4 Reasons I Chose a Career in Integrated IT Solutions

… Despite having a successful career in CyberSecurity

… Despite having a degree in human biology 

I remember my now friend and mentor, Conn Nicoll, asking me about two years ago over a FaceTime interview : "are you sure you are ready to move to Alberta?" To be honest, I was not, I had no idea what I was signing up for. I'd never been to Western Canada, I had never worked for a telco and I had never been on my own with no friends and family in a city.

Thank you so so much to the TELUS Business teams for enabling me with so much perspective, training, growth and career evolution, especially out west.

What I did know was that I was ready to take on another leap into exploring cyber security from a wider lens. I was ready to understand the very challenges being faced by organizations at every level in a very unique industry landscape. If you know me personally, you know that challenges excite me. Maybe that's why security professionals end up in security…

I digress.

My role has since evolved into not only an IT security practice lead but an integrated role as a practice lead in Managed IT Services, IT Security, Unified Collaboration & Cloud Solutions. You better believe it is as bada** as it sounds.

But why should we all, both as advisers and IT professionals, consider transforming at least our mentalities into third-wave specialists from silo'd experts?

Surely, I can not speak for my leadership, peers or clients, but here are four reasons this role excited me as an individual.

1. So many vendors, products & services!!

Canada is a mid-market country, yet, we are treating the landscape with an enterprise mentality. As per a recent study, businesses in Canada manage an average of 8 different IT and telecommunications providers. That's 8 streams of procurement, 8 contracts, 8 dates of expiration and around 8 points of contact; one for each solution or product. The silo'd approach does not resonate with the small, mid and even large market organizations.

The end-result of this approach, as I have seen in the many organizations I work with, is the nightmare we call in IT : The Winchester Mystery House.

2. Not enough IT budget and resources

Most organizations have a limited bandwidth to manage their internal processes and IT infrastructure, it is often a robust task to be leveraging a plethora of contacts for mere functionality. The headache of managing products and vendors doesn’t allow their resources to innovate and digitally transform like their competitors.

IT budgets continue to be strained while organizations are forced to innovate to increase revenues. It is more important than ever to work with trusted advisors and partners who understand all your IT challenges and goals for innovation.

3. Collaboration is more than just communication, it is the backbone of every digital organization

The workforce today is increasingly digital. Remote workers not only allow for retention of good talent but cuts costs on 'keeping the lights on'. Through an integrated approach towards IT, I can ensure the collaboration tools for any organization are easy-to-adopt, secured by design, aligns with the cloud strategy and enables the workforce to be increasingly effective and more productive.

Many times collaboration gets lost in Shadow IT as users try to get around the parameters and policies of the organization. Being able to understand the security, network, interconnectivity, the policies and the unique particulars from a wider lens, the integrated approach allows for collaboration to be unified.

4. Taking a step back from vulnerabilities and patching to truly secure by design

My passion will always remain in cyber security, I am definitely not saying we as security professionals (or any other niche expertise) need to change our job titles. But, it is quite magical when you step back from your narrow lens of vulnerabilities and patching to look into how we can solve overarching security, policy & compliance issues by leveraging our understanding of the entire IT infrastructure.

When the CIO, the CTO, the CISO and the CEO work together and understand the issues in each other's businesses, something magical happens. In many cases, one individual in an organization may be wearing more than one of these hats. We must keep an open mind as to how the collective we (the technology community) can navigate through the uniqueness of these issues as a consultant, team member, IT manager, or even an entry-level analyst in any organization.

I truly believe in the power of digital transformation. The way I practice that is by architecting network and infrastructure solutions which are secure by design. In my current position as a Technical Practice Lead for all third-wave solutions at TELUS Business, I am a trusted advisor to organizations as they build and execute their Cloud, Collaboration, IT and Security road map.

If you would like to continue this conversation, need me to look over your career game plan or just want to connect over a coffee in Toronto please comment below or reach out to me at anmol.anand@telus.com !

Thank you for reading,

Anmol :)

Please comment to tell me what you thought of my ideas above!!