2015 - prodata consult · 38 2015 3 2014 was a good year for the it consulting industry. it was...

ConsultantNews

2015 MicrosoftOracleIBMGartnerIDCITB&Preben Mejer

THE MAGAZINE FOR HEAVYWEIGHT IT CONSULTANTS NO. 38/2014

according to

ContentsPages 4-5 Microsoft Cloud and Mobility dominate Microsoft's 2015 agenda. Interview with Technology Direc-tor Ole Kjeldsen, Microsoft.

Pages 6-7 OracleOracle preaches simplification in 2015. Interview with Consulting Director Simon Mørup-Petersen, Oracle.

Pages 8-9 IBMIBM focuses on systems of insight. Interview with CTO Hans Peter Vibe, IBM.

Pages 10-11 GartnerSeize the digital business moments. Interview with Managing Partner, Peter Suhr, Gartner.

Pages 12-13 IDCBusiness is the new IT language. Interview with Research Manager, Johan Halberg, IDC.

Pages 14-15 ITB ITB wants Denmark in the global IT driving seat. Interview with Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, Chair of the Danish IT Industry Associa-tion (ITB).

Pages 16-17 Preben Mejer The trend guru's five future technologies.

Page 18 Consultants in demandWe are looking for consultants who work with specific roles, competences, areas and indus-tries. See the list on page 18.

Page 19 New consultants as from 1 October 2014 up to 1 January 2015

0 Invitation to Forum EveningOnline Sales and Marketing – keeping your finger on the pulse.

If you work with digital mar-keting, such as SEO, SEM, Adwords, Banners, online sales, etc., this Forum Evening is for you.

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3ConsultantNews 38 2015

2014 was a good year for the IT consulting industry.

It was also the best year ever for ProData Consult. In 2014, more than 750 different ProData consultants were engaged in projects for over 240 different ProData Consult customers in six differ-ent countries. Our revenue grew by more than 30%, and we retained our position as the larg-est in Denmark within our seg-ment, measured by the number of consultants placed with customers.

Over and above the increase in exciting jobs - with the most desirable clients, our expan-

sion has increased our ability to provide ever better service to our consultants, and in case you haven’t had that experience, then we’d love to hear from you.

2015 looks set to be just as exciting as 2014. There is every sign that the economic upswing is here to stay and the pipeline from our customers looks very promising indeed. We have also won many public tenders with deliveries starting in 2015. So we are confident that 2015 will see many exciting assignments within all technology and com-petence areas.

In this "New Year edition" of ConsultantNews we have mixed

a (we think) exciting cocktail of what our industry's key movers and shakers believe 2015 will bring for our industry.

In the year 2015 we will be do-ing our utmost to be the best consultancy company to partner with. On behalf of everyone at ProData Consult, I would like to thank you for your good and loyal cooperation in 2014 and wish you a successful consulting year in 2015.

Søren Rode CEO

2015 and onwards ...

ConsultantNews 38 2015

A Magazine for IT consultantsISSN: 1604-878

Legally responsible editor: Søren Rode

Editor: Jeanett W. [email protected]

Graphics and design: Jeanett W. [email protected]

Journalist:

Jakob Lund

Photos: Jacob Djurhuus

Publisher: ProData Consult A/S Circulation: 3,500

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CLOUD FIRST AND MOBILE FIRST ARE TOP OF MICROSOFT'S AGENDA FOR 2015, ACCORDING TO ITS DANISH TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR. ALL OF THE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES THAT ARE SENT INTO THE MARKET SUPPORT THE CLOUD'S VAST COMPUTING POWER, COMBINED WITH AGILE MOBILE DATA COLLECTION.

Interview with Ole Kjeldsen, Technology Director, Microsoft.

“The two dominating focus areas for Micro-soft in 2015 are Cloud and Mobility,” says Ole Kjeldsen, Technology Director, Microsoft Denmark. “We naturally also focus on such trends as Big Data, social computing and Internet of Things, but everything is driven by Cloud and Mobility.”

Ole Kjeldsen explains that Internet of Things can, for example, provide for interesting analyses that can generate knowledge we did not think possible. “Yet much of Internet of Things is only pos-sible because we can load data from mobile devices and sensors. In the same way, we can only crunch the vast amounts of data from Internet of Things in the Cloud, since the computing power needed will only rarely be available in a traditional data centre. So Cloud and Mobility are the be-all and end-all.”

IoT FOR ELEVATORSOn the subject of Cloud and Mobility, Ole

Kjeldsen describes how Microsoft has helped the elevator conglomerate Thyssen-Krupp with a major global Internet of Things installation. ThyssenKrupp have connected sensors to most of the components in their elevators, so that they can register basic functionality such as the number of times a cable is extended, or a button is pressed. This function data is stored in the Cloud using Microsoft Azure Intelligent Systems Service, from where algorithms can be used to generate an analysis of the relevant com-ponent’s lifetime, and whether the elevator needs servicing. “A core demand for ThyssenKrupp is to optimize their servicing operation. This is partly because service represents their big-gest expense and there are huge savings to be made by optimising the processes and partly because elevators which do not work create customer dissatisfaction. Today, they can replace a component before the eleva-tor breaks down. They can automatically order the component in good time, since a notification is transmitted from the system to the component supplier, and the compo-nent can be distributed automatically out into the support network well in advance, to avoid waiting for the replacement “ says Ole Kjeldsen.

“We have five to six similar IoT cases ongo-ing in Denmark within production and supply chain management and we also notice the public sector beginning to show an interest in this area. Analyses of this type would be a natural in the roads and traffic area.”

