Tech Pro Research recently published its analysis of responses to a survey of more than 1,000 IT professionals. Both the title on the cover of the report – “The Future of IT Jobs: Critical Skills and Obsolescent Roles” and on the inside cover – “The Future of IT Jobs: Expanding roles and opportunities” are accurate summaries of the key findings of the survey. The results offer strong evidence that governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) is rising in importance among many IT professionals. The following select findings and statistics tell an interesting story about where the future of compliance in Enterprise IT is heading. (The complete report is available as the single complementary download included with a free trial of the Tech Pro Research service).
“A sizeable majority (over three quarters) of respondents confirmed that their career roles are growing more complex.”
“IT workers both recognize the need and have been required to gain new skill sets both within and outside of technology.”
“Cloud computing, virtualization, mobility, security and project management are the top technical skills to learn.”
“Project management, business operations, communication/interpersonal skills, customer relations and compliance are the top non-technical skills to learn.” [Emphasis added.]
Specific questions provided more details about the growing importance of compliance and GRC among IT professionals. The survey asked this. “Over the Past Two Years, What Non-Technical Subjects Have You Gained Knowledge About for Your Role?” Of the top 10 responses, “Compliance” ranked fifth, cited by 46 percent of respondents.
The survey also asked respondents to cite non-technical areas “IT pros should branch out into or gain more knowledge of.” (Apparently, “Grammar” was not included in the list of offered choices.) Of the top 10 responses to this question, “Compliance” ranked sixth, cited by 44 percent of respondents.
Four percent of respondents to this question replied with “Overall business operations.” According to Tech Pro Research, included within that set of responses were details such as these.
- “Business operations such as cost and time — talking to the customer”
- “Business process improvement”
- “ITSM” [IT service management]
- “Learn the dependencies of your business to other businesses”
What does this mean for Compliance?
Taken together, these survey results indicate that many IT pros recognize that compliance is growing in importance to their own careers, and that GRC issues are gaining traction as well. This augurs well for those IT pros seeking to achieve goals such as business process improvement and greater knowledge of the interdependencies linking IT to other businesses, internal and external to the enterprise.
Intréis clients and their ServiceNow deployments are “real-life” examples of how a proactive focus on processes and practices, including those that manage compliance, GRC and ITSM, achieves such goals. These clients use their ServiceNow deployments as incentive to identify and refine proven processes, within and beyond IT, then codify them via automation. Many of those clients also do the same with their processes related to compliance, as steps toward the integration and automation of all GRC-related processes.
What about your enterprise? How have your IT leaders and team contributed to success with compliance, GRC, or other business processes? If they haven’t, why not? Post a comment here, or e-mail me privately at . Positive or otherwise, stories from real life are important, because sharing those stories is how we help each other to be more successful.
