Innovative CIO's Betting On Disruptive Technologies That Impact Enterprise Business Value

In the Four Personas of the Next Gen CIO published March 3, 2012, four personas of the CIO were identified: Chief Infrastructure Officer, Chief Integration Officer, Chief Intelligence Officer, and Chief Innovation Officer (see Figure 1).  This research of 79 progressive CIO's identified the key projects for each of the personas.  As part of the survey, respondents were asked what key disruptive technologies would make an impact in the enterprise in the next year.
Figure 1. The Four Personas Of The Next Generation CIO

Source: Constellation Research, Inc.
In Constellation's latest update (to be published May 2012), 105 innovative CIOs participated in the survey.  The results indicate a shift away from cloud  (56.4%-2012) and virtualization (29.6% - 2012) to mobile (60.2%-2012) and big data and analytics (48.7%-2012) (see Figure 2).  Despite being the top projects in 2011, the drop in priority of virtualization (51.9%-2011) and cloud (69.6%-2011) doesn't reflect the lack of interest.  In fact, these projects have matured and innovative CIOs have now prioritized the next wave of innovation.

Figure 2. Over 100 Innovative CIO's Identify The Top 3 Disruptive Technologies for 2013

Source: Constellation Research, Inc.
Some key findings:

• Mobile enablement shoots to the top (60.2%). Mobile is the primary interface.  Anywhere, anytime computing is here to stay and these CIOs are working on the infrastructure required to support BYOD and CoIT.  App stores and mobile device management play a key role.
  
• Cloud deployment drops but is the predominant preference (56.4%). Cloud is assumed as the deployment option of choice.  CIOs now looking at providing the platforms to support apps stores, and applications development in the cloud to spur innovation.
  
• Big data and analytics rounds out the top 3 (48.7%). Big data is hot.  Today innovative CIOs take the Lytro approach.  As with a light field camera where you take the picture first and then focus, big data strategies start with capture the data and find the correlations later.
  
• Unified communications and collaboration increases in priority (41.1%). Improvements in cost performance ratios now put UC at the reach for any sized company.  These tools have gone from luxury to essential with home work forces and disparate teams.
  
• Social software enablement grows slowly among CIOs (33.4%).  CIOs focus less on external social software while CMO counterparts drive the purchase and adoption.  On the internal side, the data shows collaboration tied back to unified communications.

As the adoption of these disruptive technologies take shape, early adopters will find the leverage and force multipliers in the convergence of these technologies.
The Bottom Line: The Disruptive Tech Divide Creates A Huge Gap Between Winners and Losers
The gap in profits, innovation, and market share will continue to widen between the companies who adopt disruptive and emergent technologies and those who choose to stay the course.  In some sense, average is over and organizations who strive for average will fail to survive.  Unlike the Occupy movement, organizations should strive to be in the 1%.  Why? There’s only room for the top 3 to 5 in any market segment.  Those in the 99% will crumble under market forces and cease to exist.
Your POV
Are you an innovative CIO? What 's your point of view on which disruptive technologies are key for your transformation?  Add your comments to the blog or send us a comment at R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org or R (at) ConstellationRG (dot) com
Please let us know if you need help with your innovation efforts.  Here’s how we can assist:

• Kickstarting an innovation workshop
• Starting a design thinking session
• Selecting technologies that will drive disruptive business models
• Connecting with other pioneers
• Sharing best practices
• Designing a next gen enterprise strategy

Mentions
20110303 Harvard Business Review - R "Ray" Wang "The Four Personas of the Next-Generation CIO"
20110302 CIO Magazine - Kristin Burnham "4 Personas of the Next-Generation CIO"
20110923 MidMarket CIO - R "Ray" Wang "VIDEO: The 4 Personas of the Next Generation CIO"
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20110303 Constellation Research - R "Ray" Wang "The Four Personas of the Next-Generation CIO"
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