Managed.IT - issue 52

34 MANAGED.IT 01732 759725 PREDICTIONS In the past, C-level executives have taken one of two approaches to digital transformation. More traditional, old-school organisations have tended to regard digital transformation as a ‘have to do’ as opposed to a ‘want to do’, but nonetheless are being told they should move with the times and don’t want to be left behind. The second approach, being taken by C-level executives who are more forward-thinking and already recognise the long-term value of digital transformation, is to view digitalisation as an opportunity to boost connectivity, improve internal processes and increase customer engagement. Digital disruptors born in the cloud are changing the way traditional companies view digital transformation. CEOs of incumbent companies, such as airlines, hotel chains and car manufacturers, are watching young, agile companies Cloud and edge computing Cloud computing is now firmly established, with most organisations making use of it at some level. However, as the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices grows, so does the amount of data generated that requires storage. The rise of edge computing is putting more data processing at the ‘edge’ of the network, close to where the data is collected by a video camera or access control device. This can significantly reduce bandwidth and storage demands, and the data can be anonymised and encrypted before it is transferred to secure data centres. Johan Paulsson, CTO at Axis Communications Networks 2019 will be the year businesses’ over-reliance on the network and the connectivity it delivers will come to a head, particularly for small companies. As more businesses transition everything to the cloud, their reliance on the network always being available increases. Just one example is the increasing move from cash to card-based transactions and contactless payment in places like coffee shops and boutiques. If there is no backup in place for their connectivity, an outage could stop a business dead as many customers no longer have cash on them. Thankfully, there are solutions to this problem, like SD-WAN, which delivers enterprise-grade connectivity with seamless backups across 4G. Woe betide companies that don’t think carefully about their network connectivity. Justin Fielder, CTO of Zen like Uber and Airbnb disrupt their markets and are subsequently starting to realise the urgent need for change.   The benefits of digital transformation are clear to see, with businesses launching in the cloud growing faster, making more money and moving into more countries. For example, Airbnb recently valued its company at $31bn compared to Hilton’s estimated $23.33bn valuation. As digital disruptors enter the market in greater numbers, we will see companies that originally viewed digital transformation as a necessary evil shift their mindset and become much more open to implementing a digitisation strategy. For CEOs that recognise the need for digital transformation, a lack of expertise can be the biggest obstacle, specifically the lack of experienced CIOs who can successfully execute a digital transformation initiative. While there is a lot of talent among those who have been brought up in the digital era, undertaking a significant digital transformation project requires senior-level skills and considerable experience due to the complexity involved in integrating business owners with network and legal requirements. CEOs would be wise to utilise trusted advisors and consultants to get strategic support on how to digitise, but, ultimately, they will still need help to execute the necessary application, network and security changes in the right order. I believe we will see a growing demand for experienced CIOs, which will likely lead to high levels of employee attrition as businesses poach high-value individuals from other firms. Such movement at the CIO level could exacerbate the problem of hindered or delayed transformation projects. Digitalisation highlights skills shortage Tipping point for the cyber security skills gap By Matt Piercy, VP of EMEA, Zscaler Matt Piercy Johan Paulsson While it’s long been known that the cyber security industry has a significant skills gap problem, what’s less well known is that this gap is increasing. In October 2018, (ISC) 2 revealed that the global cyber skills gap now stands at three million, with 63% of businesses lacking the cyber skills needed to keep threats at bay. In 2019, get ready for a tipping point between the resource, skills and expertise of the ‘good guys’ who are fighting attacks and the ‘bad guys’ who are launching the attacks. As cyber attackers’ tactics become ever more sophisticated and harder to spot, it will take more of the good guys’ time to identify and stop them.  An example of a new-style attack that takes more work to detect and clean up are account takeovers, where attackers steal the email credentials of employees and use them to send emails from a user’s real account. Because attackers cover their tracks, for example by deleting sent emails, often people only know they’ve been breached when they get mysterious out-of-office responses.  On top of this, many organisations are finding it harder to recruit and retain cyber specialists to keep the bad guys at bay and are having to rely on fewer people with the skills and expertise needed to protect their organisation. Decreasing human resources will come to a head in 2019, when organisations are no longer able to investigate ‘stealth’ cyber- attacks. Michael Flouton, VP, Product Ops and Security Strategy, Barracuda Networks