Frost & Sullivan: Whether B2B or B2C, Today’s CIO Must Understand IT’s Changing Role as a Tool for Growth

    Decision support portal provides a competitive edge through direct access to IT analysts’ insight on current events and visionary outlooks

                            

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Nov. 19, 2013 – Companies across industries realize information and communication technologies (ICT) play a critical role in increasing productivity and engaging customers.  In fact, more than 70 percent of companies surveyed by Frost & Sullivan are implementing at least one mobile worker application in an effort to meet business goals.  Frost & Sullivan finds leading firms in the ICT space are realizing the crucial need of impacting end-users, who are key audiences, whether in the enterprise or consumer setting. 

“When speaking to major players in the IT space, we find their current shortfall is impact on key end-user markets,” said Frost & Sullivan ICT Global Vice President Alpa Shah.  “Our client’s revenue hinges on customer experience and concrete value; therefore, Frost & Sullivan is opening the Visionary IT Portal to interact with our growing following of end-users who are interested in the next big thing in ICT.  With smartphones and tablets intrinsically embedded in the user’s daily life, despite geographic location, solution providers must be prepared for the newest waves in mobility, accessibility and the ‘connected’ lifestyle.”

To support CIOs and those involved in IT management, Frost & Sullivan’s 360-degree perspective is now available with the debut of the Visionary IT Portal.  To experience the portal, visit: http://visionary-it.gilcommunity.com/, or click here to register.

CIOs face numerous challenges, such as managing bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy, ensuring network security, managing big data, creating a cloud strategy, and keeping up with the perpetually changing needs of the modern worker.  An annual survey on mobile enterprise applications found the top concern with cloud-based solutions is the security of data (based on responses from 308 North American businesses of all sizes).  For larger organizations, loss of internal control is almost equally as worrisome, while small and medium businesses rank anticipated cost as their second barrier to adoption.

With mobile phone owners spending upwards of 120 minutes per day on their devices, enterprises across every industry must understand this market saturation to capitalize on growing opportunities in areas such as mobile advertising, mobile commerce, in-store engagement, customer loyalty programs, and other examples of IT supporting business development.

“Organizations must understand best practices; identify unmet needs; and discover new models, technologies and strategies to gain a leading edge,” said Shah.  “History continually repeats itself, so we are focusing our efforts on a 360 degree research approach to avoid small and large falls from prominence.  A primary example is BlackBerry, which dominated the market with the latest in professional IT devices, with endearing terms like ‘CrackBerry’ to describe the consumer’s addiction to the device.”

The Visionary IT Portal highlights perspectives and insights from Frost & Sullivan clients and analysts to engage in candid conversations on the state of the IT market, and how to best meet pressing needs now to make critical decisions in the future.  Analyst insights will relate to visionary and technological outlooks, with the news editor’s picks featuring the latest news coverage vital to CIOs.  Viewers will also benefit from IT surveys, customer choice awards, videos, white papers, case studies, research press releases, upcoming events, and chat functionality, in addition to the latest in Mega Trends and industry convergence analyses.

For more information on the Visionary IT Portal, please email Britni Myers, Corporate Communications, at britni.myers@frost.com.

The Visionary IT Portal is part of Frost & Sullivan’s Information and Communication Technologies program. All research-based content included in the portal provides detailed market opportunities and industry trends evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.

Connect with Frost & Sullivan on social media, including Twitter, Facebook, SlideShare and LinkedIn, for the latest news and updates.

Smarter Cities. Safer Citizens. Planning Strategies for Public Events - Unique Webinar

Large events are fundamental to life in a vibrant city. From music concerts and festivals to road races and parades, public gatherings are essential to building civic pride and a sense of community—and of course, they also bring in billions of dollars to urban economies every year. Safeguarding the wellbeing of participants, spectators and citizens is vital—but managing large events can be a complex proposition for city governments and events planners. How can you ensure successful public events while ensuring public safety?

Join Frost & Sullivan and IBM’s urban protection and planning experts to learn about the solutions that can help you manage key aspects of public events, from coordinating permits to directing incident response to video review and analytics, and get tips for ensuring successful, profitable events for your city.

