To celebrate IT Pro Day and acknowledge the hard work from professionals around the world, Intelligent CXO spoke to nine technology experts to get their take on why these team members deserve the highest praise.
The rapid and unexpected shift to remote working for much of the world’s organisations over the past 18 months has been possible almost entirely due to the technology that has enabled staff to continue working from home. Behind this technology – keeping it running smoothly with minimal downtime – has been the IT professionals that every business relies on, now more than ever.
Managing the migration to hybrid working
“IT professionals are often the unsung heroes of companies,” said Gerard Keating, Chief Technology Officer at Globalization Partners. “They work tirelessly to ensure that operations run smoothly and efficiently. The shift to remote work has added an extra layer of complexity. IT professionals now must consider everything from the security of at-home Wi-Fi networks to managing an increasing caseload of IT service desks requests. Making what is typically an already overwhelmed department even more inundated.
“It’s important to take all of these things into consideration when dealing with your company’s IT professionals. They have not been exempt from the recent and continuing changes in the workplace and have been working hard behind the scenes to keep people and infrastructure safe.”
Terry Storrar, Managing Director at Leaseweb UK, added: “In today’s digital age, the majority of organisations are undergoing almost constant change – whether it’s managing a hybrid workforce or keeping up with the latest Digital Transformation trends. In this environment, it can be easy to become overwhelmed. The IT professionals who have taken these challenges in their stride – particularly throughout the chaos of the past two years – have demonstrated their crucial role in the business. IT pros across the globe consistently deliver newer, faster and more efficient solutions and it’s abundantly clear they are able to do this even under the most testing of circumstances.”
Cybersecurity cannot be compromised
Though their role encompasses much more than this, cybersecurity is one of the IT professional’s most business-critical areas of expertise.
Thomas Cartlidge, Head of Threat Intelligence at Six Degrees, said: “IT professionals can be overlooked by some, but their role is more important now than ever in today’s hostile digital landscape. Your IT professionals will play a key role in enhancing your organisation’s cybersecurity posture, as they manage and maintain best-practice configurations of the systems that hackers are targeting, 24×7. This IT Pro Day, let’s ensure we give our IT professionals the tools, support and training they need to reduce the risk of cyber-attack.”
With the need for secure user access on the go, Anurag Kahol, CTO at Bitglass commented how “this makes the role of IT professionals increasingly complex as they are under constant pressure to automatically adapt to ever-evolving security requirements. However, the simple fact is that most users don’t think about IT until something goes wrong. As more companies move their IT to the cloud and more of us are working remotely using personal devices, the probability that something will go wrong is multiplied by several factors.
“A recent study found that 70% of IT professionals said that they allow employees to use personal devices to perform their work, while some even enable BYOD for their extended workforce/contractors (61%) and customers (18%). The danger here is that a high number of devices within these organisations are largely unmanaged and as a result potentially more susceptible to threats. Ultimately a key responsibility of IT professionals is to keep the lights on, and for that, they deserve to be celebrated 365 days of the year, not just one day in September.”
Keeping systems on the go 24/7
Closely linked to cybersecurity is keeping systems accessible and keeping downtime to a minimum, no matter what the circumstances.
Chris Rogers, Technology Evangelist at Zerto, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, said: “IDC reported that, in the past 12 months, 95% of organisations have experienced a ransomware or malware attack. Today, all organisations – big or small – are prioritising both protection and availability – 24/7, 365 days a year. The pressure on IT pros to deliver this is enormous. The weight of ensuring their organisation remains resilient in the wake of any disruption sits firmly on their shoulders. It’s a huge task made even more challenging by having to achieve this in a hybrid work environment.”
“IT workers have often gone beyond the call of duty, working long hours and through holiday leave, to enable the business they serve to carry on,” said Chris Hornung, COO at Totalmobile. “IT Pro Day is a great opportunity to appreciate this and put the spotlight on those who provide the backbone of corporate IT. The best IT pros will often go without recognition, because when your IT is running smoothly, you don’t even know they’re working hard behind the scenes. Without IT pros, remote workers would be more susceptible to problems – such as server failures, overloaded systems and downtime – preventing them from maintaining high customer service levels.
“In particular, platforms such as scheduling software and mobile workforce management tools have been vital for helping frontline workers keep up with customer demands and stay safe. By stepping up, IT pros have enabled workers to carry out their day-to-day operations largely uninterrupted by the effects of COVID.”
The cloud is here to stay
Cloud infrastructure has had a huge role to play throughout the pandemic as organisations from every sector switched to remote working.
Hugh Scantlebury, Founder, Director and CEO of Aqilla, said: “IT professionals tend to work in the background, quietly keeping businesses running and stopping tech issues from escalating. The last 18 months have shown how important and valuable these colleagues are as companies have scrambled to adopt cloud-based infrastructure and deal with a massive increase in remote workers.
“Over the longer term, IT Pros have also played an important role in developing software that automates many key business functions — like those within accounting and finance departments. This contribution means that the rest of us, with far less IT knowledge, can access and utilise software that makes our lives far easier. Going one step further, it also means you no longer need to be an accountant to manage company books or carry out other core financially-related tasks.”
Similarly, Nicola Kinsella, VP of Global Marketing at Fluent Commerce, commented: “IT professionals are the cornerstone of every company. And with the ecommerce industry expected to exceed US$563 billion by 2025 in the United States alone, we need them more than ever. Without the cloud infrastructure team our platform couldn’t run smoothly and scale dynamically. If it weren’t for our product engineers we couldn’t deliver the functionality retailers and brands need to meet the expectations of today’s digitally-savvy consumers. They are the tireless, often ‘behind the scenes’ backbone of our company.”
Alex James, CTO at Ascent, added: “Organisations are looking to create new business capabilities with data, software and the power of the cloud ecosystem. From software and data engineering, new product development, advanced analytics and data science, cloud, IoT and ML, in a post-Covid landscape where the ability to interpret and visualise data has become much more prevalent, businesses that are able to connect data, software and purpose to do something new, do something better, or both, will be the disruptors. Companies that can achieve this will do better than their competitors, grow more quickly and see exponential commercial gain.”
Click below to share this article