Buyer’s Lens first-quarter 2014: analysis and outlook

Table of Contents

  1. Summary
  2. Changes in markets and competition
  3. Changes in the IT department
  4. Cygate’s automation odyssey
  5. The democratization of business intelligence
  6. Changes in the enterprise organization
  7. Near-term outlook
  8. Key takeaways
  9. About Laura Stuart

1. Summary

In the first quarter of 2014, enterprises found that technology-driven challenges to their markets and positioning are occurring at a pace that cannot be ignored. Few executives in any industries now doubt the accelerated rate of change that technology is making possible and inevitable. Internally, the changes are no less within IT organizations and across the enterprise altogether.

As reflected in the Gigaom Research Buyer’s Lens blog posts during the past 90 days, the following trends have emerged:

  • New players are entering markets and new markets are being created as technology drives an expansion of products and services. Technology is allowing new competitors to enter markets and leverage customer relationships and brandings that are new to the segment. With greater technology resources, big companies can sometimes lord it over smaller competitors until a mitigating solution is brought to market. And technology is enabling a new global reach that is creating new opportunities and risks.
  • IT department roles and functions are undergoing just as great a transformation as anything in the market. Along with cloud, mobile, and data technology bringing new outsourcing economics to many companies, traditional IT functions are being automated in an outright replacement of some technical staff; with the consumerization of more technologies, more responsibilities are being displaced to nontechnical employees.
  • With technology becoming more central to enterprise products, services, and delivery, organizational restructuring is required to support the changes. The overlap and integration between IT and other departments is increasing, as is the need for nontechnical leadership to oversee and support technology management. IT itself must take on more R&D and product-development functions.

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