CompTIA Partner Summit Online 2020: IT Leaders Prepare for Challenges

CompTIA Partner Summit Online, held this week, focused on the critical skills and competencies that IT and security professionals need. In a world reshaped by COVID-19, the conference theme –The Next Wave: Reskilling for The Future – is more relevant than ever.

In a session – Preparing for the Next Challenge: Preparedness from Today’s IT Leaders – a panel of three senior IT executives talked about lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Session moderator James Stanger, CompTIA’s chief technology evangelist, refers to the evolution of IT as pre-COVID, during COVID and post COVID.

The session from the virtual event featured a trio of panelists. They were Michael Geraghty, chief information officer for the state of New Jersey; Clem Craven, senior cybersecurity training lead at BT (British Telecom); and Illysa Ortsmann, senior vice president, global head of technology and infrastructure, at Christie’s Auction House. The three talked about the IT preparedness of their organizations before the pandemic hit, and where they go from here.

The CompTIA Partner Summit panelists quickly revealed that their organizations were in different levels of preparedness for the pandemic. As a result, their road map has changed. The input from these high-level IT professionals is vital for partners when they think about helping their customers.

BT Shines

In a perfect world, many companies would like to be in BT’s shoes.

When Craven joined the company in 2012, he was issued a laptop. In fact, everyone has laptops, he said. Not so with desktops.

CompTIA’s Clem Craven

“We’re agile. We can work from any BT building or work from home. When the pandemic restrictions happened, it was normal for us. We didn’t notice a major issue,” he said.

There was some backend work required; for example, checks on network capacity, but employees routinely work from home or in the various offices. Connections are over a VPN or the internet.

“All of our systems are configured for collaboration,” he said.

Craven’s team is all over the U.K., but chat and collaborate using Microsoft Teams, Skype, WebEx or SharePoint, regardless of where they are in the world.

“You would expect that from us being a network company. It would be embarrassing if that didn’t happen. We were able to pick up and carry on as normal. We have that resilience built in,” he said.

Geraghty talked about what’s it like on the other end of the spectrum. IT was somewhat prepared. He required his employees have a laptop and take it home at night. In the cybersecurity space, no one can predict when bad things will happen.

“So, we’re 24/7 in the event of incident. We have the capability to work from anywhere,” he said.

Others Face Challenges

It was the rest of the state government in New Jersey that struggled. There was a …