EXPLOSION IN CONSULTING ASSIGNMENTS IN 2015Like everyone else in the market, Ole Kjeld-sen and Microsoft can also see how Cloud is the business area that currently shows the

fastest development. “The consulting as-signments deriving from the Cloud explosion are piling up,” he says.“Our customers tell us that it’s not a ques-tion of whether they will use the Cloud or not, but solely a matter of what they will use the Cloud for, how much they will move up, and how quickly. Today, many only use the Cloud for disaster recovery, yet more and more would like to use it more actively, because the potential savings are enormous. They need a lot of help with this process, to analyse which elements of their infrastructure and application layer should be placed in the Cloud, and also to ensure that all statutory provisions are observed during this process. It also has to be determined whether there is any sensitive data requiring special handling. Assignments like these are set to explode in 2015.”

MANAGEMENT AND IT GOVERNANCEOle Kjeldsen explains how he can also see the platform handling area increase in scope and importance during 2015. Very few com-panies base their entire IT environment on just one provider, so they have a wide range of products from many different producers.

“There are challenges in terms of, for exam-ple, device management and IT governance across the many platforms. Consultants who master this discipline will be in high demand,” says Ole Kjeldsen, going on to mention Microsoft Intune, which

provides Cloud functions for the administra-tion of PCs and mobile devices. Companies can use Microsoft Intune for the administra-tion of all client computers in the organisa-tion from one and the same cockpit, includ-ing Windows, Windows RT, Windows Phone 8, Apple iOS and Android devices. Software packs can be transferred and published,

Cloud & Mobility dominate Microsoft's 2015 agenda

@


Cloud & Mobility dominate Microsoft's 2015 agenda

and administration and security policies, as well as hardware and software, can be configured and implemented, without a local infrastructure. “You can even handle your application portfolio in the Cloud in the same way as you handle your on-premise application portfolio,” says Ole Kjeldsen.

FINE TUNING AND TWEAKINGOle Kjeldsen concludes by naming two new IT roles that he tips will see a breakthrough in 2015. The first area is within IT security, where a coming new EU regulation, for ex-ample, will probably have the consequence that all companies over a certain size must have a person responsible for data privacy.

“Understanding data classification and pri-vacy impact, and generally being in control of how data is processed, classified and handled – internally within the company and by subsuppliers – will be really big in the future.”“I also think that data analysts will increas-ingly be in the limelight. It isn’t just a matter of being able to analyse the company’s own data, but just as much of being able to analyse external data sources and compare them with the company’s own data sets, in order to get new knowledge from the correlated data,” says Ole Kjeldsen, before concluding:“In the old days, the database administrator played the lead role, since he knew how to fine tune and tweak the systems, to achieve performance optimisation. Today, IT is more about creating value. Value is created on the basis of analysis. This role is relatively new, and therefore undefined. If you can fill this space, it will be a real eldorado for any consultant.”

AZURE MACHINE LEARNING

Microsoft recently released a beta version of Azure Machine Learning, which is a portal to create what are called predictive analyses. Azure Machine Learning makes more than 100 statisti-cal models available, allows users to add their own models, and also includes free computing power and storage. The end-result is that companies of every size and in every industry can start to work with their data in a new way.

“We can see more and more players in the market that are not only beginning to gather data from their own production, but also collecting transactions from customer and partner dialogues. Naturally in accordance with current legislation,” says Ole Kjeld-sen. “Some of them may not yet be quite certain what they will use the data for, but they do have an idea that the data will be of value at some point. The hunt for this business opportunity is supported by Azure Machine Learning.”

WINDOWS 10: CROSS-PROVIDER CONSIST-ENCY "A fitting description of Windows 10 would be cross-provider consistency," says Ole Kjeldsen prior to the launch of Microsoft's coming new operating system.

"The majority of our customers implement a range of different servers in our Azure platform. The ambition for Windows 10 is for the user experience to be as consistent as possible across providers."

"Within Microsoft's own portfolio of devices, the Windows 10 user experience must also be as consistent as possible. Natu-rally, there are screen difference issues when working from a smartphone and a PC, but we do get closer to a uniform experi-ence."

6 ConsultantNews 38 2015

Make sure that your IT reduces, rather than increasing, the complexity of your customer's business. In rough terms, this is Oracle's simple recipe for success for the next many years ahead. ConsultantNews had a chat with the Danish Con-sulting Director, asking him to describe the simpli-fication agenda. Interview with Simon Mørup-Petersen, Consulting Director, Oracle.

Like everyone else in the IT world, Oracle predicts that the future will be marked by upheavals in digital business models. This means that well-known industries and companies will increasingly be obliged to convert their current practice into completely new business models – often using new technologies – or others will do this before them, thereby stealing the market.In this brave new world, speed is a key parameter. This is speed measured as the time it takes to develop an idea, the time it takes for product development, and the time it takes to get the products into the market. Time to market has always been vital to a company's competitiveness, but when technology trends such as Big Data, mobility, social computing, cloud computing and Internet of Things are added to the matrix, you more or less have the state of play in many companies today: confusion due to a massive increase in complexity.

From the smallest elements to the major issues, Oracle therefore focuses on making the business and IT world simpler, according to Consulting Director at Oracle Denmark, Simon Mørup-Petersen."Right now, everyone is preaching simplification. You will be in high demand if you can help to eliminate complexity from the customer's business processes, since this will free up time, resources and money for innovation. IT can be a business enabler if it facilitates simplification, yet it can also be a business disabler if it leads to con-fusion and reduces transparency," he says.

