|
Over the past few years, the global economic recession has seen companies change the way they do business. As is usually the case, many organizations scaled down their size to streamline costs; when the economy began rolling again, staffing started to increase. In recent years, the trend has been to bring in specialized talent through contractors and consultants. [Source] The IT world is no different. In fact, the need for IT is greater than ever before.
During President Obama’s State Of The Union address, he emphasized the need to bring tech industry jobs home. [Source] A significant part of that refers to overseas outsourcing of IT-related jobs. However, there’s a good reason to source IT jobs locally; not only are the resources there, the need is too.
The way the business world communicates has changed faster than the economy that powers it. Just ten years ago, pagers and standard cell phones were the norm. Now with smartphones, tablets, VPN, WiFi, and cloud applications, the workplace has gone mobile. In addition, analytics, social media marketing, and smart appliances provide more information than ever before – and this trend will continue to grow. [Source] The need to make connectivity more efficient and more secure has powered the IT industry’s continued growth.
Connectivity is the key to all of this. It allows for anywhere/anytime access that makes businesses run better – and makes employees more efficient. With full connectivity, remote access ensures that problems can be solved with minimal impact by critical people in the workflow. By mid-2012, we’ve seen the adoption of connectivity across platforms in business. As organizations move beyond 2012, this will further become the norm, particularly with the growing push towards cloud computing.
While connectivity, mobile sync, and cloud applications make life easier for the end-use (and their managers who oversee problem solving and productivity), network administration becomes more complicated. Administrative systems, such as Microsoft Systems Center and the upcoming Windows Server 2012 require significant configuration to ensure security and consistent availability.
For IT consultants, this means many opportunities to work under a variety of situations – corporations needing outside assistance, small businesses looking for a go-to expert, even established IT departments seeking a specialized skill set.
The IT industry is on the cusp of growth thanks to the evolution of cloud applications and mobile connectivity. With the government’s push to bring IT jobs home, the future has never been brighter – or more interesting – for professionals in the field.
