Businesses must innovate in their use of IT to meet five major challenges in the coming years, or suffer the fate of history's other dinosaurs, according to Mark Templeton, chief executive of Citrix.
Speaking at the Citrix iForum in Edinburgh, Templeton said companies must be prepared to meet the challenges of consolidation, disruption, globalisation, regulation and the arrival in the workplace of the next generation of tech-savvy youngsters with strong pre-conceived ideas of how technology should work.
Templeton said: "The IT department will be obligated to respond and, if you fail to, your IT department — or possibly your entire organisation — will be relegated to the back of the pack."
The way to move with the times is to become as agile and flexible as possible, he added, though delegates will have noted the similarity between the challenges he outlined and the issues his company's product lines address.
If it is more profitable to switch part of your business to China next week then you need to be able to do that
Mark Templeton, Citrix
Templeton told delegates: "Assume every user is mobile. Assume every location is a branch, assume every point-of-access is hostile. If you make these assumptions and work towards building an environment based on these assumptions you will be far better prepared.
"Because if it is more profitable to switch part of your business to China next week then you need to be able to do that... and when you need to bring everything back then you must be able to do that as well."
Sean Whetstone, head of IT at Reed Managed Services, said he was charged with opening international offices within a four-week timeframe, but said with remote access technologies and little infrastructure on the ground beyond Wyse thin terminals installed in hired Regus offices, he was able to achieve it.
The need for location-specific infrastructure and on-premise deployments is increasingly shrinking, said Templeton, and more robust business continuity is another benefit.
Andrew Gordon, from the IS operational services team at Standard Life, based in Edinburgh, said his company had to ensure it could work with a skeleton staff during demonstrations held outside its office at the time of the G8 summit, which was held in Gleneagles in 2005.
In that instance staff were able to work from home or at other locations with an internet connection, and Gordon said Standard Life ramped up its use of Citrix applications in the weeks leading up to the G8 disruption with that outcome in mind.
In a heavily regulated industry, Standard Life also benefits from keeping its database centralised and rooted in the UK, with staff accessing applications and data remotely.
He said: "If we were shunting data to other locations, we would not only have the concerns of securing that data, we'd also be bound by the laws and regulations of each different territory. The centralised model means, because we are a UK-registered company, we're only bound by the UK Data Protection Act."
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However, the biggest driver of change, said Templeton, is the demands of new recruits who he said are "digital natives" — a younger generation who have been weaned on the immediacy of web apps such as Google and will expect the same when they get into the workplace.
Last year, Google branded business apps "bereft of soul", and it's a point Templeton seemed inclined to agree with. "The first time one of my children filled in an expense sheet in SAP, they asked me: 'What is this? Why doesn't it work? Why doesn't it work like the web?'."
Standard Life's Gordon added: "People now are used to getting everything through the browser and their familiarisation with technology is far greater. They expect to be able to go into Dixons, buy a laptop, plug it in and be working straight away. We have to give them the flexibility they want while ensuring it is secure."
The ability to engage with these "digital natives" and meet their expectations will be a sink or swim challenge for businesses, said Templeton. He said: "If you aren't ready to receive these employees into your organisation then you will not be able to retain them. I believe this is the biggest driver of change."
