PROFILE
commonly occurring. I think the bad guys as
well as the good guys are getting better, but
nation states and organised crime groups
are now participating in cyber activity
and the general underground hacking
community are also trying to make a name
for themselves.
Using technology to enhance the
customer experience
manufacturing corporations and retailers, for
example, operating in the cloud.
The development of hybrid technology,
something that can operate in your own
data centre but also in the cloud, is now
becoming the new pervasive compute model.
I think we’re going to continue to see this
push although I don’t think we’ll ever see
the eradication of all data centres. I think
companies like Experian will always have a
hybrid approach because we have certain
customers that absolutely insist on us running
their technology in our own data centres, but
there are others that are more flexible.
On current IT challenges
throughout Europe
Security is an issue on a global basis. Every
week you read about the latest breach and
there’s a certain level of fatigue that’s set
in around the subject as breaches are so
www.intelligentcio.com
There’s an expectation today that’s very
different to previous years. It used to be
that at least 10 years ago, you’d release
a piece of software and there wouldn’t
be an upgrade for several months. There
would only be one major upgrade every
year or so and customers accepted that
as the norm. The introduction of mobile
technology has increased user experience
expectations dramatically.
The user marketplace has created higher
expectations for the consumer. The
expectation of having weekly or monthly
enhancements to an application has had a
positive impact on what software companies
are now expected to deliver. We must deliver
improved user interface technology, we must
also make sure it will run on any platform
and that the user interface experience is
simple and easy to understand. The bar has
been raised quite significantly from a user
experience perspective.
Advice for aspiring CIOs
I think the most important thing to
remember when doing this job is that if
you’re not allowing the business to grow,
you’re either in the wrong place or you’re
doing something wrong. It’s no longer about
technology for the sake of technology, it’s
about enabling the business.
The expectation is how do you add value
in the boardroom, or how do you add value
on the leadership team to help drive the
company’s growth. This should be the way
most CIOs think about their job because at
the end of the day, it really is about making
the company successful. n
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HYBRID
TECHNOLOGY, SOMETHING THAT
CAN OPERATE IN YOUR OWN DATA
CENTRE BUT ALSO IN THE CLOUD, IS
NOW BECOMING THE NEW PERVASIVE
COMPUTE MODEL.
INTELLIGENTCIO
61