Smart technology marketing plans must be developed toward being relevant with the top industry issues in mind. Based on the latest Gartner symposium, cost optimization will reign in 2010 within the technology industry. CIOs have their work cut our for them as they ponder various solutions to make their enterprise more agile and elastic. Other focus areas will include cloud computing (which will move from the discussion phase to small pilots), and process optimization around enterprise applications (ERP, customer relationship management, supply chain management) that will allow organizations to get more out of these investments.
As Marketers, your content should be developed to demonstrate how your technology solutions will integrate with these needs.
Gartner also identified the top 10 strategic technologies that will be within the mindset of tech buyers and CIOs throughout the upcoming year. The list focuses on technologies that have the “potential for significant impact on the enterprise during the next three years.” Here is the list:
1. Cloud computing. Organizations should think about how to approach the cloud in terms of using cloud services, developing cloud-based applications and implementing private cloud computing environments.
2. Advanced analytics. Real-time data analysis will enable fraud detection on one hand and prediction and simulation on the other, as organizations use data to look ahead.
3. Client computing. Enterprises need to develop a five- to eight-year client computing roadmap before making near-term decisions such as whether or how to upgrade client hardware or move to Windows 7. The progression of desktop virtualization technology and the range of devices available make this an important analysis. “Build a strategic client computing roadmap bringing all issues and devices together, or you will be following vendor roadmaps,” Cearley said.
4. IT for green. The “green” concept has moved beyond energy-efficient data centers to using IT to enable green throughout the enterprise. For example, an organization could use IT to analyze and optimize shipping of goods.
5. Reshaping the data center. A flexible “pod” model, where data center sections can be independently heated, cooled and powered, allows the organization to light up new sections only when needed.
6. Social computing. Organizations need to examine the use of social media by both internal and external constituents and figure out how to govern it. Social network analysis can be used both to detect fraud and to change business processes to boost internal efficiency.
7. Security — activity monitoring. As targeted attacks rise and cloud computing adds complexity, organizations need to identify a longer-term plan for how all of their security technologies come together. Security incident and event management devices, for example, are one approach that is becoming mainstream.
8. Flash memory. This technology, made ubiquitous by popular USB sticks, is a faster, although more expensive, storage alternative. Price drops mean it will offer a “new layer of the storage hierarchy in servers and client computers,” Gartner said.
9. Virtualization for availability. Live migration technology such as VMware Inc.’s VMotion will enable the use of virtualization for high performance, possibly displacing failover cluster software and even fault-tolerant hardware.
10. Mobile applications. Mobile is at a tipping point, given the proliferation of handheld devices and their power and storage.
If you think this list is accurate or believe that there is a technology that is missing, I would love to hear from you.
