IT strategy must move from savings to transformation

IT must be used to transform business processes and give competitive advantage now that cost-cutting has been exhausted, according to analyst Gartner.

Gartner used its Symposium ITxpo in Cannes this week to unveil what it calls 'business process fusion" – not a jazz hybrid but a major step towards the real-time enterprise, it said.

Simon Hayward, research fellow at Gartner, said in a statement that this will "profoundly change" the way application software supports business activities.

"It is the next logical step in the maturing of systems integration and portal technology. It exploits web services, service-oriented architectures and process management," he said.

Business process fusion will also require specialists within the IT organisation to work more closely with their business managers, which will provide a "power opportunity" for the IT department, Gartner said.

Hayward said the new way of working will combine activities that formerly required independent systems.

"It will allow for modification of business processes without disruption of the supporting IT systems," he said.

Gartner has also identified the "five biggest technology trends" that CIOs should be investigating. These include wireless technologies, standardisation, new user interfaces such as electronic ink and paper, trusted computing including micropayments as well as miniaturisation with technologies such as RFID.

A return to confidence in IT budgets is also predicted by Gartner, which is forecasting "modest" growth of 3.4 per cent in 2004, based on its own CIO survey.

But UK analyst Ovum Holway dismissed talk of any immediate upturn in IT spend at last week's annual 'state of the nation' Ovum Holway/Intellect presentation. Anthony Miller, research director at the analyst house predicted that annual IT budgets will actually go down, with IT directors continuing to hunt for bargains.