobs created by continued growth. "The net change is about equal to the decline due to offshoring," explains Erik Dorr, senior enterprise research director at the Hackett Group.

Some of decrease in IT jobs is certainly due a growing number of companies choosing to buy IT services from cloud providers, and thus requiring fewer IT employees, but much of it is simply finding lower-cost alternatives offshore.

IT Offshoring Trend Will Lose Momentum Longer Term

Although employment prospects look bleak for the next several years for many classes of IT employees at larger businesses, there are two positive trends to consider before deciding to change careers.

First, smaller businesses are continuing to hire local IT staff at an increasing rate, and given that small businesses tend to lead the way in economic recoveries, there is good reason to expect this trend to accelerate as the economy improves.

Second, not all IT jobs are suitable for outsourcing, and many larger companies are reaching or have already reached that conclusion. GM's recent decision to reshore the lion's share of their massive IT operations is a perfect example of the nascent onshoring trend.

Most industry analysts, including Hackett, see the GM case as more of a pendulum swinging back to normalcy, as GM had been outsourcing as much as 90% of their IT jobs before this reshoring effort, much higher than the 60% or so average among multinational corporations.

For now, however, GM is the exception rather than the rule. As Michel Janssen, Hackett's chief research officer, points out, offshoring will continue as long as it makes business sense, and companies will keep doing what they need to do to remain globally competitive. But he also points out that as technology evolves and economies develop, there is going to come a time in the not-too-distant future when there are simply very few IT jobs remaining that are suitable for outsourcing.

Um mercado de profissionais disputados

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:00:00 +0000

The Process of Creating

Daniel de Souza

Mudar de emprego ao longo da carreira de um profissional é normal, válido e necessário. Mas a partir do momento em que mudanças constantes transformam-se em quase rotinas para os empregados e empregadores, entretanto, algo mais pode estar errado. Este pode ser o caso visto atualmente no Brasil.

Segundo a consultoria Hyas Executive, a grande demanda por especialistas em Tecnologia da Informação (TI) e a pouca oferta de profissionais bem qualificados dessa área no maior país da América Latina faz com que estes sejam os profissionais que mais mudam de emprego no país, conforme conta o veículo especializado Computer World.

A rotação é especialmente grande entre os cargos ligados à area de TI e de maior escalão, como CIOs (Chief Information Officer), CTOs (Chief Technology Officer) e outros líderes de tecnologia em geral. Profissionais desse nível hierárquico ficam, em média, cerca de 2,6 anos em seus postos.

A comparação com outra área bastante aquecida do mercado nacional, o segmento de consumo e varejo, mostra que os números são bem diferentes: nessa segunda categoria, funcionários ficam em torno de 3,8 anos sem mudar de emprego - a diferença entre o ciclo médio de cada um dos setores é de 31,08%, por exemplo.

O sócio da Hays Executive Paulo Moraes contou que uma das explicações para essa alta rotatividade é que trata-se de um mercado dinâmico e em que os profissionais acabam desempenhando projetos de curto prazo, com vencimentos rápidos -- o que, de certa forma, mostra que as empresas locais tem investido cada vez mais na terceirização de serviços.

Ainda assim, Paulo considera que não é fácil encontrar profissionais bem qualificados para algumas determinadas vagas, já que as empresas buscam cada vez mais por profissionais "completos".

A grande conclusão, diante deste cenário, é: em um mercado extremamente aquecido e em que faltam prestadores de serviço de TI, os bons profissionais serão disputados. Mas, ao mesmo tempo, não há nem centros de formação o quanto seria suficiente para formar o tanto de profissional necessário para suprir parte desta demanda.

Segundo dados da Brasscom, entidade que agrega empresas do setor no país, hoje há cerca de 1,3 milhão de profissionais de tecnologia do Brasil, e espera-se que a demanda de formados no setor atinja 750 mil até 2020.

Sem dúvidas: para quem quer emprego, com certeza a briga pelo profissional mostra um bom sinal. Para o empregador, pode significar colocar a mão no bolso de forma mais funda, e se acostumar a caçar bons profissionais no mercado.

