HorizonWatching

Nucleus Research: Top 10 Technology Predictions for 2012

Back in October, Nucleus Research (Boston) announced its Top 10 Technology Predictions for 2012.  Now that I am well into my trends research for 2012, I thought I’d blog about the Nucleus list.

Nucleus believes there will be an overall increase in IT spending in 2012 as companies start allocating more budget towards technology in order to meet business goals.   However, Nucleus cautions that the European banking crisis and the US budget debate remain as key issues in the overall global economy.

As far as technology trends and themes,  the cloud, mobility, and big data are a few of the trends driving Nucleus's 2012 predictions.  The ten predictions (and my summary) is below:

1. Productive Enterprise:  The most successful firms in 2012 will be those that integrate technologies like mobile and social software in order to maximize the productivity of employees
2. The Cloud Changes Development:  Nucleus says that the cloud will make development even more virtual as CIOs will not care where the developer is as long as good code is delivered on time.
3. SAP Reemerges:  Nucleus expects SAP to leverage recent innovations like mobile device access and cloud delivery in order to create more customer value
4. Big Beats Best-of-Breed:   Tech buyers are expected to increasingly look to big tech vendors for their solutions as usability, integration and TCO become more valued criteria in buying decisions.
5. More Ways for All to Manage Big Data:  Businesses will increasingly turn to advanced analytics to draw insights out of the growing mounds of data.
6. Capital Moves from Labor to Technology:  Given a choice, firms will spend more on technology in 2012 than on labor, hopefully improving the productivity of the existing workforce rather than adding to it.
7. The Decade of Smarter Software:  Nucleus expects to see more intelligent applications that anticipate, search for, analyze, and push dashboard information to worker’s desktop.
8. Labor Finally Gets Optimized:  According to Nucleus, businesses will use tools to help them figure out which employees are the most productive, show up on time, create the least scrap, and book the most sales.
9. Healthcare Investments Increase:  Nucleus says that in 2012 Healthcare organizations will invest in data capture devices and services and electronic records management applications, spurred on by Government incentives.
10. Renewed Focus on the Customer Experience:  Nucleus expects strong investment in CRM and related applications in 2012, as companies seek to retain their most profitable customers and attract new ones

Predictions 1, 6, and 8 all seem inter-related and could probably have been combined.   Regarding number 9, while I’d love to see a surge in healthcare investments, I believe EHR will continue to have a slow adoption cycle.

For more information, check out the Nucleus Top 10 Predictions for 2012 research paper.

Culture Plays A Big Part In Social Business Adoption

A couple colleagues recently reached out to me on the topic of how best to implement social business within a mature company.  Some employees seem to flock to the latest collaboration and social technologies on their own.  Most employees seem unsure why they should be using these technologies and how to go about getting started.   Finally, some employees want to avoid social and collaboration technologies at all costs.

The fact is that emerging technologies do get a lot of hype and sometimes leaders decide to implement these new hyped technologies without the proper understanding of the change that will be required in business processes and what the impact that will have on employees.

The bottom line for me with any new emerging technology...whether it is is analytics, cloud computing, or social business is that successful implementations of new technologies must have three strategy elements integrated and in place 1) Technology Strategy (the new emerging applications and tools)  2) People Strategy (changes to skills, organization, and culture) 3)  Business Process Strategy (changes to tasks, activities, etc.). 

Too often I see a focus on the technology strategy too much without a focus on the other two.  It's like a three legged stool....if one or two legs are bad the stool falls down.   The business leader must focus on having the proper people and processes in place and that often depends on the culture that business leader develops and promotes within the organization.  Leaders who give the green light to implementing new technologies without understanding the impact on people and processes, will only see those technology initiatives fail.

So my message and advice is that culture does play a big part in implementing change within a mature corporation.  In my mind, culture change is the responsibility of our business leaders and therefore leaders should not implement new emerging technologies unless they understand the impact on people and processes.

Regarding the topic of implementing social business and the cultural implications of doing so, I’ve developed a list of links for those of you who would like to read up more on this topic.  Enjoy.

