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The Week in IT news: CPU Merges with RAM and 2021 IT Spending

The week in IT news. CPU merges with RAM, CIO's top budget priorities for 2021, and cloud spending surpasses on-prem for first time

Here’s what happened this week in IT news.

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News story #1: CPU + RAM: the way ahead?

Computers will soon be faster thanks to the fusing of CPUs and RAM. This is accordingly to that’s what SK Hynix CEO Seok-Hee Lee thinks. 

The head of the world’s second-largest memory maker behind Samsung made this prediction during his keynote address at IEEE’s International Reliability Physics Symposium. Assuring that the central processing unit and the memory will eventually be integrated within a single die to deliver higher performance computing systems.

To achieve this feat, Lee, whose company only produces memories and not CPUs, believes the chip manufacturing industry will need to come together and adopt a collaboration model focused on open innovation.  

The Register

News story #2: Top budget priorities for CIOs

IDG’s annual State of the CIO survey clearly shows how the pandemic has affected IT spending. After a 2020 impacted by tightening budgets and a sole focus on mission-critical initiatives, the priorities for this year are somewhat widening.

This year’s three main business drivers for IT are transforming business processes, increasing cybersecurity protections and improving customer experience. 

To do so, CIOs will be putting most of their money into technologies. This will include data and business analytics, security and risk management, cloud-based enterprise applications and customer experience technologies. Global budgets are expected to increase by 6.2% to cover this broader spectrum. 

CIO

News story #3: Cloud spending (finally) surpasses on-prem

And speaking of spending —  enterprise cloud spending topped that made on data centers for the first time last year. Nothing too unexpected in terms of IT news of the week. But one thing is to know change is coming, and a whole different story is to have confirmation.

A global report by the Synergy Research Group reveals businesses spent 35 percent more on cloud-based solutions, taking the total up to almost $130 billion. Conversely, spending for on-premise solutions went down six percent to less than $90 billion. 

CIOs are spending most of their cloud budget on servers storage, security and software. When it comes to software, however, it is important to mention that the report mainly looked at server OS and virtualisation software — comparing software-as-a-service with on-prem business apps software would render way different results.   

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Why CIOs Should Focus on Employee Experience in the Coming Months

Why CIOs Should Focus on Employee Experience in the Coming Months
Discover why CIOs should now direct their attention to a more nuanced yet vital aspect of workforce management: improving employee experience.

The return from the holidays is a busy one this year for IT leaders. In addition to the traditional hurdles associated with reactivating latent projects and the sudden spike in activity, CIOs are having to deal with the disruption caused by Covid-19.

The business climate remains uncertain months into the pandemic. Organisations are still figuring out how to adapt to new customer demands and operational needs. IT departments face many challenges including budgetary cuts, improving infrastructure and strengthening their IT support team. Yet perhaps their biggest challenge is adjusting to new workplace dynamics.

So far, technology teams have had to adjust company workflows and processes to a remote workforce—a logistics and infrastructure problem in the first instance. But, with this first stage checked off their to-do list, CIOs should now direct their attention to a more nuanced yet vital aspect of workforce management: improving employee experience.

Why employee experience

Far from being a new concept, employee experience had been quickly gaining traction over the past years as an area of focus for businesses. To the point that 84% of respondents to a 2019 survey by Deloitte saw it as an important issue. Over a quarter of organisations identified employee experience as one of the three most urgent issues they were facing for the year.

The reasoning behind this much concern is quite simple: happy employees are more productive employees.

MIT research shows that companies leading the charge in employee experience reap incredible business benefits as a result of it. Organisations with the best employee experiences innovate twice as much, achieve double the customer satisfaction, and have 25% higher profits than their less employee-friendly counterparts.  

Yet despite being a key factor for business success, only 9% of Deloitte’s survey respondents considered that their company was fully ready to tackle the issue. It is, therefore, a major priority for today’s organisations – one that CIOs should make their own.

It’s about technology

Whereas, in the past, improvements to employee experience had mainly come from HR departments—in the form of perks or company activities—technology’s role in the process keeps on growing in importance. Years ago, it was digitalisation that improved employees’ lives, speeding up paperwork and other tasks. Then came cloud-based collaboration tools.

But while cloud infrastructure remains key to enhancing employee experience, the circumstances brought about by the current crisis calls for a more expansive and diverse use of technology. It is not only team collaboration and process optimisation that IT leaders need to worry about this time around. The lack of direct human contact is alienating employees and rarefying company cultures. Strengthening social bonds and ensuring mental and physical health is now more important than ever.

There are already many technological tools aimed at addressing these issues. Microsoft 365, for example, has an analytics function that provides users with insights about the way they work—hours of activity, etc.–and advises them on how to maintain a healthy work-life balance: something that is particularly difficult for those working from home.    

Other companies are coming up with solutions as they go. SAP, for instance, has created a series of solutions to foster socializing between remote workers who miss office interactions. These include a tinder-like app that pairs up remote co-workers for a virtual lunch.  

CIOs should also consider implementing solutions that are more directly related to health. Mental health counselling is now available through many online portals, and some companies are starting to offer memberships to their employees. Others are implementing wellness programs that reward employees for exercising and staying active – all through fitness trackers and dedicated corporate apps.

Taking concrete steps and committing to it

IT leaders are perfectly positioned to spearhead the new age of employee experience. The CIO’s role has grown considerably as a result of the pandemic. Becoming that of one of the top decision-makers in the executive team. Now, the potential that technology has for delivering a better employee experience puts the IT department at the wheel once again.    

But no significant improvements are going to be achieved if concrete steps are not taken and commitments are not made.

These kinds of initiatives can often be downgraded to secondary priorities during hectic and busy times, with the best IT talent being directed to other projects. For employee experience to really improve, CIOs need to make it an absolute priority and devote some of their best resources to the task. They should also work very closely with HR in the process, conducting a thorough audit of employee satisfaction and needs via a survey or even a (virtual) focus group.