Smartphones Change the Game for CIOs

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:40:42 +0000

The Process of Creating

Dan Berthiaume

The continuing proliferation of smartphones is changing the game for CIOs. Your employees and customers are most likely connecting to the Internet via smartphone or other mobile device, meaning both internally and externally facing solutions must be adapted and optimized for mobile access.

According to a recent report from comScore, “Mobile Future in Focus 2013,” more than 125 million US consumers have smartphones and more than 50 million now own tablets. As a result, comScore says there is a “new paradigm of digital media fragmentation where consumers are always connected.”

In addition to increased mobile device ownership, the improved availability of high-speed mobile Internet networks (such as 4G and LTE) is also spurring higher levels of mobile device usage to the point one of three minutes of Internet time consumed in the US is consumed via mobile device. In fact, the number of 4G users increased 273% between 2011 and 2012, to 33.1 million. And of course, consumers are also employees.

Taking Advantage of the New Mobile Paradigm
Naturally, anytime there is a significant technology paradigm shift it creates major headaches for CIOs. However, CIOs who recognized the opportunities and prepare the groundwork can significantly benefit from a world where customers and employees expect optimized mobile access. Following are a few suggestions for CIOs looking to maximize the return they can get from adapting to the new mobile landscape.

Extend Your Reach
More platforms mean more complexity, but also mean CIOs can extend the reach of the organization, both internally and externally. Internally, optimizing the enterprise for mobile access greatly enhances the possibility for employees to work remotely, which can result in lower overhead costs as well as more effective performance by employees in the field. Of course, CIOs must ensure they have taken adequate security precautions before opening the enterprise to employees with mobile devices, especially privately-owned devices (the “BYOD” phenomenon).

Touch Your Customers Wherever They Are
Externally, by opening customer-facing parts of the enterprise (such as websites, portals and physical interaction spots) to mobile devices, CIOs allow the company to do business on a much wider scale. Whether your enterprise is B2B or B2C, it serves some sort of customer base, and allowing that base to do business and conduct transactions from wherever they happen to be will almost inevitably increase revenue. Of course, extra security precautions are also needed to ensure secure transmission and storage of customer data, financial information, etc.

The Right Device at the Right Time
CIOs looking to mobile-enable the enterprise for either employees and/or customers should educate themselves about device usage patterns. For example, comScore research shows that desktop PC usage peaks during the workday and early evening hours, smartphone usage is highest during heavy commuting periods, and tablet usage spikes in the late evenings. Armed with this knowledge, CIOs can tailor channel-specific services and also allocate additional resources based on when the most people are likely to use a specific channel.

Outsourcing Buyers Seek New Technology Capabilities

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:06:47 +0000

The Process of Creating

Dan Berthiaume

While outsourcing buyers still rank the same three factors in selecting a provider in 2012 as they did in 2009, a number of new technology capabilities which were not on buyers’ radar screens in 2009 have become important to provider selection.

As revealed by the findings of a recent IDC webinar, ““The Pulse of Outsourcing Q4 2012,” the three most important factors in outsourcing provider selection in 2012 – full range of IT and business process services, proven record of delivering on SLAs (service level agreements) and costs, and financial stability – are ranked the same as they were in 2009.

However, the percentages of respondents citing a full range of IT and business process services and a proven record of delivering on SLAs and costs were much lower in 2012 than 2009, while the percentage selecting financial stability slightly increased. More interesting is the appearance of several new factors selected by significant percentages of respondents in 2012 that did not appear in the 2009 IDC survey of BPO buyers.

Analytics, Social, Mobile Take Outsourcing by Storm
Industry expertise, ranked fourth in 2012, did not appear in the 2009 survey results. This factor is not specifically linked to technology. But business analytics, coming in sixth after strong reputation as a provider (which dropped significantly in importance from 2009), was not mentioned in 2009 and relies on the use of advanced technology.

Furthermore, expertise in social media and portfolio of mobility capabilities both made debut appearances in 2012 survey results. Meanwhile, other traditional outsourcing factors such as use of a balanced scorecard dropped substantially in popularity between 2009 and 2012. Clearly, in three short years outsourcing buyers have rapidly adopted new technologies such as mobile, social and business analytics and now expect their outsourcing providers to have competence with them.

