Increasing Efficiency and Decision Making with Analytics and Situational Awareness

Gary Hayes, CIO & VP IT, CenterPoint Energy

Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2014 and expectations

The big challenge is the accelerating pace of technology which is driving the convergence of consumer technology, information technology, operational technology and business technology. We continue to look to solution supporting analytics and situational awareness and capabilities to optimize Big Data. Our expectation over the next year is that our providers will improve the quality of solutions being delivered–we’ve seen increased “solution issues and integration issues” primarily resulting from the accelerated pace of consolidation and acquisition.

Collaborate with the business to translate the architecture to business capabilities

Another expectation is working with us to drive increasing value out of their solutions.

Areas in business environment where solutions do not yet exist

We continue to see a gap related to “customer preference center” which integrates across critical systems to interact with the customer when, where and how they want to interact. With the complexity of technologies increasing, the need for “system of system solution capabilities” is critical.

Trends impacting enterprise business environment

The convergence of customer, information technology, operational technology and business technology is driving convergence of process, systems, solutions and devices.

Also, analytics and situational awareness that advances and matures the organization for increased efficiency and decision making.

The role of CIOs today

With the convergence I mentioned above, there is also the convergence of knowledge, skills and value creation. Business team members require greater and greater understanding of how to leverage solutions for greater value while also understanding the challenges IT personnel have to develop a stronger and stronger mindset to be a “solution manager” and be the enabler for the business–enabler focused on business outcomes and value.

My word for a CIO

Translate your traditional enterprise architecture to business architecture–in other words, collaborate with the business to translate the architecture to  business capabilities that allows increased value to the organization.