My IT predictions for 2011

2011 is sure to be a blockbuster year for IT. The perfect storm of a weak economy, focus on efficiency improvements and cost cutting will continue the wave of innovation and utilitatianism in IT unseen for the last ten years (atleast).

Gartner outlined its predictions for the top 10 strategic technologies for 2011 a few weeks ago. There are a few “oldies but goodies” on the list (such as the cloud. Can you believe that the “cloud” now solicits a response of DUH as opposed to AH among IT leaders? Man are we getting old fast!). My predictions are much simpler. Among many different trending technologies, there are two to keep in clear focus. Any of you knee deep in either of these technologies will have a great year next year:

1) Business Intelligence:

Whether in the government space or the private sector, Business intelligence is the new Canvas All Star shoe: Its been around forever, but its suddenly hip again. In the business context, BI is no longer a nice to have to show the world you are a mature organization. It is a must-have survival tool for your business. Embrace it. Think about how BI can help your business, especially in the area of forecasting, dashboards and analysis, not just reporting. Gartner talks about tapping into the organization’s weak signals for business advantage. It requires a very thoughtful approach to BI. Specifically, there are certain areas within BI that are bound to be hotter than others:

a) Dashboards: Designing effective dashboards is one part technology, two parts art. Effective Dashboards combine UI design, business intelligence, and data design. Its not easy to do, but done effectively, can provide a unique window into the organization’s operations. Dashboard visualization is a hot topic and will get even hotter in 2011. I have taken a few beta steps in this direction for the DC OCFO via CFOInfo, an interactive dashboard bringing data from a half dozen back end enterprise systems together into one view of the District’s budgets and spending plans. We have a lot of plans for growing this platform into new directions.

b) Mobile BI: Delivery of business intelligence on mobile devices will be huge. Every major BI vendor, from Cognos, to SAP/Business Objects, MicroStrategy, Microsoft and others are fixated on this space. We will be seeing a lot of development in this area. The beauty of mobile BI is that adoption is easy to sell. Everyone wants relevant data in the palm of their hands. literally. The key here is to ensure lineage of data: The ability to link and validate data end to end through the data chain – from the back-end system through the BI aggregation, through the visualization layer, to the device. Making sure that the “numbers match”. Again, this is part technology, part art. But the ROI is potentially huge. DC OCFO uses the Mellmo Roambi Engine to visualize budget, spending and financial trends for iOS devices. More details available on CFOInfo iphone app.

2) Integration

This is an area of divergent views among the hardcore techie community, but personally I feel that the era of big ERP is at an end. Noone has the money and stomach to spend $100M on a behemoth ERP anymore. The future is in loosely coupled specialized blocks of enterprise functionality integrated together using a BPEL/ESB mechanism . Time O’Reilly and Jeff Bezos have both endorsed this architecture recently. The idea is that distinct and logically packaged units of enterprise functionality and business processes (acquisition, payroll, financials, order fulfillment, CRM, etc.) can exist independent of each other in specialized self contained optimized units of COTS or SaaS solutions. What is then necessary is an ability to orchestrate and integrate messaging and transactions between these enterprise units of functionality in a seamless and in-line manner, using open interface protocols, BPEL, synchronous and real-time message passing. As long as the enterprise architecture standardizes on an integration technology (J2EE, JBOSS, Web Services, XML, etc.) and platform (SeeBeyond, Oracle Fusion, IBM WebSphere, etc.), integration between disparate systems is possible and sustainable. the DC OCFO is using this concept to integrate systems and business processes District wide and realizing real ROI. Check out the “OCFO ESB Success Story” slideshare preso for more details.

BI and integration will remain areas of interest within IT for the foreseeable future. These areas are highly specialized and require significant skill and experience to master. If you are an IT professional looking to solidify and broaden your influence over the next 3-5 years, my advice is to double down in these areas quickly.

p.s. I endorse no particular product or vendor in my analysis. Any inference or perceived endorsement is absolutely circumstantial. Readers are encouraged to analyze the vendor marketplace for relevance and appropriateness to their own organizations.