Future of Information Technology (IT)
The Information Technology (IT) sector has always been an evolving one and is bound to be so going forth. This is one of the most dynamic industries with an environment that is rapidly changing by the day with new innovations and discovery. This has both pros and cons to the IT Specialist going forth.
Another risk danger for the future IT specialist is in the aspect of the nature of the profession. Customarily, IT specialists have been known to be very specialized professionals, engaging in very particular IT specialty. As a result there is division within the ranks of IT and thus lots of additional costs for organizations with the multiple units. Going forth, however, this is bound to change because many closely related applications workload are being integrated and collaborated (computerworld, 1999). The net outcome would be less specialization because organization would want to cut down on total costs of enterprise computing by integrating several system management activities across the various platforms. This basically demands that the future IT specialist would have be multi-skilled in order to find well paying jobs with big organizations (Khosrowpour, 1999).
However, the future of the IT specialist can be deemed to be all rosy if perceived from another front. There is no doubt that the world is growing more and more demanding of information technology. Thus the services of IT specialist are bound to remain relevant. Considering that in the recent past there has been an increasing demand for high-skilled high-tech workers and engineers in many EU leading economies.
Skills of the IT specialist
The qualification requirements of an IT specialist are not going to lessen in the years to come as technology becomes even more sophisticated. If anything, the qualification bar may be raised higher. As it is today, the basic qualification standards of an IT specialist is demand that they be highly qualified professionals. Typically, one often holds a degree in Computer Science, or Information Systems Management (Hoover, 2008). Alternatively they are required to have a degree in such fields as Mathematics, Statistics, Operations Research or Engineering where computer science/information science is a chief ingredient in the coursework. It is almost true that the future IT specialist may have to be as rocket scientist, in terms of skills so as to remain relevant in the would-be overly sophisticated IT environment (Khosrowpour, 1999).
Role of different enterprises
The future of IT specialists is dictated by the enterprises employing their skills, both large and small enterprises. Large corporations have realized that the future of IT is drifting away from data center, system and infrastructure management and towards business process improvement. They are ditching the traditional IT infrastructure maintenance processes (THINKstrategies , 2005).
Many large corporations have employed the service of Software as a Service (SaaS) to meet most of their IT needs. SaaS does not require any additional It infrastructure investments in new servers and databases, or private networks to allow user access. This companies are able to direct their limited in-house IT resources on other strategic corporate initiatives. With applications such as SaaS, the future of IT is fast moving away from on-premise system administration (THINKstrategies , 2005).
The state of affairs has forced leading edge IT organizations to embrace new technology because their role is quickly moving from infrastructure management and maintenance and toward more business process improvement demands. However, small corporations whose economies of scale are still relatively humble would still find the old school way of using IT more beneficial.
Change in the market
The seismic changes being experienced in the IT profession and the IT job market have a leaning bearing to the types of jobs that will be in demand in the industry. Decades ago when IT was budding there was the feeling that IT was the ultimate profession of the future considering that more job opportunities were visible as more manual processes would be replaced by computer-automated ones (InfoWorld Media Group, 1998). However, improved technology has meant that machines took over many jobs previously done by a host of workers thus rendering them jobless. This includes many system administrators. Many companies now have only a few number of tech support professionals while some are entirely outsourced.
Furthermore, more and more users are becoming knowledgeable in regards to matters information technology. Thus they do not as much help as it were decades when IT was still a sensation. With more traditional software being on the web, users are able to find their way by themselves without necessarily requiring the service of an IT geek (InfoWorld Media Group, 1998).
Instead of having an IT professional as one of the staff, organizations are going to resort to outsourcing most IT administration and support functions to third-party consultants. This is so as to lower costs, receive higher level of expertise and have round-the-clock coverage.
Another highly likely shift in the market of IT specialists is them becoming project managers if they happen to be retained as members of staff of their organizations. As such they will not central members of the centralized IT department rather will cover several business units and departments (computerworld, 1999). The project managers will act company’s point of contact with technology vendors as well as consultants.
Lastly, many IT jobs are going to move into developer, programmer, and coder jobs. The jobs are going to be more of web-based applications that run smoothly, requiring less intervention from tech support (Hoover, 2008). This will also include mobile applications, both native apps and mobile web apps, which is a phenomenon that is already in running and would gain momentum going in the future.
References:
computerworld. (1999). Computerworld. Framingham: IDG Enterprise.
Hoover, D. A. (2008). An assessment of information technology skills for the computer support specialist. Michigan: ProQuest.
InfoWorld Media Group. (1998). InfoWorld. Carlifornia: InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.
Khosrowpour, M. (1999). Success and pitfalls of information technology management. Pennyslavania: Idea Group Inc.
THINKstrategies . (2005). The Future of IT in Large Corporations . A Whitepaper on Software as a Service , 2-8.