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The approaching wave of cloud computing has already begun to turn IT on its head as traditional ways to work are being forever altered. Getting ahead of the curve may be the only way for IT pros to secure their jobs and for incumbent vendors to avoid being uprooted by the cloud, sister site Datamation reports.
“What shifts in business and work will result from the growth of cloud computing? Is the cloud an incremental change that will only translate to small differences, or is the cloud radical enough to usher in wholesale changes?
“It’s too early to say for certain. However, here are five ways the cloud is already changing business and work.
“1. Those with IT jobs should start worrying . . . now.
“If you’re in IT and you have a pulse, you’re already worried. IT vendors have slashed approximately 215,000 jobs since the beginning of 2009, according to the TechAmerica Foundation.
“Fortunately, the TechAmerica Foundation believes that the worst of the economic downturn is over, noting that tech companies added 30,200 IT jobs in the first half of 2010.
“Recovery or not, certain types of IT jobs will almost certainly disappear. If your email is in the cloud, for instance, you don’t need to keep an IT worker on staff whose sole task is keeping Exchange up and running. At the same time, IT automation and cloud computing are displacing low-level mundane IT jobs.
“As Chris Weitz, Director of Deloitte Consulting, pointed out, over the past couple of decades, the trend in IT has also been for employees to specialize into niches. ‘You’re a Unix guy or a database administrator or a system administrator,’ he said. ‘That level of specialization is already fading away. The changing nature of IT demands a broader skill set.’
“The quarterly IT Hiring Index and Skills Report from Robert Half Technology found that the IT skills most in demand right now are networking, information security and help desk/technical support.
“Those skills, though, are ones that many organizations will outsource, if they haven’t already. According to Mark Popolano, former CIO at AIG and currently a Senior Advisor at Ineum Consulting, within five years, the typical CIO will only own about 25 percent of his or her IT workforce. The rest will be outsourced.
“Obviously, this means that one important skill that you can acquire to protect your existing IT job is vendor management.”
For more, read “5 Ways Cloud Computing Will Change Business and Careers” at Datamation.
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