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A country as diverse and culturally rich as India offers advantages that are hard to replicate anywhere in the world. The country that brims with diverse cultures and cost-effective innovative solutions is also balanced with being one of the most sought-after technology sourcing destinations, and a rising development hub. No wonder the world is taking notice, and the next few weeks will see the country host the Olympics of the global ICT Industry, called the World Congress on Information Technology [WCIT].

A quick primer on WCIT to set the context- The World Information Technology and Services Alliance, called WITSA, is a consortium of associations in the Information & Communication Technology [ICT] industry, coordinating with industry bodies like the National Association of Software and Services Companies [NASSCOM]. WITSA represents around 90% of the global ICT market, and has been organizing conferences ever since called the World Congress on Information Technology [WCIT]. WCIT has become the default event where the crème-de-la-crème of the industry gather and discuss current and emerging trends. With just two developing Latin American countries among key developed and technologically advanced countries hosting the event, a South East Asian country like India playing the next host is testament to the fact that we have truly put our stake in the ground as a global tech hub.

Suman Reddy, MD, Pegasystems India

However, having dwelt on how important India is in the technology world, making it an obvious choice to host an event like WCIT, one would wonder why Hyderabad, was chosen as the host city? Hyderabad has arrived at the right time, as businesses become more aware of adopting technology mandates to become more efficient, and gear themselves for a digital-first future. It has all the elements for technology enterprises of varying scale to set up operations: favorable policies for the IT sector, affordable real estate to scale operations, and sourcing premier talent from the region. Combine these factors with flattening growth in other cities, not being prone to climatic and political changes have only aided in accelerating its image. Growth has also multiplied due to concerted efforts by the government, industry bodies, and corporates. Hyderabad is fortunate to have had successive governments, including the current administration’s focus on making the city a top IT investment hub, through a range of measures.

WCIT needed a host city that could not only fulfill the criteria of running it smoothly, but also echo its vision and its legacy. The current government has surpassed everyone’s expectations. Case in point: The government has continued its push to become the top investment destination for the IT sector through a multi-pronged approach: Development of IT parks and clusters, Creating an ecosystem for developing quality talent, and Spreading growth to Tier II cities.

Also, another policy instituted that has set the precedent for favoring quicker turnaround time for investments is the Telangana State Industrial Project Approval and Self Certification System, also called TS-iPASS. The government has made itself accountable by giving deadlines to its auditing agencies to approve projects within 15-30 days, failing which the latter would be penalized.

These are just a handful of policies that have taken Telangana to the top, in the recent Ease of Doing Business rankings, along with consecutive double digit-growth in IT exports. Additionally, the government fostered a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship, through the T-Hub, India’s largest incubator, and supporting policies. WCIT will be showcasing innovation with around 50 disruptive startups, which makes perfect sense in a rapidly maturing startup ecosystem here.

Hyderabad is also a melting pot of the past, the present and the future, something that resonates with how technology takes legacy and wraps new age tech around it. The vast heritage and legacy of the city is something that brings the culture of India to the fore, appealing to a global audience at WCIT. Delegates can treat themselves to other unique experiences, like a day at the world’s largest film studio called the Ramoji Film City or savour local food in the old city. Hyderabad is rising as a leading MICE [Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Events] destination across the world, and it is no surprise that WCIT is taking place just a few months after the Global Entrepreneurship Summit.

References

  1. https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/corporate/nasscoms-flagship-event-to-move-to-hyderabad-from-mumbai-after-19-years/60752219
  2. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/ites/why-india-is-seeing-a-fresh-wave-of-global-innovation-centres/articleshow/60238228.cms
  3. http://www.telangana.gov.in/PDFDocuments/Telangana_Innovation_Policy_2016.pdf
  4. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/education/story/world-congress-on-it-2018-india-to-be-the-host-for-the-first-time/1/414074.html

About the Author

Suman Reddy Eadunuri is the Managing Director, Pegasystems, India. Suman is credited with successfully setting-up Pega’s India operations in 2007, one of the country’s leading GICs. He built Pega India from ground-up that currently is at 1500 employees across Hyderabad and Bangalore, a third of the company’s total employee strength. As a key member of the of the global leadership team, Suman has played a key role in helping the organization grow from 126 million to 750 million over the last decade. He is an active member of several premier industry bodies, national forums and leadership clubs across India and beyond, like NASSCOM, CII, HYSEA, YPO and is currently a board member of TiE Hyderabad.

