The future for IT Techs (?)

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Hi Guys

With all these companies moving to the cloud and users becoming more and more self-sufficient, clients are less and less reliant on their IT person anymore so that is a concern for me going forward. The movement of servers to the cloud is primarily a cost savings move meaning they don't need you to patch/maintain them and users can often troubleshoot their own problems. I am speaking primarily in the SMB Space not the enterprise.

So what is the future for IT Techs in the SMB space and how do we stay needed and relevant? What skills should be focused upon?

@Jerry-Sauder,

Like all things, there will always be a space for someone who can help others get connected to technology and troubleshoot them too. Many people in the workforce are very "focused" in their technology usage but it normally doesn't involve what to do when there are issues with the technology.

Most users are not as savy to help themselves setup and troubleshoot as you'd think. It's not because people are dumb, they use it as a tool but not have an understanding in what it can do.

I would focus in on helping people with cloud services, hand-held devices, and wireless. Anything you see people struggling with doing on a daily basis. Also, securing the SMB space.

If you can, add two things to your portfolio:

• coding
• ITIL

I believe that having both will enable to you to garnish attention over other candidates.

@Jerry-Sauder

There will always be a need for people who understand what's happening out there "in the cloud". Let's be honest, while we might not be putting our hands on physical machines, there will always be a need for change management and configuration. That's why I agree with @MichaelS that learning the ITIL framework will be helpful. Tech changes so rapidly that it's better to know HOW to use the tech to provide services and products in certain cases. Securing the cloud will be a big task for most organizations so take @Ronnie-Wong s advice and look into those aspects.

Cheers!