Opinion

Opinion

CW500 and IT leadership skills

• Why robots will make work more human

  Smart technology should be about making people’s lives easier, freeing them up for judgement-based tasks and giving them the data and information they need for smart decision-making  Continue Reading

• Redundancies – are tech companies getting it right?

  With recession now a reality, big tech companies have started slimming down their workforces, but they have legal responsibilities  Continue Reading

• Three million empty seats: What can we do about the cyber skills shortage?

  Companies should look for candidates with the right skills potential, rather than insist they tick a hundred different security skills boxes  Continue Reading

• Fewer CIOs have a seat on the board but we still need technology leaders

  This democratisation of technology still needs a leader, but it’s a healthy sign that discussion of tech has become part of business as usual at board level  Continue Reading

• Currency markets causing choppy waters for UK outsourcing

  Anthony Drake, director at tech advisory ISG, explains how the UK government’s botched mini-Budget announcement raised the cost of IT outsourcing  Continue Reading

• Where are all the technologists? Talent shortages and what to do about them

  It’s harder than ever to recruit good IT specialists, but there are some simple strategies for digital leaders to fill gaps in their teams  Continue Reading

• We’re all technologists now – the powerful impact of low-code platforms

  Low-code platforms are bringing a shift in how organisations develop and use technology – and it’s the job of the CIO to let it happen in a controlled, secure and connected fashion  Continue Reading

• Following the customer: How tech leaders can learn from Alphabet and Meta

  Why tech leaders should think about the changing needs of their customers  Continue Reading

• Digital begins in the boardroom

  Successful organisations need a digitally savvy board to shape their business agenda  Continue Reading

• Gartner: Six key executive-CIO conversations to help AI succeed

  The promise of artificial intelligence often fails to materialise in businesses, so how do you maximise your chance to succeed?  Continue Reading

• Building distributed systems requires effective developer teams

  Technologies edge computing and containerisation call for teams capable of building distributed systems  Continue Reading

• We must target a broad church to fill vacant cyber roles

  The security industry focuses a lot on cyber-specific specialisms and technical skills, but it could really benefit from widening its search. Take it from a social anthropologist  Continue Reading

• Five tips to help you deploy a successful AI initiative

  Former H&M head of AI, Errol Koolmeister, discusses an approach to delivering successful artificial intelligence projects  Continue Reading

• Why we need to keep up the charge on women in tech

  With hybrid working allowing people into technology jobs regardless of their gender, ethnicity or background, we need to support and encourage this more flexible way of working to ensure it continues  Continue Reading

• When to pull the plug on an ecommerce site

  Distributed denial of service and other attacks on websites have the potential to leak personally identifiable information  Continue Reading

• Why training alone is not enough

  Among the difficulties IT leaders face is how best to combat the skills crisis and where and when to train internal teams  Continue Reading

• Minding the gap between data and understanding

  An irony about the expression ‘information technology’ is that in recent years, although we have more data, it can feel like we lack information  Continue Reading

• Gartner: How to overcome a lack of cloud skills in your organisation

  IT chiefs are struggling to tackle cloud skills shortages across their organisations. Here are five key steps to overcome this challenge  Continue Reading

• Five key tech trends for digital leaders in 2022

  The past two years have seen a surge in investment that will bring new challenges to digital leaders over the next year  Continue Reading

• How apprenticeships are helping bridge the digital skills gap

  Apprenticeships are not only for young people – they can help make IT departments more diverse and inclusive, as well as plugging skills gaps, as DWP Digital has proved  Continue Reading

• A trial relying on computer evidence should start with a trial of the computer evidence

  Learning from the Post Office Horizon scandal - the most widespread miscarriage of justice in recent British legal history  Continue Reading

• How can you balance security with growth?

  As businesses focus on recovery and growth, CISOs must deal with today’s challenges while also planning for tomorrow - how can they achieve both safety and success?  Continue Reading

• Security Think Tank: Reframing CISO-boardroom relations

  Security learning is a career-long process, so as 2021 draws to a close, participants in the Computer Weekly Security Think Tank sum up the most important cyber lessons they’ve taken away from the past 12 months  Continue Reading

• The power of AI can be unleashed with a focus on ethics

  An EY survey reveals the public’s concerns around the growing use of artificial intelligence – but also the opportunities for organisations that take the right ethical approach  Continue Reading

• Gartner: Four ways women can drive a more inclusive workplace

  Tips to help women committed to developing their own IT careers, as well as pathways for anyone in a segment that is under-represented in IT  Continue Reading

• How can specialist retailers get closer to their customers?

