COVID-19 has caused fundamental shifts in attitudes around remote and office work. And in The New Normal in IT: How the Global Pandemic Changed Information Technology Forever, internationally renowned IT executive Gregory S. Smith explains how and why companies today are shedding corporate office locations and reducing office footprints.
You'll learn about how companies realized the value of information technology and a distributed workforce and what that means for IT professionals going forward. The book offers insightful lessons regarding: - How to best take advantage of remote collaboration and hybrid remote/office workforces - How to implement updated risk mitigation strategies and disaster recovery planning and testing to shield your organization from worst case scenarios - How today's CIOs and CTOs adapt their IT governance frameworks to meet new challenges, including cybersecurity risks
The New Normal in IT is an indispensable resource for IT professionals, executives, graduate technology management students, and managers in any industry. It's also a must-read for anyone interested in the impact that COVID-19 had, and continues to have, on the information technology industry.
Table of Contents
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xv
About The Author xvii
Part I - The Postpandemic New Normal 1
Chapter 1 Lasting Business Impacts and Resource Sourcing After a Global Pandemic 3
Introduction 3
Impacts from Covid-19 on Businesses and Organizations 5
Impacts in Academia 6
Unemployment Impacts in the United States and Around the Globe 14
Some Bright Spots During the Pandemic 17
Impacts on Consultants and Organizations Sourcing Strategy 22
Lessons Learned 29
Things I’ve Done in My Career to Prepare 32
Recommendations and Predictions 33
Notes 37
Chapter 2 The Shrinking Office of the Future: Cloud and Mobile Dominate 41
Corporate Footprint During the Pandemic 41
The Corporate Office of the Future 44
IT Infrastructure and Telecommunications 56
Cloud and Mobile Will Dominate Post Pandemic 64
Things I’ve Done in My Career to Prepare 66
Recommendations and Predictions 66
Notes 70
Chapter 3 Voice Systems and Collaboration in the New Hybrid Office Environment 73
Voice Systems 73
Collaboration Tools 80
Things I’ve Done in My Career to Prepare 86
Recommendations and Predictions 87
Notes 90
Part II - Risk Mitigation and Disaster Recovery Is Your New Friend 93
Chapter 4 Never Be Unprepared for a Pandemic Again: Business Continuity and IT Disaster Recovery Going Forward 95
Business Continuity and IT Disaster Recovery: Defined and Purpose 96
Technologies to Scan and Reduce Covid Risks in the Workplace 99
Business Continuity and IT Disaster Recovery Failures During the Height of the Covid-19
Pandemic 101
Business Continuity Going Forward - Remote Staff Where Possible but It Varies Greatly by Sector 110
IT DR Going Forward - Remote Staff, Co-lo, and Cloud-based IT Solutions 112
Things I’ve Done in My Career to Prepare 119
Recommendations and Predictions 121
Notes 124
Chapter 5 It Security For Corporate Resilience 127
The State of IT Security Today 127
IT Security Going Forward 138
The State of IT Security Standards and Frameworks 140
Managed Detection and Response (On-premise Network, Endpoint, Cloud) 142
Managed Risk 144
Securing Email 145
Privileged Access Management (PAM) 146
SIEM versus SOCaaS versus MDR? 147
CIO Security Best Practices 148
Things I’ve Done in My Career to Prepare 153
Recommendations and Predictions 155
Notes 157
Part III - IT Governance to Performance Management 161
Chapter 6 IT Governance: Keep It Simple 163
IT Governance Defined and Purpose 163
IT Governance - Frameworks and Methodologies 167
IT Governance Myths 174
Best-Practice IT Governance Today 178
Things I’ve Done in My Career to Prepare 187
Recommendations and Predictions 195
Notes 199
Chapter 7 Key Performance Indicators for the New Normal 201
KPI Defined 201
Common KPIs Pre-Covid-19 202
Updated KPIs Influenced by the Pandemic 205
Things I’ve Done in My Career to Prepare 213
Recommendations and Predictions 214
Notes 216
Chapter 8 Updated Research and CIO Priorities 217
Updated Research 217
Reflections on the Global Pandemic 231
CIO Priorities Going Forward 235
Recommendations and Predictions 241
Notes 246
Index 251
