COVID-19 and the Future of IT and Data Analytics
Faisal Akkawi, PhD
The first-order effects of COVID-19 are unique in that they are felt by all humans across the world. With education transitioned online, many employees working from home, and travel no longer an easy or necessarily safe option, we have become accustomed to a new normal.
However, as is the case with all major events, opportunities arise from the study of the second and third-order effects. Understanding how COVID-19 will permanently change business communication and IT strategy development can help people and companies position themselves for future success. Already we see a rapid acceleration of technology integration in organizations across all sectors from telemedicine and health informatics to elementary schools and NGOs. For example, as people realize that they can be more productive working from home, companies will need to provide this as an option to workers if they want to remain competitive. There will be opportunities here for those who can integrate business and IT objectives while building the necessary infrastructure to support these transitions. In pursuing these processes, companies will also look for managers in IT finance to properly budget these transitions.
Moving quickly toward the cloud
Before COVID-19, most organizations had not completed the cloud computing adoption process. They were in early phases of either experimenting on public cloud platforms or migrating only non-essential business functions to the cloud. Now that many organizations are being pushed through these early phases, they will likely be uniquely positioned to move into the later phases of the adoption process. This involves not only the migration of all business functions to the cloud, but also the transformation of business processes to take advantage of cloud features. Organizations will want to exercise the full benefits of this technology and change how they operate in order to do so. We should see an unprecedented rise in the demand for business technology experts who can implement secure network systems, understand information security and technology management techniques, conduct IT operations research, etc.
Analytics become even more essential
The drive to add value will not end there, inevitably extending to advanced data analytics as well. Before COVID-19, experts dubbed the last five-year period as the ‘Artificial Intelligence Gold Rush.’ Now, the demand for precise and well-timed data analytics has never been higher. The South Korean government proved this forecast on March 26 when they launched a digital surveillance system that reduced contact-tracing time from 24 hours in February to under 10 minutes. The government partnered with 27 private organizations including credit card companies, mobile carriers, police agencies, credit associations, and more, to gather real-time data on citizens. This effort allowed them to identify potential breakout regions, provide analysis on major clusters to health authorities, and ultimately slow the spread of the coronavirus. As the demand for data analytics rises during and after COVID-19, organizations will look for experts in project management who understand how to work in professional data-driven roles and build advanced network configurations and deployments.
New privacy and security concerns emerge
Like yin and yang, as more and more citizen data becomes available to private and public organizations, the pressing need for information security experts also rises. While increased monitoring of citizens is critical in slowing the spread of the disease, future conversations about data ethics and privacy will call in IT experts who can find new ways to anonymize data. CEOs will need to identify best practices in both information privacy and cybersecurity. Data privacy is essential in protecting the rights of citizens and cybersecurity is essential in making sure that this valuable data does not fall into the wrong hands. Organizations will demand cybersecurity experts who can not only protect them from existing threats, but build awareness and response for new threats as well.
The demand for IT professionals is not new, with the pre-COVID-19 demand for cybersecurity experts numbering over 500,000. However, it is clear that this crisis will only exacerbate this shortage as companies race to integrate technology into their businesses.
The Master of Science in Information Systems program from Northwestern University School of Professional Studies offers a wide range of specializations including Artificial Intelligence and Data Science. Visit our program page for more details.
Faisal Akkawi is the faculty director of Northwestern University’s Master of Science in Information Systems program. His area of specialization is software architecture for concurrent systems, and his research interests also include reactive/adaptive intelligent systems and design issues of concurrent programming languages. Selected for the NASA Faculty Fellowship Program in 2003, Akkawi designed and implemented a framework that was used in the advanced diagnostic and caution and warning system for the International Space Station. He has an MS in electrical engineering and a PhD in computer science from Illinois Institute of Technology.
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