  In many cases, a customer needs more than just picking an item off the shelf or opening a box left on the doorstep – they need domain expertise  Continue Reading

• Building bridges to better diversity

  Tibco CIO Rani Johnson describes how the C-suite need to make themselves uncomfortable if they are to increase diversity in their organisations  Continue Reading

• How to prevent developer burnout

  The pandemic has led to more pressure on software developers, many of whom have reported increased levels of stress and anxiety  Continue Reading

• Britain needs its amazing migrants

  Fintech entrepreneur Michael Kent explains why Britain needs migrants and why government policy and media horror stories will damage the UK’s economy and reputation  Continue Reading

• The secret to building a future-proof cyber security team

  In a post-pandemic digital world, where cyber criminals see a feast of opportunities, what are the secrets to building a world-class cyber security function?  Continue Reading

• How Covid-19 accelerated cloud investment in the financial world

  Cloud computing is no longer a thing of the future for banks that want to remain competitive  Continue Reading

• How CIOs can help their organisations accelerate digital transformation

  Companies need to win the trust of their customers to gather the data they need to transform their businesses  Continue Reading

• Why a data-driven world should consider an oath of ethics

  The Hippocratic Oath is perhaps the most widely known of Greek medical texts – and such an oath is needed in data science  Continue Reading

• Post Office scandal: The rise of computers and the decline of English justice

  The Post Office prosecuted its subpostmasters up and down the country with a zeal that would not have embarrassed the Inquisition  Continue Reading

• Why new EU rules around artificial intelligence are vital to the development of the sector

  Shawn Tan, CEO of global AI ecosystem builder Skymind, explains why the European Union’s new rules on artificial intelligence are a good thing  Continue Reading

• Why the Post Office Horizon scandal kept me awake at night

  Reverend Richard Coles tells Computer Weekly why there needs to be a statutory public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon scandal  Continue Reading

• London needs a mayor of growth

  Here East’s CEO Gavin Poole on why the next mayor must ensure London remains the tech capital of Europe, and the importance of learning from the past  Continue Reading

• Post Office’s full and final settlement with Horizon scandal victims in plain English

  The legal settlement with subpostmaster victims of the Horizon scandal that the government and the Post Office say is “full and final” is anything but  Continue Reading

• Gartner: Three tips to avoid cloud service suspension

  As recent events have shown, public cloud providers have the power to terminate cloud contracts, and seemingly legitimate businesses may be at risk  Continue Reading

• Why it’s fantastic to be a woman in the technology sector (and what’s stopping more from joining)

  The enforced move by many employers to flexible home working during the pandemic is challenging the culture of long hours in the office – and opening up new opportunities for women in tech  Continue Reading

• Three ways to extend a digital vision beyond the tech team

  The role of the CIO will change radically if every business is expected to become a tech innovator  Continue Reading

• NHS Digital completes NHSmail migration to the cloud

  NHS Digital’s Chris Parsons shares how the organisation managed to migrate more than 2.1 million NHSmail accounts to the cloud during a global pandemic  Continue Reading

• Could ambiguous rules spur IT personnel offshoring bonanza?

  Could the combination of Brexit and ambiguous rules on recruitment enable businesses to hire IT staff from overseas to carry out work remotely?  Continue Reading

• Smarter use of AI means business process optimisation, not simply automation

  To get the most from artificial intelligence and automation, IT leaders need to focus on where the technology adds real-world business value, not the trendy tech  Continue Reading

• From front line to back office – how supporting the cyber community keeps the NHS safe

  NHS Digital’s chief information security officer describes how the Cyber Associates Network benefits security experts in health and care  Continue Reading

• Martha Lane Fox: My life in tech

  The internet entrepreneur discusses the role of tech in society, confidence in coding and encouraging young people to embrace technology  Continue Reading

• How to write an executive CV for IT leadership jobs

  Knowing how to write an IT executive CV requires a deep knowledge and skillset that not everyone has. Find out how to set yourself apart from the competition  Continue Reading

• Risk and reward: How to succeed in digital transformation

  Most organisations are seeking to step up their digital transformation efforts, but history has shown that such efforts can be doomed to failure if they take the wrong approach  Continue Reading

• What will it take for humanity to fully understand tech?

