Debate over whether increasing business migrations to the cloud are killing the need for IT support, and IT jobs generally, continues. But before we assume that computers are going to take over the world and make human techies redundant, let’s take a closer look at the role of IT support for cloud setups.
As with any emerging technology, there is always the worry that jobs, and the need for real people to do the jobs they’ve always done, will disappear as a result of that technology. But the World Economic Forum’s report on emerging technologies states that such technologies, including the cloud will, by 2022, actually create more jobs than they kill, to the tune of 58 million of them.
Looking specifically at cloud technology, once a business has migrated to the cloud, that isn’t the end of IT provision and service support.
Support for business systems
A business, even fully-migrated to cloud will still need IT support to maintain and monitor its systems. And what if the business wants to monitor a certain function, or check compliance and non-compliance of services to its customers? The likelihood is that they will need help and support to do that, to interrogate their systems, and extract the correct data relating to those functions, as well as interpret the data.
Support for users
Desktop IT support and user IT support are still necessary for the ongoing support, either remotely and/or automated, of employees and other business users. Particularly if employees and associates are increasingly working from home – IT support has a valuable role to play in ensuring employee engagement and wellbeing through the correct help and contact.
Know-how for cloud applications
Businesses do not stand still. If a business is to scale, diversify or adapt its offering, the know-how for using the right cloud applications in the right way will directly impact on the short and long-term success of the organisation and its goals. Efficiency and innovation of business offer are critical; having a cloud expert working alongside you who supports your IT is going to be of huge benefit.
Cybersecurity
Just because you are on the cloud, doesn’t mean you can forget all about cybersecurity. All cloud setups are vulnerable to threat. Cybersecurity therefore should be an integral part of your cloud service and you should be satisfied that your service provider can assure you of the correct levels of compliance for your particular industry.
Cloud is actually just more technology, and as increasing numbers of businesses migrate to the cloud, more IT and expertise within IT, which includes all aspects of cloud, compliance, security and user support are just as important, if not more so than ever. The concept of traditional IT support is changing as the technology changes to more cloud-based services, but the role for technical support for cloud-based IT is not going anywhere anytime soon.
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