Click here to register

During this complimentary event, you will learn:

• How city leaders are using technology to enhance success and safety of public events
• How to monitor an event in progress through video, social media and more
• How to use analytics to identify patterns and trends across unrelated data

Click here to register, listen in on the experiences of others, participate in a live Q&A, and walk away with actionable strategies for your own organization.

Learn More: http://bit.ly/1eF1OEa

Big Data and Increasing Smartphone Penetration Drive the Demand for Mobile Data Monitoring Solutions

10 Jan 2014 | by Olga Shapiro 

 

Moving from 2G to 3G to LTE, mobile communication technology has achieved rapid progress in the past few years, paving the way for innovation and developments in the wireless communication industry. With a rapid growth in the number of mobile subscribers and a proliferation of mobile devices and tablets, human-to machine and machine-to-machine communication platforms, service providers are facing challenges in terms of keeping up with the amount of data, demands from end-users, as well as technology developments.

            According to Cisco's global mobile data traffic report, the global mobile data traffic reached 885 petabytes per month by December 2012. This number is expected to reach 11.2 Exabyte per month in 2017 by growing at a CAGR of 66.0 percent. To give context on this growth, 1 Exabyte is 1024 petabytes , which is equivalent to 1 billion Gigabytes! Furthermore, as a result of increase in network connection speeds due to 3G and LTE services, the consumption of high-definition video is expected to become more prevalent. During 2012, video based applications represented 45 percent of the total mobile data consumption. Operators continue to invest in the construction of new networks through large-scale deployments in order to support the demand for bandwidth. Deployment of next-generation mobile networks requires visibility across the network in order to test and measure performance, interoperability and security. Operators are forced to address the challenge of effectively monitoring the mobile data traffic in order to address the demand from consumers for the highest quality and speeds anytime, anywhere.
           
As the global mobile data traffic continues to increase, there will be an increased emphasis for adopting mobile data management strategy and policy control. This in turn will enable operators to optimize network policy, reduce burden on the network and enforce fair usage across all users.
             
Big Data is one of the key drivers for mobile data monitoring solutions because of the tremendous strain it is putting on networks. Big Data is characterized by:

• Data sets that are large and complex, and which current database tools and applications have difficulty managing and processing.
• Large volume and growth of data that communications service providers (CSPs) are facing due to growth of video traffic, sensor traffic, and other sources of data traffic.
• High velocity of data due to increased connectedness, mobile applications, and unrelenting time-sensitive traffic created in the social media environment.
• Large variety of data due to social networking traffic, the rise of user-generated content, and machine-generated data, leading a variety of structured and unstructured data formats that CSPs have to manage.

CSPs, network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) and enterprises have realized that they need monitoring solutions to ensure that the customer experience is not compromised.

Increasing smartphone penetration is another key driver for mobile data monitoring solutions market. Also, the penetration of smartphones and tablets across the world is increasing rapidly; almost 49.0 percent and 55.0 percent of the mobile subscribers in the U.S and Europe are now using smartphones. According to Cisco, mobile video traffic contributed 51 percent for the first time in 2012. Additionally, average smartphone usage increased over 80 percent in 2012, and while they represented only 18 percent of total mobile devices in use in 2012, these devices represented over 90 percent of total global mobile device traffic. Mobile operators are struggling to keep up with the demand for data services as subscribers opt to access the internet and video on demand through their phones. The rapid growth of mobile video market fueled by the aggressive penetration rates of smartphones and mobile applications has created traffic management challenges for carriers.

The number of smartphones is also expected to continue to increase significantly, according to Frost & Sullivan’s research.

In 2012, 559 million smartphones were shipped globally and brought in $235.3 million in revenue. It was expected that 761 million smartphones will be shipped by the end of 2013, which would be a 16.7% increase from 2012. Also, globally, smartphone’s market share is expected to reach 83.5% of total mobile phones by 2020.  

