The New Normal in IT

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xv

About The Author xvii

Part I--The Postpandemic New Normal 1

Chapter 1 Lasting Business Impacts and Resource Sourcing After a Global Pandemic 3

Introduction 3

Impacts from Covid-19 on Businesses and Organizations 5

Impacts in Academia 6

Unemployment Impacts in the United States and Around the Globe 14

Some Bright Spots During the Pandemic 17

Impacts on Consultants and Organizations Sourcing Strategy 22

Lessons Learned 29

Things I've Done in My Career to Prepare 32

Recommendations and Predictions 33

Notes 37

Chapter 2 The Shrinking Office of the Future: Cloud and Mobile Dominate 41

Corporate Footprint During the Pandemic 41

The Corporate Office of the Future 44

IT Infrastructure and Telecommunications 56

Cloud and Mobile Will Dominate Post Pandemic 64

Things I've Done in My Career to Prepare 66

Recommendations and Predictions 66

Notes 70

Chapter 3 Voice Systems and Collaboration in the New Hybrid Office Environment 73

Voice Systems 73

Collaboration Tools 80

Things I've Done in My Career to Prepare 86

Recommendations and Predictions 87

Notes 90

Part II--Risk Mitigation and Disaster Recovery Is Your New Friend 93

Chapter 4 Never Be Unprepared for a Pandemic Again: Business Continuity and IT Disaster Recovery Going Forward 95

Business Continuity and IT Disaster Recovery: Defined and Purpose 96

Technologies to Scan and Reduce Covid Risks in the Workplace 99

Business Continuity and IT Disaster Recovery Failures During the Height of the Covid-19

Pandemic 101

Business Continuity Going Forward - Remote Staff Where Possible but It Varies Greatly by Sector 110

IT DR Going Forward - Remote Staff, Co-lo, and Cloud-based IT Solutions 112

Things I've Done in My Career to Prepare 119

Recommendations and Predictions 121

Notes 124

Chapter 5 It Security For Corporate Resilience 127

The State of IT Security Today 127

IT Security Going Forward 138

The State of IT Security Standards and Frameworks 140

Managed Detection and Response (On-premise Network, Endpoint, Cloud) 142

Managed Risk 144

Securing Email 145

Privileged Access Management (PAM) 146

SIEM versus SOCaaS versus MDR? 147

CIO Security Best Practices 148

Things I've Done in My Career to Prepare 153

Recommendations and Predictions 155

Notes 157

Part III--IT Governance to Performance Management 161

Chapter 6 IT Governance: Keep It Simple 163

IT Governance Defined and Purpose 163

IT Governance - Frameworks and Methodologies 167

IT Governance Myths 174

Best-Practice IT Governance Today 178

Things I've Done in My Career to Prepare 187

Recommendations and Predictions 195

Notes 199

Chapter 7 Key Performance Indicators for the New Normal 201

KPI Defined 201

Common KPIs Pre-Covid-19 202

Updated KPIs Influenced by the Pandemic 205

Things I've Done in My Career to Prepare 213

Recommendations and Predictions 214

Notes 216

Chapter 8 Updated Research and CIO Priorities 217

Updated Research 217

Reflections on the Global Pandemic 231

CIO Priorities Going Forward 235

Recommendations and Predictions 241

Notes 246

Index 251