July 13, 2011

Today's IT challenges offer great opportunities

By Cavinda Caldera, IT Practice Director

I am delighted to join the UW E-Business Consortium as IT Practice Director. It is both a privilege and an honor to be a part of a stellar organization dedicated to helping companies address and solve their business challenges. This is a perfect opportunity for me to share my experience consulting with Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies and help UWEBC members solve their IT challenges.

We are living in an exciting and tumultuous time for the IT industry. We are facing a paradigm shift in service demand and delivery. Emerging mobile technologies and cloud computing have changed the technological and IT services landscape. These new challenges also offer us great opportunities to reenergize and redeploy IT throughout the enterprise, providing better accessibility while economically delivering higher levels of services.

Many of the challenges we in IT have perennially faced, especially in the infrastructure realm, can now be addressed. Yet numerous other daunting challenges remain high priorities for all IT executives. For example:

• Addressing the rapidly growing operational and security challenges inherent in mobile computing
• Staying ahead of intensified data integrity, security and privacy concerns
• Finding closer alignment between IT and business units
• Developing technological and operational capabilities to meet business demands in ways that satisfy and exceed the expectations documented in SLAs

The integral success of the IT venture depends on our ability to meet the information demands of the organization and to develop feasible technological solutions to promote business functions. It is towards this end that I plan to be of service.

All of these challenges and issues present opportunities for our member organizations to collaborate and share insights. I look forward to working with all of you, finding and developing solutions to meet your IT challenges. Meanwhile, do not hesitate to contact me at 608-890-1291 or cavinda.caldera@uwebc.wisc.edu.