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2017 has been a tremendous year for the technology industry. It has witnessed a multitude of disruptive technologies become potential game-changers and major topics of discussion for business leaders across the world. Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, autonomous vehicles, robotics, etc. have taken shape in a way that they are increasingly becoming a part of our daily lives.

Image Source – Tech Trends

Some of the technology trends that will shape 2018 are below

Artificial Intelligence

Efficient NLP/NLU algorithms are going to power the AI systems and will allow humans to communicate with machines in – the language of their choice and seamlessly.

Intelligent Apps and Analytics

Access to large amounts of data and ever-improving processing power have enabled machine learning to take a huge leap forward. Apps can derive rich insights from the learnings, allowing them to make intelligent decisions, for providing great experience to the user. In addition, federated learning models are being built, that aim towards sharing and building collective intelligence, while ensuring user privacy.

Conversational Platforms

The world of technology, even with its initial apprehensions has embraced the chatbot technology, using it as an effective means to provide first level service to the end users. A world where language would become the new user interface and digital assistants would replace applications and browsers is not too far away.

Cloud to the Edge

Bringing intelligence to the source where the data originates from carries huge benefits. The on device AI engine in the keyboard paves way for enhanced user privacy and enables faster responsiveness in making intelligent choices. Additionally, the feature also covers the network connectivity issues that are prevalent in mobile networks.

About the Author

Nutan ChokkaReddy is the CEO of KeyPoint Technologies, a leading pioneer in input technology and User Interface for Mobile Apps globally supports 121 languages.

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The transformation in the world of technology is happening at pace which we have not experienced in the past. Implementation of new cutting-edge technology is moving out from a drawing board stage to being practiced by organizations across the world. As more and more organizations undertake the process of digital transformation to offer tech enabled products or services, IT roles and skills is undergoing radical shifts, something which we are already observing. This will affect the tech job scenario as we move into 2018 and beyond.

Image Source – Job Trends

In-demand IT roles have started to shift towards including positions focused on advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence [AI], Augmented and Virtual Reality [AR and VR], and the Internet of Things [IoT] along with exciting positions within cyber-security, cloud computing & network technology.

Through these observations we have identified the following as some of the key job roles companies require as they transform their businesses and processes for the future:

Cyber-security Analyst – This individual will manage risk for organizations through use of relevant tools and techniques to gather vital end-point and network host data with the goal of identifying vulnerabilities.

Network Engineer – This role will encompass coordinating between cloud and traditional networking resources to make a business’s communicate efficiently. They will need to know how to map technical network elements [e.g. router, an edge device, a micro-datacenter] to a company’s business needs.

Vulnerability Assessment Manager – The role of a penetration tester has matured.  Today’s pen tester does more than hack a server or use fancy security tools. Today’s pen tester takes a responsible approach and conducts strong, comprehensive tests to identify – and correct – unacceptable risks.

Technical Support Specialist – Gone are the days when the help desk professional fixed PCs.The world needs more tech support specialists than ever before: today’s tech support engineer helps manage increasingly complex issues involving data management, authentication and network troubleshooting.

Machine learning engineer – Machine learning use sophisticated programming such as R and Python to develop AI machines and systems that can learn and apply knowledge to perform tasks. These professionals will also work with complex datasets and algorithms to convert machines to intelligent machines.

Network Analysts – Businesses are investing more heavily in their networks as IoT is fast becoming critical to manufacture tech enabled products. A growing number of ‘things’ need to be connected in an efficient way, and that’s going to be a major driver of demand there. Network analysts in the coming years will combine their technical skill set with an understanding of how to apply it to provide real-time trending information on network traffic, and what those insights means for the business.

