Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

A great deal of attention has been given to the design, deployment, and management of Web services as part of a service-oriented architecture (SOA) within the enterprise. The attention is well warranted as SOA represents a substantial advance in the architecture of enterprise systems.

With the increasing importance of information systems for business success, the risks associated with the temporary inaccessibility of information due to any unplanned failure of computer systems have significantly increased. Failure of a computer system may be the result of various factors, such as faulty or improper actions of users, or external factors, including man-made or natural disasters.

Firms are increasingly moving toward syndicating Web content rather than just publishing it and providing Web services rather than just Web applications. Likewise, contemporary websites typically consume the content and services supplied by other Web providers.

The development and nurturing of IT management (and technical) competencies has historically focused on the "supply" side of IT.

Last week, I was visiting Paris and got the chance to marvel at the Tour Eiffel, one of the world's most well-known and instantly recognizable structures. I also took the opportunity to learn a bit more about its fascinating history.

Back in December, when making predictions for the upcoming year regarding important BI trends, I wrote that we could expect to see use of text mining and analysis increase in 2011, just as it has almost every year since we've measured its adoption (see "What Lies Ahead: BI and D

Everyone is talking about big changes in IT. They are indeed big -- bigger, in fact, than the ones we discussed before the dot-com bubble exploded. What are you going to do about them?

Here are five areas that require your immediate attention:

1. Devices

2. Software