Teleworking –employees working from home — continues to expand, driven by trends including the growth of home broadband connections. A recent article at management-issues.com puts numbers to telework’s growth:
- New figures from WorldatWork’s Telework Trendlines report have found that 12.4 million employees worked remotely at least once a month in 2006, up from 7.6 million in 2004.
- Twenty percent of the workforce now engages in some form of Telework.
This huge change in the way people work is placing new strains on the IT teams that must maintain service levels and compliance for off-site employees. Without the right Telework strategies, distance and mobility can increase cost and reduce control due to a number of factors, including:
- More users accessing a home-based device
- Increased support expense
- Higher risk of unwanted applications and downloads introducing nefarious files to the corporate network
Paul Gillen writes on the alignment of business and IT:
One theme I hear is that organizations still struggle to demonstrate their value, whether that’s something as basic as keeping the machines running or an advanced idea like creating competitive differentiation. No matter what IT’s role, though, the bottom line is to manage customer expectations so that the technology is in line with the business.
Gillen goes on to say that ITSM is a way to increase that alignment and that the methodology is gaining ground in the IT management space.
MSNBC reports on new research into relentless threats against PC uptime and performance:
“Our data provide quantifiable evidence that attacks are happening all the time to computers with Internet connections,” study author Michel Cukier of the University of Maryland said. “The computers in our study were attacked, on average, 2,244 times a day.”
The latest Robert Half Technology survey shows that the more things change, the more IT has to hire to keep them the same. Robert Half asked 1400 CIOs which skill sets are most in demand in their organizations. Instead of hiring for value, CIOs remain forced to spend most of their dollars on infrastructure maintenance.
The skill sets CIOs said are most in demand are:
From there, the drop is steep. Business intelligence comes in at 37 percent, followed by .NET development at 23 percent. Clearly, IT is still struggling to simply maintain day-to-day business continuity, which steals focus and resources from projects that drive increased value to the business.
Angelbeat’s ninth annual tour introduces technical professionals to new solutions and case studies and provides the opportunity to share ideas with peers. The events, which occur across the U.S. throughout the year, focus on security and virtualization across the entire IT infrastructure, complemented by analysis of issues specific to clients, networks and servers/storage.
Today, IT professionals must satisfy security, compliance and cost objectives while supporting a virtual network architecture and mobile workforce. Angelbeat provides ideas and solutions for addressing these challenges. Persystent will be a featured presenter at numerous Angelbeat events in 2007, including:
Persystent customer LifeLink Foundation was recently cited in CIO Decisions magazine as a non-profit that has found a way to improve IT efficiency – a critical step for any organization working under tight technology budgets.
The article (registration required) states that vice president of IS John Rhon and his 12-person department devote much of their time to keeping the organization’s 40 servers, 350 devices and numerous custom applications running 24/7. Rhon recently deployed software from Persystent Technology Corp. that automates IT support previously handled by its call center. While automating support may not seem like strategic use of technology by private-sector standards, it’s critical for LifeLink. With divisions in multiple states, Rhon has to muster lean resources to facilitate matters of life and death. With many surgeons and nurses working remotely, “we can support all of our users throughout the organization,” he says.
Based in Tampa, LifeLink is dedicated to the recovery and transplantation of an increasing number of high-quality organs and tissues for transplant therapy. The foundation attempts to work sensitively, diligently and compassionately with donor families to facilitate the donation of desperately needed organs and tissues for waiting patients. We are proud to support LifeLink in their amazing work.