Security as a future IT function
When the net was still young, my friend, a telecommunication entrepreneur in South Africa, bought a subscription to dial up access. He then ran lines to neighbouring houses where he had managed to on-sell the dial up access. This was a winning situation for his neighbours as dial up access was not cheap and the tech support was only a door away.
Fast forward 20 years and my smartphone is ever present with streaming music on demand, constant contact through messenger, email and sms. Video streaming is now a part of many business meetings. The technical support has become a lot more invisible, but so much more needed.
In the background cloud, telecommunication and application engineers monitor and ensure that the constant stream of connectivity is always on.
If your business has been around a long time you would have experienced the same technological changes.
As we look to the future what technology changes will be coming down the road. The talk on the street of 5G and quantum computing promises to once again revolutionise our lives with technology.
Over time the demand on IT resources and management has changed. Typical functions that we currently expect from IT include
- Desktop Support
- Helpdesk
- Systems Engineering
- Network Engineering
- Application Management
- System Administration
- Network Administration
- Business Analysis
- Project Management
- IT Management
- Planning
- Purchasing
- Database Administration
- Lifecycle Management
- Security
With more SaaS and cloud computing the internal IT activities moves from a hands on to a management and business analyst function.
Security, the most recent IT function to be added to what IT does, will also move to managed services.
The internal security function of the business will be focused on how the staff interact with the IT systems. This human firewall element will be the primary focus of security activity within the business.
The human firewall focus will be on creating a cyber safe culture and will become one of the most important internal IT functions. Many of the other IT services will move to managed services.
In the future an internal IT function list could be trimmed to look something like the following.
- Business Analysis
- Project Management
- IT Management
- Planning
- Purchasing
- Security - Human activity
And these functions will be outsourced
- Systems Engineering
- Network Engineering
- Application Management
- System Administration
- Network Administration
- Database Administration
- Lifecycle Management
- Desktop Support
- Helpdesk
- Security