Will Digital Transformation Create or Eliminate Enterprise IT Jobs?

By: Andrew Froehlich
Published on: 02/05/2018

When new technologies crop up that shake the IT entire industry, questions inevitably follow regarding how it may or may not impact job roles and enterprise staffing levels. In recent history, technologies such as server virtualization and a shift toward cloud computing are two examples of technology disruptions in the IT workplace.

Yet, when it comes to the concept of digitally transforming an entire business, things aren't so clear. While digitization may reduce technical needs in some areas, it can increase it in others. It all depends on perspective and a businesses willingness to realize the full potential of digital transformation.

Digital transformation is the ability to apply technology to build business processes. This could be in the form of reworking manual processes used today, or to create brand new processes that have never before been attempted. Yet, despite whether you rebuild old processes or create new ones, the heart of digital transformation revolves around one word: change.

When it comes to the IT department, changes can be either incredibly positive or detrimentally negative as they relate to specific job roles. For example, cloud computing was detrimental to internal server and storage administrators as businesses pivoted toward an IT infrastructure built on PaaS and SaaS architectures. On the other hand, if you look at server virtualization technologies, you saw exponential growth for those IT administrators that learned how to design and manage complex virtualization platforms.

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