• IBM:  The New Collaboration:  Enabling innovation, changing the workplace
• IBM:  The Social Business:  Advent of a new age
• Book:  IBM Press Planning and Implementing Social Software for your Enterprise
• IDC:  Social Business Framework:  Using People as a Platform to Enable Transformation
• IDC:  Becoming a Social Business:  The IBM Story
• Dachis Group:  Social Business Design
• Case Study:   Alstom - People and Process First.  Technology Second
• Linkage White Paper:  Social Media:  Finding Its Way into Your Business Strategy and Culture
• Tieto White Paper:  Transforming in a social business
• Book Chapter:   Leader Does as Culture Is
• Book:  http://www.thecultureofcollaboration.com/ a book by Evan Rosen.  Evan blogs also at http://collaborationblog.typepad.com/
• Blog Post:  Social Business Impacts People, Process, & Technology

For more information on the Social Business trend itself, check out my other Social Business related blog posts

IDC: 2012 Predictions for Information Technology Industry

“IDC predicts that worldwide IT spending will grow 6.9% year over year to $1.8 trillion in 2012. As much as 20% of this total spending will be driven by the technologies that are reshaping the IT industry – smartphones, media tablets, mobile networks, social networking, and big data analytics.”  - IDC Press Release

IDC released it’s high level list of predictions for 2012 yesterday.  I attended the annual international conference call which kicks off a series of IDC predictions and trends calls over the next few months. 

The 10 high level prediction areas from IDC for 2012 are:

1. Worldwide IT Spending Growth – Spending growth returns to the industry, fueled by the emerging markets and mobile computing.  European debt crisis could spoil the party.
2. Emerging Markets Growth – China to pass Japan in IT spending as emerging markets grows to 28% share of total global spending.
3. Mobility Devices & Apps – Smartphone/Tablet usage grows and users want these devices to do everything.  Mobile apps explosion continues and the O/S battle rages.
4. Cloud Services Adoption – Spending on cloud services growing 4 times the industry rate.  Apps moving increasingly to the cloud.  PaaS and SaaS wars/acquisitions accelerate.
5. Cloud Services Enablement – Increased cloud services growth will drive huge demand for IT hardware and software offerings that enable those cloud services as well as for technologies that can optimize the cloud data center infrastructure
6. Mobile Networks – IDC says that in 2012 spending on mobile data services will surpass fixed data spending, that growth of video traffic will be an issue, and that telcos are expected to focus on mobile cloud strategies.
7. Big Data Analytics – Digital data continues to grow at an alarming rate (48% in 2012) resulting in focus on Big Data and analytic ‘mashups’ and related M&A activity.
8. Social Business – IDC expects battles to continue between between Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, and IBM while Facebook aims to become the B2C platform of choice.
9. Interactive Network of Things – The number of embedded systems, entertainment devices, appliances, and industrial automotive computing devices will outnumber traditional IT input devices by 2014.
10. Intelligent Industry Solutions - Smart Cities related efforts will drive over $40 billion in technology investments in 2012, mainly in Energy, Government, and Healthcare.

The IDC predictions list aligns well with the research I have been doing the last few months.  I will be issuing my own annual trends report in early January. 

The 10 IDC predictions are detailed in the full report IDC Predictions 2012: Competing for 2020 which was authored by Frank Gens, IDC’s Senior VP & Chief Analyst with help from a vast army of IDC analyst teams. 

IDC’s prediction portal for 2012 is at www.idc.com/Predictions12 and it is there you can link to all sorts of content, events, press releases, and complementary research.  I recommend you check out the “Video Commentary” Frank Gens, IDC’s Senior VP & Chief Analyst .  You can also follow IDC on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/idc  for real-time news and updates.

Gartner: 2012 Information Technology Predictions and Trends

Gartner, Inc. issued a press release announcing it’s 2012 list of top predictions and trends for IT organizations and users.  Highlighted are key trends like Cloud Computing, Social Business, Big Data, Security, and Mobile.  The predictions and trends made by Gartner align closely with the research I am conducting for my HorizonWatching 2012 Trends report due out in early January.

