IT professionals are faced with numerous challenges today, especially as businesses become more digital and rely heavily on technologies to complete tasks.  Right now, nothing is more critical than ensuring that IT teams are up to date on all the latest processes and skills needed to address customer needs.

SysAid, a provider of IT service management (ITSM) solutions, makes it possible for IT professionals to manage their IT infrastructures and IT services with ease and efficiency. By offering intuitive and cost-effective solutions, the company is able to simplify daily challenges faced by IT professionals.

I recently caught up with SysAid CEO, Sarah Lahav, to hear her IT predictions for 2016, and get a reflection of the tech trends from the past year.

Lahav noted that 2015 was a great year for SysAid.  In addition to implementing new functionality and completely redesigning reporting capabilities, the company also introduced a new BI capability, thanks to a partnership with QlikView, so customers can have insight into their data and ensure they’re always on target with their business needs.

“We believe looking at data, understanding data and reevaluating will lead to constant improvement. Final output for the organization will be the business advantage that only the IT team can provide,” Lahav advised.

The challenge comes with the accelerated pace with which the industry is moving.  Companies need to be able to do things faster, identify the upcoming technology trends and deliver them before they become obsolete.

Fortunately in 2015, Lahav noted that the agile and scram adoption rate grew and helped to challenge IT professionals to become more innovative. One company that impressed her was Amazon, who as she noted, is always offering existing technologies as a service.  More specifically, “Amazon QuickSight” a BI-related offering topped Lahav’s list.

In 2016, IT teams and vendors are going to have to truly deliver optimal services because, Lahav noted, there is a growing adoption rate of the “Service Catalog” and users are going to expect the level of services they received from any provider- so IT departments will need to live up to the task.

“I am a big believer in IT power. I really think that one of the key capabilities for any organization to be able to gain business advantage lies in the hands of IT people. In order for IT people to “take off” they need to make sure they are partners to the business, understand the business needs and are able to provide a solution,” Lahav said.

“Even though the T in IT stands for technologies, slapping technologies at everything is not necessarily the best solution. That will not be able to happen without IT understanding the needs and becoming a partner and not subcontractor for technologies.”