Oracle preaches simplificationin 2015


ENGINEERED SYSTEMSSimon Mørup-Petersen explains how many IT departments currently face a situation where the crippling financial crisis has meant that budgets have stagnated, or even shrunk, year-on-year.

"A rule of thumb is that 60-70% of a company's IT budget is devoted to systems maintenance. This expenditure does not lead to any development: it's money spent on keeping the lights on, and nothing more. We can see a massive focus on driving down this 60-70%, so that a larger share of the budget can be channelled into IT projects that can help to grow the company," says Simon Mørup-Petersen, linking in Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2010.

"There was a bit of uncertainty about how Sun's hardware focus and Oracle's software focus could team up together? However, the acquisition proved to be the first step towards greater simplification, since today, our hardware and software are born together. This fus-ing of hardware and software is what we call Engineered Systems."

Oracle Engineered Systems are based on chips from Intel, but otherwise consist exclusively of Oracle components, containing, for instance, their Big Data Appliance, Exadata Database Machine, Exa-logic Elastic Cloud, Exalytics In-Memory Machine and ZFS Storage Appliance technology. "The first simplification stage for us was the design of Engineered Systems and a more standardised infrastructure. The next step is to pull the Engineered Systems platform up into the Cloud, which will make the system even simpler to work with," says Simon Mørup-Pe-tersen. "Oracle's Cloud solutions are based on Engineered Systems, so that the technology is exactly the same as in the customers' data centres."

INTEGRATION TASKS IN THE PIPELINEOracle is well-known as a supplier of many of the building bricks for companies' IT solutions. Despite the popularity of Engineered Systems, a lot of classical software and hardware is still sold, and therefore companies' internal and external consultants have the task of assembling the overall IT environment.

Do you have any good advice for Danish IT consultants who are keen to stay abreast of future trends?"They should first and foremost stay on top of the latest technologi-cal developments. Customers will not be satisfied with the software they buy from Oracle unless they use the software correctly. A version 10 of a product is not the same as a version 12. The sheer amount of functionality makes it necessary to stay tuned for the lat-est upgrades," says Simon Mørup-Petersen.

In terms of business development, he predicts a host of new oppor-tunities for consultants, as IT moves closer and closer to companies' core activities and related business processes.

"We often see how companies take a best-of-breed approach whereby they, for instance, have Salesforce CRM, SAP for their finances, and Oracle HCM Solution for HR. This generates a lot of integration tasks, which are a market niche in themselves. Once again, it's a question of staying updated. The technological land-scape is changing constantly, and I don't even know the details of our new solutions yet. But I'm quite certain that there will be many new integration opportunities, going forward."

SUPERSTAR CONSULTANTSSimon Mørup-Petersen also predicts that – in view of IT's move up from the basement and into the boardroom – completely new roles and functions will arise. They may require a bit of getting used to, but on the other hand they will constitute the arena for the superstar consultants of tomorrow.

"A good example is marketing. Big Data will play a major role in the marketing of the future, since a marketing director will always be interested in paying less to get closer to the ideal customer. The more relevant the customers, the greater the value they represent. Reaching out to this customer not only requires very powerful analyt-ics tools, but also that we can extend beyond the data models in Big Data and convert them into something that a marketing director can understand. If you can do this, you will command a really strong market position and, as far as I know, this position is still vacant," says Simon Mørup-Petersen.

FINANCIAL RESTRICTIONS ARE HERE TO STAYBesides simplification, Oracle's main headline for 2015 is Cloud. Cloud computing was always bound, sooner or later, to make its mark as a more flexible and cost-effective way of buying and using IT services, but this technology accelerated during the financial crisis, because Cloud carries an inherent automatic savings agenda.

"During the crisis, travel budgets have shrunk, there are procurement restrictions, and the replacement cycle for corporate PCs is longer. When we at some point get back to a growth scenario again, it would be wrong to think that companies' financial restrictions will be rolled back. They've found out that they can save good money from cuts across the board. Cloud is a perfect match for this rationalisa-tion philosophy, yet also has the potential to change a company's work processes and business model," Simon Mørup-Petersen concludes. "So Cloud will continue to be a strong driver for Oracle in 2015.”

INTO THE CLOUD Three Oracle focus areas in 2015

1. Oracle SaaS. Various Cloud applications (for instance within marketing, service and sales) include social comput-ing, mobile and analytics functionality, and help companies to speed up their time to market and engage in more valu-able customer dialogues.

2. Engineered Systems and PaaS. With Oracle PaaS, at the click of a button you can, for instance, make an existing Oracle ERP application mobile for iOS og Android – without writing a single line of code.

3. Big Data and real-time data analysis. Technology that both qualifies and supports business decisions in real time, but which also helps to identify new business opportunities with the help of Oracle's Big Data technologies.

IBM'S STRATEGIC FOCUS FOR DENMARK IN 2015 CAN BE BROKEN DOWN INTO TWO OLD IT CHEST-NUTS AND A COMPLETELY NEW CONCEPT. THE THREE AREAS ALL SHARE IN COMMON THAT THEY HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO SPEED UP BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT ACROSS INDUSTRIES.

Interview with Hans Peter Vibe, CTO, IBM.

When, in 2013, a top IBM executive was to tell the world what IBM would be focusing on in the future, he said Big Data, cloud comput-ing and systems of engagement. When ConsultantNews around two years later asked Hans Peter Vibe, CTO/Technical Leader in IBM Danmark, about his headlines for 2015, he repeated the message from 2013, adding that since then IBM has continued to build on the concept of systems of engagement, expanding it with systems of re-cord, to arrive at systems of insight. Confusing? No worries, because later in this article we let Hans Peter Vibe explain what lies behind the various system concepts, and why IBM is staking so much on them.

