Happy New Year! As we begin 2014 and business goals and objectives have been identified, now is the time to set the stage for priorities. As I read about IT budget trends and expectations for 2014, the outlook in the US seems more optimistic. Since Canada follows US trends, this is definitely a positive sign for us too even though CIOs are very careful about where they invest resources.

This article published in Computerworld in late September 2013 is a great example - Forecast 2014: How to wring value from your IT budget. 

"But while IT budgets are growing, and goals center around improving service levels, productivity and customer satisfaction, containing costs is still the No. 1 business priority for 65% of Computerworld's survey respondents, and about a quarter of survey takers cite budget constraints as the biggest leadership challenge."

Another headline caught my eye with an important business message from Reuters - IT 2014: Positive Shift in Expected Spending; Leaders Optimistic in Ability to Support Business Objectives.

This is an important trend for IT spending priorities. It is no longer just about adding infrastructure to meet demand, but a lot more about removing complexity from the Data Center and adding automation to manage the entire stack from a centralized console. This will allow your IT resources to focus on new requests from business units and accelerate time-to-market associated with new IT services generating new revenue streams.
 

This is the message VMware heard in a survey they conducted where it clearly states the CIO imperative for the future - Insights from the VMware 2013 Journey to IT as a Service Survey.
 

"CIOs and other IT decision makers must understand the landscape clearly to take full advantage of emerging opportunities across the IT infrastructure. Those who make the right choices can maximize the value of their budgets, generate revenue streams based on new and innovative IT services and applications, leverage their staffs efficiently and effectively, and create a place for IT at the executive table. Otherwise, it’s business as usual—and that’s no recipe for success."

Aligning IT strategies with their corporate strategy is a core concern among chief information officers. More and more business managers are interested in finding out about the latest advances in technology and opportunities to improve business agility and competitiveness.

We just released a Virtual Resource Center to help organizations with their research into planning for the future of their data center. Consolidation, Convergence and Advanced Virtualization can help your business overcome the challenges of high costs and the complexity associated with server sprawl, and the explosion of data, while giving you the flexibility to more rapidly adapt to changing business needs and workloads and support new technologies.

Start here by watching our animated video - Why should you simplify and transform your data center?

If you’d like to investigate how to transform your IT and find out more about solutions to meet your organization’s objectives, feel free to call me directly at 1-866-610-8489.
 

My best wishes for a prosperous new year!
 

Roger Osmond, President
Sentia