Information Technology Industry Trend & Way Forward!!!!

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I was going through this intresting article by Alpana and thought of sharing with you all...

Information Technology Industry Trend & Way Forward

Information Technology industry has always undergone large scale transformation and evolution in each decade right from 1990’s.

1990 –

In the early 90s’ industry used to bank on Mainframes for voluminous data processing as the basic need for Automation, Design Graphics(CAD, CAM) for manufacturing blueprints, Electronic Design automation(EDA) for micro technology chip fabrication and Program Logic Controllers (PLC) for automation of electro-mechanical machines.

In the middle 90’s, with the invent of GUI technology and user friendly screens, more focus came into front-end information capture and effective online display with various reporting mechanisms.   This started a whole new paradigm and became the single largest motive or goal behind all subsequent technology innovation and transformation.  User access controls and faster processing became the need of the day and richer GUI based system design and implementation was at full speed with large-scale need for system migrations from mainframe legacy systems to new ones in GUI.  Industry experts were divided across Mainframes and GUI systems with debates and case studies to prove the better one  citing various reasons across parameters – security, processing speed, volume transactions, network traffic, cost, maintenance overhead with future  changes, flexibility of closed versus open systems for change, object orientation and structured modularization versus monolithic code, scalability and robustness and finally which look better – green screens in dumb terminals versus colourful ones with intelligence processing at front end. 

In the late 90’s came the revolution of internet based systems with browser based thin screens for easy access across various domains in the world-wide-web (www) network.  Information access, display and storage became faster and across various medium, channels and segments. An un-precedent industry growth without proper control and lacking fundamentals of business reason with relevant context, lead to a collapse of the momentum and the notable Dot Com bubble burst.  Also, the industry was going through a large global scenario of removing the limitations of date and year processing without the century and incorporating the Year 2000 change management.

2000 –

The next decade of 2000 saw even greater and faster scale of transformation with further advancement of technology in internet access, browser based system design and development. This lead to a fundamental shift in entire business process across various industry verticals.  Business functions across all industries wanted to make information technology the basis of carrying out end-to-end process flows – effective and smart front end , work flows, rule and knowledge based engines, back-end effective storage and retrieval,  internal and external interfaces, dimensional reporting, expert systems with diagnostics and decision making analytics, real-time information processing and data transfer,  complex search operations, image processing, data warehouse, business intelligence, mobile devices and handsets with processing, connection power and integration capability to synergize and scale across systems, platforms and business.   

2010 –

When we look back into last two decades and introspect we see a clear trend and pattern across all transformation and evolution cycles. While technology innovation has been the prime driver to begin with any thought leadership, the cycle ended inherently with a final maturity in implementation of the thought or concept for effective business success, Government functioning or in welfare of society and humanity in general. This fundamental aspect makes a true difference between knowledge and application of knowledge for our benefits. This prime philosophy has been driving the industry before and will more so consciously in future. We are now into the decade of 2010 and have to gear up for the next generation of industry changes in technology innovation and implementation to run business more effectively in competition. Even greater importance is in how we are gearing up to manage this transformation as leaders in strategic and tactical terms. The challenge for us is to create an environment of abundance rather than that of perceived scarcity in economics view existing currently globally. This scarcity phenomena arises out of a receding demand or growth opportunities and increasing supply of candidates for growth. The answer and solution is to be creative and innovative leading to niche specialization in our own areas. This would facilitate and promote increased opportunities. While remaining independent and unique in our own area of specialization we should remain interdependent to each other at entry and exit points with respect to our area.  This would be the way for an all round organic growth which may be slow, but stable and steady in growing ever onwards ever upwards in a collective way.

By:

Alpana Bhattacharjee
Senior Consultant

 

Regards
NITIN JAIN