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Time and money holding back IT pro skills development
Those delivering technological solutions for customers are only too aware that the world is changing and skills need to be developed but as SolarWinds has uncovered its not quite that simple
There has been a lot off effort made in the first couple of months of this year to increase the support and interaction with the technical staff at resellers.
Initiatives from Westcon Comstor and a recent emphasis on the technical side of the channel from HPE has shown that industry is keen to try to increase knowledge across the partner community.
Those efforts come at a time when those looking after technology for customers are being pushed to keep on top of current developments and get ready for artificial intelligence and hooking all of the IoT devices up to the infrastructure.
Understandably many tech pros are worried that they will not be able to get themselves into a position to keep on top of it all, according to research from SolarWinds.
The IT management player found in its IT Trends Report 2019: Skills for Tech Pros of Tomorrow, that the current priorities for those working at MSPs and MSSPs and technical departments at traditional resellers was systems and infrastructure, security management and hybrid IT skills.
In the next three to five years they hope to develop skills in AI, big data analytics but time and budget constraints are seen as a couple of major barriers.
“Recent history has proven that there is a direct correlation between technology and business performance,” said Joe Kim, executive vice president and global chief technology officer, SolarWinds. “The results of this year’s IT Trends Report highlight that businesses need to focus even more on developing these professionals charged with running and pioneering technologies for the businesses.
"By removing day-to-day barriers, arming technology pros with the right technology and management tools, and prioritising skills and career development in the IT budget, tech pros can be better equipped for the future and help with business growth," he added.
“The findings are also in line with our view that the most critical problem we need to help tech pros solve today is the reality of the hybrid IT landscape—this applies to all tech pros whether on-premises, managing hybrid infrastructures, SaaS-based, or MSPs,” he said.
Headline findings
The majority of technology pros are not fully confident they have all the skills needed to manage their environments into the near future, especially when it comes to emerging tech
Tech pros will continue building skills in daily operations with an eye toward areas like data science
Tech pros say hybrid IT, security, and software-defined everything are the key technologies for career development
Tech pros have an appetite to prioritise career development on a weekly basis but are hindered by factors like time and cost
