Covid-19 IT Playbook for SMBs

By Michael C. Fillios
Author, Tech Debt 2.0®: How to Future Proof Your Small Business and Improve Your Tech Bottom Line. 

The impact of Covid-19 has had unprecedented implications on a global scale in both our personal and professional lives. Much of which today is blurred as we all adapt to changing behaviors such as working from home and being surrogate teachers for our children. Needless to say, we have all had to change in one way or another.

Covid-19 wasn’t on the radar when I was researching and writing my book, Tech Debt 2.0®, How to Future Proof Your Small Business and Improve Your Tech Bottom Line. However, now that it is so much a part of our daily lives, I wanted to share my thoughts on the parallels between Tech Debt 2.0® and in what ways the pandemic creates a unique paradox that every IT leader is facing during this crisis and for the years ahead.

I believe that every IT leader has a unique opportunity to positively impact their organization during this crisis and in many ways, they have already. The rapid movement to supporting the huge shift of employees to work remotely is just one small example that perhaps has elevated your IT reputation to your business counterparts to bask in a moment of unexpected glory.  In other cases, perhaps you were caught flat footed and had to scramble to purchase laptops at your local Best Buy or stock up on peripherals to support your end users. Perhaps your company already had a stockpile of Microsoft Teams licenses, but it was not being leveraged and users needed to be trained.   

These are just a few examples of paradoxes that either shine the light on you as an IT leader positively or perhaps expose some of your functional warts.  As I speak with dozens of IT and business leaders at small and mid sized businesses, I would say that the results are somewhat mixed.  However, as we learn more about the economic implications of the virus on businesses and individuals, we are just scratching the surface of challenges that lie ahead. 

I believe that this is a watershed moment for IT leaders to lean in, be proactive, and utilize this opportunity to redefine your individual and your functional brand reputation and to extend the short term accolades you might have received into a sustainable and earned seat at the board room table!

As far as dealing with the reputational paradox, I offer some suggestions in the form of a “top 10” list of offensive and defensive plays to consider as you navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead.   

Offensive Plays:

1. Stay healthy, your family and business needs you
2. Conduct a health check of your project portfolio and reprioritize backlog
3. Establish or refocus IT governance processes to accelerate decision making and keep alignment with business priorities
4. Develop and “acute” action plan with intention and purpose for the next 30, 60, 90, 120 days and execute flawlessly
5. Prioritize areas that focus on revenue preservation and the external customer experience

Defensive Plays:

1. Diagnose your Tech Debt 2.0® and set a plan to improve underlying root causes
2. Prioritize your cyber risks by conducting a business impact analysis with targeted penetration tests
3. Review and revise essential “pandemic” security policies and practices
4. Investigate and engage your internal team and external partners to identify potential cost savings opportunities
5. Protect core operations and monitor critical infrastructure services for internal end users

 

About the author

Michael C. Fillios is the founder and CEO of IT Ally, LLC., a C-Suite IT and Cyber Advisory firm for small and mid-size businesses. He is a four-time CIO and senior global business and technology executive with 25 years of experience in transformation, change leadership and operations management in the Pharmaceutical, Industrials, Automotive, Banking and Consulting Industries. His first book, Tech Debt 2.0®: How to Future Proof Your Small Business and Improve Your Tech Bottom Line, was published in April 2020.

In 2020, he formed the IT Ally Institute to provide research, best practices, thought leadership and peer to peer programs for business and IT leaders at small and mid-sized businesses.

To learn more about IT Ally, please visit www.itallyllc.com.

To learn more about the IT Ally Institute and to take our Covid-19 SMB Survey, please visit www.itallyinstitute.org.

To start reading Tech Debt 2.0® for free, please visit https://a.co/9Y8f3Cx.