Kathy Gibson is at the Deloitte Tech Trends launch – Change is the order of the day for companies that plan to win in the digital world.
They can no longer have a single strategy, or pursue a single technology course. The CIO needs to re-engineer technology while embracing a no-collar workforce, enterprise data sovereignty, the new core, blockchain and an application programming interface (API) strategy.
This is according to Hans van Grieken, EMEA technology research and insights leader in Deloitte’s global CIO programme, presenting the findings from Deloitte’s 2018 Tech Trends study.
Re-engineering tech can be described as the foundational transformation of traditional IT departments from top-down, and bottom-up architecture and infrastructure evolution.
“What we see massively happening is modernisation of infrastructure,” says van Grieken. “At the same time, the architectural role is changing.”
Automation is a strong theme, with advances in infrastructure as code, provisioning and maintenance all becoming automated.
Businesses themselves are adopting new operating models, and IT has to find new models as well. This would typically lead to outcome-based budgeting, with agile delivery allowing for continuous budget against changing priorities.
“Technology and business are no longer distinguishable segments, and a new IT operating model is essential to success,” Van Grieken says. “For years, IT has helped to re-engineer the business, but few IT shops have done so themselves.”
He recommends that companies consider bottom-up redevelopment of the IT function.
In South Africa, organisations recognise the relevance and the timeliness of technology re-engineering, but they are not quite as ready to implement.
Developing a no-collar workforce has come about with the rise of machines and the prospect that many jobs and job families will soon be replaced by automation.
The organisation of the future needs to recognise and prepare for this, Van Grieken says. They could start to identify which processes or jobs would be better performed by humans or machines.
“We believe that the combination of artificial intelligence and people improves operations considerably,” he stresses. “And we truly believe this is not a black and white discussion. You need to understand where people are strong and where machines are strong.”
Enterprise data sovereignty is an ongoing discussion as companies grapple with the need to harvest data while staying compliant.
Van Grieken suggests that one way to address this issue is to automate the collection and aggregation of data streams which can be presented to a human operator who will make decisions about the legal, regulatory or privacy frameworks.
The new core is about identifying core enterprise functions – supply chain and finance especially – that can be fundamentally transformed by new technologies.
On top of these changes, there is additional value that can be created by digital reality, Van Grieken says. Both augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) is now being used in a number of markets.
Better networking and compute technologies are helping to drive AR/VR, but people are also becoming less resistant to interacting with these applications.
A digital reality could go a long way towards making mining safer and more efficient, Van Grieken points out.
A step further in the digital reality world is the creation of a digital twin where an entire asset can be recreated digitally. “This is a powerful tool that can be used for lifecycle management of the asset,” Van Grieken says.
“If you are building new assets, it could be a good idea to think about digital twin now.”
The other new technology, blockchain, is growing rapidly in terms of perception and interest, but there are still few use cases. “It has promise, but it is slow in taking off,” Van Grieken says.
Part of the reason for this is that organisations still battle to understand where blockchain could fit in. Deloitte explains that it can be used in food production, in validating provenance.
“We think the true value of blockchain is in smart contracts,” Van Grieken says. “And this leads to the interaction between blockchains. If you are looking at blockchain, you need to think about your participation in a chain.
“So you should be discussing with partners now about which blockchain technology that would be.”
Exposing APIs could become critical for organisations as they can be used to unlock legacy environment and speed digital transformation.
Van Grieken explains that companies could use APIs and microservices to expose ad re-use assets across and beyond the enterprise.