ANALYTICS HAS ENORMOUS VALUEBut first, he describes why Big Data is and remains one of the hot-test concepts, not just in the IT industry in general, but also for IBM."Big Data is very much about analytics," he begins. "We focus on how we can transform companies and entire industries with the help of greater insights into their data. This might, for instance, be an analysis tool for a haulage contractor. With a good analysis tool, he

will suddenly be able to see, for example, which of his drivers cover the most and the least distance to the litre. He can optimise the drivers' routes and be notified automatically when an engine needs servicing – before it breaks down. This analytics philosophy can be applied to the wind power industry, the aviation industry, etc. Any-thing that can be foreseen, to prevent production disruptions, has enormous value," says Hans Peter Vibe.

WATSONHans Peter Vibe explains how IBM has various analytics platforms that are all expected to have more users in 2015. They include SPSS Predictive Analytics, which is software to help companies predict what is likely to happen, so they can take better decisions, resolve problems and improve results. IBM also has more traditional Busi-ness Intelligence software in Cognos. "And then we have Watson," says Hans Peter Vibe.

Watson belongs in the cognitive analytics category, he explains. The Watson system can understand linguistic relations, and what language means in various different contexts. It can be used in research environments, for example, that operate with various dif-ferent hypotheses, with a wish to match the hypotheses with all the literature available in a given area. No human brain can read all this, but Watson can.

"In some cases, research processes can be reduced from half-years to a few months," says Hans Peter Vibe. "Analytics will continue to grow at IBM in 2015. For instance in the financial sector, so that banks can make their investments on a more informed basis."

IBM focuses on

APPLE AND IBM IN APP COLLABORATION As most of you will know, in the summer of 2014 IBM and Apple set up a partnership agreement to deliver a whole new type of business app. The first apps are now in the market, within the following areas:

• Airline industry – The Passenger app enables airline staff to quickly re-book passengers who are already on a flight, but are certain to miss their connecting flight. The app transforms anxious moments into new opportunities for the airline to win customers' loyalty.

systems of

insight


IBM focuses on

FASTER TIME TO MARKETThe second major focus area for IBM in 2015 is cloud computing. Hans Peter Vibe explains how IBM is focusing strongly on the PaaS product, Bluemix.

"IBM Bluemix should be seen as a very large toolbox to build, handle and operate apps for web, mobile devices and Big Data, for instance. The solution's functionality includes Java, mobile backend development and application monitoring, as well as open source. The point is that a lot of time is saved in the development phase compared to a traditional process, and this time saving helps to speed up the time to market. It's no exaggeration to say that the in-frastructure and middleware for a fairly complex system can be built up in the course of a few hours. In a typical large company this can take half a year," says Hans Peter Vibe, mentioning how for a de-veloper it can also be good to be familiar with the Software Defined Environment (SDE) concept, if you do not already know it.

"In an SDE, you can provision a complete environment; not just the infrastructure, but also database servers, application servers, message-tool servers, push-servers for mobile, etc. – as a fully automated process."

IBM DEVOPSAnother key Cloud concept in the IBM world is IBM DevOps. This is a platform that integrates and eliminates the classical divide between development and operation by automating infrastructure and work-flows. "The principle of the DevOps concept is that you get feedback on everything, i.e. from test-loops, physical servers, etc. All this

feedback is gathered, so that you can quickly make the necessary changes and get the code into the market," says Hans Peter Vibe.

He explains how one derived effect of automating the installation of infrastructure and platform components is that many of the current operations teams in the data centre gain a new role. "Often, the consultant has to help companies through the transition phase by developing applications in new, more agile ways. This is an advisory role that the consultants need to play, in order for them to continue to add value. They also need to be really on top of the new technologies in the market. Automated testing is one of the things we will be focusing on in 2015. The more you can automate your development loop and test systems, the faster the time to market."

SYSTEMS OF INSIGHTThis brings us to the last of the three overall focus areas for IBM in 2015: the many system concepts."We apply a concept called systems of record," says Hans Peter Vibe. "Systems of record are basically all of the traditional transaction data stored in a data centre. Then there are systems of engage-ment, which are all of the data gathered concerning the individual users and their shared network interaction. In 2015, we will be link-ing up systems of record with systems of engagement to find new relations in the meeting between the historical data and the more dynamic behavioural data. We call this overlap systems of insight," Hans Peter Vibe concludes. "Systems of insight will revolutionise the industry."

• Insurance industry – The Retention app helps insurance profes-sionals to keep track of their busy working days – prioritising and completing tasks on time and handling routine assignments on the most effective basis – to improve the service that customers experience and also attract new customers.

• Telecom industry – The Expert Tech app enables technical personnel to be better prepared for meetings, while also giving a more accurate analysis of any problems arising, thereby reducing technicians' superfluous time spent at the customer.



GARTNER: SEIZE THE DIGITAL BUSINESS MOMENTS

According to Gartner, 2015 will be characterised by the digital business moments that arise in the borderland between well-known business models and new technology. Spot these business moments and create some business from them, is the recommendation.

Interview with Peter Suhr, Managing Partner, Gartner

A few months ago, Senior Managing Partner at Gartner, Peter Suhr, was in dialogue with a major filling station customer. They were discussing opportunities to combine online supermarket shopping with physical collec-tion at the filling station. Both parties saw this as an obvious opportunity. Online su-permarkets find it difficult to reach the more sparsely populated areas of the country, and the filling stations would have more people stopping by, who might buy more than the usual petrol and a hotdog.

