Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

I hope you have enjoyed this issue of CBR, and that both the survey data and our authors' analysis gave you food for thought as you consider your strategies and operations for the rest of 2013 and beyond. I'll close off the issue by addressing the key point Jim poses at the beginning of his article: "it's not what we know -- it's what we will do with that knowledge that defines our collective future."

This survey explored interest in, and adoption of, various relatively new IT technologies and initiatives and investigated staffing and outsourcing trends in 68 organizations worldwide. Fifty percent of responding organizations are headquartered in North America, 22% in Asia/Australia/Pacific, and 18% in Europe, with the remainder in South America, Africa, and the Middle East.

"No matter what goals your company has set or planned for 2013 -- a clean end game for an ongoing set of initiatives, an accelerated start for new ones, radical changes, or battening down the hatches -- now is the time to take stock and turn plans into action."

-- Joseph Feller, Editor

With flat economic numbers, austerity measures kicking in, and armed conflicts roiling most areas of the world, last year came to a close much as it began. Although most equity markets are looking good today, debt levels still make investors, politicians, and credit-rating agencies nervous.

"On a clear day, you can see six weeks." A friend overheard this comment between two IT executives at a conference a few years back. It's become one of my favorite quotes. It beautifully illustrates the difficulty of making predictions about the future of technology.

I hope you have enjoyed this issue of CBR, and that both the survey data and our authors' analysis gave you food for thought as you consider your strategies and operations for the rest of 2013 and beyond.

This survey explored interest in, and adoption of, various relatively new IT technologies and initiatives and investigated staffing and outsourcing trends in 68 organizations worldwide. Fifty percent of responding organizations are headquartered in North America, 22% in Asia/Australia/Pacific, and 18% in Europe, with the remainder in South America, Africa, and the Middle East.

The more agile software development becomes mainstream, the more often I run into a typical pattern of management mismatch. It comes in several flavors. A recent client CTO who is responsible for the IT of an online store illustrates one example.