Ignore the Rumors – Robots won’t Actually Take over the World

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These days, many news articles are about robots and artificial intelligence taking over the world. Or, in laymen’s terms, robots replacing jobs. When evaluated against every other new age of innovation, such as farming versus hunting/gathering, the industrial age, or more recently the information/internet age, the perceived fears of displaced jobs has really been displaced by the fact that people are doing newer, more interesting, and valuable jobs after the new innovation.

What’s your belief – take over the world, or my role is solid?

The same can be said for the IT services industry with managed services. In an ever dynamic world, the business and IT conversation is changing. At one time, enterprises built their own data centers and spent time managing and operating complex systems, while increasing capital expenditures, and dealing with a lack of internal expertise (e.g. who has the time to continuously improve their knowledge) – increasingly putting IT and the business at risk.

Are your corporate transformation plans heading in the right direction, or are you still stuck in break/fix?

Seeing a better way, enterprises are moving to a better solution around hybrid cloud, application solutions, and service delivery through managed services as a utility pay-as-you-go model–delivering business value instead of unprofitable break-fix. Often IT personnel hear “managed services” and immediately think somebody or something—i.e. the robots–are taking over the world, when in reality, the partnership of managed service providers allows IT staff to focus on more strategic projects. Further, improving the efficiency and reliability of IT operations is usually a primary factor in moving to a managed services provider partnership.

How does your company compare with this trend?

So don’t be afraid that robots will take over the world or your job; instead, embrace the technology and find ways to exploit, learn, grow with, or expand upon the new innovations to come.

Similarly, managed services won’t necessarily take over the world, or your job. Instead, managed service for IT will enhance your business and elevate your value within your business allowing both you and your business to improve competitive edge, reduce long-term risk, and improve revenues.

About the Author: Adam O'Dwyer

Adam joined Virtustream in 2016 responsible for Managed Services marketing. He has 19 years of high tech sales, marketing, and product and project management experience. Prior to that, he spent 8 years at Hitachi Data Systems where he covered data protection and services marketing for support, professional, and managed services. Previously, he held sales, as well as solutions marketing, and project and product management positions for Microsoft Exchange, surveillance, and data protection solutions at EMC. Adam holds an MBA from Providence College, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from UMass.
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