"Fourteen days after our chat I could see that nemlig.com and Q8 had launched their joint Click & Collect concept, which was exactly what I was talking to the competing filling station about. This shows just how fast we need to move today. Previously, you could have a chat like that and it would then take two to three years for someone to put the good idea into practice. Today, it takes two weeks," says Peter Suhr. He explains how in terms of Click & Collect, Internet-based funeral directors and other online concepts, Gartner's major headline for 2015 – and thereafter – is a radical rethink of well-known business models in favour of a more digitally integrated company practice.

CHECKING YOUR PLACE IN THE ECOSYSTEMOne of the things that shocks Peter Suhr the most is how there seem to be many well-established companies today that have not yet drawn up a clear strategy for how they will implement new technology in their busi-ness model. Without naming names, many still rely on yesterday's, rather than tomor-row's, way of selling products. "If you sell pumps, you look at the others selling pumps in the market. If you sell oil,

you look at the others selling oil in the mar-ket. The point is that you should start to look elsewhere to spot your competition, since it could just as well come from your subsup-plier, or from a garage in Singapore where two young guys have invented a whole new way of selling the same product," says Peter Suhr."It's a question of checking your place in the new ecosystem, and where your prod-ucts are. You have to ask yourself whether anything in the ecosystem can be digitised? Whether a digital business moment can be wedged in between the customer and the purchase?”

DOESN'T BELIEVE IN E-BUSINESSPeter Suhr recently read how a CFO at the Lidl supermarket chain had said that he would not invest in e-business models. For how would he be able to pay the rent for the many physical shops?"This CFO should perhaps instead consider whether Lidl has the right business model. Today's supermarket chains need to take into account that in the future more and more goods flows will bypass the physical shops. How will they handle this? Will they


deliver people's shopping themselves? Get others to do it? If they get others to do it, can this delivery opportunity be used in new ways? It's more and more important to ask ourselves these questions," says Peter Suhr.

FROM BACK OFFICE TO FRONT OFFICEFinance systems, payroll systems, stock inventory systems, logistics systems and customer databases. Companies have had lots of IT in their organisations, for a long time, but usually hidden away in the "back office". "If you take a look at Danish companies you will see that many still use old legacy systems that do not provide very good IT support to the company. Their IT keeps track of the underlying systems, but this is not a parameter of today's competition. Today's competition takes place in the front office, where customers meet the company. Take Amazon. They have been very sharp at understanding the customer-first philosophy. An example is the famous Amazon moment, when you get the hint, as you are making a purchase, that other buyers have also

bought a related product. This function pops up automatically," says Peter Suhr, com-paring this with the "1864" historical series screened by DR (the Danish Broadcasting Corporation)."After the series had been televised, DR ad-vertised how, up to a certain date, you could see the entire series on DR's website. Why only up to a certain date? Why can't you see it when you want to? The reason is that DR is still clinging to some old models for how digital TV is transmitted."

BIMODAL ITIn 2014, at their annual conference Gartner introduced the concept of "Bimodal IT". Bimodal IT signifies IT at two speeds, based on how most companies and organisations today have a need for both classical op-erational competences and more develop-ment-oriented IT competences. The same resources should probably not be deployed to handle both types of IT."Solid IT can be compared with a marathon runner, as sound, reliable IT that will get to the finishing line, at its own pace. The

second, more agile type of IT is more of a sprinter. It must be able to support the digital business moments that can suddenly arise, and that require a rapid response," says Peter Suhr. "One half of IT operates with month- and year-long horizons, while the other half must be able to operate with horizons of just days or weeks."

SCOPE FOR DEVELOPMENTPeter Suhr concludes by describing how he recently spoke to an American who, during a visit to Denmark, had been surprised by the way that our radiator thermostats work."They reminded him of the thermostats they used in the USA in the 1950s, he said. We Danes go round turning the knob on each radiator, and if the valve has got stuck we have to bang on the radiator to get it moving again. I'd been boasting about Denmark's long and proud engineering tradition, but I had to admit that we were behind the times in that respect. This shows how we still have plenty of scope for technological develop-ment in this country, even in major industries and large companies."

PREMIUM PRODUCT ON THE WAY OUT

For many years, you commanded a privileged and lucrative position if you held the premium product in a

particular industry. But according to Peter Suhr, that position is no longer

guaranteed."Take the pharmaceutical industry, for instance. Before, if a competitor had a poorer product than yours, there was no risk. You would always win the contest, because you had the

premium product. But imagine that your competitor launches a new pack-age in the market where, besides the product itself, the customer is called

up twice a week to check whether he has remembered to take his medicine, get a little exercise, and eat healthily. The premium product will suddenly no longer be the premium choice.

Smart companies are thinking up new delivery models, which leaves no time to sit back and enjoy your position in the market. Instead, you have to fight

to retain it."


Analysis provider IDC focuses on IT consultants' business acumen when asked to describe their highlights for 2015. Technical knowledge of ma-jor trends must also be in place, yet the ability to describe business requirements is what will make the good consultants stand out from the pack.

