Green it!

Martin Butler presented an article recently on New ICT technologies: A business perspective on their impact in 2010 and beyond at the University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB).  As a business leader myself, this article was so fascinating and I would like to share what Martin eluded to when it comes to talent management and building a strong brand.

Talent Management

Employees’ preferences and tastes will increasingly be a determining factor in the devices an computers with which they want to do their work, instead of corporate hardware policies. To this effect, the competition for people in the talent market will play a role. InfoWorld suggests that companies should let users manage their own PCs and that unsanctioned applications be invited into the organisation. Users may have good reasons for wanting specific tools to work with.

Brand Awareness

Coca Cola used to be the world’s largest brand, topping the list of several brand ratings across the world for many years. This is no longer the case. A recent brand rating has put Google in the top spot. People everywhere, even young children, know the term – they know they can simply “Google” the web to find answers they want. The impact of ICT technology on brand awareness is phenomenal. Besides what Google has accomplished, the fastest growing brand in the world is also from the ICT sphere, namely

BlackBerry. Another interesting example is that, in the USA, the second most-aspired-to car for young people to buy is a Subaru. Why? It is one of the sought-after cars modelled on play stations and computer games. Children have been driving the Subaru for 10 to 15 years on TV screens. And now, as young adults, they want the same brand in real life.

Green IT

So far it has been mostly preached and not so much practised. But it is expected that many more companies will take green IT seriously in 2010, as IT manufacturing sophistication and energy efficiency considerations start to make economic sense. Energy consumption will be the major selling point of mobile devices within the next three years. A key prediction by Gartner Research is that by 2014, most IT business cases will include carbon remediation costs.

Extreme convenience

Consumers want the information they need, when they need it, in the format in which they need it. The growing popularity of RSS Feeds and Google Alerts is a good example. Another example is Amazon’s Kindle with its user-directed functionality, which has set new standards of convenience for eReaders. It will certainly be challenged by iPad and other eReader devices. All in all, the quest for convenience seems to have sparked a spectacular shift to mobile devices. People’s appetite for wireless and instantaneous services is ravenous, and this will increasingly dictate demand patterns in the market place.

Decreasing IT assets in organisations

Several trends are driving down investment in IT assets by organisations. One factor is that software can replace hardware. For example, software can be used in one bigger server to emulate five individual servers. Another factor is cloud computing, which means that one does not need to own hardware to be able to use it. Similarly, software-as-a-service means that one does not have to own the software to be able to use it. Gartner predicts that 20% of businesses will not own any IT assets by 2012.