IT Leadership in the Midst of the Pandemic

Como a pandemia Covid-19 cria desafios globais extraordinários, os líderes de todos os setores estão procurando maneiras de garantir a viabilidade de curto e longo prazo de suas organizações. A maioria dos diretores de informação (CIOs) de faculdades, universidades e centros de saúde acadêmica se sentiram ainda mais pressão do que o habitual, com a responsabilidade significativa de atender às necessidades imediatas, apoiando simultaneamente as metas estratégicas de suas instituições. Os CIOs e suas equipes têm as habilidades e os conhecimentos necessários para agregar um valor tremendo às suas instituições. Seja ajudando a navegar por necessidades urgentes relacionadas à pandemia ou apoiando os objetivos organizacionais amplos, os líderes de tecnologia da informação (TI) de ações assumem os próximos meses, continuarão a cimentar seu status de parceiros estratégicos. Abaixo, discutimos a abordagem de uma instituição para a estabilização, além de explorar oportunidades de transformação fundamental. A tecnologia da informação e os programas institucionais de segurança cibernética podem se beneficiar desse modelo, e há implicações que os líderes devem considerar ao navegar nas fases sobrepostas. As ações mais comuns incluíram a criação de sites ...

Technology leaders who balance their focus across these diverse needs during this difficult period will firmly establish and elevate their value as critical members of their institutional leadership teams. CIOs and their teams have the skills and expertise needed to add tremendous value to their institutions. Whether helping to navigate urgent pandemic-related needs or supporting broad organizational goals, the actions information technology (IT) leaders take over the coming months will continue to cement their status as strategic partners.

Huron has outlined a framework for higher education’s navigation through this pandemic and economic impacts. Below, we discuss an institution’s approach to stabilization along with exploring opportunities for fundamental transformation. Information technology and institutional cybersecurity programs can benefit from this model, and there are implications leaders should consider as they navigate the overlapping phases.

As organizações de TI tiveram que responder rapidamente aos esforços institucionais para mover cursos on -line e apoiar a equipe remota. As ações mais comuns incluíram a criação de sites que oferecem uma série de serviços, como sessões de treinamento on -line e dicas sobre como trabalhar remotamente, a extensão do horário de mesa e a negociação de taxas de acesso à Internet com desconto para funcionários, professores e alunos. Esses chatbots fornecem respostas automatizadas a perguntas comuns e ajudam a evitar ambiguidade e respostas atrasadas. Acesso virtual à rede privada (VPN). Sucesso

More innovative responses include the deployment of chatbots to complement contact centers in addressing the spike in requests for information. These chatbots provide automated responses to common questions and assist in avoiding ambiguity and delayed replies.

Some additional actions that institutions may have implemented include:

• Judiciously applying bandwidth throttling to ensure access to the most essential users.
• Creating self-service toolkits so employees can quickly set themselves up to work remotely.
• Expanding virtual private network (VPN) access.
• Ensuring adequate software licenses are available for all needed tools.
• Leveraging virtual desktops to give employees and students access to applications on their personal computers.

CIOs are engaging in discussions with other campus leaders to determine what data and analytics solutions they can provide to assist with the urgent decisions under consideration. IT governance and data governance structures should be leveraged to prioritize reporting requirements and ensure consistent data definitions are being used campus-wide.

Business intelligence capabilities related to forecasting, visualization and dashboarding should be infused into both finance and enrollment discussions to provide chief financial officers (CFOs) and provosts additional analysis methods. CIOs have an opportunity to be strategic partners with their peer executives in the midst of these trying times by enabling data-driven decision making — a capability that can contribute to the long-term viability of their institutions.

Another key operational imperative that CIOs will need to focus on is cybersecurity. Threat actors will attempt to exploit remote worker vulnerabilities by deploying additional cyberattacks and phishing scams. Malicious websites are already being established with the goal of luring in unsuspecting technology users to spread viruses.

Technology leaders should make every effort to implement both technical and policy-oriented measures to reduce the associated risks. Increased deployments of VPNs, multifactor authentication and data loss prevention technologies can provide users with guardrails that reduce, block and/or detect unwanted intrusions. These investments combined with enhanced cybersecurity training and awareness efforts (that focus on safe online and secure information management practices) can minimize risk in an already volatile time and strengthen institutions’ IT infrastructures for the future.

An essential task leadership teams will eventually need to complete entails renewing campus-wide strategic planning . These efforts will define new institutional priorities that focus on the long-term optimization of services, the development of new business models and the deployment of innovations across all functions. IT organizations will play a vital role both in implementing their own transformational efforts and in enabling other campus units to realize their strategic goals. CIOs will need to lead efforts to refresh their IT strategic plans so that they fully align with, support and even drive the new institutional priorities that will soon emerge.

Os líderes de TI também precisarão se concentrar em iniciativas que mudem materialmente como os serviços são prestados e consumidos pelos constituintes como o custo, a eficiência e a eficácia da prestação de serviços de TI estão sob maior escrutínio. Ao se envolver em uma revisão completa e racionalização de sistemas e serviços institucionais, os líderes de TI podem começar a definir um estado futuro aprimorado. As instituições também podem criar um equilíbrio saudável de outros métodos de prestação de serviços de TI, alavancando serviços nas instalações, hospedados de terceiros, totalmente terceirizados ou baseados em nuvem. Esses modelos de prestação de serviços de TI evoluídos permitem que as instituições obtenham economia e prevenção de custos, mudam riscos legais ou regulatórios para os provedores de serviços e melhorem o desempenho do serviço, a disponibilidade e a integridade. Para obter mais informações,

Shifting the delivery of commodity IT services (e.g., infrastructure, network, security management, hardware/software procurement) to a more centralized shared services model has the potential to drive significant savings and reduce security risks and vulnerabilities. Institutions can also create a healthy balance of other IT service delivery methods by leveraging on- premises, third party-hosted, fully outsourced or cloud-based services. These evolved IT service delivery models allow institutions to realize cost savings and avoidance, shift legal or regulatory risks to service providers, and improve service performance, availability and integrity.

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