We are bringing you news and highlights from Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo, taking place this week virtually in APAC. Below is a collection of the key announcements and insights coming out of the conference.
On Day 1 from the conference, we are highlighting the opening keynote and sessions on the Gartner top strategic technology trends for 2021, and 10 tips to help CIOs approach cost optimization in the least damaging way to the health of their organizations.
Press releases and stories covering news from Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo APAC:
Presented by Daryl Plummer, Distinguished VP, Chief of Research and Gartner Fellow, Tina Nunno, Distinguished VP Analyst and Gartner Fellow, Don Scheibenreif, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner and Kristian Steenstrup, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner.
An adaptive, resilient business — the composable business — promises bold outcomes. In the Opening Keynote, Tina Nunno, Daryl Plummer, Don Scheibenreif and Kristian Steenstrup, distinguished VPs and Analysts at Gartner, explained how CIOs can achieve digital acceleration, greater resiliency and the ability to innovate through disruption.
“Throughout history, great leaders have faced turmoil and turned it into inspiration. They have used the energy of disruption to drive real change and help people,” said Mr. Scheibenreif.
“CIOs can contribute to the evolution of a more powerful and adaptable form of business, architected to deal with continuing business disruptions — composable business,” said Ms. Nunno.
“Composable business is a natural acceleration of the digital business that you live every day. It allows us to finally deliver the resilience and agility that these interesting times demand,” said Mr. Plummer.
Three building blocks to a composable business: 1) Composable Thinking - never lose your creativity. Anything is composable. 2) Composable Business Architecture - build the enterprise to be flexible and resilient. It’s about structure and purpose. 3) Composable Technologies – the tools for today and tomorrow.
These three building blocks are just the start. “Modularity, orchestration, discovery and autonomy are the principles that will guide our actions,” said Mr. Plummer.
“Composable business will deliver the resilience you need. Built ready to support inspiration no matter what turmoil comes your way,” said Mr. Scheibenreif.
“The idea of shopping for innovation assets, which Gartner calls ‘techquisition’, is an underutilized strategy in APAC,” said Mr. Steenstrup.
“CIOs in APAC should think about how their technology investments may support ‘recomposing’, not just in times of crisis but to pursue opportunities. For example, distilleries that immediately shifted to make hand sanitizer, and an event staging company now producing home office furniture,” said Mr. Steenstrup.
Presented by Brian Burke, VP Analyst, Gartner.
Strategic technology trends have significant disruptive potential and set the stage for innovation over the next five years. They are particularly important this year as organizations continue to deal with uncertainty and plan for a post-pandemic world. In his session, Brian Burke, VP Analyst at Gartner, shared the top strategic technology trends for 2021 that CIOs and IT executives cannot afford to ignore.
“Three broad themes run through the Gartner top strategic technology trends for 2021: 1) People Centricity 2) Location Independence 3) Resilient Delivery.”
Internet of Behaviors (IoB): Combines existing technologies that focus on the individual directly – facial recognition, location tracking and big data – and connects the resulting data to associated behavioral events, such as cash purchases or device usage.
Total Experience (TX): A strategy that connects multiexperience with customer, employee and user experience disciplines.
Distributed Cloud: The distribution of public cloud services to different physical locations, while the operation, governance and evolution of the services remain the responsibility of the public cloud provider.
Anywhere Operations: Refers to an IT operating model designed to support customers everywhere, enable employees everywhere and manage the deployment of business services across distributed infrastructures.
Intelligent Composable Business: Radically re-engineers decision-making by accessing better information and responding more nimbly to it.
Learn about four more strategic trends and additional details on each trend in the Gartner press release.
Presented by Chris Ganly, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner
In an uncertain and pressurized economic environment, organizations often face the challenge of realizing immediate IT cost savings. In his session, Chris Ganly, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, offered CIOs ten ways to help determine how to approach cost cutting in the least damaging way to the medium-and long-term health of the business.
“COVID-19 has fundamentally transformed the way people are spending their money, and therefore the way that organizations are having to respond to that.”
Target Immediate Impact: “There is very little point in trying to reduce a cost if the impact of the benefit is not going to be received until next year or the year after. It could be very well too late to achieve that.”
Reduce, Don’t Freeze: “Focus on costs that can truly be reduced or completely eliminated in the short term.”
Cash is King: “For most organizations, 60-65% of what you spend is spent externally with vendors and suppliers. Focus on that external spend as a starting point.”
Plan to Do It Once: “Cut hard enough the first time.”
Examine the Entire Cost Base: “Make sure you understand everything you are spending and where you are spending it.”
Target Unspent and Uncommitted Expenses: “Look for the expenditure and stop it before it is incurred.”
Be Holistic, Include Capital: “Typically operating expenses are the easiest to impact, but Capex can also be reduced, especially before purchases are commenced.”
Sunk Costs are Irrelevant: “Balance the cost benefit of stopping. Is stopping - ceasing the investment - going to have a greater impact on your spend than continuing with it?”
Address Discretionary and Nondiscretionary Costs: “Discretionary expenditure is the easier option. However, not all projects can and should be stopped, so look at reducing usage, service levels and even consumption levels of nondiscretionary spend.”
Tackle Both Variable and Fixed Costs: Focus on elimination of some fixed and constant costs, while using reduction and elimination for variable costs that change with volume and activity.
Learn more from this session in the Gartner press release.
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) delivers actionable, objective insight to executives and their teams. Our expert guidance and tools enable faster, smarter decisions and stronger performance on an organization’s mission-critical priorities. To learn more, visit gartner.com.
Susan Moore
Gartner
susan.moore@gartner.com
