Business Trends That Are Impacting IT

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Forget Web 2.0 mashups for a minute. We are experiencing the mother of all mashups in terms of the economy, social networking and rapidly changing attitudes of consumers.

Here is a link to a must-read on the subject from Mark McDonald at Gartner, "The Ten Trends You Have To Watch: And What They Mean For IT".

Here are some of McDonalds most interesting points (but in my words, of course):

- Consumers and workers (don't forget, these are generally the same people) have gone through hell in this economic meltdown and their faith in business is a bit broken right now. Rebuilding trust requires communication and good, consistent communication is going to require some fancy footwork from IT.

- Globalism is not the new black. It's the new goat, in fact. Public sentiment and grumblings for more protectionism are suddenly in vogue. What does this mean for your global, one world market place taking place in cyberspace?

- Your business plan is a rough draft again. Industries are having to redefine themselves on the fly, identifying new markets and hustling up new products to serve their changing needs. You better have some efficient technologies in place to help you navigate.

- If you haven't invested in pricing analytics tools, think about doing so now. How exactly do you charge for products and services in such a volatile economy? If you don't hit the sweet spot between too high and too low, make no mistake - you're dead! Pricing is not something you set and forget. It's a moving target that has to be monitored, constantly.

- Consumers are not consuming the way they used to. What kind of technologies are you using to manage the volatility of consumption and distribution?

Let's hope your IT staff are MVP material.

Renee Oricchio

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987.