It’s not a stretch to say that the CIO job is transforming in lockstep with the massive wave of technologies triggering a digital tsunami in the way businesses operate. From the Internet of Things (IoT) to cloud computing, mobile, analytics, and robotics, the new path to success lies in a company’s ability to transform itself into a digital business. As a result, established enterprises have realized that information and technology are fundamental success factors rather than a cost center, making the CIO a de-facto business leader.
Figuring out how to effectively lead this change is a fascinating topic, particularly as most CIOs must also manage a substantial landscape of existing services and technologies. A recent article on CIO.com highlighted this issue when the author sat down with Joe Bruhin, the former CIO of Constellation Brands, a six-billion-dollar international producer of and marketer of beer, wine, and spirits. As Bruhin noted, “By some estimates, our current trend of exponential growth trajectory suggest that we will be 32 times more advanced in five years and will continue to grow exponentially. This unprecedented growth will affect the way we work, structure our organizations, as well as the size and skills of IT personnel.” He cites four key trends:
- Internet of Things (IoT)
- Disruptive technologies
- Robotics and Robotic Process Automation
- IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and other “as a Service” solutions
All of these technologies and services will have a profound effect on the way IT works, and CIOs need to chart a course that smoothly lands their organization in the digital economy without incurring performance issues. That last bullet point—IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and other ‘as a Service’ solutions—is of particular interest in this regard. As Bruhin says, “Zero-infrastructure organizations are the future. The challenge is how you get your organization from legacy to IaaS – it isn’t easy.”
And IaaS is just one aspect of cloud; companies must also tackle the complex challenge of migrating applications to the cloud. Whether the migration plan is "lift and shift" or refactoring or a combination of both, CIOs must guarantee line-of-business partners that this migration will not imperil business performance. To the contrary, it should support new business models, improve customer experience, and increase operational efficiencies. To make these things happen, a CIO must have a comprehensive service assurance and security assurance strategy. Here, the idea of pervasive visibility takes on a whole new meaning—IT needs a view of not only the data center, but rather the entire infrastructure and service dependencies, both on-premises and in the cloud. Increasingly, this has driven CIOs to explore a data-driven approach, such as NETSCOUT’s Business Assurance solutions based on Smart Data. By doing so, they can assure service and application performance before, during, and after migrating to the cloud and deliver the reliability, availability, responsiveness, and flexibility of services critical to achieving targeted business outcomes. Learn more by downloading the Cloud Migration Strategies report by ESG (Enterprise Strategy Group).
~Carol Hildebrand, Sr. Strategic Marketing Writer, NETSCOUT