Contemporary Challenges for IT Managers

Contemporary Challenges for IT Managers

Outsourcing/Offshoring

Outsourcing refers to giving the entire business function to other organizations by contracting it. This leads to several benefits such as reduced costs, improved efficiencies, and better quality services. During the last century, as businesses began to grow in size, it became more difficult to manage every function; therefore, the solution determined was to contract the task to other companies that were specialized in that particular field. In this way it became easier to manage organizations (Oshri, 2011).

Similarly, offshoring is the contracting of certain business functions to companies located abroad. This is done in order to take advantage of economies of scale, get better quality products and remain safe from economic fluctuations that can have a negative impact on business.

In the IT business, outsourcing and offshoring play an important role as IT managers have to make important decisions on whether any work should be done in house or be outsourced. Most of the time work such as software developments are outsourced in order to get a better result since the company that is contracted will have the skill employees needed to carry out the task. Secondly, any issue can be reported and solved at a quicker speed compared to other businesses (Carmel & Tjia, 2005).

Offshoring is often considered as countries in Asia offer much cheaper IT services compared to any other region. Cheap labor and easy access to technology has made Asia the hub of IT business due to which IT managers from all over the world are coming to Asia in order to get their work contracted. As IT managers, it is their responsibility to determine the best solution in order to get the best services at the cheapest price.

ACS Code of Ethics / Conduct

The ACS code of ethics is aimed at IT professionals and certain roles have been assigned to them so that they do not misuse their power. These include the roles that IT professionals should serve the interest of every client, employee, and employers; the competent accomplishment of work; honest representation of products, services, knowledge, and skills; the enhancement of the quality of life of those being affected by the work; and to enhance the integrity of the profession while respecting the members (Rasmussen, 2001).

These set of codes were devised in order to protect all the stakeholders of information technology from various elements most importantly IT professionals. IT is a field in which a professional can easily misuse his powers to his own advantage. In such cases, employers, employees, and customers can be at risk of losing their privacy or even be subjected to fraud.

The advantage of such a code of ethics is that IT professions can be held responsible for their actions and they may understand the morals of ethics. This is similar to the code of ethics of medical professionals in which they are bound by the code to carry out their task with dedication and avoid fraud in every circumstance (Quigley, ...