The eleven predictions from Gartner are as follows

1. Cloud Services:  By 2015, low-cost cloud services will cannibalize up to 15 percent of top outsourcing players' revenue.
2. Social & Collaboration Platforms.  In 2013, the investment bubble will burst for consumer social networks, and for enterprise social software companies in 2014.
3. Enterprise Email.  By 2016, at least 50 percent of enterprise email users will rely primarily on a browser, tablet or mobile client instead of a desktop client.
4. Mobile Apps.   By 2015, mobile application development projects targeting smartphones and tablets will outnumber native PC projects by a ratio of 4-to-1.
5. Cloud Security.  By 2016, 40 percent of enterprises will make proof of independent security testing a precondition for using any type of cloud service.
6. Public Clouds.  At year-end 2016, more than 50 percent of Global 1000 companies will have stored customer-sensitive data in the public cloud.
7. IT Budget Management.  By 2015, 35 percent of enterprise IT expenditures for most organizations will be managed outside the IT department's budget.
8. Asia Sourcing.  By 2014, 20 percent of Asia-sourced finished goods and assemblies consumed in the U.S. will shift to the Americas.
9. Cybercrime. Through 2016, the financial impact of cybercrime will grow 10 percent per year, due to the continuing discovery of new vulnerabilities.
10. Cloud & Sustainability.  By 2015, the prices for 80 percent of cloud services will include a global energy surcharge.
11. Big Data.  Through 2015, more than 85 percent of Fortune 500 organizations will fail to effectively exploit big data for competitive advantage.

Gartner has issued a full report titled "Gartner's Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users, 2012 and Beyond: Control Slips Away," which is available on Gartner's website at www.gartner.com/predicts. The report apparently has links to more than 70 Gartner ‘predicts’ reports broken out by topics, industries and markets.

Gartner also announced an upcoming webinar, "Gartner Top Predictions for 2012 and Beyond," at 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. EST on December 21. To register for the webinar, go to  http://my.gartner.com/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=202&mode=2&PageID=5553&resId=1842125&ref=Webinar-Calendar.

Forrester: Top 10 Trends in Enterprise Architecture

Forrester recently released a report by Brian Hopkins, Principal Analyst titled: “The Top 10 Technology Trends EA Should Watch: 2012 To 2014″ that caught my eye.   The report identifies trends that are expected to have a strong impact on IT over the next few years.

Forrester sorts the ten trends into four technology categories: Application platforms, integration, infrastructure and operations, and mobile computing,

Application Platforms

1. Elastic Application Platforms Emerge.  Automatically scaling processor and storage resources up or down, depending on workload.

2. Platform as a Service Crosses the Chasm.  Application-development tools abstracted from the underlying cloud infrastructure, freeing developers from many of the tedious details with which they would otherwise have to cope.

Integration

3. Data Services, Virtualization Reach Critical Mass.  Extending enterprise data warehouse or to operate in a multitechnology environment with a mix of physical and virtual data stores

4. Holistic Integration Enables Agile Enterprises.  More comprehensive tools to achieve application, process and data integration

5. Social IT Becomes Enterprise Plumbing.  Social interaction will become part of normal workflows, and applications must be architected from the inception to enable this

Infrastructure and Operations

6. Improved Virtualization Sets Stage for Private Cloud.  Expect more focus on virtualization maturity to raise utilization rates, standardization and automation.

7. Always On, Always Available Is the New Expectation.  Building highly available infrastructures that can deliver continuous services to end users by leveraging technology improvements such as cloud-based disaster-recovery services.

8. Network Architecture Evolves to Meet Cloud Demands.  Building fundamentally different networks to accommodate advances in server and storage virtualization that pave the path to cloud computing.

Mobile Computing

9. Personal Device Momentum Changes Mobile-Platform Strategy.  Information workers are an increasingly empowered group and will dictate the technology used to solve business issues.

10. ‘App Internet’ Ushers in the Next Generation of Computing.  Improvements in the underlying mobile-platform technology to fully enable context-aware and secure application-based mobile computing.

The full report can be accessed at “The Top 10 Technology Trends EA Should Watch: 2012 To 2014″

Gartner: Top 10 Business Apps for Tablets

Gartner says worldwide media tablet sales to end users will total 63.6 million units in 2011, a 261.4 percent increase from 2010 sales of 17.6 million units.  Yes…that says 261%!!.

As consumers increasingly buy these devices they inevitably start bringing them to work, pushing the adoption of business applications for tablets.   Gartner expects this adoption to increase substantially over the next few years as businesses start rolling out enterprise applications that support major business initiatives.

