Concerns For IT Professionals

Staffing issues, security breaches and business disconnect concerning IT professionals

ISACA survey highlights issues within IT enterprise governance

Wellington, New Zealand (6 August 2012) — More than half of IT decision makers in New Zealand and Australia say they had insufficient numbers of IT staff in their organisation in the past 12 months, according to a survey from global IT association ISACA.

In the 2012 Governance of Enterprise IT (GEIT) Survey, 54 percent of respondents said they had experienced staffing shortages in IT in the past 12 months. The only problem that was more common was project over-run, at 57 percent.

However, 48 percent also indicated they had experienced a disconnect between the IT and business strategies and 29 percent noted that their enterprise had experienced a security breach in the past year. One in 10 said they had experienced a privacy breach in the past 12 months.

When asked what consequences their organisation had experienced due to an IT-related problem or incident, 48 percent of IT decision makers said customer satisfaction had been reduced in the past 12 months – and 23 percent stated that their company’s reputation was harmed.

Vaughan Harrison, President of the ISACA Wellington chapter and Director at PriceWaterhouseCoopers New Zealand, said: “The demand placed on IT departments continues to broaden and deepen as executives require IT professionals to act as key business partners and enablers of the organisation's strategy.

“These changes require IT leaders to continually refine their role within an organisation, ensuring the IT department understands its responsibilities and has both capability and capacity to meet the increased business needs.”

When asked about their predictions around the biggest IT challenges their organisations’ network security is facing in the next 12 months, 19 percent indicated data leakage, 17 percent said inadvertent employee mistakes and 15 percent were concerned about incidents relating to employees’ personal devices. Cloud computing and cyber attacks ranked lowest in terms of the most likely challenge to a network’s security, at 12 and 11 percent respectively.

“Data supports and enables an organisation's operating model. The amount and variety of data that is collected continues to grow and provides enterprises with a valuable intelligent asset. However, data must be secured appropriately to prevent the realisation of any competitive advantage, privacy and reputational risks,” added Vaughan Harrison. “Data needs to be managed through an enterprise wide information security framework that considers strategy, structure, people, process and technology.”

To assist with this, ISACA recently published COBIT 5 for Information Security, which builds on the recently released COBIT 5 framework to provide practical guidance for those interested in security at all levels of an enterprise. ISACA’s COBIT 5 framework is the only business framework for the governance and management of enterprise IT.

These issues will also be discussed at the upcoming Oceania CACS2012 conference, which focuses on ‘embracing uncertainty and delivering value in turbulent times’. Held in Wellington from 10-12 September 2012, highly respected industry experts from New Zealand, Australia and around the world will present their latest thinking, research and practical experience in topical presentations and workshops.

For more information on the Oceania CACS2012 conference, including registration details, please visit: www.oceaniacacs2012.org. For more information about ISACA, please visit www.isaca.org.

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