The industry reflects, looks ahead

By Staff, ZDNet Asia
Friday, March 14, 2008 06:39 PM
Lim Khiang Tong, head of technology for Singapore, group operations and technology division, OCBC Bank
Lim Khiang Tong,
OCBC Bank
In the case of open source software, we still see it at its infancy stage at an enterprise level. For organizations, it is a risky proposal for enterprise or critical deployments. Although considerably cheaper than packaged alternatives, it is still dependent on a community of developers and users.

Q. Gartner issued a report warning IT heads to prepare a recession budget. What is your view?
Lim: With the recent turmoil in credit markets and general economic uncertainty, we are beginning to see many businesses feeling the global effects of the crisis in U.S. credit markets and the drop in near-term economic confidence. This will affect organization's expenditure, and IT heads have to be watchful with the way they are spending each dollar.

Name three hot technologies to watch in 2008.
The first is more efficient and greener data centers. Data Centers are growing rapidly, and there is a need to consolidate and optimize data centers which today account for a considerable percentage of power consumption, and as business grows, correspondingly the scope and nature of data centers grow. Companies have to start re-thinking how to apply new cutting-edge technologies, smarter investments to optimize data center's space and utilization.

There will also be a convergence of security infrastructure and applications, especially in financial institutions. We have to continuously invest heavily to enhance our IT security infrastructure to safeguard and protect customer information. Financially-motivated attacks will continue and this is where fraud prevention is essential. Web-based threats will continue, with Web sites becoming easier to access personal information and users are increasingly open to "phishing" attacks. As the use of new mobile platforms become more popular, downloaded applications with security loopholes can be easily exploited as well. Hence, IT security is something we cannot compromise.

The third is technology channels convergence. There will be a growing trend in technological convergence, for companies to offer services to customers through various types of technology channels, at cheaper costs and more accessibility.

Name one prediction that the analysts got wrong or right.
One area that analysts predicted correctly is the speed of vendor consolidation which was fuelled by an increasing business demand to offer end-to-end service. It was difficult for organizations to have so many piece-meal applications solely for the purpose of servicing one customer. Vendors saw the need to acquire new technologies, know-how to offer such products and services to organizations which are looking at consolidating internal systems to achieve higher productivity and economies of scale.

In the case of open source software, we still see it at its infancy stage at an enterprise level. For organizations, it is a risky proposal for enterprise or critical deployments. Although considerably cheaper than packaged alternatives, it is still dependent on a community of developers and users. It is on this point where predictions did not materialize as expected.

What is the biggest myth about virtualization, and why?
A perennial myth is that it isn't safe to virtualize mission-critical applications. I am of the view that by virtualizing, we are able to move applications between data centers for disaster recovery without any downtime for users. It provides a more stable environment. If your company is driven by business, you need flexibility, and virtualization is an option.

Name up to three security trends that IT heads should look out for in 2008.
They would be network security, information security management and fraud detection

What is the one mistake a CIO cannot afford to make?
IT definitely can deliver business value when an organization's IT team is proactive, anticipate business needs and have a clear view of how technology contributes to the business. When such a culture is embedded in an organization's culture, you can expect better and faster IT response to business needs.

What is needed to have IT actively participate in business strategy meetings, support a strong system of performance measurement driven primarily by business value measures, and drive the business strategy in many cases. For such meetings, it is essential to include the involvement of key IT team members and business people to brainstorm on possible ways for using IT to improve your company's revenue, reduce costs, improve your company's competitive position and change the industry competitive dynamics.

The biggest challenge facing IT departments is...
... Balancing the increasing IT cost against the quality of service provided by our IT vendors. And with it comes the additional challenge of delivering service differentiation where it becomes a top strategic mandate to leverage on innovation and/or technology optimization to deliver an end-product for customers at a cheaper cost.

Another challenge faced is the presence of a tight labor market where it becomes difficult to recruit technology people who posses a strong background in banking. What we really need are people who are not just good technologists, but who possess good banking domain experience as well. For example, talents with specialized skills in the business of trade finance, payments, treasury or credit cards.

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