  The failure of the coronavirus contact-tracing system, due to limits set by an old Excel format, demonstrates a failure of technology to cope with human reliance  Continue Reading

• Top 10 skills to include in your IT CV

  Find out what skills and keywords you should include on your CV to stand out as an IT professional in a competitive market  Continue Reading

• Tech executives need new skills to lead in a remote world

  After helping organisations adapt to new ways of working during the Covid-19 pandemic, IT leaders worldwide are now enjoying greater influence, according to this year’s Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey  Continue Reading

• Digital leaders and the widening divide

  This year’s Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey shows a widening of the digital business divide, with companies that have already adopted digital technologies more likely to accelerate those investments than those still in the planning stage  Continue Reading

• A CIO’s journey through the Covid-19 crisis

  FDM’s IT chief takes us through the challenges of responding to the coronavirus pandemic, and the future opportunities that the changes introduced now present  Continue Reading

• Gartner: Three questions CIOs must ask before updating strategy post-pandemic

  Corporate leaders are turning to IT to build a digital future for their organisations – and CIOs can use their experience of pandemic-induced changes to build a new post-Covid strategy  Continue Reading

• Let’s not get ahead of ourselves – the UK tech startup scene still needs support post-Covid

  Government and investors have shown their support for tech startups during the coronavirus pandemic, but there are still challenges ahead and it's not a time for complacency  Continue Reading

• The Covid-19 crisis: Reinventing digital transformation

  Digital transformation projects are returning as organisations realise that improvements in productivity and customer engagement are now even more important – providing that the work can be done remotely and there’s still cash to pay for it  Continue Reading

• London Data Commission: Sharing data to help support London’s response to Covid-19

  London First’s director of connectivity and competitiveness, David Lutton, talks about establishing the London Data Commission, and its contribution to coping with the coronavirus crisis  Continue Reading

• IT transformation steps pave the path to new ways to work

  The CEO of Difrent discusses how her roles in local and central government have played a role in public sector IT transformation  Continue Reading

• Unsteady state: Building collaboration, innovation and responsiveness during unprecedented change

  The coronavirus crisis is challenging business and tech leaders in new and unprecedented ways – but the skills developed by successful leaders can forge better business and government going forward  Continue Reading

• CCRC findings on subpostmaster prosecutions reveal incompetence of successive governments

  Former subpostmaster who took on the Post Office in a multimillion-pound legal battle speaks out.  Continue Reading

• What is the Post Office board doing to right the Horizon wrongs?

  Business lawyer Nick Gould compares the treatment of subpostmasters by the Post Office in the Horizon IT scandal with the huge HBOS fraud that saw £1bn stolen from small businesses  Continue Reading

• EC publishes approach to human and ethical implications of AI, but what will UK do?

  The European Commission has published a guide to the EU’s approach to the human and ethical effects that artificial intelligence might bring  Continue Reading

• Gartner: How CIOs can lead organisational culture

  In large-scale transformations, the technical implementation is often far easier than the change management needed to make IT projects a success  Continue Reading

• Making apprenticeships do more than just work

  Better use of apprentices, and further reform to the apprenticeship levy, will be key to continuing the impressive growth rate of the UK’s digital economy  Continue Reading

• There's nothing much new in tech, but it's what we do with what we have that matters

  It feels like the world of tech is full of new things, but that's not entirely true. There's not a lot of invention going on, but that's fine because it's innovation that powers growth and productivity  Continue Reading

• Learning from the Travelex cyber attack: Failing to prepare is preparing to fail

  The key lesson to take from the Travelex breach is that an effective response to a breach is a critical business function and no longer the sole province of the IT department  Continue Reading

• Why the banking industry needs an IT makeover

  UK banks face huge challenges keeping their service availability levels at 99.99%  Continue Reading

• The Post Office computer problem that destroyed the lives of pillars of the community

  The Post Office’s refusal to believe subpostmasters were suffering losses due to computer system errors was incompetent and cruel  Continue Reading

• Gartner: Top 10 strategic technology trends in 2020

  Two decades ago, at the start of the millennium, IT was deeply concerned about Y2K – and the iPhone, Twitter and Facebook didn’t exist. So what’s in store as a new decade begins?  Continue Reading

• How CI/CD helps digital organisations

  Developments in technology have transformed IT management practices. We discuss the management implications of using CI/CD to drive digitisation initiatives  Continue Reading

• The super-resilient organisation

  We need to build super-resilient organisations that can not only survive in a tempestuous world, but become energised by it  Continue Reading

• The super-resilient IT function

  IT functions don’t have to continue taking the blame for organisational failures, they can take the lead in transforming the business  Continue Reading

• General Election 2019: Digital must be at the core of the next government’s strategy

  TechUK lays out the technology priorities it wants to see from the next UK government to boost the digital economy  Continue Reading

• The super-resilient CIO

  How developing ‘super-resilience’ can help your organisation thrive on adversity  Continue Reading

• Gartner: Three Barriers to AI Adoption

  CIOs are set to include artificial intelligence in their IT strategy. Technical, legislative and cultural challenges could influence their AI ambitions  Continue Reading

