Gartner Symposium: Collaboration and Data Protection in a Tense Stand-Off

What happens when you have an unrelenting push for openness, collaboration, digital experience, and employee empowerment but also want to keep your sensitive data safe from unrelenting predation? Welcome to the tense stand-off called out by speaker after speaker at Gartner Symposium/Xpo 2024 in Barcelona.

We had the pleasure of spending a few days attending sessions, meeting with analysts, and networking with others in Barcelona.  Here are some of our take-aways.

ARNOLLLLLLD and the Need for Continuous Transformation

As a keynote speaker, Arnold Schwarzenegger shared insights on personal discipline, focus, and resilience, drawing from his unique career in bodybuilding, acting, and public service. He emphasized the importance of "reps" or repetitive practice to build mastery, which he likened to both physical training and the continuous skill-building required in IT leadership. This advice was particularly directed at IT professionals and executives, encouraging them to cultivate skills through ongoing effort and consistency—a process critical for managing rapid technological change.

Schwarzenegger also discussed adaptability, pointing to moments in his career where he needed to adjust his own path, such as his shift from aiming to play a hero to embodying the iconic Terminator. He recalled that listening, an underrated but powerful skill, helped him make this shift and understand new perspectives, a lesson he encouraged leaders to apply in today’s evolving tech landscape. His talk also referenced his book Be Useful, where he outlines seven life tools he believes are key to success, including finding mentors, practicing resilience, and maintaining a sense of humor—qualities he says are as valuable in personal life as they are in the boardroom.

The theme of the Gartner Symposium, “Leading Today. Shaping Tomorrow,” paralleled Schwarzenegger’s insights, underscoring the need for tech leaders to drive current strategies while preparing for the future. This year’s Symposium addressed pivotal topics like generative AI, cybersecurity, and digital transformation, with additional keynotes from leaders like NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang and author Malcolm Gladwell, who discussed broader societal and technological tipping points

Top Strategic Technology Trends

Bart Willemsen, VP Analyst at Gartner, presented the Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2024, highlighting key trends set to shape technology investments and strategies. His focus included aligning new technologies to address evolving business needs, such as AI development, cyber security, and sustainability.

1. Key themes in his talk included:

   1. Sustainable Technology – Emphasizing tech that aligns with both environmental goals and business outcomes. Gartner predicts that by 2027, a significant portion of CIOs will link performance metrics to sustainable technology initiatives, underscoring corporate sustainability's growing importance.
   2. Democratized Generative AI – As AI continues to evolve, accessible and robust AI will allow more users within an organization to leverage it effectively, increasing innovation across all levels.
   3. AI Trust, Risk, and Security Management (AI TRiSM) – To ensure reliability and security in AI models, businesses will prioritize trust frameworks and governance to mitigate risks associated with AI implementation, boosting decision-making quality.
   4. Machine Customers – A transformative concept where devices and systems, such as IoT products, become autonomous economic actors, with Gartner forecasting 15 billion connected products by 2028.
   5. Augmented-Connected Workforce – Leveraging tools like intelligent applications and analytics to enhance workforce skills, aiming to meet talent shortages and elevate organizational performance.
      
      

   A reflection on a number of these trends is how technology such as AI, machine agents, and augmented workforce's will make the use of corporate and customer data more and more dispersed. Corporations and societies in general are continuously seeking to find ways to increase productivity, and that means enabling more people with more capabilities to handle and manage relevant and often sensitive or private data.  That is a bewildering expansion of IT and data governance scope, which is why businesses are modifying their security frameworks to cope.

“Shadow IT isn’t a problem. It’s just reality.”

Back in 2012, Gartner analysts Richard F. White and Robert W. Tompkins coined the term “Shadow IT.” They described it as “the use of unauthorized software, hardware, applications, and other technologies within organizations that circumvent official procurement processes and IT controls.” According to app discovery data from companies like Productive, over 40% of applications are already due to shadow IT usage. Productive specifically defines shadow IT apps as apps that are discovered and inventoried by IT, that are not protected by single sign on (SSO).

Shadow IT apps exploded during the pandemic, when remote work made it possible and in many cases, necessary for suddenly remote employees to make do with much less IT support.

All of the justified concern about shadow IT is what made Gartner analyst Paul Furtado’s statement striking, when during his session on The Evolution of Security in Midsize Enterprises, when he said, “Shadow IT isn’t a problem. It’s just reality.”  He cited a Gartner research prediction that by 2027, 75% of employees will acquire, modify or create technology outside of IT’s visibility. 

This is a remarkable statement because it showcases a growing acceptance by businesses of employee-driven IT and uses of data to drive the business forward. Yet, that very loss of IT governance and security controls makes it even more difficult for security professionals to mitigate risks. A classic example of open collaboration and security priorities in conflict.

Delivering Citizen Experience vs Security and Compliance

Another fascinating session was Gartner Analyst Artur Mickoleit’s Hype Cycle for Emerging Technology Transforming Government Services. While there were some very interesting emerging technologies highlighted, the most striking aspect of this presentation was a focus on government CIO priorities in EMEA. 

For national and federal governments, excelling in citizen experience was number 1 according with 95% of surveyed CIOs putting it as one of the most important outcomes for their organization. At the same time, ensuring compliance and minimizing risk ranked third with 90% of CIOs placing it as a top priority.

For regional and local governments these same two priorities appear just in a different order.  95% of CIOs in this sector focused on compliance and security as their most important outcome, but in second place was citizen experience at 91%. 

To draw out why these two top priorities pull in different directions, delivering great citizen experiences means sharing more data with them, and enabling employees with more data to serve them effectively and efficiently. It goes without saying that citizen experience means increasingly digital interactions. When serving citizens digitally, government agencies are by necessity dealing with private data that must be kept safe–hence the high concern with compliance and risk mitigation. 

The net-net is that it takes greater openness, collaboration, and digital access to sensitive data to deliver great citizen experiences. The same goes for client experiences and employee experiences. But that openness means that more data is at risk.

Collaboration and Data Protection Don’t Have to be in Conflict

It was fascinating from our vantage point to observe the sheer strength of movement across industries to enable and empower more parties to collaborate digitally and utilize data to deliver better outcomes for organizations from the point of view of productivity, digital experience, and growth. Yet with greater empowerment comes great responsibility to protect and safeguard sensitive data for compliance and risk mitigation reasons. We’re firm believers that open digital collaboration and ironclad security aren’t enemies. That’s why we’ve built the industry’s most secure, enterprise-class collaboration suite, so your organization can collaborate internally and externally with ease, while keeping sensitive data private and protected.  If you didn’t think that was possible, learn more about our platform, try it out, or request a demo at wire.com.