ITO, BPO Services Converge
It is also interesting to note the survey did not just focus on ITO service buyers but also on BPO service buyers, demonstrating that business processes of all types increasingly rest on an IT foundation and the traditional boundaries between BPO and ITO are blurring. A significant drop in the percentage of respondents selecting focus on a discrete area of networking as an important provider selection factor in 2012 compared to 2009 reinforces this notion. A smaller but notable drop in the importance of providers having global delivery capabilities (including low-cost locations) likely reflects the fact that buyers are now more interested in software platforms that can automate processes, which can be located anywhere and inherently offer global delivery scale.

Somewhat counterintuitively, two new technology-related provider selection factors: having a portfolio that includes newer methods of delivery (such as SaaS and cloud computing) and Web portals to engage in monitoring of business and technical services, are notably less popular in 2012 than they were in 2009. However, IDC analysis suggests that buyers now simply either expect cloud delivery capabilities and/or are looking to “pure play” cloud services providers. This would also automatically take care of services monitoring. Outsourcing buyers have spoken, now it is time to look for providers who are listening.

An Evolving IT Industry Means the Demise of Many Traditional IT Job Roles

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 10:44:40 +0000

The Process of Creating

Clay Browne

We are used to thinking of the IT industry as the driver of change in other industries and in business in general, but the IT industry itself is obviously impacted by rapid technological evolution as well. The first decade of the 21st century has ushered in a raft of new innovations in the IT industry, and these new technologies are changing the way virtually everyone in information technology works and even the way people conceive of their jobs.

Image by Seth W.

Disappearing IT Jobs

Traditional programmer jobs are already disappearing, and this trend is only going to accelerate over time. The ongoing transition to a mobile-based economy means major changes for programmers. Traditional programming languages, such as Cobol, Delphi/Object Pascal, and Transact-SQL ColdFusion and Flash, are examples of older languages being phased out. Instead, languages such as MS.net, Python, Ruby, HTML5, RESTful Web Services, Javascript, and JQuery will be increasingly in demand.

Old-school network administrator are also gradually going the way of the dodo bird. The nearly ubiquitous migration to the cloud is making the skill set of the 20th century network admin obsolete. Traditional network administrator tasks such as wiring and coupling servers, installing updates or patches or adding additional storage are becoming outmoded. The network admins who remain will be experts in server and desktop virtualization, allowing one or two technical expert admins to the job that used to take six or eight.

IT Jobs of the Future

Big Data is changing everything. The rise of mobile means mountains of data for manufacturers, service providers and marketers to use, but relatively few people have the combination of soft and hard skills it takes to actually tap into Big Data and come up with useful, actionable insights. Analysts who have the ability to take unstructured data and apply it to highly-structured real-world businesses will be in great demand.

As the value of data grows, so does the importance of protecting it. Technology is a two-edged sword. It can enable great productivity gains, but it can also be exploited by the unscrupulous. The rapid pace of technological change over the last couple of decades combined with the ongoing mobile revolution has left personal and business network security woefully lacking. Government and industry are belatedly recognizing the problem and taking steps in the right direction, but any way you look at it, IT security specialists are going to be in demand for the foreseeable future. Network security specialists with knowledge of virtualization technologies are expected to be in particular demand.

Given the impact of technology on 21st century business operations, it is almost inevitable that basic programming and easy-to-document business process and support jobs will be offshored over the next decade. That said, there will be a growing need for IT specialists with new skill sets not usually found within the IT industry, and IT workers with multiple skills such as project management, public speaking and math and engineering expertise will be in demand in the future.

Virtualization Data Protection Demands Attention

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 08:02:38 +0000

The Process of Creating

Dan Berthiaume

The typical CIO has an overflowing “to-do” list of items that are virtually all “mission critical.” Inevitably, tasks that literally must be performed to keep the IT enterprise running, such as server maintenance, take precedence over tasks which are equally critical but do not immediately shut down the enterprise if performed improperly, such as security.

And when you’re talking about a specific subset of security, such as virtualization data protection, then it is almost certain CIOs will first focus their attention elsewhere. Thus it is not surprising, but still an ominous sign, that a new CIO survey from backup, replication and virtualization management solutions provider Veeam Software shows numerous weaknesses in overall enterprise virtualization data protection levels.

