As they say, “every company is a tech company.” Today, we observe National IT Professionals Day to commemorate technical professionals who put in endless hours each week to keep the office computer systems that we all rely on running smoothly.
This holiday, which was established in 2015, honors these skilled professionals and acknowledges the value they contribute to the places we work every day, in every place. Below, technology leaders applaud IT personnel for their continual efforts.
Carl D’Halluin, chief technology officer at Datadobi:
“IT Professionals Day is a reminder of the value IT pros provide to virtually every enterprise organization. They do so much to maintain organizations’ infrastructure, and without them, companies would struggle to operate day-to-day. In addition to recognizing their accomplishments on IT Professionals Day, we should also make sure we’re providing them with the necessary tools to make their work easier every day of the week. This includes tools they can use to automate routine tasks and tackle some of the biggest issues facing enterprises today, including cost, reducing carbon footprint, and minimizing business risk. By giving IT professionals purpose-built solutions they can use to maximize their unstructured data and its exponential growth, a huge burden is lifted off their shoulders so they can focus on revenue-generating tasks.”
Craig Fulton, chief customer officer at ConnectWise:
“In today’s digital age our reliance on technology has skyrocketed, shaping the workplace in ways that we could never have imagined. As digital transformation continues to determine workplace changes, it’s important to acknowledge and appreciate the IT professionals behind every piece of technology powering our world: Individuals that are responsible for keeping operations running smoothly, but are paid little attention to until something goes wrong. Tasked with juggling the introduction of new technology and the fast-evolving security landscape, all while managing staffing challenges, means equipping IT pros with the tools they need to succeed is key. Automation software can help alleviate these pressures, allowing them to rise to the occasion.
Using a PSA solution to automate workflows not only improves IT teams’ productivity, it also enhances the customer experience by clarifying accountability and giving clients a more effective way to communicate with your teams. When looking to minimize chaos and drive efficiency, many MSPs are turning to remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools to make it easier to deal with complex IT environments that span traditional offices and less-secure work from home setups. These can help ease the pressure on IT pros by proactively monitoring to prevent problems and automatically fixing common issues by scripting basic tasks and documenting the results.
Integrated tool sets can also help IT pros keep up with demands. With all tools and systems used to support clients integrated into a single place, they are able to work quickly, provide reliable and consistent services, and keep the customer productive. As the world shifts into a new era of work driven by accelerated digital transformation, supporting and equipping IT pros in this ever-changing environment should be mission critical.”
Warwick Taylor, director of customer service EMEA at Cubic Corporation:
“IT Pro Day celebrates the critical importance IT professionals play in managing, maintaining and powering our digital experiences. At Cubic, our IT professionals design, deliver and operate platforms and application services for our customers. They are natural problem solvers and passionate about Operation IT service delivery, with a wide range of specialist skills and product knowledge. Using the Cubic OneTeam ethos to swiftly communicate with each other as well as other Cubic teams, they work tirelessly to ensure issues are resolved efficiently.
This IT Pro Day, we should acknowledge all the work our IT professionals do and think of ways we can make their life easier. For example, knowledge management and collaboration platforms are now more important than ever to ensure timely resolution to complex technical problems that span a range of specialist areas. Investing in these tools is key to alleviating the burden on our IT teams in the post-pandemic era, where adaptability is mission critical.”
Terry Storrar, managing director at Leaseweb UK:
“The job of an IT professional is never done. Whether they are maintaining hardware, fixing bugs, ensuring compliance regulations are met, or simply helping an employee with a lost password, it’s a never-ending and often thankless job. And the world of the IT professional is only becoming more complex. In today’s digital age, the majority of organizations are undergoing almost constant change – whether it’s managing a hybrid workforce or keeping up with the latest digital transformation trends. In fact, in the next two years, a recent Leaseweb survey found that 66% of IT professionals think we will see the total end of on-premise infrastructure.
For Leaseweb, one of our core values is ‘never stop learning’ and no one exemplifies this better than IT professionals. This IT Pro Day we want to take the time to thank them once again for their commitment to learning, adapting and evolving. With this, they have continued to add immeasurable value for both end-users and customers alike. As 2022 continues to bring more and more digital transformation, it’s important to remember to continue supporting the invaluable work that IT professionals bring to the table – providing diverse learning and development opportunities and investing in the next generation of hard-working individuals.”
Christopher Rogers, technology evangelist at Zerto:
“For IT professionals, the last few years have required constant adaptation and innovation to meet the needs of their organizations. From the almost instantaneous shift to remote working to the more gradual return to the office and finding a balance with hybrid systems of working, the IT Pro has had to tackle the challenge of managing cybersecurity risks and maintaining IT resilience as we shift the way we like to work. As if that wasn’t difficult enough, ransomware attacks are at an all-time high with 1 in 40 organizations being impacted by them every week. The pressure is on IT professionals now more than ever.
IT Pro Day is the perfect opportunity to recognize the importance of your tech team and to let them know that they are appreciated. The value these IT professionals bring to an organization is immeasurable as they ensure that IT, a core element of most organizational infrastructures, is always running smoothly. To support these members of the team, it is crucial that organizations invest in the tools to help them with this task—for example, Continuous Data Protection (CDP). In doing this, IT teams will be able to get things up and running quickly when something goes wrong, limiting downtime and restoring operations in a matter of seconds or minutes, rather than days or weeks.”
Amit Shaked, CEO, Laminar
“An organization’s data is its greatest asset, but also its biggest potential downfall. With the cloud allowing data to be spread around to various places data protection teams may not even be tracking, it opened companies up to even more risk than ever before by creating what is known as ‘shadow data.’ Shadow data refers to an organization’s data that is not copied, backup or housed in a data store that is not governed, under the same security structure, nor kept up to date. This data is a big target for insider threat incidents because if it is exfiltrated, it goes under the radar of traditional data protection tools.
According to recent research, more than half of organizations don’t have a public cloud data security tool in place to monitor for insider threats and data exfiltration, and more than a third can’t tell whether an internal employee has ever accidentally or maliciously accessed sensitive data. The key to preventing insider threat incidents in these environments and preventing malicious, accidental or compromised insiders from taking advantage of shadow data is using a cloud-native data security platform that uses the dual approach of visibility and protection. Doing so allows data security teams to know for certain which data stores are valuable targets to both inside and outside adversaries and ensure proper controls, which allows for the quicker discovery of data leakage.”