The solution is to create a type of bimodal organisation, introducing a new Mode 2 platform, with a different emphasis. The Mode 2 platform uses more cloud than in-house infrastructure and applications.
“The new platform is less about data gathering, and more about intelligent algorithms to act on the data,” Sondergaard adds.
“Platforms matter because business as a whole has gone bimodal. You need IT that supports a bimodal business.
“Over a third of CIOs have gone bimodal just within IT, creating innovation units, running at Mode 2 to break out of the traditional, slow, but stable approach, which is Mode 1.”
Security and Risk
Today, the Risk and Security officer is mostly concerned with old technology risks.
Sondergaard believes they’ve become obsessed with external hacks, chasing the impossible goal of perfect protection. However, 65 percent of CEOs say their risk management approach is falling behind.
Organisations know this, and they’ve slowly devoted more resources to security, as safety and quality issues have come more dominant factors.
Gartner predicts that by 2017 the typical IT organisation will spend up to 30 percent of its budget on risk, security and compliance, and will allocate 10 percent of their people to these security functions. That’s triple the levels of 2011.
“You can’t control the hackers,” Sondergaard adds. “You can control your own infrastructure by using more automation, more outsourcing, and more network-based algorithms.
“Simplify your systems. We must move away from trying to achieve the impossible perfect protection, and instead invest in detection and response.”
Sondergaard says the average malware lies dormant, unnoticed, for more than seven months before it is activated or detected - IT leaders must get better at sensing these dormant threats.
Going forward, Sondergaard believes CIOs need to rethink their security and risk investments.
Gartner recommends that enterprises move their investments from 90 percent prevention/10 percent detection and response, to a 60/40 split.
Venture Investors
For CIOs to truly transform, they need three things: 1. they need a different approach to technology and investment, 2. they need new digital suppliers, 3. they need to create an innovation competency.
“To accelerate the creation of a new digital technology platform, leading companies are acting as venture investors,” Sondergaard adds.
“They are not waiting for current suppliers to build digital capabilities. Instead, they are investing in small technology startups. They are buying a stake in their future, guiding their direction.
“Even if you aren’t a CIO technology venture investor, the landscape for the technology buyer will change.
“If you are going out to buy products and services, you will need new capabilities that most Mode 1 suppliers don’t have, or are struggling to deliver.”
Sondergaard believes the new suppliers of digital platforms must be: able to support fast-fail projects; in the cloud, on demand, and highly automated with short-term engagements and pay-as-you-go models; and provide real-time insights with advanced automation.