Among the survey’s key findings:

68% of CIOs feel that their backup and recovery tools will become less effective as the amount of data and servers in their organization grows.
Recovery of virtual servers is only a little faster than that of physical servers, at five and six hours respectively.
Regardless of recovery times, enterprises experience problems with more than one in six recoveries.
88% of CIOs experience capability-related challenges with backup and recovery, 84% with complexity and 87% with cost: showing that data protection is still not a simple task.

And recovering individual files and application items from a virtual server environment can take even longer: for example, recovering individual emails takes on average 14 hours. When you consider every hour of downtime costs an enterprise $324,793: meaning that downtime is, on average, costing organizations at least $1.6 million per incident.

Currently, virtual infrastructure accounts for 51% of enterprise servers. However, as business computing becomes more and more cloud-based, this percentage is expected to grow to 63% by next year. Virtualization data protection is rapidly growing from a subset of data security to the main focus of data security, whether enterprises realize it or not.

One sign that enterprises are beginning to recognize this fact is that 58% are planning to change the backup tool used for virtual servers by 2014. Survey data shows the primary driver for this is financial, with 51% changing due to TCO and 42% due to current hardware and software costs. Complexity is a reason to change for 47%, while failure to meet recovery time objectives (32%) and recovery point objectives (24%) are also factors.

CIOs investigating new virtual server backup tools (and everyone should probably at least investigate considering how much more data those servers are probably now holding) should also look into outsourcing their virtual server backup. This type of ITO can be performed literally anywhere in the world, as all it requires is a hosted cloud platform, and produce considerable cost savings. Inadequate data backup does not prevent a company from performing its day-to-day operations until a crash or outage occurs. That’s when the need for robust backup becomes painfully clear.

Vanson Bourne, an independent market research organization, conducted an online survey in November and December 2012 of 500 CIOs from organizations across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and France that employ more than 1,000 people

Chief Digital Officers Transform 21st Century Business

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:00:36 +0000

The Process of Creating

Clay Browne

The C-suite has gotten a lot more crowded in the last decade or two. It used to just be CEOs, CFOs and COOs, but by the 1990s chief scientific officers and chief information officers were also becoming the norm. Fast forward to the 21st century and the C-suite grew even larger as tech companies such as Google and Facebook started hiring chief technology officers, chief privacy officers, chief strategy officers, chief digital officers and even chief people officers.

Image by Robert Scoble.

Most of these new C-suite positions are more "vanity titles" than real corporate decision-making roles, with two notable exceptions -- chief technology officers and chief digital officers. Both CTOs and CDOs tend to be hired for the breadth of their technical and business backgrounds, and are therefore typically involved in planning and executing corporate strategy. The CDO is the newest and perhaps the most important addition to the modern boardroom.

The Role of the CDO

A CDO is a senior executive responsible for charting an organization's transition into the 21st century digital economy. Some, such as Irving Wladawsky-Berger, have argued that CDOs are a natural evolution of the role of a CIO or even a CTO, and that the broad expertise they bring to businesses is what businesses today need to thrive. Other analysts see CDOs more as "agents of change," and as a fundamentally different kind of exec. Consulting group Gartner predicts that one out of four companies will have a CDO by 2015.

Transformative Role

CDOs are hired to drive innovation. CDOs are typically executives from outside a company who are brought in by a BOD or CEO who is looking for real corporate transformation. By the same token, most CDOs are not just invited to the boardroom strategy sessions, they are given the authority to hire and fire staff and expected to deliver new and improved ways of doing business in today's digital world.

It's easy to see why businesses are scrambling to "go digital." According to 2012 study by Cap Gemini, companies that undertook digital initiatives, such as monitoring operations in real time, coordinating corporate activities and engaging customers with technology for competitive advantage, racked up 9 percent higher revenue, had a 12 percent higher market valuation, and took home 26 percent higher profits.

CIO vs CDO

The role of a CIO varies significantly among organizations. In some organizations it is more of an operational role, ie, a glorified IT director, but in some enterprises the CIO is a full C-level job, with a seat in the board room, and the CIO is expected to provide significant input regarding future corporate strategy. These are the kind of CIOs that are likely to become CDOs, either at their current job or somewhere else. Quite a few companies, including Office Max and Starbucks, have opted to go with both a CIO and CDO. The division of responsibilities varies in these arrangements, but the two positions must work together seamlessly to deliver the benefits of digital transformation.

