The global proliferation of Cyber security threats has caused major problems within the Australian economy. Just last year, identity theft cost Australians over one billion dollars, and experts predict this problem is only going to get worse. Industry and government rely on Information Security professionals to find ways to address these issues, but within Australia the distinct lack of recognised job roles and security-related job descriptions is causing confusion and leaving customers underserviced and underwhelmed. The lack of a concise skills and competency framework means that the Industry has no way of determining how to go about hiring people with the required skills and HR teams have no idea how to go about writing the job description for the resources needed to address these issues.
“The lack of professional standards in the IT sector was the primary reason for founding GCI,” says Peter Cross, CEO of the Melbourne based independent certification company. “We [Australia] need to establish the rules of engagement and the regulations or benchmarks that we can use to test the readiness of individuals to meet the needs of the market. Imagine, if you will, a kite mark that can apply to specific job roles within each of the different IT verticals, be it service management, governance or information security.”
Peter is a true entrepreneur who has devoted his professional career to his cause. He is striving to create a structured framework for accrediting IT Professionals that is not unlike the way other professional industries operate, such as the financial sector, legal practice and the medical profession. “Take Doctors,” explains Peter. “They study in college to get their grounding in medicine. But this does not make them doctors. It gets them ready for the real world. To become the highly respected consultant brain surgeon you might have set out to be will take years of working in many different departments under many different teachers and mentors, and only when you’ve proven yourself as the expert would you dare to call yourself one. With experience and skills comes status, not the other way round.”
GCI was founded in 2008 with the aspirations in mind, to do for the IT sector what regulation and professionalism has done for these other benchmark industries. He initially focused on IT service management and IT governance, providing independent examination services for the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) suite of courses being taught across Australia. “ITIL had taken the Australian IT sector by storm, becoming a benchmark for both IT outsourcing companies and individuals to allow them to prove to clients they knew what they were doing. GCI was remarkably successful in achieving what it set out to achieve and the Australian market as a whole benefited from the true independence of what we provided.”
As part of business development GCI has now developed its own certifications, based on international standards such as ISO/IEC 20000 for IT Service Management and ISO 38500 for Governance of IT. Additionally, GCI has also worked within the IT and Health sector to develop a suite of suitable examinations for those industries based on his consulting with specialist teams and tailoring his service to match their needs. Peter also prides himself on his consulting services where his team has supported training organisations and professional associations in developing the syllabi for accredited training courses and then independently building the examination to test students after their participation in a course…Click HERE to find out more about this article
