Most Wanted Technologies

Here's a list of the technologies that CIOs are dying to deploy:

ERP - STILL THE TOPMOST

It's still the real thing for the Indian CIO. Decades after it made its debut, ERP continues to dominate corporate thinking. Of course, along the way it has managed to subsume other technologies so that you find modules as disparate as HR and supply chain management finding their way into what's still labelled as ERP.

Then, of course, there remains the fact that the migration from an ill assorted mix of legacy applications, accounting software and other sundry tools to ERP is still very much on ongoing part of the Indian IT revolution.

SECURITY - LOCK THAT SYSTEM DOWN

This isn't really a technology but it's a pressing concern related to it. IS 2005 Survey respondents voted it the second most important technology consideration on their agenda.

Living, as we do, in a world where every other day brings news of some new incidence of systems being breached with horrendous results - it's clear why CIOs think so.

India Inc. is just moving from the basic anti-virus and firewall kind of perimeter security to Intrusion Detection Systems, Access Control Devices, cryptography, identity mangement and security appliances.

In terms of security policy, more than 61 percent of organisations that have invested or are planning to invest in security have one. Unfortunately, that fervour doesn't extend to keeping tabs on the efficacy of said policy. Two out of three companies fail to conduct security audits.

(to be continued...)

Source - Network Magazine

Outsourcing - a key business decision

It is important to understand that outsourcing is a business-related decision and not simply an IT need.

The pressures of competitive market force organisations to focus on their core activities - activities that directly link-up directly to revenues and hence profitibality. In such a scenario, companies tend to outsource their non-core tasks to focus on business decision-making. And IT infrastructure easily lends itself to outsourcing.

Outsourcing is best adopted after a careful look at business needs and available options. It is essential that the outsourcing relationship provides strategic business benefits in the future. It is important to understand that outsourcing is a business-related decision and not simply an IT need. The ultimate goal of outsourcing is to bring benefits to the business and subsequently to the customer. In the past, Indian companies were not very keen to outsource their IT needs, primarily because their enterprise IT environments were relatively less complex, easier to manage, and inexpensive to maintain. Besides, few outsourcing service providers offered various outsourcing options under one roof. But now IT environments in companies have become more complex. There has been growth in terms of volume of business, range of services, number of employees, number of competitors, nationwide locations, and enterprise applications. This calls for more attention to IT as a service to provide strategic business benefits.

To help organizations get optimum value out of IT and use it as a strategic tool to further the cause of business, many CIOs think it worthwhile to outsource IT infrastructure management. Indian enterprises today have a variety of outsourcing options from which they can choose the right fit. Outsourcing solution providers offer services that include desktop client management, server management, cable management, firewall management, patch management, software license management, IT audits, backbone and connectivity, website hosting, and IT infrastructure management. Thus the available services are innovative, significantly more customised, and better aligned with individual customer requirements. An enterprise can pick-and-choose specific services and build a reliable mode of service delivery. A company can outsource basic desktop management needs, or the management of the entire nationwide IT infrastructure if needed.

Just a Question

Expand MPLS How much percentage of Indian organisations do not conduct security audits?

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