CDO Skill Set

According to recruiting firm Russell Reynolds, there are not a lot of people with the skill set companies are looking for in CDOs, which is why salaries have almost doubled in the last few years. It's easy to see why as the job description of a CDO is somewhat daunting. In addition to significant high-level management experience, you are also expected to be very familiar with digital technologies, including e-commerce and transactional expertise, online marketing and social media expertise, and ideally mobile expertise as well.

By the same token, given the increasing pace of change as the digital revolution continues, it is inevitable that the role of the CDO will continue to evolve, and furthermore, extremely likely that many of today's CDOs will be tomorrow's Digital CEOs

TweeksBI Eleven: Real Time

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 08:49:56 +0000

The Process of Creating

Alex Camino

Last week I received a call from a sales representative of a teleconference solutions provider, referring to a request I made about video-conference software. It took me a few seconds to recall that, in fact, three weeks back I had called the company. I was trying to buy the $50 PC-based version of their software, so I could video conference with my colleagues sitting in a boardroom in Mexico. My first surprise was to find that the software was not available for download. Then I tried an old-school solution by looking for the software at Staples and OfficeMax, but no luck. So, I stepped back in time even further, and called the company looking to buy the software, hoping they could FedEx it overnight. Then they surprised me with yet another vintage approach: “I’ll be glad to pass your information to one of our resellers, as that is the only channel we use. They’ll get in touch with you ‘pronto’.” After that, I’m not surprised that their fast response time was three weeks. Obviously my solution at this point was to use one of the many options available, which include Skype, Apple’s Facetime or Google Hangouts. No hassle, no money, no middle man.

About 15 years ago I read “Real Time - Preparing for the Age of the Never Satisfied Customer,” by Regis McKenna. The book described the foundations of today’s digital consumer, one that demands instant gratification...or else. Even in the 1990’s McKenna realized that immediacy was becoming the new normal. One of the many examples used by McKenna to describe the rapid flow of information was a story of his experience in an earthquake in Tokyo and tuning the TV to CNN, an Atlanta-based news organization, to learn the details of the tremor. On August 23^rd 2011, I was in Cancun when the earthquake struck the northeast of the US; I knew about, it because I was on the phone with colleagues in D.C. before they had to evacuate the building. I rushed to CNN.com for details; nothing, yet Twitter was flooded with details, providing information during the ten long minutes it took CNN to post info on their website. The immediacy response and flow of information just keeps accelerating.

Early this morning I was sitting in the car listening to the radio, while I waited for my wife to drop the kids off at school. A song I’ve never heard came up on the radio; I liked it and “Shazamed” it: “It’s Time” by Imagine Dragons. I clicked on the iTunes icon and bought it. Two minutes passed, and the song was available in my smartphone, my iPad and the PC at home; immediacy, gratification!

The company I referenced above has top-notch technology solutions. In fact, their hardware sits in many conference rooms in the corporate world. That is why I was surprised about the old-school approach. The problem is not that this company doesn’t understand technology; they do, and they profit from it. Yet their business model is tied to a paradigm of a bygone era, not the real-time era.

TweeksBI= “This week’s Big Inspiration.” Concepts, ideas, trends and things that I find thought-provoking.

2012 – A Year of Disaster for IT Services

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 23:11:45 +0000

Nearshore Outsourcing

Dan Berthiaume

According to urban legend, 2012 was supposed to have been a year of apocalyptic disaster due to the ancient Mayan calendar ending on Dec. 21 of last year. Of course Dec. 21 came and went with nothing more than bad weather in the Northeast and life continued as always.

But perhaps the ancient Mayans were really looking ahead to the performance of the global IT services market. According to new analysis from research firm Ovum, 2012 could be considered a year of disaster from the standpoint of IT services providers. Aided by especially poor fourth quarter performance, annual IT services contract activity during 2012 fell to its lowest level since 2002 in terms of total contract value (TCV) and deal volume.

Looking at Q4 2012 results, Ovum finds that the TCV of IT services deals totaled $20.8 billion USD, a 34% decline from Q4 2011 TCV. Deal volume was also down 17% year-over-year, with a lack of “megadeals” worth $1 billion or more. Deal volume dropped across almost all major verticals – 50% in services, 39% in healthcare and 18% in financial services – with the exceptions of telecommunications and technology.