In the United States, smartphones contributed 57 percent of the total mobile phone market in 2012, and this share is expected to grow to 91.5% in 2020. This anticipated growth clearly demonstrates a shift in consumer preference from feature phones to smartphones that, in turn, will increase the demand for mobile data monitoring solutions.

For more information on Frost & Sullivan’s Test and Measurement research, contact Jeannette Garcia, Corporate Communications, at jeannette.garcia@frost.com

Frost & Sullivan Announces 2014 Chief Information Officer Impact Award Winners - Washington DC Press Release

Washington, D.C. Press Releases

Frost & Sullivan Announces 2014 Chief Information Officer Impact Award Winners

San Francisco Giants, Marin General Hospital, McKesson Corporation, NutriSavings and fellow award winners to be honored at ConNEXTions 2014

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Jan. 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Frost & Sullivan just announced 26 world-class companies as winners of the CIO Impact Awards.  The recipients are enterprise teams and individuals enabling breakthrough new business models and strategies through the innovative use of transformative technologies. Each nominated project was entered into one of six technology-specific categories, and evaluated by a panel of expert Frost & Sullivan judges.

CIO Impact Award winners are those projects that received the highest scores from the judges. The six categories are: Enterprise Architecture, Mobility, Cloud Computing, Unified Communications and Collaboration, Data and Network Resilience, and Advanced Analytics and Big Data.

In addition to selecting winners in each awards category, Frost & Sullivan will honor two CIO Innovators of the Year from among all project Award winners. These winners are CIOs whose teams had the most positive impact on their enterprises' strategic innovation, and who delivered a significant competitive advantage. The CIO Innovators of The Year along with the top-scoring project in each category will be announced at the 2nd Annual ConNEXTions 2014: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange & CIO Impact Award Gala, taking place Feb. 9-11, 2014 at the Hyatt San Francisco, Calif.

The theme for the 2014 ConNEXTions Executive MindXchange is "Driving Innovation and Industry Transformation Through Information Technology." The event enables senior-level executives to embrace their increasingly strategic role as CIO, while building an action plan to reap more value from information technology investments. Featured speakers include Cegedim Relationship Management Group Vice President Clouding and Digital Innovation Richie Etwaru, and Founder of the Geek Squad and former Chief Technology Officer at Best Buy Robert Stephens. Event participants will take advantage of highly interactive, participant-driven sessions focusing on their key challenges in the following tracks: Anyone, Any Time, Any Channel Collaboration, Realizing the Full Potential of Enterprise Mobility, and Savvy Security Strategy.

CIO Impact Awards Winners will be presented with their award at the gala on the final day of the event, Feb. 11, 2014, and will be recognized as global IT leaders. Frost & Sullivan is pleased to announce the winners of the 2014 CIO Impact Awards, and to congratulate them on their achievements:

PROJECT CATEGORIES:

Unified Communications and Collaboration

• San Francisco Giants
• STRUCTURAL GROUP Inc.
• HDFC Bank
• Amtec Corporation            

Mobility

• Marin General Hospital
• Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)
• HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL)
• UBS               

Cloud Computing

• Hayter's Turkey Products Inc.
• Choose Digital
• Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board
• The College Network
• McKesson Corporation
• Silafrica Ltd.             

Enterprise Architecture

• Ricoh Americas Corp.
• Color Spot Nurseries Inc.
• British Telecom Ltd.
• Presbyterian Healthcare Services
• Nacion Servicios SA                      

Advanced Analytics and Big Data

• NutriSavings
• Maharashtra Police
• WhitePages
• SumAll                      

Data and Network Resilience

• IndusInd Bank Limited
• Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd.
• Omnicom Media Group                  

For more information on the 2^nd Annual ConNEXTions: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, go to: www.bestinformationtechnologyevent.com.
For more information regarding the CIO Impact Awards & Gala, please go to: www.frost.com/cioawards.

Nominations for the 2015 CIO Impact Awards will open in April.

About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants.
Our "Growth Partnership" supports clients by addressing these opportunities and incorporating two key elements driving visionary innovation: The Integrated Value Proposition and The Partnership Infrastructure.