According to Gartner, the top 10 commercial business application categories for tablet devices are:

1. Sales Automation.  Sales automation systems for customer collateral, sales presentations, and ordering systems
2. Business intelligence.  Analytical and performance applications with management dashboards
3. Email.  Containerized email to separate corporate messaging environments from personal email
4. Collaboration.  Collaboration applications for meetings
5. File Utilities.  For sharing and document distribution
6. Business Processes.  General corporate/government enterprise applications for CRM, ERP, SCM and messaging
7. Healthcare.  Medical support systems for doctors, nurses, and physical therapists
8. Desktop Virtualization.  Hosted virtual desktop agents to provide secure remote operations of traditional desktop applications and environments
9. Social Media.  Social networking applications with intelligent business insight
10. Board Books.  For secure document and report distribution

For more detail on Gartner’s thoughts on this subject, see it’s press release “Gartner Identifies Top 10 Commercial Business Applications for Tablet Devices”

IDC Announces Dates for 2012 Prediction Conference Calls

IDC’s series of annual prediction conference series kicks off December 1st with it’s Top 10 Predictions for 2012 conference call.  I’ll be attending most of the conference calls and reporting about them here as I do every year.  

IDC's annual Top 10 Predictions for 2012 conference call is the most popular call in the sericeso.  Senior Vice President and Chief Analyst Frank Gens will talk about the key themes and opportunities that will guide the industry's direction in 2012. 

The Cross-Industry Overview call is another popular call.  Hosted by Meredith Whalen, Senior Vice President, IDC Insights and Vertical Markets Research, this call always features a panel of research vice presidents from the six industries that comprise IDC Insights. Here’s the list of dates that have been announced.

Below you can find a list of currently scheduled IDC Prediction Calls.   For more information about IDC events and webinars, go to the IDC Events page.

Overview/Summary Calls

• Top 10 Predictions for 2012 – December 1, 2011 12pm EST.
• Cross-Industry Overview   - December 5, 2011 - 11:00 a.m. EST; 16:00 GMT
• CIO Agenda  - January 10, 2012 - 11:00 a.m. EST; 16:00 GMT 

Energy & Utilities

• Energy - Oil & Gas - December 6, 2011 - 11:00 a.m. EST; 16:00 GMT
• Energy – Utilities - December 6, 2011 - 2:00 p.m. EST; 19:00 GMT
• Energy - EMEA Utilities - December 15, 2011 - 9:00 a.m. EST; 14:00 GMT

Financial Services

 

• Financial Services - December 6, 2011 - 11:00 a.m. EST; 16:00 GMT
• EMEA Financial Services - January 17, 2012 - 9:00 a.m. EST; 14:00 GMT

Government

• Government - December 7, 2011 - 11:00 a.m. EST; 16:00 GMT
• EMEA Government - December 13, 2011 - 9:00 a.m. EST; 14:00 GMT

Health

 

• Health - December 5, 2011 - 2:00 p.m. EST; 19:00 GMT
• EMEA Healthcare - December 14, 2011 - 9:00 a.m. EST; 14:00 GMT

Manufacturing and Supply Chain

• Manufacturing - December 8, 2011 - 2:00 p.m. EST; 19:00 GMT
• EMEA Manufacturing - January 19, 2012 - 9:00 a.m. EST; 14:00 GMT
• Manufacturing Supply Chain - December 15, 2011 - 11:00 a.m. EST; 16:00 GMT
• EMEA Product Lifecycle Strategies - December 15, 2011 - 2:00 p.m. EST; 19:00 GMT
• Manufacturing Operations Technologies - January 31, 2012 - 10:00 a.m. EST; 15:00 GMT

Retail

• Retail - December 8, 2011 - 11:00 a.m. EST; 16:00 GMT
• EMEA Retail - January 18, 2012 - 9:00 a.m. EST; 14:00 GMT

Note: If you cannot attend the live broadcasts, slides and web conference replay recordings will be available afterward to pre-registered participants. You must pre-register to receive access information and reminders.

For more information about IDC events and webinars, go to the IDC Events page.

IDC's Conference Call on 2012 IT and Economic Outlook

Today IDC held their annual State of the Market IT & Economic Outlook 2012 conference call.  In this annual web conference, IDC reviews the current state of the global economy and IT spending and provides outlook for the new year.   This is my summary observations from that call.

IDC holds this call every year the first week of November and it signals to me that it is officially time for me to start focusing on developing my list of key trends for the next year.  As I do every year, I’ll publish that list in early January.

The speakers on this call from IDC were;

• Stephen Minton, Vice President for the IDC Worldwide IT Markets research group, focusing on IT spending and global end-user trends.
• Anna Toncheva,  Program manager and Economist with the IT Markets and Strategies group in IDC's Global Research Organization.

