Mining industry needs to rethink tech business plans

So, chief information officers (CIO) from various mining houses put their heads together at the Mining CIO Roundtable to discuss the challenges of new energy paradigms, disruption by new technologies, and an increasingly competitive global mining environment.

“Mining and resources organisations around the world are facing challenging times with a slowing global economy and reduced consumption from mega-markets such as China.”

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“The race to revisit and review all operating assumptions is now truly on, as executives seek to optimise operations at every level. This roundtable is focused on illuminating the challenges, opportunities and broader environmental constraints facing CIOs in the industry today,” says Andrew Lane, Energy and Resources Leader for Deloitte.

Key insights

During the discussion, the group came up with the following insights in how the mining industry should move forward:

• Sourcing plant, equipment and telemetric data for analytics and data mining are significant challenges as there are no defined guidelines or boundaries regarding data ownership. As a result, there is no single, integrated and unified data portal for use by all stakeholders.

• Many mining companies have a false sense of security through investing in the same non-agile security tools and processes that they’ve relied on for years. CIOs need to understand the external cyber-threat to their organisations and the market value of stolen mining intellectual property.

• Managing technical debt in mining companies is a necessity, if information technology is to help drive business innovation. Reversing technical debt is a long-term investment, but if left unaddressed, it can bankrupt a company’s ability to build for the future.

• CIOs have an often-forgotten third role – beyond providing the IT support of the business and delivering it to meet the needs of the business, they should be cultivating innovation by using emerging technologies to make the company more competitive and profitable.

• Many mining companies are buying into overpriced systems and processes because they don’t understand what they are buying. CIOs need to invest in process capabilities as opposed to software.

• CIOs are becoming catalysts for change through promoting and facilitating greater collaboration with key suppliers and technology partners. Instead of being seen as record-keeping custodians, they should be actively driving, owning and sponsoring better collaboration with suppliers and participants in the value chain and business ecosystem.

Contributors to the roundtable were AngloGold Ashanti CIO, Valda Gossman, AECI Acting Group IT Manager, Toni Serra, Exxaro Resources CIO, Ian Brown, Glencore SA CIO Robin Buchan and Mintek CFO, Sakhi Simelane.