Regionally, Ovum data indicates that Europe represented a leading 45% share of private sector IT services TCV in 2012. However, European IT services TCV fell 31% from 2011 to $16.7 billion. Meanwhile, private sector IT services TCV in North America rebounded from a slump in 2011 to $10.5 billion in 2012, a 48% increase.

2013 – A Year of Opportunity for IT Services Buyers
A bad year for IT services providers can be turned into a very good year for IT services buyers. Providers anxious to reverse an historically bad year of IT services business will no doubt be willing to “wheel and deal” with prospective buyers. Buyers may want to investigate the possibility of engaging leading-edge services, such as hosted services in the areas of mobile, Big Data, cloud and social media, that ordinarily might be too expensive or complex to consider.

In addition, IT services buyers should see if providers are willing to bundle multiple services together that are usually delivered and/or billed separately, as well as investigate possibilities of extra features in contracts, such as additional maintenance or more robust SLAs and benchmarks/milestones. And for a final piece of advice, considering that North American IT services providers actually enjoyed a strong year of performance, North American buyers may be better off investigating offshore IT services opportunities to obtain the best value for their investments.

Global IT Services Market to Grow 3.5% in 2013

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:54:28 +0000

Nearshore Outsourcing

Dan Berthiaume

The global ITO market is set to grow 3.5% in 2013, according to recent projections from HfS Research. While ITO performance in the Europe, Middle East Asia (EMEA) market is expected to continue to be poor this year, HfS expects recovering growth in North America as well as increased demand for IT infrastructure services in non-traditional markets to compensate.

Total market size for the global ITO industry is expected to reach $648 billion this year, with professional services representing $309 billion of the total. Application development and maintenance (ADM) outsourcing will represent another $70 billion, while IT infrastructure management will drive $143 billion in 2013 revenue.

ADM ITO will experience 4.8% year-over-year growth, the highest percentage of any ITO vertical covered by HfS. IT infrastructure management ITO will see 3.8% year-over-year growth and professional services will undergo 3.1% year-over-year growth.

Regionally, North America and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Asia) will continue to account for the vast majority of global BPO contracts.

Market Predictions
HfS Research also makes the following market predictions for the global BPO industry this year:
• Organizational approaches to outsourcing and shared services will mature. Execution will replace excuses.
• Two-thirds of ITO-buying organizations will look to improve sourcing capabilities beyond meeting “green lights metrics,” with an emphasis on change management and shifting the corporate mindset from cost to value.
• Mid-market ITO buyers will seek horizontal solutions while high-end buyers will look for analytics.
• ITO providers will deliver cost reduction and efficient services.
• ITO providers will need to improve their delivery of innovation, analytical capability and the skilled talent needed to define business outcomes.
• The Indian ITO industry will have to contend with closing cost differentials for mid-level services, especially compared to European providers. ITO buyers will also question the effectiveness of offshore ITO for higher-level services.
• ITO buyer need for tactical assistance in achieving advanced analysis and innovation will create a necessity for providers to offer high-quality, properly trained talent.

Taking Advantage of Increased Enterprise IT Spending

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 20:54:06 +0000

The Process of Creating

Dan Berthiaume

CIOs have not had an awful lot to celebrate in the past few years – personnel reductions, spending freezes and a refusal to risk precious corporate funds on leading-edge, innovative systems have been realities for far too many top IT executives since the Great Recession began in 2008. But according to a new forecast from IDC, CIOs actually may have reason to smile this year – as long as they do some advance planning.

According to IDC’s United States Black Book 4Q 2012 report, total IT spending on hardware, software, and IT services across all 15 enterprise industries tracked by IDC is forecast to grow 6% year-over-year in 2013 to approximately $474 billion. Although factors such as the “fiscal cliff,” contracting G.D.P growth, and declining international trade owing to reduced economic activity in the Euro zone all negatively impacted US IT spending in the final quarter of 2012, IDC predicts economic stabilization will take hold in the second half of this year, creating “moderately strong IT spending growth.”

