2015 Tech Trends: A Critical Crossroad for IT

A new year brings new strategic initiatives, new projects and new challenges for IT leadership. In 2015, Bob Janssen, founder and CTO at RES Software, believes that CIOs face many important decisions that will help shape the future of their IT organizations.

It is not difficult to see that many of these trends are interconnected with one another. While the challenges facing IT in 2015 won’t be new per se, IT leadership finds itself at a very important crossroads. This coming year presents an opportunity to develop a roadmap and strategy that will reshape how IT supports the business. It is undeniable that IT departments positioned for the most success are evolving into brokers of technology to the business and putting people at the center of their technology choices.

Click through for insight on how decisions made in 2015 will reshape IT as we know it, as identified by Bob Janssen, founder and CTO at RES Software.

IT as a Service

The trend toward IT as a service (ITaaS) will gain momentum.

Enterprises will continue on their journey toward IT as a service (ITaaS). It will take a true ITaaS model for enterprises to support an agile workforce with the right IT services and applications that they need to deliver value to the business. This represents an unstoppable shift, where IT is transforming into a broker of a wide range of business-critical IT services and business technology. This has also been described as a transition from IT as a gatekeeper to a shopkeeper. This change is inevitable in the long term, and in 2015 Janssen predicts that IT organizations will begin to take steps to prepare them for this new approach to delivering IT services to the enterprise.

Mobility

Mobility approaches will grow more strategic.

Although mobile has been a major priority for most CIOs, BYOD has often been front and center for the past several years. Most organizations are beginning to see that BYOD has proven to be a single tactic in a much more significant strategy for supporting the mobile workforce. The end-user audience is now heavily dominated by millennials, who expect IT to be fast, easy and automated. Users don’t want to wait on IT, they would rather get things done on their own time from wherever they prefer. A BYOD program cannot deliver on these expectations, and 2015 will be a time when many IT organizations must rethink how they have approached mobility to date and see the bigger picture for enabling agility and mobility among their workforce. 

People-Centric IT

A people-centric approach will prevail.

While IT has always had a desire to satisfy users, the business will drive more and more IT decisions and strategies. Many organizations are no longer using the term “users” to signal a shift away from the traditional relationship between IT and other employees. In many instances, they are being considered IT “consumers,” rather than users. This mindset of treating users with the same care and consideration that a business treats its customers often requires looking at IT from the user out. At RES Software, this “people-centric” approach is seen as an important part of IT departments earning more visibility within organizations as a partner in the business.

App Fatigue

IT will need to prevent app fatigue in the enterprise.

We’re already beginning to see the initial signs of “app fatigue” in the consumer world. With so many applications at our disposal, it can be overwhelming, and valuable solutions often get lost in the shuffle. If IT is working toward an ITaaS model where it is able to serve as a broker to the business, it can get ahead of any potential and frustrating app fatigue in the enterprise. By aligning the right mix of apps for users ahead of time and using consumer models like self-service, ratings and reviews, enterprise users can cut through the clutter and be productive with the right IT services. The elimination of unused or unnecessary applications can also relieve tight budgets, so it’s a win-win for users and IT.