At the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2008 Gartner outlines the most contentious nine issues IT will face during the next two years.
“Growing global economic instability is putting increasing pressure on IT departments to support crucial business goals,” said Ken McGee, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “At a time when there is little in the way of additional budget available, CIOs need to know where and when to focus to best assist and improve enterprise performance.”
Gartner highlighted the top ten technologies that will be strategic for most organizations at the Gartner 2008 ITxpo.
Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.
These technologies impact the organization’s long-term plans, programs and initiatives. They may be strategic because they have matured to broad market use or because they enable strategic advantage from early adoption.
IT Operations professionals are faced with the constant worry of threats such as IT outages, power failures, and disasters. During challenging financial times IT Operations is finding it more difficult to secure the funding needed for disaster recovery from management.
Disaster recovery preparedness can run into millions of dollars depending of the level of continuity you desire and the size of your company. Since the ROI is often seen as how to avoid what might happen, management is often unwilling to properly fund these efforts.
Given the potential loss to the business should such disaster or even a power outage occur IT operations should approach management with facts and cost effective solutions.
IT departments may be facing one of their biggest threats ever. It is not a virus, a hacker or a never ending expansion. It is the aging workforce. Yes, IT is graying and it is starting to show.
As the baby boomer generation ages, so does the IT workforce. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in four workers will be 55 or older by 2016. This comes at a time when higher income baby boomers are retiring early or changing to “quality of life” jobs such as education and nonprofit groups.
Today most companies are suffering through tough financial times. Every manager and department head in the company is being challenged to reduce expenditures. It is the role of IT leadership to find solutions to reduce costs while maintaining and improving IT services. The key to any change is to start it. You do not have to do everything at once, but pick a starting point and start TODAY.
