10 predictions on IT changes over the next 36 months

Today’s IT organizations are divided into two camps: those that thrive by effectively leveraging digital technologies, new business models, and entrepreneurial cultures; and those that are saddled by technical debt, plodding business processes, and lack of a digitally-fueled vision for the future.

To help CIOs and IT executives successfully lead their organizations through accelerating digital transformation, IDC today unveiled predictions that lay out the ten most important shifts that will happen in IT organizations over the next 36 months and will guide senior IT executives in the formation of their three-year strategic IT plan.

IDC’s 10 predictions on IT changes

• By 2019, 40% of IT projects will create new digital services and revenue streams that monetize data.
• By 2018, 65% of IT organizations will create new customer-facing and ecosystem-facing services to meet the business DX needs.
• Lack of vision, credibility, or ability to influence will keep 40% of CIOs from attaining leadership roles in enterprise DX by 2017.
• By 2019, 75% of CIOs will recognize the limitations of traditional IT and embrace a leadership approach that embodies a virtuous cycle of innovation (Leading in 3D).
• 40% of CIOs will advance DX initiatives by building organizational linkages with line of business (LOB) technology teams and across IT organizational silos, empowering changes in thinking, culture, and practices by 2018.
• By 2019, 80% of bimodal IT organizations will accumulate a crippling technical debt resulting in spiraling complexity, costs, and lost credibility.
• 45% of CIOs will shift primary focus from physical to digital and move away from BPM and optimization by 2018 to deliver scale, predictability, and speed.
• By 2018, 45% of CIOs will focus on platformization, using DevOps for rapid development, cost reduction, and enterprise agility.
• By 2019, 70% of IT organizations will shift their culture to a startup-like work environment by embracing Agile practices and open source communities.
• By 2017, 80% of CIOs will help drive global risk portfolios that enable adaptive responses to security, compliance, business, or catastrophic threats.

“The message is clear — CIOs have to find a way to reinvent their IT organizations; otherwise, they risk dragging down their businesses or getting replaced by service providers that can accomplish what they can’t,” asserted Joe Pucciarelli, Group Vice President & IT Executive Advisor, IDC IT Executive Programs. “In the new digital economy, CIOs must manage by Leading in 3D: forging an IT organization that can simultaneously innovate, integrate, and incorporate.”