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Introduction

As organizations move further into the realm of digital business processes in both the front and back office, the integration of ICT into the business is significantly changing the nature of the IT department and the role of the CIO. Failure to adapt to the spread of disruptive technologies such as cloud, big data and mobility into every industry sector, and more importantly into society at large, will put companies at risk.

If the IT department is to avoid being marginalized, it must work in partnership with other business functions, acting not just as a technical advisor, but as a business technology expert. As the leader of this function, the CIO should be a major enabler of innovation for the business and play a central role in operational strategy. It also requires senior IT executives to work directly with other functional heads such as Chief Marketing Officers or Chief HR Officers to leverage business technology capabilities in their respective departments.

Today we are already seeing this effect take hold in domains such as marketing, customer service and logistics, and extending into the vertical-specific processes that define each industry sector. To remain at the forefront of their respective markets, organizations must build new horizontal capabilities in areas such as customer experience management, talent management, supply chain integration, intelligent asset management and collaborative R&D.

Across different industries, advanced IT strategies are enabling existing organizations to re-examine the value chain structure of their markets and their roles within it. It is also enabling new entrants to create footholds in such markets through disruptive technology strategies. CIOs have both a defensive and offensive role to play in guiding their organizations through best practice strategy for innovations as diverse as smart metering, in-silico drug discovery, telehealth, digital media convergence and digital textbooks.

One of the major challenges for organizations is to understand the likely impact and level of maturity of these disruptive technologies, and therefore make well-informed decisions on the timing, direction and size of their investments in technology-enabled business initiatives. Subsequently, companies will benefit from independent advice on selecting the solutions, vendors, service providers and implementation partners that are the best fit to help them realize these business objectives.

Ovum’s Industry Congress 2012 is structured around the major disruptive trends at the top of the business technology agenda. At this two day event you will hear from senior Ovum analysts, industry thought leaders and enterprise CIOs about how these trends will impact your business now and in the future, how to apply them for competitive advantage and how to manage the pitfalls and risks that they present.

As a leading independent IT analyst firm, with deep expertise in horizontal information and communication technologies, combined with the detailed business understanding of dedicated industry technology analysts, Ovum is the right choice to guide you in these decisions. Over 70 analysts from Ovum’s global team will be attending the Industry Congress, ready to answer your questions.

Who should attend?

The event provides essential information for CIOs and senior business and IT executives within a variety of roles including:

• CIOs and senior IT decision makers
• CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, and line of business executives
• Technology and business strategy executives
• Enterprise architects
• Applications and software development leaders
• Information management and BI leaders
• Infrastructure and operations leaders
• Program and portfolio management leaders
• Security and risk management leaders

At the event, you will learn and discuss:

• How rapid growth in the volume and complexity of data is creating opportunities to analyze and optimize business processes at operational speed
• Why customer experience management and customer intelligence has become a must-have capability to enhance long-term customer value and loyalty
• How to react to the consumerization of enterprise IT, improving staff, customer and partner satisfaction, whilst managing regulatory and security risks
• Where cloud services can create potential savings in infrastructure costs, and how to manage the deployment of cloud-based applications in your business
• What the impact of a connected society is in your industry, and how you can incorporate the digital context it creates into your business
• How you can maintain and transform existing assets to align with changing business imperatives, and free up capital for new strategic initiatives
• What the available sourcing options for business and IT capabilities are, and when you should choose to entrust these to a third party
• Who the CIO should partner with to foster IT-enabled innovation across the business, and what are best practices to increase successful outcomes
• What the business implications are of moving to a fully mobile enterprise, and how organizations can balance device choice with effective management
• How to build and maintain trust in the identity of users and the privacy of data, while still enabling product and service innovation
• Why environmental, economic and social issues are becoming inextricably intertwined in business, and how IT solutions can support sustainability initiatives
• Why data quality has become a critical issue for every business, and how to implement a data governance and quality improvement program
• How to take advantage of social media in a business context, to pick up the voice of the customer and to enhance internal collaboration
• How disruptive technologies will impact the role of IT and the way it operates, is funded and is perceived by the rest of the organization