Tech Insights: Interview with Craig Macfarlane, AC Events

In our new Tech Insights series, we quiz industry leaders to get their views of what the year ahead holds for the IT world. Today we speak with Craig Macfarlane, CEO, Association & Communications Events.

What do you see as the single biggest challenge facing the ICT industry in the year ahead, and why?

As a conference organiser specialising in the use of technology in various industries, it seems to me that the first challenge of all companies in 2015 will be merely recognising and dealing with continual change.

There’s a tsunami of new, connected technologies flooding the market, which will only continue, and which raise a number of important questions that every business should ask of itself - How do suppliers and users keep up? How do they learn about new technologies? How do they know what they don’t know? How do they manage the skills gap? How should they manage the risk of change?

What do you see as the two or three biggest growth opportunities for your customers in 2015, and why?

There will be huge opportunities for companies involved in the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. Unfortunately, the jury is still out on what this opportunity will look like. The winners will be creative (rather than ‘tech’) companies that start learning and planning now about the connected everything.

The other major growth area will be for companies that provide integrated ‘3rd Platform’ solutions - that is, the combination of social, mobile, analytics/big data and cloud (SMAC).

What are your customers demanding of you more today than five years ago, and how will you meet the requirements in 2015?

Today’s employees and customers expect 100% reliable, seamless and secure 24/7 connection across their own device(s). Most companies are still lagging far behind in this expectation.

Do you expect to face an increasing burden from new legislation and regulations? How will your company tackle this?

Yes - we can expect to see more rigour and concern around online security. If they’re not careful and don’t adopt a proactive approach, some companies could find themselves becoming bogged down with managing changes in legislation, regulation and risk mitigation.

Aside from your own, which ICT companies will be the ones to watch in 2015, and why?

As far as international  companies go, these will be the ones to use new technology to revolutionise entire global industries: Witricity (which develops wireless energy transfer technology) working together with Intel; Amazon Payments Inc (a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon); and the Chinese giant, Alibaba.

In Australia, we feel these new, but fast growing, companies will use new technology to create competitive advantage, which in turn will force larger competitors to become more innovative in order to compete: Aussie Commerce and Kloud.

Born in South Africa, but living in Sydney since 1999, Craig Macfarlane is the owner and CEO of Association & Communications Events, a company that specialises in organising conference and exhibitions which focus on the use and effect of technology in business across a range of industries including ICT, education, healthcare, retail and banking.