Opening keynote. It's all about the algorithm

Gartner Symposium kicking off in earnest today. 20 minutes to opening keynote, and already huge auditorium is almost full!

There's always a bit of a buzz in the room,as we wait to find out what messages we're going to get! Always a very professional and well rehearsed opening. Lots of loud music, video, animations...

And we're off.....

Digital business seems to be the message. CEOs need to focus on security, disruption and digital business.

CIOs more important than ever.

Interesting that security is first thing to be mentioned. Not surprising I suppose with recent events.

 

Message to business is that you need two business models. Analogue and digital. Digital commerce now worth one trillion euros annually. Need to bring virtual and physical worlds together. Successful businesses are creating innovation units running alongside traditional. Bimodal. Need new platforms. Mode 2 platform uses cloud. Less about data gathering but more about intelligent algorithms which act on the data.

Digital technology platform has to support digital initiatives in the organisation. Ownership of technology has shifted, less owned by central IT, Consumerisation, Internet of things etc has shifted IT into the business. CIOs have less control. This is not bad news. We have to be influencers, not controllers. Influence scales, control does not.

Algorithms are important now, not just collecting data. Algorithms define actions and business processes. Used by many apps, eg WAZE, driverless cars etc. In 5 years we will have our own algorithms in the cloud, virtual personal assistants. We are entering the post app era.

There are new risks emerging with these new technologies. By 2020 50% of large enterprises will have a Digital Risk Officer who manages IT, OT and IoT risk. Concern is not just protection from outside, but safety and quality. Think driverless cars.

Start with resilience. Simplify systems. Stable systems are more secure.

Detect and respond. Need to sense dormant threats before it is too late, and act on them.

Focus on people. People centric security. People are often the easy target. Many hacks start from people, eg phishing. Need to transform our cultures.

Move security more away from protection to more detect and respond on basis that hacking is here to stay!

Final part of keynote is about some practical examples of how we can change. Lots about the economics of connections. How we can leverage the interconnectivity of everything. Using the principal of give, take multiply. Make things, like big data, available for others to use. Take data from others, and then multiply your connections. Some interesting examples such as Tesla who have released their patents for their supercharger. Seems odd, but the more manufacturers use it, the more they are tied into to Tesla. Also examples from wearables. South African insurance company that rewards good behaviour, eg exercise, healthy eating etc, as measured by apple watch.

So, in order to progress, we have to get rid of some things:

Legacy fatalism - we can't do anything with these old systems

Ownership bias - we have to own everything. But, if someone can do something better then you, let them.

Cloud fear - cloud is unsafe, insecure. Actually Cloud systems are more secure than in-house ones. None of recent hacks were on cloud systems, and wouldn't have happened if they had been.

So, in summary, digital business is here. It's all about Bimodal, security and algorithms!

 

 

 

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