Cloud engineer – Almost all businesses are mobbing their on-premises systems to cloud and are choosing a hybrid approach, with multiple vendors. In the coming years, cloud engineers will need to create solutions which are mix of multiple technologies. Gone are the days when an Amazon engineer only worked on AWS or Microsoft engineers only knowing Azure.

About the Author

Pradipto Chakrabarty is the Regional Director, CompTIA, the voice of the world’s information technology industry. CompTIA is dedicated to advancing industry growth through its educational programs, professional certifications and public policy advocacy. You can view his profile here

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Delivering a seamless, consistent and integrated customer experience is the hallmark of a digital enterprise. Organizations, while racing to catch up the rapid digital changes to facilitate better decisions and successful digital transformation, move in harmony with the customers enriching and making their experience worthwhile.

Image Source –Digital Transformation

Customers expect active management of their data and preferences as well as a seamless omni-channel experience so they can readily engage with companies, whether the interaction is via mobile, the web, social media or face-to-face communication. Top customer expectations that influence an organization’s digital transformation efforts include dramatically reduced response times and immediate real-time access to products and services.

Hence, the key to winning customer’s share of mind as well as a share of his wallet is by providing him with unified and personalized experiences.

According to International Data Corporation, a majority of businesses will have to overhaul their digital front doors to support 10,000 times as many customers and customer touchpoints over the next three to five years.

Enterprises face the uphill battle to quickly build digital service delivery models that are flexible, robust and future-proofed. Enabling business processes and practices that help an organization to compete effectively in an increasingly digital world is the best way to tackle digital transformation. However, the main challenge is being driven by the demands of the tech savvy consumers, who expects an interactive experience across all interaction channels, along with the further pressure to innovate with few resources and restricted budget.

Businesses must manage the shift from transactional systems of record where information is ingested, stored, and managed in static databases and warehouses to interactive systems of engagement where real-time data is combined, accessed, interpreted and used to digitally support multi-touchpoint, real-time customer journeys and communications.

Although the benefits are countless, but at the same time, challenges to this transformation are no less.

  • Speed – Organizations often needs to evolve their own approach and use of tools in order to be able to meet the pace of change required given the increase in customer’s expectations and restricted budget. This might, sometimes, outpace their ability to deliver.
  • Capacity gap – Projects fail to hit timescales and product quality expectations leading to unsatisfied internal and external stakeholders. This cannot be fixed by incremental improvements but requires a fundamental change in the operating model for the delivery of services.
  • Lack of human resources – Most organizations lack the digital talent required to deliver the necessary changes. Skills in new technologies such as IoT, AI, and Big data analytics are in short supply. Finding external help can be valuable but only up to a certain critical point.
  • Security Breach – Cyber-security is the top disruptor that organizations expect will influence their digital strategy in the coming years.
  • Legacy – Much IT infrastructure is fragile and difficult to change but requires changes in order to support both rapid innovation and scalability. Virtualization, mobility, automation and cloud-based services have opened up a plethora of opportunities, but this needs to be taken to new heights.

All in all, a well-planned, integrated strategy is essential to steering digital transformation in alignment with the customer journey and driving customer engagement; otherwise, this could quite easily turn to be house of cards.

About the Author

Aniruddha Guha Sarkar, Senior Vice President, Engineering heads the offshore software engineering delivery at InterraIT. Aniruddha has over 25 years of industry experience, the last decade of which has been in senior executive level leadership positions. Prior to joining InterraIT in early 2012, Aniruddha worked with the house of Siemens for more than 20 years. You can connect with Mr. Aniruddha here

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At least 40% of all businesses will die in the next 10 years… if they don’t figure out how to change their entire company to accommodate new technologies.

Digital transformation in its simplest form means the use of technology to radically improve performance & reach of enterprises. But it does not merely stop at that. As technology becomes a permanent fixture in everyday life, the best organizations combine digital technologies with strong leadership to bring about real transformation.

