It was 20 Years Ago Today: From Pizza Hut’s First Online Delivery to the IoT

As Harvey Nash celebrates the release of its 20th CIO Survey, it is amazing to think how far technology has advanced in the last two decades.

The Internet of 20 years ago in its formative phase was commonly referred to as the World Wide Web with around 10,000 websites compared to today’s multiple billions of web pages. A mere two million computers were Internet connected in those days. Now there are almost four billion web users.

Apps such as Amazon, Yahoo! And Mosaic Communications (later known as Netscape) were at the start of their digital journey. Netscape Navigator was the first commercial web browser launched then came Microsoft Internet Explorer to be followed ten years later by Mozilla Firefox. Now Google bestrides the earth like a mighty Brontosaurus devouring terabytes of data in a single, daily gulp.

Meanwhile, Pizza Hut reportedly engineered the first online shopping transaction for a pizza. I wonder how quickly the customer got the pizza? I’d like to think as an early adopter he or she would be ordering now via Alexa and receiving the pizza from a drone! Let’s hope it wasn’t topped with ham and pineapple.

As the most recent Harvey Nash survey says: “As technology has changed, so too has its focus: once it was all about internal operations, now it's more about the customer; once the budget was controlled by one or two executives, now spend is undertaken by a broader range of stakeholders; once the IT leader was called 'CIO' or 'IT Director', now technology leadership is found in a wide range of places.”

With the speed and pace that both IT and business are changing, there are no surprises that the role of the CIO is changing as well. As I explain in the introduction to my book The CIO Navigator, 20 years ago Project Management, for example, was in its infancy for most IT departments at this time, the same can be said for Governance and Controls, they were certainly there but have evolved a great deal in the intervening time.

In the 2010s, the role of the CIO has changed to reflect the new business world, IT and leadership. Security has become part of the daily life of most CIOs, helping to keep an organization resilient against the risks that it perceives has always been part of the IT’s role. However, the rapid increase in connectivity without always considering the full security implications of all the changes.

Mobile and e-business form an increasing part of the business, IT being able to provide the facilities required to provide these services in a reliable and resilient way are increasingly a requirement as opposed to a nice to have.

In the 2020s the role will expand once again. The cloud, in the form of Infrastructure as a Service and Software as a Service has replaced the traditional segments of Infrastructure and Business Applications. The governance section has increased and will now include Environmental (IT is a big user of electricity and other resources, it is very likely that organisations will be asked to report on their carbon footprint: this will include IT.

Regulation is already playing a larger part of governance. In an increasingly global environment, CIOs will have to understand the regulation of not only their home country but also where they outsource services (including where they host their applications and services), and where their customer resides.

According to Harvey Nash:

“IT leaders are not only helping transform organisations, but the leaders themselves are being transformed, and for many there is a real opportunity to grow and extend their influence. From helping 'shadow IT step out of the shadows, to handling data privacy and security, to getting the balance right between governance and driving innovation - the CIO has a unique perspective on it all.”

The Harvey Nash survey polled nearly 4,000 IT leaders across a wide range of industries in 84 countries and as a snapshot of what is happening in 2018 it reveals that IT is a burgeoning sector of the global economy. IT investment is growing with budget increases of 49% - their highest level since tracking began. 47% of IT leaders expect their headcount to increase.

On the flip side it is a worry that there are reportedly fewer CIOs on executive boards this year (down 9%) and fewer IT leaders report CIO influence is growing (down 8%).

The top 3 priorities for 'digital leaders' are in order:

1 Developing innovative new products
2 Delivering stable IT
3 Enhancing customer experience

The top three priorities that have grown are:

1 Improving cyber security (+23%)
2 Managing operational risk & compliance (+12%)
3 Improving business process (+5%)

There are plenty of other revealing insights and illuminating stats in the report, which I will be writing about in a few more blogs in the coming week. How do IT leaders rate their IT/business alignment, are digital leaders more likely to be investing in new technology compared to others and is the industry suffering from a skills shortage? Check on out my next blog to find out.