KEDARit along with business partners Farr Systems, and Bravo Tech sponsored the quarterly CIO Roundtable series. The CIO Roundtable is a peer-based collaboration event about pressing topics facing IT executives today.

It eclipses the value of traditional CIO conferences by providing unmatched access to peer-based content and the chance to build life-long relationships, delivering exceptional value for the time invested.

Topic: Discussions about the controversial Nicholas Carr book 'The Big Switch'

The group consisted of more than one CIO from Manufacturing, Retail, Insurance, Health Care, Energy, Transportation, and Oil and Gas industries.

There was an exciting exchange round the question "Is it a trend or fade that IT is transforming into a utility function?”

Most participants agreed that:

• Parts of IT functions are or can be treated as a utility.
• IT utility functions that are strategic or provide a competitive edge should be kept in-house and not outsourced.
• Outsourcing IT utility functions may result in a loss of required skills and experience needed to maintain systems, respond to business development requirements, and achieve innovation.

All attendees agreed that the real value of today's CIO is in their ability to achieve efficiencies in operations, process, workflow management, and business analytics. While achieving operational efficiencies today’s CIO must also transform non-critical functionality into outsourced utilities that will not inhibit rapid response to development requirements or innovation.

The final critique about the ‘The Big Switch’ is that Nicholas Carr’s forward thinking premise has some merit. The velocity of business changes, globalization, and regulation compliance are driving today’s CIO to seek greater efficiencies and cost savings through outsourcing specific commodity IT functionality.

Charles @ 07:30