The CIO job is to find ways to use IT technology to help his or her company move faster, do more, and in the end make more money. Ultimately this is how we show the importance of information technology. While this is pretty clear, just exactly how to do this, or how to measure how well you are doing this, has always been just a bit trickery. Now things are starting to become more clear. It turns out that how fast a CIO can get data to move within the company determines just how fast the overall company is able to move.
The Challenge Of Getting Data To Move Fast
Take a look at any modern company and you’ll probably discover that they do a fairly good job of collecting data. In fact, they probably collect so much data that they are currently struggling with the question of trying to figure out where to put it all.
It turns out that the main problem that most companies are currently facing is not the collection of more data, but rather how best to use the data that they already have. CIOs have tried to help answer this question in the past by deploying what are called “business information systems”, or BI. However, all too often these systems would process old or out-of-date stored data and would produce reports that didn’t really meet anyone’s needs.
What was needed was a way to get data to move faster. CIOs have been looking for a solution to this problem for quite some time and now they think that they may have found it. There are two new technologies that have allowed this increase in data speed to happen: streaming and advanced data analytics processing tools.
Streaming (also known as “M2M”) is the process by which data is delivered in real-time from one device to another device. Once there, the data is processed in real-time by advanced data analytics tools. The results of this processing is then made available via a number of different channels: web sites, mobile phones, etc.
The end result of this acceleration of data within the company is that decisions can be made faster and the company can react to changes in its market quicker than its competition. These are all good things.
Companies That Have Figured It Out
New IT tools are always great, but CIOs have to figure out how best to use them before they are of any value to the company. One of the best ways to determine how you can use these new tools at your company is to study how they are currently being used at other firms.
In the world of retail, fast data is being used to cause customers to spend more money. In the case where a customer has been visiting your web site looking for a product that is currently out of stock, fast data can generate a sale that might have been lost. When the supplier notifies you that the replacement product has been shipped, your IT systems can send a text message to your customer and tell them when the product will be in the store and perhaps even offer them a discount for being so patient.
The world of commercial aviation has discovered fast data also. Today’s modern airplanes collect roughly 28M of data from every flight. During the flight the aircraft collects flight data, processes it, and then feeds it to the flight crew in order to help them plot the most efficient path that will result in the greatest fuel savings.
A company’s fleet of trucks are prime candidates for fast data. Each vehicle collects a wealth of information about how its engine is performing at any point in time. Using wireless technology, the vehicle can transmit its collected data to the motor pool’s servers each evening. When a degradation in performance is detected, then maintenance can be scheduled before there is an actual failure.
What All Of This Means For You
A key part of the CIO position is for you to find new and better ways to help the company to move faster. One way to make this happen is to find ways to allow the company’s data to move faster and do more to help the company.
The arrival of streaming and advanced data analytics has provided CIOs with the tools that they need to boost the speed of data inside of the company. We are already seeing this happen in other industries such as retail, aviation, and transportation.
Finding ways to make better use of the company’s data is what the rest of the company expects the IT department and the CIO to do. Now that we have the tools to make this happen, it’s up to us to put everything in place so that we can show some real results.
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Department Leadership Skills™
Question For You: Do you think that there will be more security issues as the company data starts to move faster?
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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
I’ve got a quick question for you: what’s the most popular site on the web? If you said “Facebook”, then I think that you’d be correct. Almost without exception, each and every person at your company may be visiting this site at least once each day to tell their friends what they’ve been up to. If only there was some way to capture the excitement and power of Facebook and find a way to apply it to the work that your company’s employees do every day. Oh wait, there is!