Top 5 ( Five ) IT issues lists for 2015

Top 5 ( Five )  IT issues lists for 2015 

Now that the first quarter is behind us, I’ve distilled some Top Ten IT issues lists for 2015 and have decided to save you the trouble by compiling this information and distilling it into a more manageable number. I’m focusing on what I think are the five biggest issues. I’m sure you are asking why five instead of ten and my thought is that I can barely remember the Ten Commandments, so I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to remember ten issues related to IT. Five seems like a more manageable number, so let’s stick with that.

1. Should I move to the cloud? If you have watched any sports in the last year you’ve seen the IBM and Microsoft commercials about cloud computing. And you are probably asking yourself if your business should be “in the cloud.” Well, that depends on what your objectives are in the short and long run and how you view the importance of IT to the success of your organization. The cloud can provide scalability and flexibility that having computing resources on premise cannot. And in the short run, it is certainly less expensive than purchasing all of that equipment at once. But there are a number of things to consider before making such a move. Some things to consider are public versus private cloud, what type of deployment model should you choose, can a business case be made for the move, do you have the resources to create a proper blueprint and test the model before making the move, and security…..
2. How secure is my data? One of the big stories at the end of last year was the hack of Sony Pictures. Not only was intellectual property stolen, but so was a considerable amount of personal information regarding their staff. Now you may not think that theft of your data could possibly start a thermo nuclear war, but having your staff’s information put onto the internet for all to see would most likely cause some internal challenges. And the exposure of customer data to a security breach could spell much more serious challenges. If you are operating in the cloud then you should make certain that your hosting partner has the necessary certifications that are relevant to your business (i.e. SSAE 16, PCI, and HIPAA) and that the staff is properly trained. If you are running your systems in house you need to make sure that you have the latest and greatest security software and are employing best practices to make certain that your systems are kept up to date and that your staff is properly trained…..
3. How to attract, hire, retain, and train IT staff? As the job market continues to improve, this becomes a more challenging issue. Not that attracting, hiring, and training IT staff ever became easier over the last several years. In my discussions with business owners IT remains one of the most challenging areas to manage. Let’s face it, getting answers about aspects of your business that you don’t understand and really don’t care to understand is not easy and can prove to be very frustrating. This is an area of your business where the question of outsourcing your IT functionality might prove tempting. This can be done in any number of ways and combinations, from either moving all of your infrastructure to the cloud or employing some hybrid model, or simply outsourcing your IT to a managed services firm. In doing so you will gain better control of your spending and it will be infinitely more predictable…..
4. How do I manage change? When I first started my career in IT I used to work for a guy who said over and over again that “the only thing that is constant in this business is change.” Now that may seem a little trite, but there is a lot of truth to that statement. Although this industry and this aspect of your business is relatively young, it has changed tremendously in the last twenty plus years. In that period we’ve gone from the installation of the first desktop computers to manage simple business tasks to now being completely tethered to our digital devices to the point of shutting out the rest of the world. I know, I have teenagers. And to be certain, this is an area of your business that has to stay up with the latest and greatest trends. Customers demand it and if you don’t provide it they will find a competitor that will. Again, either hiring and constantly training top level talent or working with a company that specializes in this area and is keeping up with the latest trends will prove to be a great investment in both the short and the long run. These resources will help you keep up with the latest in technology and mitigate the challenges brought about by new technologies…..
5. Who’s bringing their own device? The short answer is everyone. Employees bringing their own devices is presenting a host of security issues. I’ve read that the average employee has between three and four mobile devices in the form of laptops, tablets, smart phones, and who knows what else. Those employees want to connect to company resources on their time and at their convenience. That presents a variety of challenges. How to manage logins and security, how to make certain that the latest software and patches are installed on those devices, how to ensure that critical data is not traveling over public networks. These are just some of the issues that are posed by this new trend and it requires establishing a policy that will need constant updating.

While the items on this list are important issues today, they were chosen because they are going to be challenges that are with us into the future. Taking action to address these issues today will make them less daunting in the future. And working with experts in these fields will certainly diminish the difficulty of managing these issues. Over the next several months I will be taking each one of these issues and discussing them in more detail.