Concern Facing modern IT Organizations
Read this question below: Refer the essential source and attached article. (Mastering the Three Worlds of Information Technology).
what do you believe is the Number 1 concern that faces contemporary IT organizations today and why? Be sure to cite your references and use hyperlinks where appropriate.
2 pages – 600 words are required. Please add citations and references page number for each citation in the paragraph. Prepare answer from your thoughts. This is master level degree so, the answer should be very clear and concise.
Number 1 Concern Facing modern IT Organizations
For the information era, it is apparent that the best of times are similarly the worst of times. On the one hand, computer hardware continues to become cheaper, faster and portable; new technologies such as wikis, blogs, business analytics systems and mashups have captured the imagination; and corporate It has experienced a surge in spending whereby U.S. corporations’ investment in IT per employee was at $5100 per employee in 2004, an almost triple increase from $1500 the amount at which it stood in 1987 (McAfee, 2006) On the other hand, however, the increasing presence and reach of IT threaten to overwhelm managers hence revealing one of the biggest problems/concerns facing contemporary IT organizations This concern has to do with coping with the abundance of technologies within the marketplace. Not only is it difficult for executives to figure out what all those applications, systems, and acronyms do, it is similarly hard for them to decide which ones to purchase and how to adopt them successfully. McAfee (2006) has shown that most managers feel ill-equipped to maneuver the constantly changing technology landscape.
The abundance of IT technologies comes with a myriad of associated challenges for the modern It company. In the first place, such abundance comes with an ever-increasing need for agility within the business environment. In this regard, IT in the past was majorly viewed as a back office function that supported the business. However, as the IT landscape keeps on changing, it also plays an increasingly important role in all facets of business. Therefore, contemporary IT organizations must permanently shift their focus from maintenance to innovation. Successful IT organizations are those that will be able to garner the ability to pivot constantly and change directions if the intended activity helps the organizations in fulfillment of its goals and objectives.
Another factor and cause for Concern Facing modern IT associated with the abundance of IT technology is the potential for technical debt. Technical debt can be defined as “the decay of component and inter-component behavior when the application functionality meets a minimum standard of satisfaction for its users” (Sterling, 2011, p. 18)There comes about a situation whereby some IT organizations run of a hodgepodge of applications that they cannot replace; applications so heavily intertwined and modified that they are hard to maintain. Hence, business is slowed down since these applications prove difficult to manage.
Balancing of data accessibility and security is another related factor and cause for concern. In the past, storage of data occurred in-house where the data was locked down hence ensuring the data’s security. In this contemporary world full of vast IT advancements, there have come a horde of options for storage of business and corporate data. One of the newly emerging, and soon to be ubiquitous IT storage options involves cloud computing. Cloud computing is a sort of Internet-based computing that provides shared data and processing resources to devices and other computers on demand. The beneficence of cloud computing comes about since it enables on-demand, ubiquitous access to resources that are centrally configured in a pool allowing them to be shared. These resources include applications, services, storage, servers, and networks, which can be swiftly provisioned and released with minimal management effort. Modern IT companies facing an abundance of technologies such as these will find difficulty in securing data to adapt to the new mobile reality where employees expect data access from anywhere, on any device. This will become increasingly difficult to manage due to the evolution of technological devices, for example, technology such as wearable devices. This is a clear sign of the complexity brought about by evolving IT technology and the abundance of business –related IT hardware and software.
References
McAfee, A. (2006). Mastering the Three Worlds of Information Technology. Harvard Businesss Review, 84(11), 1 – 10.
Sterling, C. (2011). Managing Softwarde Debt: Building for inevitable Change. Boston, Massachussetts: Pearson Education Inc.