IT Essentials: Costs and controversy

Cost increases are...good?

IT Essentials: Costs and controversy

Who doesn't love a bit of controversy? Journalists certainly do - it makes headlines easier, if nothing else - so it's always a bit of a gift when an interviewee goes against the received wisdom.

Take Bruce Perens, a founder of the open source movement, admitting "We have failed" recently. Boom: attention firmly grabbed.

Or last week when Ben Burdsall, CIO of dunnhumby, told an audience that, actually, cloud costs increases are A Good Thing. That's probably not an attitude guaranteed to make friends (certainly not with the CFO), but he did follow it with the rider, "because it means your revenue is rising."

Before 2022 I might have agreed, but the theory falls flat in a time of rapid inflation and vendor-driven price hikes without the important second condition: "all else being equal."

That's quite a lot of conditionals and justifications, so I'll leave those at the door for my own controversial statement:

Rising costs are good.

That's not just me courting controversy; our own research proves it.

More than 60% of almost 200 respondents in our recent IT trends survey said cost is a major driver for the IT changes they're planning this year, like adopting lo-code, supporting citizen developers and platform consolidation.

Over half also named cost as a challenge for their planned changes, but even that can be a good thing: challenges force creativity, and necessity is the mother of invention.

By this time some you have started cursing my name, but don't shoot the messenger: these aren't only my opinions, but yours and your peers'. It's not only for IT investment, either: a third of respondents said cost savings were a driver for ESG adoption.

This is a sneak peek at our tech trends research, which we'll release over the coming weeks. We've already dug into some of the findings, concluding that UK IT leaders are intrigued by but cautious about gen-AI.

We've also started running our research in North America, as part of this week's exciting launch - trumpet fanfare, please - of MES Computing, our new sister site. Going forward you can expect to see all the insightful research Computing has offered for years, plus findings comparing UK IT leaders to their peers in the USA and Canada, so you can really see how you compare in the global market.

Penny Horwood has looked into how gen-AI is changing the game in the insurance sector - not one traditionally known for rapid tech adoption. But data management is just as important, says AXA's chief data & analytics officer Paul Hollands.

AI came up in another unexpected place this week: HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's centuries-old flagship. We looked into how the tech is keeping her shipshape.

Also: Oracle has done a pretty good job at keeping Java relevant, but as John Leonard finds, IT leaders are sick of being on the hook and are looking for alternatives.

And finally, we've opened submissions for this year's IT Leaders 100, our (free) annual list of the most influential people working in UK IT today. Thanks to all who have entered already - and if that's not you, click that link now to tell us about your greatest achievements in the last year!