ICT integration boosts efficiency

By Alex Kayle, Senior portals journalist

Johannesburg, 12 Mar 2009

Top chiefs of global giants Dimension Data, HP and IBM debated the outlook of ICT systems for enterprises amid the current financial crisis, at the ITWeb IT Confidence 2009 Conference, held at The Campus, in Bryanston.

According to the three speakers at a panel discussion at the conference, chaired by Frost and Sullivan ICT analyst Lindsey McDonald, companies are rethinking their business models to save on costs and boost efficiency.

“We are in the worst economic confidence crisis we have ever been,” says CEO of HP SA, Oliver Fortuin, who believes hardware is the hardest hit IT sector spend-wise. “From a customer perspective, the focus is on optimising current assets. For vendors, the discussion isn't about top line anymore. Market share is what it's about. The global hardware market is currently below single digit growth, at 6%. Global IT spend as a percentage of revenue decreased from 4% in 2005 to 2% in 2009.”

Times of strain

Allan Cawood, CEO of DiData SA, says it is now critical for ICT to position itself to drive real value in times of an economic crisis. “There's big pressure on the market, particularly in the financial and retail sectors. However, we are also seeing public sector spend continue to be on the rise.

“If we look at the biggest challenges that the average CIO faces, there's one theme coming through - doing more with less. That's not only on providing IT services, but how CIOs can use mobility and new technologies to drive the way they do business.”

Mark Harris, IBM CEO for sub-Saharan Africa, says companies need to get smarter with technology, and the main issue isn't about the volume of business anymore, but rather how businesses are using ICT to manage cash and the level of credit: “In today's economic crisis, we are seeing systems integrators going through different phases where business processes are becoming far more important.”

Going green

Harris adds: “We are seeing an increase in virtualisation and consolidation for data centres and servers because of cost requirements. Companies are using technology to create better energy systems in order to cut costs, but which will also have a better impact on the environment.”

The panel members jointly agreed that while energy efficiency is important and will become more critical in the near future, cost requirements and not environmental concerns are still the biggest driving factors behind companies choosing to invest in green IT. In addition, performance by the public sector to drive green IT is lacking.