IT management consultants help organisations improve their performance by ensuring the best use of technology. We have talked with Dr. Ing. Marco Bozzetti, who has been providing ICT advisory for companies in Italy for over 20 years, about the key challenges in IT consulting, booming technology trends and the most in-demand roles in the sector.
What is your current job all about?
As an owner of an IT management consulting company, I lead technical and organisational interventions on the IT systems in medium and large companies, as well as some public bodies. The main objective is to align ICT with business, introduce innovations and generate effectively measurable value. I act in the fields of governance and IT systems management, cybersecurity, risk management, ICT architecture design. I also work on a strategic level: defining strategies, assessing the skills and roles needed in the company, sometimes reorganising structures and processes. When needed, I support companies with compliance with various regulations, in particular privacy (GDPR).
What do you like the most about your job?
Facing ongoing challenges. Meeting customers’ needs on time requires me to continuously develop myself both at the business and technical levels.
As someone who has been working in the ICT field from its very beginning, you must have a great overview of the growing need for skilled professionals in the field. What trends do you foresee in the future? Which roles do you believe will have the highest growing demand?
The ICT world continues to evolve in an extraordinarily rapid way. Some innovations and technologies appear to become obsolete after a short period. In this context, it is difficult to predict specific trends for the future skills requirements. I am certain that more cybersecurity specialists will be needed. I foresee growing demand for ICT architecture skills, and especially cloud architecture. Another booming field is AI, where the demand for skills will continue increasing. As the world becomes more and more data driven, I think that the demand for data analysts will also keep rising.
In your career, you merge technical and managerial tasks. How do you do it? What are the key challenges?
Proper understanding of business needs is challenging and absolutely necessary. Each ICT solution must be placed in the specific context of the client’s company, especially considering its corporate culture and the needs for using different IT tools. Then, it is important to ensure that the solutions will guarantee a measurable return. Over years, I have learnt to adjust my language to the client, but this can be a challenge, especially if you come from a technical background.
Technology and business are two fields in which continuous studying and ‘updating’ of one’s knowledge are essential.
What advice would you give to a person who is at the beginning of their career in the ICT field?
Exactly what I said before: never stop learning. Find a field that you are passionate about and try to really understand it. Also, don’t forget about soft skills. They matter in the IT field more than people think.