With the holiday in full swing and the new year only days away, chief information officers are making their lists to determine which key information technology initiatives will take flight in 2008. Verizon, a leader and trusted partner delivering communications and computing solutions to global enterprises, has identified ten business technology trends that are driving those New Year’s “resolutions.”
Included on the list at the number six spot is outsourcing or out-tasking. While outsourcing is not new, strong adoption is and will continue to be in 2008. What will become even more compelling is out-tasking, the process by which a company decides which functions to keep in house and which to hand off to a third party. Flexibility, scalability and the ability to achieve higher performance, increased reliability and stronger security will make out-tasking the preferred model. This trend is the result of the growing complexity of managing today’s extended network as well as applications such as VoIP and the need for strong mobility and portability capabilities for end users. With out-tasking, companies can focus on what they do and the rest of the IT work to someone else.
Other business trends that made the list are the CIO as Business Strategist at number ten. Work-life balance at nine followed by unified communications at eight and smartphones and managed mobility at number seven. Above the ranks of outsourcing on the list are telepresence at number five, virtualization and on-demand computing at number four while global greening is at number three. Securing the extended enterprise is at number two and outsourcing-related continued globalization is at number one.
According to Verizon, with regards to continued globalization, successful companies will continue to expand their borders in 2008 with workers, offices and facilities located around the world. While globalization can help multifunctional companies control costs, new challenges will emerge such as developing a reliable communications infrastructure, whether an office is located in Seoul, Rio de Janeiro or Rome. Businesses will increasingly require high-performance networks that enable applications designed to run on the corporate campus to also provide a consistent experience and operate securely no matter where users are located or where the applications reside. [CPL]
Links:
http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/2007/12/verizon_business_identifies_to/
