The list
- Anonymous Australian CIO
- Anonymous Australian IT worker
- Carlton Taya, Avaya South Pacific MD
- Craig Scroggie, Symantec A/NZ MD
- Chris Disspain, auDA CEO
- David Jackman, Pronto Software MD
- Deena Shiff, Telstra Business group MD
- Dereck Daymond, Sybase A/NZ MD
- Doug Farber, salesforce.com APAC VP, operations
- Geoffrey Dirago Attain IT general manager
- Gerard Florian, Dimension Data Australia CTO
- Greg Spears, Vodafone spokesperson
- James Turner, IBRS analyst
- Joe Kremer, Dell Australia MD
- Kevin McIsaac, IBRS analyst
- Laurel Papworth, social networks strategist
- Mark Phibbs, Adobe APAC marketing director
- Melbourne IT spokesperson
- Neerav Bhatt, blogger, librarian, internet marketer
- Sarah Carter, FaceTime Communications
- Paul Harapin, VMware A/NZ MD
- Peter McAlpine Adobe Australia MD
- Rob Mackinnon, IBRS analyst
- Paul Fitzgerald, GHS consulting director
- Steve Hitchman, MIP MD
- Warren Chaisatien, Telsyte research director
- Tracey Fellows, Microsoft Australia MD
- Wendy Reid, EMC A/NZ marketing director
Geoffrey Dirago, Attain IT GM
I am expecting the broader ICT industry to feel like it has a
hangover. A groggy start to the morning, some uncertain feelings
about health in the middle of the day and then an improvement later
in the day.
Those, like Attain IT, who managed risk, debt and customer relationships properly before this macro impact started should recover from the early hangover effects quite quickly. I would expect such organisations to simply be a little less exuberant this year. However, organisations whose emphasis was strongly on leveraging bull market opportunities may find the sort of projects which have sustained them to be thin on the ground for the next six to 12 months.
I don't believe many ICT firms in Australia have directly felt much of this hangover yet, but many should be aware that it is coming.
Specifics being more valuable than generalisations, Attain IT has found itself quite well-placed. Market conditions ... we anticipate suit two kinds of firms; the first are those like Attain, who have no debt, very tight relationships with customers and provide essential services which will be sustained during downturns due to their clear value to the customer. The second are cashed up organisations that have been keen to acquire. Obtaining customers and skilled staff through acquisition should be cheaper and easier for such firms this year.
The losers will be those who have made their profits from larger, non-essential projects which get delayed in quieter economic times. Those organisations that put their focus simply on projects rather than relationships and long-term value to customers will have a worse hangover experience in 2009. Such organisations will find it too late to reinvent themselves and will likely be required to shed staff.
In broad terms, I also anticipate ICT to remain a popular choice for graduates and new entrants in comparison to other industries. ICT should ride out 2009 in equal or better terms than many industries and avoid some of the headline-grabbing catastrophe elements of industries such as financial services and resources have experienced.
Gerard Florian, Dimension Data Australia CTO
Much ink has been spilled lately about the dreaded 'D' word —
the downturn — and what it means for IT spend in 2009. A lot of
projects and budgets are being reviewed, but we need to look at
where we've been over the last few years to understand where we're
going now.
Today IT infrastructure carries most organisations. It's the foundation for communication, production and commercial transactions. IT departments have been delivering a service that 'just works' and as a result, business confidence in IT has increased.
This means that in most cases, it's simply not possible to drastically cut IT spend, because too much depends on it. However, while confidence has increased, so too has the rigour around payback and ROI. Finance wants a shorter payback time and reduced risk. Pilots and phased roll-outs have replaced 'big bang' projects.
The real 'D' word for IT in 2009 will be 'discretionary'. Therefore this year's spend will focus more on operations than technology:
- The major change in 2009 will lie in sourcing. There's been much focus on large organisations and their shift from a single outsource to multi-source engagements, but the big mover in 2009 will be medium to large enterprises who currently in-source. Cost pressures will drive the need for cheaper ways of running IT operations. Managed services in areas like the network and the desktop will be a growth area in 2009.
- Cost management in areas like travel will accelerate the adoption of conferencing technologies — including video, audio and web technologies. Reducing cost through better process will also feature in many IT plans.
- CIOs will be more meticulous about capacity planning and asset management. Organisations will wait as long as possible before increasing bandwidth, licences, storage capacity etc. To make this work you must know what inventory you have and its utilisation, life-expectancy and compliance requirements.
- Enterprise architecture will become a key focus. Once there's a vision and a plan to get your architecture right, funding will dictate the pace of change. Mature organisations will implement their plans in a phased manner over time, ensuring they are well-placed for the next phase in the economic cycle.
If you'd drawn up a similar list of trends six months ago, it would probably look pretty similar to the one above. The future remains largely unchanged by recent economic events. How quickly we get there will depend on business needs and IT's ability to align itself with those needs.
Greg Spears, Vodafone spokesperson
2009 will be the year that mobile internet applications, mobile
advertising, GPS and location-based services enter the mainstream
and fundamentally change the way business and personal customers
use and consume data.
James Turner, IBRS analyst
I think that in Australia we will see many IT departments moving
away from fringe technologies. Given the layoffs to date, as well
as those which are forecast for the Australian economy, it will be
too expensive to retain suitably skilled people for these fringe
technologies. Supporting small pockets of fringe technologies is
expensive because this cost is over and above the need to support
pre-existing, and more widely adopted, technologies which have much
larger gene pools of qualified IT professionals.