Image Source – Digital Evolution

Business and IT leaders are eager to fully utilize key digital technologies such as analytics, mobility, social media, IoT, Machine Learning and smart embedded devices to vitalize their customer relationships, internal processes and value propositions hence, bringing the much needed digital evolution.

Even though the digital transformation is a long journey with the gradual evolution of the organization, there are a few key elements which are to be taken care off while beginning the transformation endeavor. Implementing advanced digital technologies, improving customer experiences, transforming internal processes, re-evaluating and designing improved business models and bringing to the fore your key value propositions are some of the key elements of a digital transformation exercise.

Digital Evolution is more of a business evolution than a technology initiative. It has created a rapidly changing business environment and has compelled companies to rethink nearly everything they do. Pro-actionary approach along with quick adaptability and flexibility is required for an organization to stay on the leading edge of the digital landscape.

This is a time of Digital Darwinism – an era where technology and society are evolving faster than businesses can naturally adapt. Therefore, as companies look at moving business platforms and technologies, corporate leaders face an endless list of initiatives to consider, prioritize, evaluate, validate and implement. The challenge is to ensure that their priorities are aligned wisely. Without any strategic direction, every single attempt to evolve digitally can end up disjointed and ineffective.

Mr. Ashok K laha [Image Source]

It’s no surprise that digital evolution is an ongoing wave of new technologies and capabilities that are coming at us at an unprecedented pace. The major one being the data revolution which has emerged as a new weapon in the industry in the recent years. It is being generated, combined, recreated and consumed at significant levels which are facilitating changes within the organization.

But the question to be asked is Are companies investing in the right technology for their Big Data needs in addition to the training of marketing and IT personnel?

Given the speed of evolution and scope of impact, an organization needs to fully understand the opportunities to be gained and lost, spot important trends and identify its competitors in order to evolve along with the world and its gadgets.

Cyber security is another major concern when we talk about digital evolution. The world currently deals with approximately 2.5 million cyber security threats per second. Most of the business leaders are reluctant to innovate due to cyber risks. However, these risks are worth dealing given the plethora of opportunities that digitization offers. Else, sitting on the sidelines and not responding to the market conditions and threats will become the fastest way to extinction.

With the new Modi Government at the helm, we as a country are making great strides in digital transformation. Reforms like demonetization, GST, and Digital India will act as stepping stones in helping the country’s businesses and economy to digitally enable and transform them.

Digitization is a gift to the organizations though it takes investment, agility and relentless focus to stay ahead. The road to digital evolution is far from easy but it carries great incentives for businesses and customers alike. The digital industry could be an important vehicle for change and it could provide the opportunity for India to dramatically expand its role and influence in the global economy enabling it to become a powerhouse of digital innovation.

About the Author

Mr. Asoke K. Laha is the Founder, President & CEO of Interra Information Technologies. Interra Information Technologies has been a leader in the Information Technology Industry since its founding in 1996. Headquartered in California, the company’s operations and sales network spans across multiple countries. You can learn more about them at www.interrait.com. You can also connect with Interra Information Technologies on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

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In an increasingly digitized world, we are all becoming extremely vulnerable to misuse of personal, professional and even national security data and what needs to be done. It is alarming yet not a surprise to see another mass scale ransomware attack just weeks after the havoc created by the Wannacry ransomware.

Image Source – Malware

To start with, the genesis of both these attacks appear similar. Both of them uses the Microsoft vulnerability called EternalBlue for which Microsoft had issued a patch. In both cases, they attacked institutional computer networks, which we unsecured – the NHS in UK and now the Ukrainian Government.

However, there is a slight but important difference. Usually in case of ransomware attacks, the demand is made from users and the email for communication is unique to each user. In this case it is observed that there is a single email ID that had been provided to all the affected users for communication. This email ID was since suspended by provider. This alludes to the fact that either the hackers were amateurs or more dangerously this attack is not a ransomware and was not unleashed with the intention of merely extracting money, but to destruct important data.

