How Will IT Navigate the Current Fork in the Road?

Story by Shane Snider

Key Points:

• In an email from the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which serves as the federal government’s human resources agency, workers were told: “If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country and you will be provided with a dignified, fair departure from the federal government utilizing a deferred resignation program.” Workers were told to simply reply with “Resign” to accept the offer.
• As one of “four pillars” to reform the federal workforce, the email also announced a full-time return to office for the “substantial majority” of federal workers who have worked remotely since the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The other pillars included new performance standards, a warning of downsizing for most agencies, and standards of conduct that call for workers to be “reliable, loyal, trustworthy …”
• Information technology and computer science account for about 79,000 federal jobs and more than two-thirds of agencies have at least one IT employee, according to non-profit Go Government.
• According to a May report from the Office of Management and Budget, 10% of the civilian federal workforce, or 228,000 employees, worked entirely remotely. The report found that of the employees who worked a hybrid office/home schedule, 61.2% of their work hours were spent in a traditional office setting.

Welcome to InformationWeek 's Big Picture!

You already know that every day at InformationWeek brings expert insights and advice to help today’s IT leaders identify the best strategies and tools to drive their organizations forward.

That means original reporting from our team of journalists and unique commentary you won’t see anywhere else! But in case you missed them, here are some of our other must-read favorites from this week:

Software Development Could be Going Green

Story by Samuel Greengard

Key Points:

• Artificial intelligence is generating ripples that extend far beyond business productivity and financial results. One of the most frequently overlooked areas? How software development and coding practices intersect with power, water, and the need for additional IT resources.?
• This age of abundance is leading to wasted data center space, unnecessary complex IT architectures, excessive network traffic, and a coding framework that elevates developer convenience over performance.
• Energy and carbon reduction aren’t the only concerns, however. There’s also a strong business case for sustainable software. Applications and other forms of code impact productivity, efficiency, the customer experience and more. Subpar software slows systems, adds to storage requirements, and wastes time for software developers.?
• In the end, success requires organizations to balance competing priorities, such as speed to market, feature requirements, costs and sustainable goals. It also requires a focus on AI model and algorithm optimization.

AI's New Kid on the Block

Story by Shane Snider

Key Points:

• DeepSeek, an underdog Chinese startup with a large language model boasting powerful performance at a fraction of competitors’ steep training costs, knocked OpenAI ’s ChatGPT from its top position in the Apple App Store -- a development that on Monday spooked investors enough to send US technology stocks plummeting.
• DeepSeek claims its V3 large language model cost just $5.6 million to train, a fraction of ChatGPT’s reported training costs of more than $100 million. With comparable performance to OpenAI’s o1 model, a 95% cost cut may be especially attractive to cash-strapped companies looking to leverage generative AI (GenAI).
• Chirag Dekate, Ph.D. , vice president and analyst at Gartner , thinks Wall Street may have overreacted to the DeepSeek news. In an interview with InformationWeek, Dekate says developments that reduce training costs will have an overall positive impact.
• “From a security standpoint, you’re not going to want people putting data into servers that are hosted in China – same problem people had with TikTok,” says John Pettit , chief technology officer at IT consultancy Promevo . “You don’t know how data is being used and where it’s going to go. Even deploying it locally, you have to worry about supply chain injection.”

What's Next for Tech Under the New Administration?

Story by Carrie Pallardy

Key Points:

• Trump voiced plans to repeal Biden’s executive order on AI, arguing that it stifles innovation, and swiftly followed through. He signed an executive order -- Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence -- and also announced plans for Stargate, a $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative.??
• With Chinese startup DeepSeek making strides, competition in the global race for AI market dominance is heating up. But there are still concerns over risk in the AI space. Several industry and consumer groups signed a letter calling for the White House to retain AI testing and transparency rules, CNBC reports.??
• “I could also see potentially a pullback in CISA’s authority and role. Their budget has been increasing year over year. At a minimum, I think they're going to take a hard look at what those programs are and what that spending looks like,” says Deniece Peterson , senior director of federal market analysis at Deltek, an enterprise software and information solutions company.?
• Workforce reductions and increased automation could mean opportunities for IT companies to vie for government contracts. “IT contractors are looking at this is about how can they support this new kind of environment and shift,” Peterson adds.??
• Technology leaders will be keeping a close eye on federal tech policy changes that have the possibility to reshape national security, the government contractor space, and the private sector.??

Business Continuity is King Amid Geopolitical Tension

Story by Lisa Morgan, CeM, J.D.

Key Points:

• “Political instability causes risks to global supply chains, data security and operational resilience,” says Steve Tcherchian, CISSP , CISO and chief product officer at security solution provider XYPRO.
• “Just in the past year, we've seen disruptions in logistics, fluctuating regulatory environments, and cyber threats escalating due to geopolitical tensions. This creates blind spots in business continuity planning, especially for organizations reliant on international vendors, partners or regional operations.”?
• His advice is to be proactive. Understand the scope of assets, data and infrastructure and build operations that can adapt to unpredictable conditions. This includes having alternate suppliers, transport routes and workforce contingencies.?
• Shock resulting from the unexpected can cause organizational leaders to scramble and make snap decisions that may make sense in the short-term, but backfire in the long-term, like the way the pandemic impacted organizations.?

Commentary of the Week

Story by Chuck Gordon

Key Points:

• Despite global digital transformation spending set to reach $3.4 trillion by 2026, 麦肯锡 reports a sobering reality: seventy percent of these initiatives fail?to deliver their intended results.?
• In today's environment, where businesses face increasing pressure to modernize while optimizing costs, an even more concerning trend has emerged: companies operating in a dangerous middle ground between analog and digital operations.?
• Partial transformation is common when businesses implement new customer-facing technology without updating their core operations. These disconnects create daily operational friction that technology was supposed to eliminate.?

As organizations finalize their 2025 technology roadmaps, the path forward requires a new approach:?

1. Start with core operations: Begin transformation at your operational core, not just customer interfaces.
2. Design for future change: Implement new systems with the flexibility to evolve as technology advances.
3. Build organizational alignment: Create clear guidelines that align your entire organization around consistent modernization goals.

Podcast of the Week

Podcast by Joao-Pierre Ruth

Key Points:

• The assumption that AI equals immediate job cuts to deliver efficiency might not be that simple, especially as more divisions within organizations and their leadership start to understand how they can leverage this technology.
• Certain jobs might be eliminated, yet other jobs could evolve with AI.
• This episode of DOS Won’t Hunt features Luke Behnke , vice president of product for Grammarly ; Cliff Jurkiewicz , vice president of global strategy for Phenom ; Ryan Bergstrom , chief product and technology officer for Paycor ; Daniel Avancini , co-founder and chief data officer for Indicium ; and Arun Varadarajan , co-founder and chief commercial officer for Ascendion .
• They discussed how AI already changes staffing, what skillsets organizations want in an AI-powered world, fears about job loss, what this may mean for executives in the C-suite who need to get up to speed on AI, and when organizations can comfortably rely on AI to enhance their workforce.

Listen to the full podcast here.

Latest Major Tech Layoff Announcements

Original Story by Jessica C. Davis, Updated by Brandon Taylor

Key Points:

• As COVID drove everyone online, tech companies hired like crazy. Now, we are hitting the COVID tech bust as tech giants shed jobs by the thousands.
• Updated January 31, 2025 with layoff announcements from Moon Active, Stripe, Chrono24 and Pocket FM.

• Check back regularly for updates to our IT job layoffs tracker.

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