Sadly, Linux is an example of this. IT departments will be looking at their headcount and skill coverage and asking themselves if they can really afford to make the nice-to-have technologies, like Linux, a part of their operational direction for the next 12-24 months. Not because there is anything wrong with the technology, but why keep on extra people who are focused on a small area, or even have your core team having to maintain proficiency in two knowledge areas, when the mainstream technologies are good enough?
There will be a few small companies, and perhaps even one or two larger ones, which will be rebels and go all out for Linux and their argument will be licensing. And they will make a lot of noise, and we will hear about them, but we will hear about them precisely because they will be the exception to the rule.
IBRS analyst James Turner
It's going to be all about economies of scale: as Henry Ford said, you can have any colour as long as it's black. This year, you can have any operating system as long as it's Windows — because it's going to be easy and cheap to find people with good Windows skills.
Secondly, the impact of the economic downturn in the US will mean that most of the vendors will streamline their Australian operations as part of global cost cutting. For the smaller vendors this will possibly even mean closing shop here. For the larger vendors, they will let go of some local back office functions and even professional services personnel including engagement and/or project managers.
So it will be a really bad time to be kicking off any large projects which substantially rely on fringe technologies where there isn't a wide and deep skilled workforce at your disposal. As well as your own vendor management people, having stable, senior people on the vendor side is a must (particularly project management). But it will be a great time for contractors and consultants who can work on a purely ad-hoc basis. But then it's always been a good time for people who can work like that.
And next week's lotto numbers are ...
Joe Kremer, Dell Australia MD
CIOs and IT managers will be looking for value now more than
ever in 2009 as they look to improve productivity and cut costs.
Getting the most out of their IT dollars will be the biggest
challenge of 2009. To this end, organisations will continue to
invest in virtualisation solutions and they will deploy more
iSCSI-based storage.
Green IT will also hit mainstream even more as companies explore ways to cut costs and increase efficiency.
Kevin McIsaac, IBRS analyst
In the area of IT infrastructure my top prediction is: the impact of global economic downturn means that through 2009,
and early 2010, all IT infrastructure projects will be closely
scrutinised and only low-risk projects will clear and immediate
benefits will be funded.
This will translate into: continued funding for server virtualisation projects, which have a strong track record of lowering hardware costs while delivering improved high availability and DR capability. Despite strong interest, most virtual desktop initiatives will not go beyond the proof of concept stage, due to a lack of financial or business benefit, with the exception of a few niche cases such as providing a secured desktop to offshore developers.
Organisations will look more closely at how storage is used in an attempt to get more life out of existing capacity rather than simply adding more disks. Due to a lack of staff, and tools, many will turn to trusted third parties to help with an assessment.
Laurel Papworth, social networks strategist
2009 will see Australian companies embrace social media with
a much more strategic focus. Blogs will be seen as a way of
building a communication channel directly to interested parties
without having to rely on press releases being opened or
journalists picking up a story.
While the first half of the year will focus on blogs for the sake of 'social media press releases', by years' end, a number of notable companies will have developed substantial social media assets online and moved from 'one way' to engagement in discussion. The current temptation to use a video blog site such as YouTube as a broadcast medium will diminish and forward-thinking, collaborative conversations will take its place.
While you can't blog on Facebook, its power as an audience builder will be recognised. Blogs (in fact, any press release) are challenged in building and sustaining an audience, but luckily Facebook has that built in. So, instead of Facebook being seen as a time waster, like email was in the mid 1990's, the 4 million+ adult Australians in that social network will place Facebook at the top of business-critical marketing, recruitment and communication strategies. In fact, Facebook's role as primarily a connector and distributor of information will be incorporated into both external and internal comms directions.
Email, SMS and mobile phones heralded a time of news being almost instantaneous. We moved from a nine-to-five work lifestyle to checking email in front of the evening television program and SMSing colleagues after hours. Now, synchronous tools make all news instant and ambient. Twitter and similar real-time tools bring a flow of information in a continuous stream. Unlike email and Facebook and blogs that are asynchronous, Twitter and Yammer provide industry news, business relationship news and personal news instantly and on demand, we dip in and out in a constant motion.
Mark Phibbs, Adobe APAC marketing director
2009 will be a difficult year for Australia's ICT industry and
the industry will be challenged more than ever to demonstrate
return on investment for any new IT investment. I would expect the
first half to be very challenged and for things to start and
improve towards the end of 2009, with two bright spots being
government and education, where government recession-busting
expenditure will cause these sectors to increase their share of the
overall pie.
Melbourne IT spokesperson
One of Melbourne IT's key predictions for 2009 is an increase in
the take up of cost-effective digital marketing services such as
pay-per-click and email marketing due to global financial
uncertainty.
Melbourne IT's chief technology officer, Dr Bruce Tonkin, believes digital marketing will grow as the downturn in the global economy causes businesses of all sizes to reassess expenditure and redirect their spending away from more traditional marketing initiatives towards cost-effective online marketing tools which give measurable returns, such as pay-per-click advertising and DIY email marketing applications.
Online marketing solutions are a lower-cost alternative to printing direct mail campaigns or collateral and have the ability to target specific markets and measure return on investment more effectively.
Other areas that we believe will be key trends in 2009 include a shift of IT services into the cloud, an increased awareness of the environmental impact of IT from customers, growth in mobile advertising, growth in internet crime and a greater emphasis on and awareness of the need for digital brand protection.
The shortage of good IT professionals with in demand technical AND good English communication skills will still prevail in 2009.
Defence clearance issues are also still a major obstacle for the sector. Overall I don't think we will see any great change in IT employment/unemployment stats in 2009, although we are seeing some shifts between contracting and permanent employment modes. We are helping our clients invest more in retention strategies as well as in attracting graduates as smart companies will definitely be investing in IT staff even if (or maybe even because) they need to shed other staff in the year ahead.