• The right way to get on with building UK tech success is to get a Brexit deal now

  The UK technology sector does not want a no-deal Brexit, and recognises the damage it would cause. If we're leaving the EU, the Prime Minister needs to get a deal  Continue Reading

• Gartner: Eight ways blockchain can support governments

  Distributed ledgers are not just limited to finance and smart contracts. Gartner explores how blockchain can tackle government inefficiencies  Continue Reading

• Gartner: Five pitfalls for a new CIO to avoid

  Entering a company as the new CIO is an unpredictable experience. Here are five common issues to look out for  Continue Reading

• Opening a path into a tech career for anyone

  The technology sector needs new talent and must get better at appealing to people at all stages of their life and career  Continue Reading

• Gender diversity is failing in tech: how can we turn it around?

  Todays technology organisations need innovative thinking, communication, relationship building, influencing and listening – skills that a lot of women possess in abundance. Yet employers frequently advertise jobs in ways that unwittingly deter ...  Continue Reading

• What the UK can learn from the Nordics when it comes to digital ID

  The UK and other countries can learn from the Nordic region when it comes to digital identity  Continue Reading

• What Belarus offers the tech sector

  Belarus might not be as well known for its IT as some of its neighbours, but it is pushing its head above the parapet  Continue Reading

• Making the move to cloud work for you

  Getting the best out of a move to the cloud means getting the size right, turning off what you don’t need, smart purchasing and continuously decluttering your new environment  Continue Reading

• How to prepare for the UK’s uncertain Brexit terms

  Analyst firm Gartner looks at the main business continuity plans that need to be in place  Continue Reading

• Leading IT: Lessons from the front line

  As a CIO, whatever challenges you face in terms of budget, mandates or timetable, you may already have the right people to carry out incredible IT feats. Here are four ways to lead your organisation to unprecedented success  Continue Reading

• Resist the tech backlash before it’s too late

  An increasingly unhealthy narrative has grown up around the tech sector – some of which is justified. But industry leaders need to push back and argue for the benefits of technology, too  Continue Reading

• More effective digital transformation through the power of your own people

  The old model of escalating decisions up and down the management chain does not work any more. Business leaders need to delegate responsibility for projects to business and technology specialists and eliminate the fear of failure  Continue Reading

• The journey to turning your organisation into a platform

  Compete with digital rivals by becoming a platform organisation – how companies can start navigating the transformation journey  Continue Reading

• Introducing ‘focus and leverage’ – the value algorithm of the internet era

  Anyone pitching a business idea or designing a new service needs to understand the economics of mature internet technology  Continue Reading

• The lesson of TSB – testing, 1, 2, 3

  An organisation’s IT system might look good on the surface, but you can’t fix a problem if you don’t know it’s there  Continue Reading

• Want a 200% pay rise? If you do, let the robots do all the work

  One of the newest Nobel economists has a theory, and if it's correct we'll all be in for a huge salary increase when the robots take over  Continue Reading

• Your IT provider is being acquired – what does this mean for you and your business?

  Merger and acquisition activity is widespread in the IT sector, but what does it mean for you when one of your key tech suppliers is bought up by another firm?  Continue Reading

• Why your marketing team needs help from IT more than ever

  Some IT and marketing departments have a troubled history of working together, but better collaboration is essential to make a success of digital transformation  Continue Reading

• Why #techmatters – the challenge for everyone in the UK tech community

  The UK technology sector faces unprecedented challenges – and opportunities – but we must never lose sight of the fact that it exists to make people’s lives better  Continue Reading

• Digital transformation is just business change

  Don't always start with the technology if you're driving transformation, but always start with the business  Continue Reading

• Bridging the gender pay gap in the technology industry

  Publication of gender pay gap figures for large organisations shows the tech sector has a long way to go to back up its rhetoric about equal opportunities  Continue Reading

• Big data skills shortages – and how to work around them

  Businesses are finding it hard to recruit enough people with big data and analytics skills, but for CIOs there are alternative strategies to consider  Continue Reading

• Tier 2 visas – a challenge for the tech sector

  With staff shortages already being reported in the technology sector and Brexit potentially adding to the problem, tech departments need to get their Tier 2 visa applications right  Continue Reading

• Beware of the digital bandwagon

  The rush to become ‘digital by default’ could drive costs up and have a damaging effect on understanding customer demand, writes John Seddon  Continue Reading

• If we're measuring GDP wrong in a digital world, what does that say about the economy?

  Conventional measures of economic success such as GDP fail to account for the nature of free digital services. How different would the UK economy appear if that changed?  Continue Reading