• The Integrated Value Proposition provides support to our clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation including: research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation and implementation.
• The Partnership Infrastructure is entirely unique as it constructs the foundation upon which visionary innovation becomes possible. This includes our 360 degree research, comprehensive industry coverage, career best practices as well as our global footprint of more than 40 offices.

For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Is your organization prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics and emerging economies?

Communities of Practice | Information & Communication Technologies

Transforming IT Operations with Software-Defined Data Centers

by Karyn Price 12 Dec 2013 

 

In my last post, I examined the software-defined data center craze and how it can transform data centers, allowing them to become more flexible, agile, and efficient. We did a deeper dive on the technology that supports Software-Defined Data Centers (SDDCs) and how it enables flexibility and agility in the IT environment.

But software-defined data centers facilitate far more than a shift to the latest technology: they make transformation of IT operations possible.
Some may ask why such a shift is necessary, but my guess is that you already know. Budgets have stagnated for years and within enterprise IT, doing more with less has become “business as usual.” In fact, a recent Frost & Sullivan survey showed that more than half of IT decision makers have flat budgets, and nearly 40 percent express concern about restricted capital budgets. Clearly, massive hardware upgrades to migrate to new technology is becoming harder and harder to justify. Despite this, business expectations increase and there is constant drive … to do more, be more, enable more … that requires IT to respond.

So business as usual is no longer an option. IT is discovering that it needs to make changes – sometimes difficult ones – in order to thrive in the hypercompetitive world that is global enterprise. Technology alone is not enough … IT must also shift its mindset and operations if it expects to succeed. So we turn to operations … but can technology really morph so drastically that it enables us to change the very ways that we interact with it?
In a word … yes.

IT as a Service, powered by a Software-Defined Data Center, recognizes that people outside of IT are becoming more tech-savvy. Years of navigating iTunes, Google Apps, and a never-ending string of e-commerce sites have given employees outside of IT a sense of confidence that they can procure the services that they need to work effectively. And in response, IT can create environments that enable a greater level of self-service and choice within the business, while maintaining control over key aspects of security and compliance. Doing so allows business leaders greater control – and responsibility – over the technology that they choose to support their departments; including how much is spent and how well it is optimized.

It also allows the IT department to make an important shift in focus: no longer is day-to-day management of hardware the most critical task. In today’s IT world, innovation in the form of new applications and services is imperative to business’s overall success. Every new service that fosters collaboration, enables road warriors to work better, or helps those in the office to be more efficient in daily tasks stems from the innovation provided by the IT department. The majority of IT’s focus must be trained on these key tasks, and move away from the pure management function.

But how does an SDDC achieve this IT efficiency? Once again, it’s the overlaying orchestration layer that manages the environment that drives this level of effectiveness and progress. Operations management within the orchestration layer offers insight into the health, efficiency, and compliance of the environment. When administrators use an SDDC management platform, they can optimize network traffic, manage resources based on traffic and usage, and ensure the integrity of the environment automatically, using easy-to-understand dashboards, infrastructure maps, and management panels. Pre-set policies also enable bandwidth allocation changes based on current conditions in the data center—like traffic spikes or increased usage of a particular application.
In this environment, tasks like provisioning or maintenance, which could take hours or even days in the old, manual IT environment, are now completed in minutes, thanks to the automated orchestration within the SDDC. So what can your department do with its newfound free time that was formerly devoted to IT management? Innovate.

That’s right … IT innovation will be the key to the new generation of business. I believe we are entering a time of even greater innovation in IT, thanks in part to the shift that IT can make away from monotonous, routine management tasks and toward creation and delivery of services that directly impact the business. By making the shift to an SDDC environment, you’re enabling the environment to run with little intervention, while your team focuses on higher-value projects.
For more information on transforming your business with an SDDC foundation, visit the VMware SDDC website.

Communities of Practice | Information & Communication Technologies

Impact of Big Data on Automotive Industry - Frost & Sullivan & Dash Labs, Inc.

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