Ten IT Concerns: Security, Stability Top List

For today’s business outlook, innovation equals freedom—the freedom to do business from everywhere.

The phenomenal growth in mobile technology allows business owners the ability to gather critical information anywhere, anytime they want. Portability has become the heart of this new information revolution, with cloud-based services at the forefront.

For IT professionals, it is balancing an on-the-go business environment with the need for a sound security policy and maximizing data protection.

The leading concern of the IT industry is the need for comprehensive plans to get the most of the benefits of emerging technologies, such as mobile devices and cloud computing.

The 2012 Top Technology Initiatives Survey by the American Institute of CPAs surveyed CPAs with IT experience, to get an insider’s view of the key issues in business technology, and what areas still require assistance.

In 2011, the top three issues were:

Control of the use of mobile devices
Information security
Data retention policies/structure

With the rapid pace of technology of cloud-based services, security may still be of prime importance; but this year, it is a secure IT environment tops the list.

CPA’s having IT experience were asked again to rate organizational goals for the next 12 months. They listed the top 10 leading technology priorities in 2012, as well as providing assessments of how well companies are meeting them:

Securing the IT environment (62 percent of respondents feel comfortable with company efforts to address the issue appropriately)
Managing and retaining data (61 percent)
Managing risk and compliance (65 percent)
Ensuring privacy (62 percent)
Leveraging emerging technologies (34 percent)
Managing system implementation (52 percent)
Enabling decision support and managing performance (46 percent)
Governing and managing IT investment/spending (56 percent)
Preventing and responding to fraud (60 percent)
Managing vendors and service providers (56 percent)

Freedom to conduct business anywhere provides the biggest challenges for IT professionals; it is the need to protect valuable business data, keeping it as safe out in the world as it can be in the confines of the office. To achieve that goal, all members of an IT department should be following the same list of priorities.