Your company will face many challenges and the key to managing these hiccups is to hire the right people. For your Information Technology needs, you need an IT head that can identify the challenges of your company, starting with the infrastructure.
IT is a highly dynamic industry and is subject to constant learning and changes. It is up to the IT head or the Chief Information Officer (CIO) to update the systems constantly and apply new learnings to the infrastructure.
The IT head should set up the infrastructure to run smoothly, yet knowing that no matter how much he has scrutinized the initial set up, even if he has data management platforms and cloud backup and Veeam software, the following challenges will still emerge:
Cost Cutting
For many company managers, it is not that easy to justify additional IT cost. On the contrary, they would often pressure the CIO to parry down the cost. For the IT manager, he would need to make an assessment on all the applications that the company is using. He can cut corners by eliminating the apps that are no longer being utilized, or he can use discretion on those that the operations could live without.
In any case, the onus would have to be on the IT officers to monitor any updates and check whether any deleted application has caused compatibility issues.
Standardization
This is what every company would ask from an IT infrastructure. The idea is standardizing the operations of all the departments so that all the procedures will be executed and recorded on one specific system.
The holy grail of standardization is seamless business synchronicity even when the business environment is volatile and dynamic. In this case, the standardization would be practical and applicable for any IT infrastructure setup.
Finding and Keeping Qualified Talent
The IT industry is always in flux, and the truth is some companies are only beginning to catch up. There is a significant demand for IT professionals and this will soon present a human resource problem for the CIO.
The nature of an IT team is that they are problem-solvers, team-oriented, and would have the ability to multi-task. That is why the CIO needs to have a team that he can count on. But this is easier said than done.
The headhunting for IT staff should not be the same for any other position. The IT head must try to recruit and offer rewarding work experience to the prospective new member.
IT professionals also appreciate a culture of constant learning, since they know how important it is to their craft. The IT head should take the initiative and incentivize the employee’s desire for further learning, in the belief that the company would be the one to benefit in the long run. Company sponsored seminars or subsidizing attendance in important conferences should be included in the job offer.
The IT head or CIO has the task of running an organization within a company; a system running the whole system. It is a daunting responsibility, but there are concrete solutions available.
