Tom Scholtz, Gartner

African organisations face a stark choice: they can remain cautious and conservative in technology adoption and lose out on the transformation currently characterising the rapidly transforming economies in Asia and Latin America, or they can seize the opportunities offered by the ongoing digital revolution to transform their enterprises into world leaders. CIOs and ICT leaders in these organisations have a critical role to play in leading their organisations towards becoming digital enterprises.

Of course, many obstacles remain. Despite this, African ingenuity (as evidenced by the m-commerce revolution) means many other opportunities are potentially waiting to be uncovered.

After a decade of limited innovation dominated by an internal focus on efficiency, today’s new technologies, global competition and new business models are forcing CIOs to take an outside-in view of the digital world and their role in it.

Highly competitive markets and dynamic economic forces require IT to focus on its strategic importance to the business, rather than on delivery of generic business plans. IT leaders must connect with their enterprise stakeholders and lead the organisation in identifying and exploiting the potential of ICT. The African Internet revolution continues to transform the local business and consumer environments, creating new opportunities, players and competition.

The Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Africa 2013, to be held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre from 16 to 18 September, will once again bring together top IT leaders for a chance to catch up with the latest global thinking, networking, sharing of ideas with over 1 200 peers, and gaining new insights into technology.

“The theme this year is: ‘Leading in a Digital World’,” says Tom Scholtz, conference chair and research VP at Gartner. “In the past, the CIO’s role was primarily to run the IT organisation. But in the future, the challenge will be to ensure the enterprise as a whole achieves strategic value from the use of evolving technologies and the explosion in information volume, variety and velocity.

“The agenda at this year’s symposium will help senior IT executives take a look at the personal and technology leadership required to steer the business towards a competitive advantage through IT,” says Scholtz.

John Mahoney and Ken McGee will lead the CIO track with presentations on moving from an IT to a digital business strategy, the CIO’s future, as well as management issues including advice on how to transform culture conflicts.

Jeffrey Mann will be back with his popular mobile and social collaboration insights, and Richard Marshall will discuss mobility and mobile apps.

The guest speaker this year is Lewis Pugh, environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer, pioneer swimmer and expert on how to achieve the impossible. His recently published book, 21 Yaks and a Speedo, is already a bestseller.

For the first time, the symposium will also include six workshop sessions, giving IT leaders an opportunity for interactive debate and information sharing.

“Our aim is to help CIOs become indispensable leaders in the digital world. With 50 presentations from 18 global thought leaders over three days, the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the one event of the year that IT leaders can’t afford to miss,” says Gartner Africa MD Rene Jacobs.

For more information and a full agenda, please visit: www.gartner.co.za/symp2013.