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This he said would allow CIOs to be restored to their proper position as chief information officers, rather than chief infrastructure officers.
Cloud he said was one of two factors currently having a profoundly disruptive effect on major enterprises. The other was the currently downbeat global economic climate which was “emptying out old business models”.
That he said was providing space and opportunity for new businesses to emerge.
He said that cloud computing meant that anyone with a “smart idea, a credit card and connectivity” could now start a business. “The barrier to entry to markets has been massively reduced,” he said. “You can build a business with almost nothing.”
For existing enterprises this meant that there was a whole new raft of competitors to be considered. “The competition you worry about isn’t the one who’s been out there for five years – but someone who’s not even started yet.”
CIOs had to be ready for that he warned.
He said that the successful CIOs of the future would be able to provide information solutions – home grown or sourced externally - that “maximise the opportunity to innovate themselves, capture innovation or allow a business to respond to competitive innovation as fast as they can.”
This would not only be important to long term competitive capability, but also important for companies which wanted to attract and keep a “workforce of the future.”
