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

Praise for THE NEW NORMAL IN IT

“COVID-19 for those whose roles are to provide technical leadership and continuity added an additional responsibility: keeping their enterprises running as we went through the pandemic and emerged into what is becoming the new normal. The web conferencing tools, cyber security, and staff training now had to really work. Everything has now changed and in more ways than most of us have imagined. Our culture, view of government, how we work, and our view of our own vulnerability is all different now. Author Gregory Smith explains what the new normal is to IT professionals. It is very different and far reaching than most of us imagine.”
—ED ANDERSON, former CIO, International Monetary Fund

“From the extensive consequences of the 2020 pandemic to the expanding cyber attack surfaces, this book explores brilliantly the multifaceted challenges that CIOs are currently facing and how emerging digital technologies are set to disrupt the future of organizations.”
—FREDERIC LEMIEUX, PhD, Faculty Director, Georgetown University

“Since the pandemic disruption, businesses have essentially been conducting a collective global pilot program on massive-scale disaster recovery, resiliency, the future of work, and the modern technology infrastructure needed to enable it all. The most important insights derived from these ‘pilots’ are assembled here by author Gregory Smith in the form of his own experiences as CIO, lessons learned by dozens of corporate executives, and the most profound findings of major workplace studies conducted over the past two years. The result is a clear, comprehensive, and compelling roadmap forward – one that technology leaders should use to help guide their companies safely and profitably through a decade likely to see continuing waves of coronavirus and other broad-scale disruptions.”
—RICHARD PASTORE, Senior Director, IT Research Advisor, The Hackett Group

“Higher education organizations quickly had to pivot to remote capabilities during the height of the pandemic. Gregory Smith has captured the strategy and tactics many of these organizations had to exercise as technology enablement for the academic and business enterprise became more relevant than ever before. Technology enablement has always been the driver for many digital transformation initiatives and the pandemic has clearly accelerated innovation for many. Through his research and own experiences, Mr. Smith has gathered insights that truly identify what organizations are doing to thrive, not just survive, during this extreme time of change. This blueprint will help guide many in developing strategies to drive the academic and business missions, while gaining important insight into their own operational readiness in this time of constant change.”
—KENDRA KETCHUM, Vice President, Information Management and Technology, University of Texas, San Antonio