These new mutations of malware are increasingly getting more and more capable and complex in terms of the speed and reach. We are observing that the malwares are spreading automatically across interconnected networks more freely and with minimal or no human intervention. This, also is different from ransomware of earlier versions, which we more topical and pointed – say an individual hospital system. The free lowing nature of the current ransomware is particularly scary since we have limited control or predictive mechanism to guess which networks will be affected next.

As of now, the effects in India has been observed at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust. This can be explained as one of the largest private enterprises to get effected is Maersk, the leading shipping and container corporation whose systems in all likely hood is interconnected with the networks of the JNPT. Having said that it is impossible to predict the next network where the ‘worm’ will sneak in. Also, the Petya ransomware is more fluid than Wannacry as the latter was linear and had one way to move from network to network. Petya has the capability to evaluate multiple options and can use another option of attacking if one fails. It is indeed quite petrifying to imagine a situation is it infects the national service such as the Defense, Police, Financial Institutions and UIDAI.

Considering this, it is clear that prevention is the best form of attack. It should be the responsibility of all computer and internet users – institutional as well as individuals to be aware of the threat and also be prepared for a future attack. Through CERT-IN [Computer Emergency Response Team of India] the Government must issue a ‘what to do’ advisory on prevention tactics to enterprises and individuals. We observe that most of ransomware attacks use ‘end users’ as entry point. The end user might be an individual or a user in an institutional environment. In most cases there is nothing that user can do as these types of ransomware are typically executed through ‘drive-by downloads’ in which legitimate website and browsers are infected. Some of the key action points that can be followed are through basic IT housekeeping such as keeping antivirus software updated & having URL CHECKERS. Also it is recommended that individuals keep only those plug-in’s and add-on’s that are absolutely necessary and used regularly.

Finally, it is high time that system administrators within enterprises and government agencies should have updated defensive security skills. Institutions and governments need strong cyber security and cyber-defense strategies. Cyber-defense capabilities, particularly, is an important mandate as hacking becomes extremely easy and pervasive and IT administrators should know how to ‘defend’ their systems.

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The growing demand for skilled professionals in IT sector has compelled many training institutes to adapt advance tech tools to keep their candidates aligned with the latest skills. Tech skills are more important than ever, as digital advancements have radically transformed the working world.

Image Source – Skills

Avinash Bharwani, Vice President–New Business, Jetking

Technology changes every month with new updates coming and going. If you work as a data analyst, the online tools you use don’t change quite so quickly, but you can surely update every few years. In coming years, the skills of the digital age will be linked very closely to SMAC i.e. Social-Mobile-Analytic and Cloud. If we look at 2016, it was a year when most of companies layed off their employees for not being equipped with the required skillset in the sector. Ecstasy of the previous year made the job market to make the correction.

Let’s look at the hottest, most in-demand skills around the world

Ethical Hacker

One of the most exciting skills on the list is that of ethical hacking. As the businesses are taking support of cloud share data, the businesses today are increasingly on the lookout for professionals with ethical hacking skills.

This is because they look to analyse the security of their private, public & hybrid cloud deployments. These ethical hackers combine a series of tools, to track hacking and penetration techniques in order to search for weaknesses in the entire systems.

Cloud Computing

Cloud and distributed computing has lingered in the No. 1 spot for the past couple of years. Subsequent statistical analysis and data mining remained in 2 positions last year and in first position in 2014.

These skills are in such high demand for the reason that they are at the cutting edge of technology. Employers need employees with cloud & distributed computing, statistical analysis and data mining skills to stay competitive.

Big data/Developer/Analytics

Boasting a strong information technology (IT) background is advantageous for a big data analyst. IT professionals are skilled at information handling and programming. This gives them a leg up on the competition. Data analysts and data scientists continue to be in great demand since they acquire unique skills in areas such as mathematics, statistics and management science, combined with associated IT skills. In conclusion becoming a big data analyst requires the mastery of the five essential skills.

