Investment in technology is coming to the CEO

For the first time in almost ten years, the Directors believe that technology can make a difference. But it is the best of the CIO position to the business technology agenda?

Despite the industry hype that largely followed the set of arguments in the 2003 Harvard Business Review article by Nicholas Carr, "it doesn't matter".

Carr said that rather than use to gain an advantage, most companies should spend less on technology.

"In the years 2003-2007 Nicholas Carr's ideas were almost believed it," said Gartner fellow Mark Raskino. "Business has been about standardization and outsourcing, and was seen as a function of commodities. The directors hired CIOs to be more efficient. "

Changed his mind about the technology of the latest Gartner CEO and business executive survey shows Citi's head. Raskino said: "the Directors are really interested in technology as a factor in the business, which is something we haven't seen since 2001."

Gartner, the directors make their top five business priorities for 2014-15. The most obvious growth, costs and profit, the survey showed technology as the fourth highest priority for directors.

Raskino said that this shows that the Directors now want to take advantage of the digital era, with mobile, social, cloud, big data, and online strategy.

"Technology is the key," he said. "It's not about internal efficiency more."

Most of the technologies explicitly mentioned in the survey were those associated with the options front office/revenue win. Responses made it clear that the directors of the brains have been set up to use the technology for growth, rather than the internal cost and efficiency, said Gartner.

"CEOs want to get customers and staff, using technology," Raskino said. "They are looking for growth in the domestic market because emerging markets are slowing down and want to use digital marketing."

Is digital means, take a different approach on products and services. Google, for example, has set the agenda for the automotive industry by developing an autonomous car.

Gartner also asked respondents about their most important technology enabled investment in the next five years. This year, the top of the list is dominated by the "front-office" technology related options that are used to help in the area of sales and marketing. Gartner also noted a strong interest in the creation of the business operations in the cloud and in the use of data-driven decision making through business analytics, big data and science data.

The directors are on the way to defining their business strategies in the digital era. Gartner study found that some managers do not distinguish between an old-fashioned approach to it, and this new era. Raskino said that many are still on the page e-commerce from the perspective of their strategy, dating from the year 2003. According to Gartner, only a quarter of you really understand where it is going to be digital, the use of mobile commerce and the internet of things. "Several directors for the app [could be used] to run your car," Raskino said.

While the directors are trying to deal with this emerging digital era, the CIO is stuck in a time warp before the recession, cost control was considered to be the highest priority.

An overview of more than 100 C-level executives conducted by Wakefield research for Avanade announced that 37% of the budgets allocated for technology in 2014 is now controlled by the Business Department. This means that more than one-third of the total technology company is buying the business people who do not report to the CIO.

Digital leaders need agenda, and no current commercial head provides this creativity

Mark Raskino, Gartner

Raskino added: "If you look at the CIO strategic documents and strip off the logo, can be from any company. CIO business orientation includes the SLA and the function of the Department, rather than a business. Digital leaders need agenda, and no current commercial head provides this creativity. "

From CIO strategy perspective, the digital era could not buy off-the-shelf, Raskino said. "It is not a package of competencies, unlike ERP, CRM and supply chain management. There are no frames, organizational structure or people who can borrow from the consulting firm you how to change your business. "

The digital era is more about traffic patterns, such as, for example, whereas, as social or mobile technology is changing the bottom line. The return on investment is less clearly defined in comparison with traditional packaged IT solutions.

Raskino, warned that the role of the CIO is a type of cast. "CIO lived under the control of costs and they don't look like the agenda setters," he said. "It causes a lot of CIO.

"CIO order another package from the IT industry. Now the business has to be creative, and it's not for creativity and enhanced cooperation, therefore, the directors are hiring digital leaders. "

Directors need to CIOs who are agenda setters, Raskino said. It's all about leadership and directors need confidence in the ability of people to the digital agenda.

The directors will be difficult to hire the right people to carry out the role of the digital leader, Raskino said. "There are some digital leaders in retail and media who are doing the ' digital ' for 10 years, and occasionally it will be people from the business and consulting firm environment. But true talent is scarce and home talent takes time. "

For example, last October, McDonald's hired Atif Rafiq as your first digital Director (CDO). Luke was formerly CEO of the Kindle directly on Amazon and was taken to lead McDonald's global digital strategy, focusing on future growth in e-commerce, to modernize the restaurant experience and involvement with consumers across the digital landscape.

While the CDO role evolves, is largely considered to be a service function for the business. In fact, 35% of companies IT departments now mainly services provider, Avanade's research found. And it is extended to 58% over the next 12 months, which may not be good news for the CIO, is planned at the forefront of the digital era.

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Libyan elections coming within months

The chairman of Libya's National Transitional Council Mahmoud Jibril says elections will be held within eight months.NEW: Gadhafi's body is on displayNEW: Interim leaders to declare Liberation Day on SundayNATO is scaling back operationsLibya is seeking a new constitution
Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Libya will hold elections in the coming months as the war-torn country works toward building a new society in the post-Moammar Gadhafi era, interim government officials announced Saturday.
Mahmoud Jibril, chairman of the National Transitional Council executive board, said elections "should be within a period of eight months, maximum." He spoke at the World Economic Forum in Jordan.
The first vote will be for a National Congress that will draft a constitution. After that, parliamentary and presidential elections will be held.
Gadhafi's death Thursday solidified the power of the NTC, which will mark the country's liberation on Sunday in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the uprising started.
NATO, which launched an operation to protect Libyan citizens against the Gadhafi regime during the Libyan war, plans to ends its operations by October 31.
Speaking in his weekly address Saturday, Obama said Gadhafi's death "showed that our role in protecting the Libyan people, and helping them break free from a tyrant, was the right thing to do."
"Our brave pilots and crews helped prevent a massacre, save countless lives, and give the Libyan people the chance to prevail. Without putting a single U.S. service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives. Soon, our NATO mission will come to a successful end even as we continue to support the Libyan people, and people across the Arab world, who seek a democratic future."
Questions persist about what would happen to Gadhafi's body.
His family issued a statement Friday calling on the United Nations and Amnesty International to push Libya's new leadership "to hand over the bodies of the martyrs of their tribe so they can be buried according to Islamic rites," a pro-Gadhafi TV station reported.
Gadhafi's body was on public display Saturday at a Misrata meat market cooler. Queues of people lined up to view the corpse, which appeared to have a bullet hole on the left temple.
Libyan and world powers wanted to capture Gadhafi and prosecute him for war crimes.
The U.N. human rights office and activist groups like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have called for probe into his death amid questions over the final moments of the late Libyan strongman's life. They want to know whether Gadhafi was killed in crossfire or executed by fighters.
"There are at least two cell-phone videos, one showing him alive and one showing him dead. Taken together, these videos are very disturbing," human rights office spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva on Friday.
"We believe there is a need for an investigation and more details are needed to ascertain whether he was killed in the fighting or after his capture."
Human Rights Watch, which is also calling for an internationally supervised autopsy and an investigation into the death, said it is unlikely that Gadhafi was killed in crossfire.
Peter Bouckaert, the group's emergencies director, told CNN that fighting had ended when Gadhafi was cornered in a drainage ditch. He said crowds beat Gadhafi in what was a "humiliating end" for the former dictator.
"When he left the area, he was very much alive," Bouckaert said. "There's no reason why he should have been subjected to this kind of mob justice."

Whistleblowers Act coming soon: Manmohan

AppId is over the quota
Manmohan Singh said that the government would soon bring the Whistlebowers Act to protect those using the Right To Information Act.

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