"Strive for Simplicity..Kill Complexity."

COLIN BOYD
CIO                                                          
Johnson Controls           

Boyd joined  Johnson Controls in 2008 as vice president, Information Technology, and CIO, responsible  for leading the globalInformation Technology organization. Boyd hasworked for Sony Ericsson,  Sony Europe, British Telecom, IBM and Logica. He holds a Masters degree from London  University and Bachelors from the University of Nottingham.

Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2013 and expectations

(a) There is no doubt that a digital war is underway and enterprises are in the crossfire. Right   now the advantage is with he attackers; the rank and file enterprises do not have the financial  ability to hire sufficient resources to mount an adequate defense. Improved technology is  needed to swing the balance of power back to the defenders. (b) We need improved  middleware tools for delivering the enterprise suite of applications to various mobile platforms. (c) ERP modelling tools. The main back office functions still rely on ERP platforms for their  transactional processing, and many functions such as Finance and HR are consolidating into  shared service centers...which need ERP consolidation. So global ERPs are not going away  and they will still need to be upgraded. (d) The new generation of web based businesses such  as Amazon and e-bay are running on web based applications that are so intuitive to use that  users do not require any training. We need technologies to rapidly improve the user interface of existing "non web" enterprise applications from "traditional suppliers" to drastically  reduce the   user training.  

(e) Big data. The volume of data owned by  enterprises continues to grow and extracting  information from this ever increasing "data overload" situation is becoming difficult. The real  benefit only occurs when you connect different "islands of information" and detect patterns in  this correlated data.

Technology Trends Impacting Enterprise Business Environment

I think there are the usual four suspects  ie., mobile, social, cloud, big data. 

The areas in business environment where solutions do not yet exist or not up to the mark, and which if existed, would've made job easier

(a) Integrations. Enterprises run a multitude of  applications...which are interfaced to each other. Any single business process will require  multiple IT applications in order to function. (b) Complexity. More users...more digital  user  devices (PCs, laptops, tablets, smart phones)...more legislation to comply with...more  applications...more hosting options...so complexity increasing on all  sides. ERP systems help  the business map and control their business processes...to be consistent..and to "trigger  exceptions" to  management for action. But there is no real equivalent for the IT landscape.  CMDBs are  part of the solution but they need to be greatly developed to cover all the IT processes. And ideally the tool could make  upgrading recommendations...and then the next    step would be for the tool to chedule automated test scrips...and  actually initiate the  upgrades...keeping the entire IT landscape "synchronised". 

My roles and responsibilities as a CIO

Markets in all industries seem to be more  and more uncertain...we live in uncertain times that  re increasingly difficult to predict. The only constant is downward pressure on IT  udgets...regardless of business performance. CIOs have to make IT more "nimble"...more  lexible...the CIO has to replace much of the traditional fixed cost structures with more "on  emand"  cost structures that can rapidly scale in either direction. As always...people are key. 10  eally good IT people will achieve more than 100 average IT people. 

Lessons learned as a CIO

You have to execute the basics to maintain credibility in order to have more  meaningful  discussions with business leadership. So you have to deliver reliable email etc. Focus on  uilding a mngt team  who can run the IT function without you. Pick the key IT vendors that you  ant to work with and focus your spend with this select group. Dont be afraid to demand a change in account manager if the ones you have are not good enough.