Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

All the recent talk in the US surrounding proposed healthcare reform has inspired me to take a look at how BI and data warehousing are making an impact on healthcare and medicine. For our international readers who've not been following the healthcare debate in the US, the political discourse has reached a level of circuslike behavior.

There was an interesting and well-written column in the New York Times editorial section a few weeks ago called "Sleepwalking Through September," by Doug Glanville (20 August 2009).

Cloud computing is bringing about a radical change in how IT and computation are done today. Cloud computing is all about elastic computing, and making effective use of this elastic nature not only helps reduce cost but also harnesses huge raw computing power only when it is needed. All these features make cloud computing quite attractive to several industry verticals that are constantly on the lookout for more easy-to-use computing capabilities at a much lower cost.

"Everything's negotiable" is a phrase we hear a lot these days. It applies to buying a car, a home, or even a vacation. It especially applies to technology services.

We've never seen the effects of a recession during a time when so many customers and businesses depend on IT. Companies are responding very naturally by cutting projects and cutting investments in IT.

In one of my recent Trends Advisors ("One Small "Oops" for Amazon, One Giant "Holy #$@%" for Mankind," 23 July 2009), I discussed the unpleasantness between Amazon and its customers who found one morning that their (now illegal) copy of George Orwell's 1984 had been somehow removed from their Kindle electronic rea

"The worst may be behind us."

So said US President Obama in August, ever the optimist. He was not alone, however. Joining him was a rather large chorus of investors who over the past few months cheered some of the economic data, driving the stock market up.

Cutter is paying attention to IT governance in 2009. The September Cutter Benchmark Review (CBR) reports the results of the recent Cutter IT Governance Survey. The December Cutter IT Journal, which we're editing, is about IT governance. Recent CIO surveys done by others place IT governance in the top echelon of concerns.

Why all this attention? Simply, because effective IT governance creates IT value.