The Top Challenges Facing IT Departments

In the modern corporate environment, IT departments have a lot more on their plates than just keeping an organization’s computer systems up and running.

According to a 2016 report from consulting firm Protiviti, almost two thirds of information technology professionals were experiencing transformation in their organizations to deliver added value, increased security or enhanced business performance via information technology.

The study surveyed more than 1,100 CIOs, IT vice presidents and IT directors and found that the most pressing challenges for IT professionals included:

• Protecting and enhancing business value by aligning and integrating both IT risk management and business continuity within a long-term business strategy.
• Enhanced cybersecurity – the need to manage and strengthen an organization’s security and privacy to protect systems and data.
• A bigger focus on data classification to ensure that the growing amounts of data generated within an organization are effectively organized, managed and kept secure.
• More responsibility for IT assets. This is being driven by the growing use of mobile devices and various applications and a marked increase in the use of cloud computing into a company’s IT processes.
• A focus on both mobile platforms and social media. This involves incorporating secure systems that integrate properly for mobile commerce on different devices as well as addressing social media safeguards and strategies.

Many IT departments are rising to these challenges, being proactive and putting strategies in place to deal with each of them in order to contribute to their organization’s overall success.

One tool that can assist is a cost-effective software solution that can help IT departments with these challenges in several ways: DeskAlerts.

DeskAlerts is internal communications software that enables a company to send messages to the entire workforce at once – or just to niche groups of users – providing them with critical information so they can stay informed.

It can be an IT department’s best friend. For starters, sending mass notifications means that the entire workforce can be informed of any critical incidents such as a widespread outage at the same time, freeing the IT department up to deal with that problem and their existing workloads instead of fielding many inquiries from staff wanting to know what’s going on.

It’s also an effective tool to communicate important IT-related information to all staff to assist the IT department meet its modern challenges.

For example, it can be used to send cyber-security hints and tips to create a more security minded culture within an organization. Or if there is a known threat such as a virus, malware or ransomware outbreak, users can be alerted so they can be vigilant.

Other IT tasks such as data management and classification can be treated the same way – use DeskAlerts to send advice to all staff in your organization about protocols and procedures. You can even hyperlink them to existing content on your intranet site or create video tutorials to educate your employees about the importance of keeping data stored and organized properly.