How Open-Source Technology is Contributing to Addressing Today’s Boardroom Challenges
How Open-Source Technology is Contributing to Addressing Today's Boardroom Challenges
Can open-source technologies and expert related outsourcing lead to a virtuous relationship between the Board, organisational IT management, systems and the customer?
Introduction
The Information Age is here and is all pervasive.
It impacts on learning, the labour market, how we live our lives, how business is managed, and how and what customers buy.
We are living in exponential times. Social networking, online search, mobile devices, computing power and the need for technologies to empower those who use, and increasingly depend upon, IT systems.
Faster moving, increasingly global markets, intense competition and the needs to increase organisational productivity are placing extra demands on the Boardroom. Demands that can be increasingly helped or hindered by organisational IT strategy.
Doing more with less
Legacy systems and dated thinking are increasingly being swept away as Board’s wrestle with the need to address opportunities and increase service levels - doing more with less. But it seems that cost is no longer the main motivation for open-source adoption. Over 75% of respondents to recent research cited quality as a key benefit of open-source while over 70% cited improved reliability. Although system productivity gains, capital and operating cost savings, power management control and the consolidation of IT assets are still important it is clear that the quality of the open-source code carries as much weight as the cost benefits and 71% of respondents indicated that open-source was easier to deploy.
New IT thinking embraces virtualization and private Cloud and Open-Source technologies have an increasingly leading role in their adoption. Enterprise Linux market leaders such as Red Hat and Novell offer proven solutions that can provide future proofed solutions.
In drilling down into those aspects that contribute towards organisational capability and the ability to compete we have found the following key areas of competence.
A key role for systems
At the heart of every successful organisation is the ability to access accurate, timely and relevant management information. In addition systems have a key role to play in enabling efficient social media communications across multi-team, multi-site operations.
Changes to IT strategy can achieve this but migration and deployment can be problematic. However there is now growing recognition that enterprise and community open-source technologies can have the advantage of providing the freedom to deploy at users own pace and way, and offer greater scalability too. And private a route to break free from escalating costs.
And the choice of open-source software has been extended by initiatives such as the unique open- source Indemnification Program from LinuxIT. A world first, it provides an accredited technology catalogue providing total reassurance around community based OSS solutions. Each community open-source technology holding the LinuxIT Accredited Software Quality Mark has to meet a stringent 45 point check.
With recent system security breaches in the headlines and staff dependency being so key it is not surprising that system reliability and security is also a key concern. Open-source based systems are renowned for their durability. While open-source specialist such as LinuxIT have engineers that hold a range of security and clearance certifications and are used to working with systems holding confidential and commercially sensitive information.
Conclusion
In today's IT world it is no longer an ‘all or nothing’ scenario in which customers and vendors choose to be either proprietary or open-source. Instead, it is a progressive and pragmatic world where the OSS vs proprietary software dichotomy is replaced by one of healthy competition and cooperation making interoperable deployments a perfectly acceptable, and often advisable, solution.
The key to success is determining which projects make sense for open-source. Savvy organisations consider both proprietary and open-source options for projects, and choose the right product for the given situation ie ROI calculations must be undertaken using the proper time horizons and considering the risks/rewards downstream.
Above all software and any supporting expert services must stand on their own merits and be objectively measured in terms of quality, reliability, security, flexibility, reliability and value for money in relation to alternatives.
A selection that can contribute towards addressing key strategic management drivers such as:
- Value creation
- Cost reduction
- Productivity - doing more with less
- Business agility
- Customer centred innovation
And can also contribute towards the quality of:
- The business aims, planning and resources
- Strategy implementation
- Information management
- Financial control
- Communications
- IT system flexibility, reliability and security
The exponential growth in open-source preference and adoption is testimony that many organisations large and small, private and public, are increasingly recognising the value of its adoption.
DOWNLOAD: How Open-Source Technology is Contributing to Addressing Today’s Boardroom Challenges [pdf]