iTnews researched the ASX 50 and learned that almost all are conducting a business transformation or adopting cloud-based or hyperscale technologies of one sort or another.
At the nations’s largest financial institutions, replacing core banking systems is on the agenda, along with private clouds. At the ASX, blockchain and a massive network consolidation are occupying the IT department’s time and energy.
Telstra has embarked on a massive re-platforming exercise for its core consumer products, with a new CRM permeating the business.
Some are preparing for future innovation: logistics provider Goodman has started to ponder what self – driving cars and drones will mean for its warehouses, and its business. Others are using changes in technology to explore new frontiers, like Oil Search Limited which planned its largest ever acquisition of seismic data, in part because it’s now possible to do so at previously- unfeasible scale.
The ASK 50 is a diverse group. But one thing almost all its members have in common is that their new plans rely on cloud, or IT at the kind of scale made feasible by cloud technologies.
And that means that as they transform, they need new skill.
Yes with those skills in short supply, transformation programs are themselves transforming as Australian business comes to terms with the reality of making the cloud the centre of their IT strategies.
