Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 10 | Page 27

EDITOR'S NOTE MARKETING | EVENTS | PUBLISHING ANALYTICS | PR | DESIGN | ARABISATION PUBLICATION Providing Unparalleled Technology Intelligence ISSUE 10 // www.intelligentcio.com Intelligent Education Partner Intelligent Cabling Partner Intelligent Manufacturing Partner Intelligent Security Partner Changing role of the CIO How the CIO is evolving with the digital workplace PoPi as a business differentiator Extracting even greater value from your business data BYOD is redefining business Embracing the benefits of the mobile workforce EDITOR’S NOTE W elcome to Issue 10 of Intelligent CIO Africa. When South Africa’s Tradebridge was struggling with decreased user experience and productivity, technical evaluations identified Riverbed’s SteelHead SaaS as the ideal solution. For this month’s cover story, Tradebridge’s Head of Group Information Security and Technology, Elize Neethling, explains how adopting the new cloud platform has transformed the organisation. Digitalisation is a global whirlwind that is leaving nothing in its path untouched, and this includes job roles. In a recent study conducted by Gartner, the ways in which the digital business is changing the role of the CIO were identified. The research offered an interesting insight into which technology trends CIOs find the most challenging to implement, which they predict as most affecting their job roles in the near future and the increasing responsibilities CIOs now have outside of IT. The results of the research can be found in this month’s ‘Trending’ section along with some additional insight from two Gartner analysts. www.intelligentcio.com At this year’s GITEX, the two ‘hot topics’ of focus were digital transformation and smart cities, both of which rely on the appropriate infrastructure to achieve a successful implementation. In this month’s ‘Comment’ section, Infinet’s Kamal Mokrani focuses on the smart cities of tomorrow and how laying the correct foundations now for a highly- digitised world will enable the smart city age that we’ve all been waiting for. The focus on digital transformation extends beyond GITEX to a recent BT survey which revealed that whilst digital transformation is high on CEO’s agenda, 86% of CEOs are struggling to deliver the ideal infrastructure on which their digital programmes rely. With this in mind, for this month’s ‘Editor’s Question’ we ask industry experts about the current barriers to digital transformation in Africa and how CIOs can overcome these. Whilst technology is enabling many efficiencies across the world, in countries such as Tanzania, it is enabling access to life-changing services such as rural healthcare. In this month’s ‘Country TRANSFORMING COLLABORATION AND PERFORMANCE WITH NEW CLOUD PLATFORM Elize Neethling, Tradebridge’s Head of Group Information Security and Technology, explains how Riverbed’s SteelHead SaaS platform boosted the company’s productivity, enhanced user experience and enabled maximum availability. PROJECT LATEST | INTELLIGENT CABLING | INTELLIGENT DATA CENTRES Focus’ we explore the ways in which technology is enhancing the daily lives of Tanzanians, from access to banking to preparing the country’s youth for the digital future with live coding workshops. To round off this issue, we ‘Get to Know’ Marko Salic, the CEO of South Africa’s Argility. He tells us about his natural transition into the IT industry and why IoT and AI are at the top of the list for this year’s technology trends. I hope you enjoy the read. As ever, if you would like to contribute to future editions please contact me at: [email protected]. Editor INTELLIGENTCIO 27