IT Leaders: Are You Ready for These 8 Challenges?
As if IT leaders didn’t already have it bad enough dealing with remote workforces, burgeoning security threats, and staff shortages. Here’s a look more at more challenges for this new year.
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While the pandemic seems to keep all of humanity stuck in a rinse and repeat cycle year after year, observers may assume that IT will continue to operate pretty much as it has throughout. But they would be wrong.
While the pandemic churns out more of the same, IT is coping with rapid changes on many fronts. Shifting strategies and support from the office to work-from-home (WFH) and then to hybrid workplace schemes was just the start. Heaped on top of those challenges are burgeoning security threats, staff shortages in the wake of the Great Resignation, and a truckload of new trends from the metaverse to hyperautomation and lots in between.
Buckle up, buttercup. It’s going to be a year in IT for the ages. Here’s a look at the challenges ahead for IT leadership.
While the term metaverse has recently met with predictable skepticism and even contempt, businesses have nonetheless embraced the concept. Perhaps they’ve forgotten the dismal fading away of the superbly designed Second Life, the mystery rebranding of Facebook, or the awkwardness of virtual reality headsets in general. Or perhaps they think there’s value in lessons learned from those attempts that warrant another metaverse adventure and another after that.
“Some organizations placed big bets on the technology for training -- such as Accenture’s purchase of 60,000 VR headsets and Red Cross’ outfitted all new phlebotomists with VR headsets -- the New Year will see more business leaders investing in similar solutions,” says Doug Stephen, president of CGS Enterprise Learning and AR division.
Whether this will be a headache, or a head start for IT is yet to be seen. But in any case, the metaverse is picking up momentum in business for 2022 and will require IT support.
“The applications for these programs should not be limited to onboarding and training employees for specific jobs, but they should empower employees to develop adjacent skill sets for career advancement,” Stephen says.
IT should be on the lookout for a spread of VR applications to include a new rash of AI-based virtual assistants to aid workers with various informational tasks and in skill development.
Everything data related is currently undergoing a rethink. In analytics, the rethink produced a new approach called decision intelligence. In data processing the rethink sprang from the development of data fabric architecture and hyperautomation.
“The first helps build the efficient use and distribution of data; the second helps build an autopilot for the company based on that data. For example, the AIOps approach is increasingly evolving in IT operations,” says Nikolay Ganyushkin, CEO and founder of Monq Lab, a developer of self-hosted topology-based AIOps incident control and automation platforms.
“When, based on business and technical data, the state of IT is monitored not by NOC and situational center dispatchers, but by AI. What should leaders do in this case? The new reality will become familiar this year,” Ganyushkin adds.
Given the significant staff shortages in the aftermath of the Great Resignation and the increasing number of hard-to-find skillsets to match new technology needs, perhaps it’s a good thing that citizen developers using no-code or low-code tools can fill in some of the gaps. Or perhaps not, considering anyone can use those tools and gosh knows what the results may be. The jury is still out on whether citizen development will be largely a boon or a bust, but meanwhile IT must manage this lot, too, now.
“The rise of citizen development is going to change the way IT leadership functions,” says Nate Tsang, founder & CEO at Wall Street Zen, a stock research platform. “A digital transformation initiative is always going to need some level of support from IT professionals. How do you balance the workloads of non-technical staff alongside the expertise of IT?”
“That's where leadership is essential. Knowing how to communicate across an organization and perhaps even shift leadership styles depending on who you're working with can upgrade a business' success,” Tsang adds.
It isn’t just code that’s going all out on open source, it’s entire industries, too. Take for example, the financial services industry where IT leaders are being driven in the direction of open-source data solutions that fall under the banner of Open Banking, according to Rohit Arora, a pioneer in FinTech and co-founder and CEO of Biz2Credit and the Biz2X Platform. Since 2007, Biz2Credit has processed about $7 billion in small business loans.
“Open banking is one of the most exciting developments in the financial services industry, promising faster access to financial information, which will lead to better financing options and smarter decisions. But there is still hesitancy among banking IT leaders to move to an open banking system at their institution,” Arora says.
Not unlike the earlier reluctance in adopting open-source code, the hesitancy is based on the mystery surrounding the technology, which in turn leads to myths, fear, and bungling implementations. Even if your organization isn’t in the finance industry, banks are likely to begin pushing it towards open banking technologies. Is your IT department ready to take it on?
Pandemic-fueled changes in workplaces led to massive changes in certain jobs and topping that list is middle managers. Are you prepared to do the necessary restructuring of staffing processes and protocols?
“As organizations shift toward more distributed workforces, the traditional role of a middle manager is becoming obsolete. What used to be primarily an intermediary communication function between employees and higher-ups is now replaced by the wide use of digital tools that easily track, measure and report employee output,” says Kerem Koca, Co-CEO & Co-founder of cloud-only digital transformation company, Blue.cloud.
But that doesn’t mean that middle management is dead.
“The middle manager position will rebrand and be responsible for leveraging tools to develop talent remotely as well as building highly effective teams,” says Koca.
Just when you thought it safe to be an introverted grouch again, the new normal in IT requires you to reveal your softer side.
“IT leaders are also just as affected by ‘The Great Resignation’ as any other business leader and need to focus on optimizing employee experience and becoming more empathetic leaders if they want to attract and retain the best talent,” says Roy Morejon, president and co-founder of Enventys Partners, a full-service product development firm and marketing agency.
“IT leaders actually face a unique challenge, considering organizations are fighting tooth and nail to acquire the best tech talent in our digitally transforming world,” Morejon adds.
IT leadership will distinguish themselves by showcasing extreme adaptability at consistent success rates.
“CIOs and IT leaders have had to shift their focus towards operational agility in the past two years and will have to continue to give adaptability a lot of weight in 2022,” says Enventys’ Morejon.
“As hybrid work continues to be a necessity, IT leaders will have to juggle and implement the best possible technologies to ensure hybrid workflows can operate smoothly. This need for flexibility will also have IT leaders looking at decentralized databases as a trend in 2022, moving away from central governance to self-sufficient and self-regulating systems,” Morejon adds.
Talent acquisition and retention remains a critical pressure on IT leaders for all of 2022. But a new threat is rising and creating a slew of new problems for old issues.
“The aging population of key people supporting legacy applications is becoming a top concern because many are retiring with little or no succession plans,” says Craig Wickett, retired senior vice president and CIO, International Technical Services at Scotiabank, and currently an advisor at Next Pathway, an automated cloud migration company.
Talent acquisition and retention remains a critical pressure on IT leaders for all of 2022. But a new threat is rising and creating a slew of new problems for old issues.
“The aging population of key people supporting legacy applications is becoming a top concern because many are retiring with little or no succession plans,” says Craig Wickett, retired senior vice president and CIO, International Technical Services at Scotiabank, and currently an advisor at Next Pathway, an automated cloud migration company.
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