Terry White CXO Advisor’s Research Director will be delivering the keynote address at the Ovum Industry Congress on the 16^th and 17^th of May. Ovum is the global leader in ICT research (www.ovum.com). The Ovum Congress is attended by the world’s top CIO’s and ICT management thinkers .

White will speak on the topic of ACT- “Applied Competitive Technology” and acronym coined by CXO Advisor to emphasis the fact that IT is no longer about the technology itself, but about the application of technology in the operation of the business to make that business more successful. “Our thinking is that we need to change the name of the IT department to ACT to reflect the role that the IT department should play in an organisation” says White.  “The technical side of IT is no longer core to business but rather to the application to business problems and opportunities. Business need to radically rethink the way they manage IT,” White goes on to say.

The sub theme of the Terry’s address is “Ten Cool things to do with your IT department”- in changing the IT function and the businesses behaviour to ACT. This follows our philosophy that IT needs to behave and communicate in a business-like manner, and also that business needs to change its mind-set about IT if they really want to see the value that IT can bring to their organisation.  White’s message is about modernising and transforming the way technology is managed and consequently used in an organisation. Terry explains, “We have extended our ‘3 Role Model’ approach over the last two years to cover the entire thinking behind ACT and also incorporated alignment to King III and governance.”

“The invitation to be the Keynote speaker is huge recognition for CXO Advisor’s IT Management approach, but also for South African management practice” says Craig Terblanche, Managing Director of CXO Advisor. He goes on to explain that, “King III has opened the door for CIOs to change the way that IT delivers value incorporating effective IT Managemnet into the South African Code of Good Governance that corporates should follow. The CXO Advisor Governance Framework  supports not only King III but the modern approach to IT as envisioned by ACT.”

“We are very excited by the exposure CXO Advisor is getting internationally,” says Craig, “Ovum have for some time been using input from CXO Advisor through our Consulting agreement. Terry’s invitation to speak at their annual conference is the next in opening up the global market to our approach to the management of IT. We believe that our approach challenges the traditional posture that IT have within their organisation.”