When considering the next 12 to 18 months, what overall area of your job concerns you most?

Overall area Upgrading the network Security Dealing with vendors Managing employees Project management Overall compensation Career development Your Top Concerns survey

• Training
• Not having enough staff to get projects completed.  Not having enough budget to ensure the company's technology needs are met.
• Keeping up with technology.
• Managing the hardware that's on our network.
• Designing and testing a network architecture capable of providing constant end-to-end security across multiple autonomous networks.
• Deploying a wireless [5-GHz] network.
• We're moving from Office in-house applications to Internet applications and need to change the hardware for that.
• I'm not too happy with the job stability right now.

Why are you concerned over the following issues?

Upgrading the network infrastructure:

• Because so much of it needs to be done.
• We're trying to get more out of less - add a little and get more value out of what we have.
• Network upgrades are necessary, but they cause outages.
• We need to upgrade our infrastructure so that we can integrate voice, video and data on our network.
• It's our business to stay ahead of the rest of the technology world.
• Everything we do deals with the network.

Security

• We're continually hit by scanners and hackers - almost on a daily basis.
• All the problems that we have had are security related.  There are a lot of bugs in the software system.
• We do a lot of research and development stuff, and if anybody gets a hold of that we lose our competitive edge.
• That's what I'm paid to do.  It also seems to have a lot of career growth potential.
• I'm concerned about cyber-terrorism.

Dealing with vendors of equipment and services:

• Relying on vendors to be on time with deliveries.  If they are late, everything goes down waiting for them.
• You have less control over vendors than you do with your own people.
• We just had some vendor reliability problems that are related to companies cutting back on services.
• I'm concerned about the viability of vendors over the long term and consolidation in the industry.

Managing employees:

• Our most important resource is our staff.  They have to be highly skilled, and we want them to be fulfilled in their career path.
• We don't do any outsourcing, and we're a very small group.
• The turnover in the IT department is very high; it's difficult to manage tech people.
• They're the ones that make my network work.

Project management:

• There's not enough hours in a day.  We're juggling more projects than time allows.
• Project management is the key to a successful business.
• It's a reflection of me.  I take a lot of pride in what I do.

Your overall compensation:

• I would like to be compensated more for all the work I'm doing.
• I want to buy a home, pay for graduate school and take care of my family.

Your career development:

• Career development is related to job satisfaction. If I'm not having fun, it's not worth doing.
• I always like to get personal satisfaction out of progressing.
• I'm uncertain of the job environment.

Your overall training:

• Mainly to stay on top and give the best possible service that we can.  
• When you have the best training, all the other things fall into place.

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