  • Interpretation of Data
  • Programming skills
  • Quantitative
  • Multiple technologies
  • Better understanding of business outcome

Network and Information Security

The demand for skills in Network and information sector has increased by 13% since 2016. The increased demand for IT networking professionals is fuelled in virtualization and cloud computing programmes.

Hiring managers seek candidates with skills & experience in VMware, Citrix, etc to track, organize and manage their company’s virtualization strategy.

Digital Marketing

The need for digital marketers has never been higher, yet the digital skills gap has never been wider. This discrepancy can provide people with the perfect opportunity to express their value and capability.

One should just want to make sure that they have strengthened the right skills. If you want to set yourself apart from the competition and establish yourself as an in-demand marketing professional, then you need to know which capabilities count. One should refine digital marketing skills in the following sector:

  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Video Content Marketing
  • Community Management
  • Marketing Automation

If you have any of these skills in the year 2017 you will definitely make your career brighter. Even if you don’t have these skills, now is the perfect time to perceive it. Professional or fresher can explore opportunities in this field by up skilling themselves. Acquiring these skills will immensely help techies, making them more efficient in entire process. While some skills become void every couple of months, we strongly propose that tech skills will still be needed for years to come, in every industry. Now is a great time for professionals to acquire the skills they need to be more marketable.

About the author

Avinash Bharwani is the Vice President–New Business, Jetking. Jetking is a Computer Hardware and Networking Training Institute, which trains technical and non-technical students. Jetking has 100 centers spread across India. You can view his profile here

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Over the past few years, digital transformation has become a watchword for many businesses. In this new era defined by cloud computing, social media and mobile strategies, companies are pursuing new IT tools, and it is clear that the best use of tools require a disruption to operational procedures.

Image Source – Skills

As companies seek success with new products and new customers; there are many areas that must be addressed in order to become a truly digital service provider. One of the critical success factors for service organizations is to understand how technical support, the backbone of customer satisfaction as well as customer retention is evolving with regards to technology adaption and workforce skills.

The direct impact of technology on business outcomes gives modern IT a two pronged approach – first is to focus on strategic efforts and the second being a continuation with the current tactical work. The backbone of the service organization is to build an appropriate team structure with multi faceted competencies. The nature of work is changing. With this change, we cannot accurately estimate the overall impact on job numbers but, onething is certain: technical skills will be in high demand. Even though job titles look familiar, it is important to understand how roles are changing in an environmentdefined by cloud computing, digital technologies and mobile devices.

The Four Pillars of a Functional IT Framework

However, before we discuss the workforce skill trends, let us first understand how technical support is evolving at a dramatically fast pace. Afunctional IT frameworkdescribesfour primary IT disciplines – Infrastructure, Development, Security and Data.

Infrastructure – The Infrastructure pillar is the bedrock of IT operations. With a broad reach and a long history, Infrastructure contains many of theroles most often associated with IT. At the core of this function, system administration and network operations take care of the back-office tasksthat have been part of IT since the mainframe era. However, today’s setup requires physical server maintenance,virtual system administration, network configuration, and storage planning.

These tasks, which have traditionally centered on ‘on-prem’ components still establish the foundation for the rest of the IT architecture. Interestingly, we are observing a growing importance of application implementation. While Infrastructure pillar is not directly responsible for application development, they are accoujtable for installing applications and keeping them running. This activity is very relevant as it alludes to a definite connection point between Infrastructure and Development.

Development – While Infrastructure focuses on hardware, Development centers on software. It is important to note that companies building software for external customers have separate product development teams. However, in times to come, there will clearly be an overlap between the software product teams and infrastructure and these two pillars work seamlessly to provide the best application for the end user.

Security – As technology needs become more complex and the digital stakes get higher, security is perhaps the most important pillar of any organization. Security most often begins as an off-shoot of Infrastructure, since the traditional security approach has been heavily focused on technology. The need for further specialization is driven by new layers of technical tools, business processes that establish secure practices.

