CIO priorities reflect NBN opportunities in ANZ: Gartner

Organisations are looking to make the most of opportunities associated with the National Broadband Network (NBN), with Gartner Executive Program’s annual CIO agenda survey showing that networking, voice and data communications are a higher technology priority in Australia and New Zealand than globally.

Meanwhile, virtualisation has slipped down the technology priority list locally and Cloud computing has jumped to the number one spot.

The change is most likely a reflection of the maturity of the technology, according to Gartner vice-president, John Roberts, since virtualisation penetration in Australia is relatively high.

“This doesn’t mean that virtualisation has become less important, but it has been around for years, is well understood, achievable and delivers real savings, whereas not many have done cloud,” Roberts said in a statement. “Australia has some of the highest penetration rates of virtualisation globally within organisations. With interest in Cloud computing increasing, it is likely that Australian organisations will be very early adopters as virtualisation helps to drive it.”

There has also been renewed interest in business intelligence (BI) which is listed at number five in ANZ CIO priorities.

“Business intelligence technology is mature and people understand it, but it remains important to local CIOs,” said Roberts. “The challenge is how we tie it back into real business value again. There is information everywhere and the challenge is in harnessing it to make better decisions — moving from business intelligence into creating an intelligent business.”