IT directors need to have an angle on the technology being
pitched in today's glitzy TV ad campaigns before their CEOs buy
into the products being featured, according to a panel at the
Economist Chief Information Officer's and IT Directors' summit in
London last week.The panel focused on the problem of dealing with misconceptions
caused by over-the-top marketing of IT products and picked out
mobile technology as being particularly problematic.
WAP, the wireless application protocol used to access internet
services from mobile handset,s was branded one of the most hyped
products.
Malcolm Mitchell, director of technology and business strategy
at mobile giant Vodafone, admitted that the mobile operators had
misled users.
"Everyone understands that WAP was presented in a way that was
not consistent with reality," he said. WAP was portrayed as a fast,
feature-rich mobile internet but the service offered slow,
text-based information and inevitably failed to meet users'
expectations.
Today, consumers are being pitched the concept of multimedia
messaging, picture messaging, video messaging and feature-rich
smartphones that could replace today's breed of handheld
computers.
It is not yet clear whether these services will offer users
genuine new business opportunities, but IT directors should still
evaluate how such technology could be deployed, the panel said.
Simon Linsley, head of IT at the lighting division of Philips
Electronics said, "As soon as you see an ad on TV, get the
technology and play with it."
He works on the so-called "10 minute pitch". If a business use
for the technology cannot be explained to the company's chief
executive officer in less than 10 minutes, discard it, Linsley
advised.
Linsley also warned that some technologies require a cultural
shift and an internal marketing effort to encourage adoption.
Philips is evaluating how mobile phones could be used to track the
company's sales forces to within 1,000m. Deploying such technology
could be seen as an infringement on personal privacy, but Linsley
said staff would be more comfortable if they were told the same
technology could be used to track their children.
Paperless or worthless?
Along with mobile technologies, the panel of IT directors also
looked into whether the so-called paper-ess office will ever be a
reality. Long touted by the IT industry as the way ahead for
businesses to remain competitive, the paperless office has failed
to materialise.
Philips' Linsley believed the idea did not make business sense,
while Stuart Walker, chief information officer at travel portal
Opodo, said. "Some things like books or travel brochures do not
translate well to a computer screen."
For the travel industry at least, Walker is putting his money on
web services, which he said, "provide a massive opportunity".