IDC stated that macroeconomic indicators have worsened over the past 6 months, causing a general weakening of the 2012 outlook.  In general, we’ve seen good levels of IT investment so far in 2011, but with economic forecasts sliding down since mid-year, we should be concerned about IT spending in 2012.  In addition, the European debt crisis is still lingering and threatening the very existence of the European single currency, leading us to ask…what would a double-dip recession mean for IT vendors?

IDC provided the following regional observations;

• Western Europe IT spending has softened, showing impact of debt crisis on business and consumer confidence.  As a result GDP forecasts for next year have been scaled back significantly.
• The U.S. market has been resilient so far in spite of economic headwinds.  There’s been some volatility in enterprise hardware and weakening PC sales, but software spending was strong in first half of 2011.
• Emerging markets (BRIC) are still strong and driving overall industry growth at 2x GDP. 
• Mobile devices are also a major contributor to overall growth (global IT growth is 2.5% at constant currency excluding mobile this year)

IDC says that downside risks are still there and we all need to be aware of a downturn.  However if the U.S. stays resilient and if stability returns to Europe, that should prevent an outright recession and IT spending crash.  Therefore, IDC’s baseline assumption is that there will be no global recession in 2012.  IDC does encourage and expect that all businesses will go through contingency planning for all types of IT capital spending/hardware upgrades including PCs, servers, and enterprise networks.   IDC stated that project-based services will likely be more vulnerable than operational spending and while software spending has been very strong in 2011 it would not escape a downside scenario. 

The bottom line is that IT buyers are still nervous, but IDC expects that their confidence should improve in coming months if the economy stabilizes.

For more information about this conference call, go to IDC’s website at State of the Market IT & Economic Outlook 2012 conference call.

Learning about the Social Business trend: Three IBM White Papers

I’ve written before about the social business trend and it’s impact on businesses (see The Social Business Train Is Leaving The Station Are You On It? and A Social Business Strategy Can Make A Company More Responsive and Agile). 

I believe that the social business trend will have a profound impact on the architecture and design of future businesses.  Business processes will change and that will lead to required changes in application software.  Those businesses that make the successful transition will be more agile, more responsive, and more successful than others.

This post provides links to three white papers found on IBM’s Social Business website.  IBM has been on the forefront of the social collaboration and social media marketplace, learning how to leverage these technologies internally.  These white papers provide a great overview of social business, the potential value of the trend, and the challenges all businesses must overcome to become a true social business.

The Social Business: advent of a new age

(February 2011) This 10 page white paper written by the Lotus team at IBM Software Group defines what a social business is and what it takes to become one.  It puts forth the view that businesses are entering an inflection point where social computing and social media are about to be fully integrated into enterprise application design.  The table of contents are: 

• Introduction
• What does it mean to be a Social Business?
• What is the value of Social Business?
  • Deepen customer Relationships
  • Drive operational efficiencies
  • Optimize the workforce
• Preparing for the future
• The right partner for a changing world
• For more information

Becoming a Social Business: the IBM story

January 2011)  This IBM-sponsored 14 page white paper was written by IDC’s Erin Traudt and Richard Vancil.  In this paper, IDC provides three case studies that describe IBM's internal evolution to a social business.  The paper then uses the learnings from these case studies in order to provide guidance to other large organizations considering making the transformation to a social business.  

• IDC Opinion
• Methodology
• In This White Paper
• Situation Overview
• Case Studies
  • IBM DeveloperWorks
  • From Individual Contributor to Community Manager
  • BlueIQ
• Future Outlook
• Challenges / Opportunities
• Conclusion

 

Jamming on social business

(April 2011) Exploring new approaches for the next era of business.  This IBM white paper provides a review of the key findings from a 72-hour online brainstorming session held in February 2011 between over 2,700 participants from over 80 countries.  This report summarizes the key insights gathered from the all the conversations, comments, and tweets. 

The table of the contents of this report reads as follows:

• The Social Business Jam
• What is a Jam?
• Jam insights
  • Building the social business of the future
  • Building participatory organizations through social adoption
  • Using social media to understand and engage with customers
  • What social means for IT
  • Identifying risks and establishing governance
• Our jamming experience
• Next Steps

If you are tasked with learning about the social business trend, these three white papers are an excellent resource for you.  More information and case studies can be found at the IBM Social Business website.  For those of you who want to follow the discussion on Twitter, search on the hashtag #socbiz.