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IT Pros to Acquire New Skillsets and Improve Business Insight in Today's Complex Environment

Patrick Hubbard

To remain relevant to business' overall goals, today's IT professionals must adopt new skillsets and be prepared to help their companies make informed, strategic business decisions, according to the New IT Survey conducted by SolarWinds.

The New IT Survey found that despite the increased sophistication and complexity of corporate technology, Australian businesses still do not consider IT as a vital role in the critical business decision-making process – while almost every IT professional surveyed (99 percent) said they are given the opportunity to provide the guidance and expertise necessary to help their company make critical business decisions, the majority (70%) only have the opportunity to do so occasionally or rarely.

Furthermore, 96% of respondents said they feel at least somewhat confident in their ability to provide such advice – with nearly half (44%) of those feeling completely confident in doing so – suggesting that businesses are underutilizing the IT department, only seeking their guidance when ‘disaster strikes’.

In addition, the survey revealed the technology and IT skillsets IT professionals must invest in today to effectively manage networks and systems, while still remaining relevant to the overall business. In particular, cloud computing was identified as the top IT skillset that will grow in demand over the next three to five years, followed by information security and business analytics.

The days of IT's limited impact on business are long gone, replaced by the modern era of almost complete reliance on technology and the incredibly complex infrastructure it brings with it.

As a result, more businesses are now recognizing that IT holds an important key to success. Likewise, IT professionals can no longer operate within the bounds of their traditional role. Instead, IT professionals and businesses alike must create opportunities for IT to take on a leadership position within strategic business initiatives, rather than just seeking IT's counsel on a reactive basis.

Fielded in November 2013, the survey yielded responses from 109 IT practitioners, managers and directors in Australia from public and private sector small, mid-size and enterprise companies.

Survey Findings

IT's role in strategic business decisions:

- 99% of respondents said they are given the opportunity to provide the guidance and expertise necessary to help their company make informed, strategic business decisions in this area; however, the majority (70%) only have the opportunity to do so occasionally or rarely

- 96% of survey-takers said they feel at least somewhat confident in their ability to provide such advice, with 44% of those reporting that they are completely confident in doing so

- To feel more empowered to provide such advice, almost half of respondents said they need more training in their area(s) of responsibility, and nearly 44% said they need a better understanding of their company’s overall business

Demand for new skillsets:

- More than 50% of those surveyed said cloud computing and information security top the list of IT skillsets that will grow in demand over the next three to five years, followed by business analytics

- Respondents said information security is the IT role that will need to adapt the most to evolving technology over the next three to five years

- Cloud computing ranked as the most important technology for businesses to invest in today to remain competitive for the next three to five years, followed closely by mobility, data analytics, virtualisation (server or desktop), self-service automation and BYOx, respectively

Other findings:

- Over half of all IT departments now manage virtualisation, mobility, compliance, cloud computing, BYOx, SDN/virtual networks, data analytics and self-service automation

- 47% of respondents said increasing complexity has greatly affected their responsibilities over the past three to five years, and an additional 42% said it has somewhat affected their role

About the survey: The survey was conducted from November 12-18, 2013, resulting in 109 survey responses from IT practitioners, managers and directors in Australian small, mid-size and enterprise companies. SolarWinds will be releasing additional survey data in the coming weeks on IT professionals in the UK, US, Germany and Brazil.

Patrick Hubbard is a Head Geek and Technical Product Marketing Manager at SolarWinds.

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IT Pros to Acquire New Skillsets and Improve Business Insight in Today's Complex Environment

Patrick Hubbard

To remain relevant to business' overall goals, today's IT professionals must adopt new skillsets and be prepared to help their companies make informed, strategic business decisions, according to the New IT Survey conducted by SolarWinds.

The New IT Survey found that despite the increased sophistication and complexity of corporate technology, Australian businesses still do not consider IT as a vital role in the critical business decision-making process – while almost every IT professional surveyed (99 percent) said they are given the opportunity to provide the guidance and expertise necessary to help their company make critical business decisions, the majority (70%) only have the opportunity to do so occasionally or rarely.

Furthermore, 96% of respondents said they feel at least somewhat confident in their ability to provide such advice – with nearly half (44%) of those feeling completely confident in doing so – suggesting that businesses are underutilizing the IT department, only seeking their guidance when ‘disaster strikes’.

In addition, the survey revealed the technology and IT skillsets IT professionals must invest in today to effectively manage networks and systems, while still remaining relevant to the overall business. In particular, cloud computing was identified as the top IT skillset that will grow in demand over the next three to five years, followed by information security and business analytics.

The days of IT's limited impact on business are long gone, replaced by the modern era of almost complete reliance on technology and the incredibly complex infrastructure it brings with it.

As a result, more businesses are now recognizing that IT holds an important key to success. Likewise, IT professionals can no longer operate within the bounds of their traditional role. Instead, IT professionals and businesses alike must create opportunities for IT to take on a leadership position within strategic business initiatives, rather than just seeking IT's counsel on a reactive basis.

Fielded in November 2013, the survey yielded responses from 109 IT practitioners, managers and directors in Australia from public and private sector small, mid-size and enterprise companies.

Survey Findings

IT's role in strategic business decisions:

- 99% of respondents said they are given the opportunity to provide the guidance and expertise necessary to help their company make informed, strategic business decisions in this area; however, the majority (70%) only have the opportunity to do so occasionally or rarely

- 96% of survey-takers said they feel at least somewhat confident in their ability to provide such advice, with 44% of those reporting that they are completely confident in doing so

- To feel more empowered to provide such advice, almost half of respondents said they need more training in their area(s) of responsibility, and nearly 44% said they need a better understanding of their company’s overall business

Demand for new skillsets:

- More than 50% of those surveyed said cloud computing and information security top the list of IT skillsets that will grow in demand over the next three to five years, followed by business analytics

- Respondents said information security is the IT role that will need to adapt the most to evolving technology over the next three to five years

- Cloud computing ranked as the most important technology for businesses to invest in today to remain competitive for the next three to five years, followed closely by mobility, data analytics, virtualisation (server or desktop), self-service automation and BYOx, respectively

Other findings:

- Over half of all IT departments now manage virtualisation, mobility, compliance, cloud computing, BYOx, SDN/virtual networks, data analytics and self-service automation

- 47% of respondents said increasing complexity has greatly affected their responsibilities over the past three to five years, and an additional 42% said it has somewhat affected their role

About the survey: The survey was conducted from November 12-18, 2013, resulting in 109 survey responses from IT practitioners, managers and directors in Australian small, mid-size and enterprise companies. SolarWinds will be releasing additional survey data in the coming weeks on IT professionals in the UK, US, Germany and Brazil.

Patrick Hubbard is a Head Geek and Technical Product Marketing Manager at SolarWinds.

Hot Topics

The Latest

As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...