The new IT department 

The new role of the IT Department

Despite the steady migration of applications and systems to the cloud, IT administrators will remain vital to the business.

Business owners might be asking themselves, “Why do I need an IT administrator or an IT department/IT service provider when I’m moving my operations to the cloud?” I’ll answer that question with another question: have you ever woken up sick, hopped on WebMB and diagnosed yourself with Dengue Fever 10 seconds later?

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Before business owners say goodbye to their IT staff they need to think about this question and how they interact with their doctors today. After a self-diagnosis, one would certainly still need a visit to the doctor’s office for an in-person physical examination and a professional diagnosis.

The same holds true for IT operations at the office or trusted IT partners. You can handle moving files to an online storage service, or entering data into a cloud application like Salesforce. But when email service suddenly goes down, information is lost or you’re worried about a data breach, the last thing you want is one or two of your employees compounding the issue as a result of their self-diagnosis. Business heads want to be able to turn to someone in the office or a trusted service provider who can work with all of their technology vendors to quickly diagnose and fix the problem. But they are also looking for expert advice on how to uncover greater efficiencies and deeper customer insights or to improve collaboration among the team.

Stay tuned for my next blog, which will highlight how the IT department can help ensure business success in 2016 by looking to younger generations for know-how.

Eva Schoenleitner is vice president of product marketing at Sage North America