Interview with Johan Halberg, Research Manager, IDC

An IT consultant must be able to deliver what customers demand. This may sound obvious and logical, yet it is a requirement that has accelerated in scope and significance in recent years, and will also affect consultants' everyday lives in 2015, according to Johan Hall-berg, Research Manager at IDC Nordic."Before I came to IDC, I was a consultant for ten years – seven of them as a freelancer. So I'm well aware that this profession has always been about understanding your customers and delivering accordingly. When I nonetheless claim that it will be more important than ever for consultants to move closer to their customers' busi-ness, this is due to what we call the Third Platform," says Johan Hallberg.

IT EQUALS BUSINESSThe Third Platform is IDC's take on the technological development that the world has undergone. Mobility, cloud computing, social computing and Big Data have each fundamentally changed how we get and use IT. Yet these technologies also influence and reinforce each other, and together comprise a whole new technology platform for growth and innovation – as a third platform."Many companies still have legacy systems that are based on the Second Platform. For them, the Third Platform is an enormous change that they are still in the process of implementing in their busi-ness," says Johan Hallberg.

He explains how for the companies of tomorrow, IT and technology are no longer something to be hidden away. IT and technology are, quite simply, the actual business itself.

IDC: BUSINESS IS THE NEW IT LANGUAGE.


"We therefore predict that in the future IT consultants will be moving much closer to the actual business, since this is where their skills and knowledge are needed."

CHANGE OF MINDSETThe growing importance of IT in more and more companies' busi-ness models is, fundamentally, good news for consultants, since it confirms that there is a need for them. Yet it also requires an ability to seize the opportunities arising, when they arise. "To put it bluntly, tomorrow's IT consultants can be divided into two categories. There are those who recognise that they can no longer sit alone, in a far corner of the office, but have to move into the management offices. And then there are those who are satisfied with what they know, and have no wish to develop. In my view, any consultant in the latter category is running a huge risk," says Johan Hallberg.

Would it be fair to say that for the consultants this is just as much about a change in mentality, as about technology?"Definitely, and I can give you an example to illustrate the point. In Finland, for many years there was Nokia, at full speed ahead, and the paper industry. Fifteen years ago, everything was hunky-dory. But in 2014, Finland's GDP was actually negative, which was a disaster. Finland's largest companies were incapable of transforming themselves and changing course in time, and their entire society is still facing the consequences today," says Johan Hallberg.

"Finland has always been renowned for its excellent education system, but today it's part of the old world, since it hasn't kept up with the times. Returning to IT consultants, for them it's a question of understanding that they must drive their competences forward them-selves, which can be tough going. I've been a consultant myself, and I know what it's like to work on a major project. You feel that you don't have time to attend a conference or read a textbook in your free time. All I can say is that it will be more and more important to develop, not just professionally, but also mentally. You must always be ready for change."

A WHOLE NEW LANGUAGEJohan Hallberg explains how for some people it can be difficult to abandon the classical idea of an IT consultant who ensures stable IT operation in return for being allowed to hide away in an IT depart-ment.

"This naturally also depends on which type of IT consultant you are. If you're a developer, it's obviously most important to stay updated on new technologies. But if you're a project manager, you must be able to work with new types of stakeholders, and also act in a new way. You can't say: 'I'm the project manager for all future implemen-tations under the project, and this task will take me five months.' But you must say: 'Your company needs more capacity, to be able handle more customers.' You have to speak a whole new language: a business language," Johan Hallberg concludes.

IDC: BUSINESS IS THE NEW IT LANGUAGE.

BUSINESS APPS (FINALLY) TAKING OFFJohan Hallberg describes how the Nordic region is, at long last, beginning to see the B2B market implement new technology in day-to-day processes. For companies, this is especially a ques-tion of ensuring customers a good user experience on the mobile platforms, as well as increasing versatility and availability in the employee's digital toolbox.

"This development is closely related to the appearance of business apps that are directly connected to the companies' IT systems. We didn't think it would take so long to get these solutions developed and implemented in the Nordic region, but now we can see how this is finally taking off. This development will continue, picking up momentum in 2015, which may also be worth knowing for a consultant."

INTELLIGENT INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS


ITB WANTS DENMARK IN THE GLOBAL IT DRIVING SEATThe Danish IT Industry Association (ITB) can see both obvious opportunities and pitfalls for IT consultants in Denmark in 2015. Here, ITB's chair describes what the focus should be on and which projects will come to dominate the mar-ket.

Interview with Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, Chair of the Danish IT Industry Association (ITB).

With around 300 members, the Danish IT Industry Association (ITB) is Denmark's largest independent trade association for IT and telecom companies, comprising both large and small companies, as well as global players and local start-ups. Besides political lobbying to achieve better conditions for the Danish IT industry, ITB also has a good sense of new developments in the Danish market in 2015. ConsultantNews therefore asked ITB's Chair, Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, to describe 2015 in headlines and also to offer her tips and advice for Danish IT consultants.

CRISIS LEARNINGHow has the Danish IT industry got through the crisis years? And HAVE we actually got through?"The IT industry is one of the industries that suffered least during the crisis, since IT is always part of the solution, not the problem. Obvi-ously, the brake was pulled on large projects, which is still the case today. Yet otherwise I actually think the crisis has had the positive effect that large companies have taken a moment to ask themselves: Are we doing this right, in IT terms? Are we giving priority to what really matters to us, and that creates value?" says Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl.

"Another lesson we have learned from the crisis is to focus more on dedicated technology. Increasingly, IT is required to 'just work' on demand, without solutions needing years of adjustment, so they are quickly ready for use. The large companies were prepared for the cri-sis, with effective processes and systems. In contrast, smaller Danish companies were lagging far behind, technologically, and were poorly prepared for growth in Denmark and abroad. The Cloud has proved to be a big asset to small and medium-sized enterprises, because Cloud solutions do not require so much start-up capital, and they can be put into operation quickly. Cloud, and also app technology, are pushing development in the right direction, as this helps SMEs to

invest more in new solutions. This will be needed, if they are to keep up with the increasing internationalisation of the market."

