IT management is the management of information, which means its collection, processing, storage and distribution, taking into account the needs of the company and its main objectives. This concept means ensuring the development of the enterprise with the use of IT infrastructure.
Information resources in IT-management
The set of information resources of almost any company includes:
- technical infrastructure – servers, network equipment, telecommunications networks and other physical devices;
- technology – software, database management system, artificial intelligence, machine learning;
- information stored in the company (including Big Data);
- personnel – these are engineers, technical support workers, sysadmins, consultants.
Today, every business is closely tied to information technology. Even small companies use them in their activities, which means that any organization must either have the appropriate professionals on staff or work with reliable contractors.
What functions an IT manager performs
IT management is the job of employees who manage information resources in businesses. They know how to plan and execute long-term strategies related to organizations’ IT services, processes and infrastructure. Their goal is to ensure business continuity by applying new advances in information technology.
An IT manager is an employee who performs tasks overlapping with a project manager, but only he is responsible for a whole pool of services, not for a specific project for a limited period of time. His tasks are processing a large amount of information and distributing it among several departments of the enterprise, controlling that it is reliable, as well as protecting data from unauthorized access, applying new approaches to management.
What is included in the functions of the IT manager:
- Managing the IT staff in the company;
- calculation and allocation of finances for infrastructure development;
- analyzing the satisfaction of the organization’s customers;
- negotiating with suppliers of computers, networking and other equipment;
- developing and implementing new IT services;
- using various technologies to drive business growth;
- creating a strategy and determining the speed of work on projects;
- planning for the near and distant future;
- organizing productive cooperation between the information department and the rest of the organization.
The main purpose of IT management is to grow the business with the help of information technology. The employee in this position needs to combine business strategies and technology, and the entire team needs to work as a cohesive, creative, unified group, rather than using only a mechanical approach.
IT management and outsourcing
IT management in entrepreneurship encompasses much more than just the effective management of information resources. The ability to delegate them is also important. This is where another concept – IT outsourcing – comes in. When the manager of an organization realizes that his own information resources alone are not enough to solve a particular problem, it is possible to turn to outsourcing services.
What services can be obtained from a contractor:
- Rent computing power, including cloud data centers;
- involve employees in the development of the necessary software, the creation of distributed local area networks (LAN);
- delegate maintenance responsibilities for physical equipment, including advice to users on how to use the devices.
For each individual task, the IT manager decides if internal resources are sufficient or if outsourcing is required.
Benefits of IT management
IT services allow:
- improve performance, prevent problems with it by identifying its thresholds;
- reduce risks through collaborative work of specialists;
- identify the consequences of deviations from regulatory standards during audits;
- detect problems that relate to the integration of the solution before it is implemented in the work environment;
- to adapt the work to new business needs.
The existence and development of any enterprise is impossible without an IT structure. The manager must know what the company needs an IT manager for, what functions he performs. The ways of work he uses help the company to develop, modernize infrastructure, optimize and automate processes.