Traditionally organizations have used firewall and antivirus as the means for securing their infrastructureand endpoint devices. However for digital organizations, this security perimeter is not sufficient as applications and data regularly travel outside the walls of the firewall. New tools such as DLP [Data Loss Prevention], IAM [Identity and Access Management], and SIEM [Security Information and Event Management] must be layered into operations along with firewall and antivirus, and security professionals need to shift their mindset from preventing all attacks to detecting the inevitable breach and acting quickly and decisively.

Data – As Security is an offshoot of Infrastructure, Data is an off shoot of Development. The skills and thinking needed in Development translate well to Data, where there is an abstract component of dealing with bits and bytes. The recent growth in the amount, veracity, velocity and variety of data that a company can manage has brought focus to certain specialized skills, but there is a foundation that must be built beforemoving to more advanced applications.

New age technical support competencies

These four pillars and their overlap has created a complex environment which requires rethinking the strategic and tactical competency development of a technical service function.

To the extent that hardware is still involved at the core of technical services at the first level of technical support, the responsibilities have definitely evolved in the past few years. From a PC running on Windows most originations have started utilizing other operating systems and smartphones heavily. In many cases enterprise application are accessed over cloud by employees and customers. Pure hardware repair is a passé as companies explore BYOD and utilize warranty support, but familiarity across multiple operating systems is needed as a basic step inensuring productivity. Beyond devices the first line of defense is now interacting with a complex back end system comprised of many components.

The four pillars mentioned above clearly alludes to the fact that service desks must befamiliar with all these areas in order to route issues to theproper experts. Networking knowledge is still a priority as connectivity is the one most important aspect of modern computing. High-profile back end approaches such as virtualization and cloud computing drive front end skills for properly troubleshooting application problems.

Storage options must be well understood for questions about data handling. Even as cloud computing and mobility change the overall nature of infrastructure, the connection between the backend and the front end remains a vital link for supporting a tech-driven workforce.

Development is perhaps the least likely destination for a pure play technical support organization, but the momentum behind DevOps is creating more overlap than ever between Infrastructure and Development, so a transition from tech support to software coding is quite visible in near future.

For many organizations, security posture is primarily determined by the implementation of technology such as firewalls and antivirus. As such, level one support often has knowledge of security tools that ensure end users are properly protecting corporate assets. However, Security is growing to encompass processes suchas regulatory compliance or risk management along withend user education. As companies develop new procedures,service desk responsibilities will likely evolve to incorporatethe relevant steps in secure operations.

The final IT pillar, Data, represents another stretch area for technical support functions. The support function has traditionally been ‘interrupt-driven’ : a problem is logged and it gets resolved. As businesses recognize the value of analytics, there is significant potential for support technicians to collect & analyze data. The patterns they find could highlight widespread issues or suggest efficiency improvements.

Along with the technical skills that help the first line of defense respond to diverse issues, there is a growing need for knowledge in operational procedures and project management. Expertise in IT service management, using a framework like ITIL or COBIT, is usually a first step for support technicians. This knowledge is necessary to formalize processes for a growing number of requests and to ensure that thoserequests are properly cataloged. Beyond these, project management skills come into play with increasing man-power experiencewho start to analyze the collected information and attack any systemic problems.

Out of all the changes happening across IT, the support desk role may be undergoing the most dramatic change. The required technical skills cover a broad range of topics, policies and procedures which are needed to handle a large number of requests and customer service is more important than ever. Whether the first line of support is managed in-house or outsourced, there is a growing need for well-rounded technicians to support digital strategy.

The field of information technology now attracts an accentuated focus than ever before, and businesses are struggling to understand the best approach for this ever changing environment. With new trends seeming to pop up on an annual basis, there is a rush to understand the implications of new innovation and the path forward from legacy architecture. The technology industry has become incredibly dynamic and complex, and a tactical approach to technology support quickly needs to become strategic or else, service providers will lose the plot against their customers whose business needs force them to get rapidly digitalized.

About the author

Pradipto Chakrabarty is the Regional Director, CompTIA, the voice of the world’s information technology industry. CompTIA is dedicated to advancing industry growth through its educational programs, professional certifications and public policy advocacy. You can view his profile here