GOOD FRAMEWORK CONDITIONSWhat is your political focus on, in 2015?"It's important that there is a political understanding of the need to create good framework conditions for Danish technology companies. The typical challenge they face is capital, so that they can grow out of Europe with their solutions. Yet the high payroll costs in Denmark are braking this development. The politicians could, perhaps, create a start-up scheme for small companies, to defer taxation for a certain number of years if they re-invest their profits in jobs and develop-ment, so they have time to win market shares, including abroad," says Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl.

"Today we have a very creative IT environment in Denmark, yet due to the salary costs, for every time you hire two new employees, you are diluting your own profit that you could re-invest in your company. To expand into Europe, you need to have capital. It would really be a shame if we are unable to exploit this growth potential in Denmark. The alternative is that the companies are bought up or move their development to other countries, which means that we will still lose this income. Good framework conditions are vital for an expanding IT industry."

TICKS ALL THE BOXES FOR A LEADING POSITIONWhich areas are currently developing the most?"The consultant market is undergoing massive upheavals. Large areas of the consultant industry have been accustomed to delivering a lot of technical on-premise services. A large part of this business has now moved to India, or quite simply vanished into thin air. This is why it is so important to create more business-oriented consult-ant profiles. It would be of enormous benefit to Denmark if we could manage to combine commercial college, for example, with process and technology expertise.

We could then teach tomorrow's businessmen and women how to create better, and new, ways of doing business. Just look at the taxi industry and the new applications from Über and the Danish Drivr. If we do not come up with new business models in this country, others will do it elsewhere!"

"Culturally, Denmark ticks all the boxes to be really good at develop-ing super-good combination education programmes, where techno-logical knowledge is part of the programme. We have a long history


as a trading nation, we think on our feet, are not too much in awe of authority and generally produce a lot of creative graduates from our advanced higher education programmes. If we can make the most of this position, we can create some incredibly astute consultants – both in Denmark and abroad," says Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl.

LACK OF CYBERPOLICEWhich types of projects will consultants be engaged with in 2015?"First and foremost business-oriented projects, in contrast to the more technically-oriented projects that they have been accustomed to working on. There are also still many companies and organisations that are moving from an on-premise strategy to a Cloud strategy, so there will continue to be many tasks of that type in 2015. I also think that we will come to see more IT operations optimisation projects. As some IT is moved to India, for example, there will a greater need to re-view service processes. I think we will see many service management

services emerging," says Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl. "IT security will also be a really major issue in 2015 and for many years to come. Compa-nies, politicians and public institutions have woken up to the fact that data is as precious as gold. Used in the right way, data enables us to know things we had no idea we could know. This leads to a need to consider the issue of privacy. We quite simply need new frames of ref-erence in cyberspace. How should cyberpolice operate – and where? They cannot patrol the streets like in the real world.

We need to come up with new, agile, adjustable legislation and get it implemented in cyberspace. In the real world, we have legislated our way out of problems, over many, many years. But the cyberworld is so new that we haven't set things up properly yet. There will be an enormous need for people who know something about IT security," Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl concludes.

GOOD ADVICE"If I were to offer one piece of advice to Danish IT consultants, it would be: look outwards," says Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl. "Instead of staring yourselves blind at Denmark, look out into the world to see which trends dominate the market. Think five years ahead and start upgrading your skills now."


THE TREND GURU'S FIVE FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES

1. COGNITIVE COMPUTING"First and foremost, I believe that cognitive computing will be the next big era in IT," Preben Mejer begins. "While today we our-selves define the purpose of using a com-puter, in future computers will increasingly be able to act for themselves. A good example of this development is a case involving IBM’s supercomputer, Watson, from the summer of 2014. Watson was invited to a Board meeting in a large company, where it was set up to read the company's business plans. Based on this input, Watson was able to recommend which other companies the company in question should acquire, to sup-port the overall strategy," says Preben Mejer.Is this a dangerous or exciting trend?"A little of both. In just five years, cognitive computing is estimated to achieve financial potential of 50 billion dollars in the USA alone, making it a huge future business area. But I've also seen surveys showing that, in time, cognitive computing will affect 47% of all current jobs. Some will disappear, while others will change character."

2. (I)IOTSeveral estimates show that by 2020 the world will have approximately 30 billion devices connected to the network. This is a crazy number, compared to the Earth's population. "The exciting aspect of Machine-to-Machine

Preben Mejer is accustomed to taking a look at the IT landscape of the future from new angles. Here, he presents his personal Top Five technology areas that he finds most exciting to watch.

For anyone interested in new technology, Preben Mejer will not need much introduc-tion. For many years he has commented on future technical innovations, and their potential impacts for people and society. ConsultantNews asked Preben Mejer to weed out some of the many global IT trends and narrow the field to the five IT areas he expects most of, in both the immediate and more distant future.