Specific industries expected to grow at above-average rates for the coming year include healthcare, which IDC forecasts to grow by more than 8% in 2013, due in part to what IDC describes as “the need to process and analyze increasing volumes of data from new clinical systems.” The professional services industry is also expected to grow more than 8%; IDC says “a high correlation between overall corporate profitability and IT spending by professional services firms suggests robust spending within this industry as corporate profits are forecasted to improve.”

Start Preparing Now
The second half of calendar 2013 is three short months away (give or take a few weeks), so CIOs need to start preparing for spending increases now. With proper preparation, CIOs can help ensure that increased enterprise IT spending actually produces the results they want, rather than results somebody in another part of the business thinks IT wants (or needs). Here are three suggestions for how to kick start preparations for what should be a prosperous 2013, at least from the IT perspective.

Do an Honest Assessment – After years of deprivation, it is only natural for CIOs to start licking their chops at the prospect of finally getting some of the latest and greatest technologies implemented (or increasingly these days, delivered as a cloud-based service). Resist the temptation. Genuine business need, rather than the desire to have a little something “extra,” should always drive all IT-related decisions. Showing prudence now will pay off when inevitably IT budgets tighten again – do you want to be remembered as the CIO who “got while the getting was good” during the good times or the CIO who kept their cool when the spending floodgates opened?

Make Friends with Marketing – There is a new sheriff overseeing enterprise IT – the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer). Marketing is starting to elbow even the finance department from the head of the table when it comes to making IT purchase decisions, since so much of technology is now focused on managing and enhancing the customer experience – and this as just as true for B2B as B2C organizations. So befriend the CMO and other top marketers, the networking will pay off when final approvals are given to new IT systems.

Think Ahead – As previously stated, enterprise IT spending will not rise continuously. It could very well contract as soon as the first quarter of 2014. So while IT spending must obviously meet current needs, prudent CIOs should also think ahead and select systems that are flexible, scalable, adaptable and easy to integrate with other enterprise applications. You may be stuck with today’s “new” systems long after their sheen has dulled, make sure under the gloss is some strong, robust interoperability and staying power.

Big Data 2020: Prepare Now

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 21:45:53 +0000

The Process of Creating

Dan Berthiaume

The year 2020 may seem fantastically remote, but it actually will arrive in less than seven years. So it’s not too early for CIOs to start preparing for a business and consumer landscape that may be substantially reshaped by continuing developments in Big Data. A recent report called “Big Data Democracy” from Intuit and Emergent Research makes several predictions about how businesses will have to take a very different approach at the dawn of the next decade in order to stay competitive. Following are a few of the most significant ones.

Consumers Hold Power
Intuit predicts that increased consumer access to pricing information and the insights of fellow shoppers will create an atmosphere of “turbocharged competition” where consumers are constantly hunting for the best bargains and products. Consumers will also regularly participate in the nascent activity of “social shopping,” which allows groups of friends to collaboratively shop via social media networks and streams of text, images and video.

In addition, consumers will increasingly make “value-influenced decisions,” meaning increased visibility of data on product sustainability and other broader issues will impact buying decisions beyond factors such as product quality and price.

Privacy Must Become Great
The report bluntly states that “being good isn’t enough” for privacy. As more and more personal consumer data becomes stored (and potentially accessible) on the cloud, consumers will demand that businesses make every possible effort to protect it. Companies that do not make transparent efforts to go “above and beyond” in protecting consumer data will see their brand reputation suffer dramatically. In addition, industry and government data privacy and security regulations already show signs of growing tougher.

A Level Playing Field
Small businesses will especially stand to gain from the explosion of Big Data. They will obtain actionable insights previously only available to their larger competitors, aided by inexpensive, cloud-based tools. In addition, small businesses will be able to aggregate their own data with reams of anonymous Big Data for greater insight. Launching a successful business will become simultaneously easier and harder, as even the smallest companies will have the opportunity to innovate their way to widescale success, but the extent of competition will also become much greater.

Revenge of the Non-Nerds
Good-naturedly, it can be said the past couple of decades have been the “Revenge of the Nerds,” as technical and mathematical prowess have become more important than ever. But the easy availability of deep insight and innovation Big Data will create for everyone, “nerds” and “non-nerds” alike, will make actual technical expertise a little less important. In addition, the development of simple cloud-based tools to perform extremely complex algorithmic analysis will eliminate many jobs currently held by statisticians, mathematicians and data scientists.