13-YEAR-OLD UKRAINIAN BOY PASSES THE TURING TESTPreben Mejer relates how a group of researchers at Reading University in the UK recently succeeded in getting a chat robot to pass the Turing test, which is when a panel of judges chats with the computer, as well as two human beings. If the panel erroneously believes that the computer is one of the human chatters more than 30% of the time, the computer will have passed the test. Rumour has it that a chat robot has passed the Turing test before, but nonetheless Preben Mejer finds that cognitive computing has come far if a bot in the year 2014 can get people to believe that it is human. In the specific scenario from Reading University, the chat robot had the identity of a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy. The chat robot's nationality and age were intended to mask any linguistic and spelling errors.

technology is that all these devices move from being relatively unintelligent today – most of them can only perform simple functions such as registering switch on/off, temperature, etc. – to being connected to the Cloud, where a lot of intelligence is added to them. This brings us over to the Internet of Things era. Or you could almost say the Intelligent Internet of Things era," says Preben Mejer."I recently saw an experiment in Texas with Google's Nest thermostats. As will be known, they can keep an eye on the house-hold's habits, and adjust the temperature accordingly. The experiment was that the local energy utility offered free Nest thermo-stats for customers' homes. They did this because it's a massive problem that 50% of energy consumption in Texas today is spent on fans during heatwaves. This can cripple electricity supplies. Under the Nest project, a household allows the power company to turn off the air conditioning when there are problems and brownouts in the supply system."

3. APPSAs IT becomes more intelligent, the use of apps will also develop, is Preben Mejer's prediction."Apps will fundamentally be able to predict your next needs, before you do so yourself. It's not very practical that today we have to call up the apps we need. We're moving away from a toolbox philosophy, where we

fumble around in the toolbox to find the right tool for the right situation. In future, the tools will run discreetly in the background, pop-ping up automatically when the device reg-isters that you need them, and disappearing again, once you are done. This development will also affect the business model for apps, as we will move from reactive IT to ambient IT. In the future, apps will be delivered as a service, to a greater extent."

4. PHABLETS AND HYBRID PCSJust as we thought there were no limits to sales of smartphones and tablets, both de-vices suddenly ran into difficulties and are no longer sold in the same volumes as before. "The name of the game now is phablets," says Preben Mejer. "This is the hybrid between a smartphone and a tablet, with a screen size of between 5”and 7”. This development is driven by how, with today's Internet speeds, we are more and more visu-ally oriented." "Another surprising development within de-vices is that even though we thought we had buried the PC, it has been reincarnated as a hybrid device to which a keyboard can be connected, so we do not have to carry both a tablet and laptop, but can use just one device. So the PC is not dead at all."

5. CLOUD WARSFinally, Preben Mejer outlines the coming years' Cloud power battle, which he as-

sesses will be between Amazon, Google and Microsoft. “Many consider Amazon to be primarily an E-commerce company, but Amazon is actu-ally an advanced technology enterprise with E-commerce at the top. They are incredibly good at Cloud and the clear leader in this area." "Google is waking up after sitting at the top of the Cloud development for eight years, without doing anything to expand this posi-tion and move forward. Their big strength, and weakness, is their advertising business. Everything they do is aimed at supporting this. But now Google is beginning to offer Cloud services and is so big that they will get back into the game again," says Preben Mejer, before concluding with a look at Microsoft's Cloud potential:"Microsoft has managed to put together some good Cloud solutions, with a decent customer base that is very loyal to their products. They recently took the sound strategic decision to separate Windows from Office, and they have also shown the way forward with good updates of their products and the Azure platform. Microsoft seems to be well prepared for the future."


Consultants in demand ProData Consult is on the lookout for heavyweight IT consultants in the following roles and areas. If you have the skills we need, or know someone who does, please get in touch by contacting HR or the resources department at ProData Consult.

ROLESDeveloper Front-end developerArchitectWeb developer Mobile developerWebmasterTechnical project man-agerScrum masterProject managerBusiness managerBusiness developerProcess consultantSolution architectTesterTest coordinatorTest manager

Technical testerDatabase developerDatabase administratorOperations consultantInfrastructure consultantNetwork consultantNetwork architectSupport consultantSecurity consultantSEM/SEOUX consultantVisual designer

COMPETENCES/AREAS: Microsoft/.NETJava/J2EEResponsive Web JavaScript, CSS, HTML5OracleOpen SourceMainframeWebMobileERPSAPSharePointData Warehouse/BIPRINCE2SOAITIL

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INDUSTRIES: Public sectorFinancial sectorCapital marketsTelecomEnergy sectorIndustryTransport/Logistics

Get your CV ready! Check your ProData CV at: berater-it.deit-konsulenter.nokonsulter.netit-consultant.comkonsulenter.dkitconsultants.plor konsulenter.nland update your competences, adding your latest experience/assignments. If we have a fully updated CV in our database with all your competences listed, this will make it easier for our sales staff to find new projects for you.

ProData Consult's annual Christmas event for consultants and customers.True to tradition, Christmas events were held for ProData Consult's customers and active consultants in both Copenhagen and Aarhus.

In Copenhagen, the event was held in the Tycho Brahe hall at the Tycho Brahe Plan-etarium, under the starry firmament, and in the company of a piece of the Moon.

Before the Christmas dinner, the guests were taken on a trip through Space, guid-ed by Tina Ibsen. The dinner was served in the Tycho Brahe hall, and catered by Restaurant Cassiopeia. In Aarhus, the event was held at Globen Flakket, with a four-course meal and wine, and entertainment in the company of the Jutlandic ProData staff.

There was a lot of chatting, networking and music, and ProData Consult's Christ-mas gifts were presented to the guests. All ProData staff would like to thank eve-ryone that attended for a very enjoyable evening and for your positive feedback on the events in both Copenhagen and Aarhus.

We wish you all a Happy New Year and and thank you for a very successful 2014!

2015 - prodata consult · 38 2015 3 2014 was a good year for the it consulting industry. it was...

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