The coronavirus pandemic has irrevocably changed the way businesses everywhere operate, crystallizing the link between a robust IT infrastructure and business continuity. According to a new survey of IT professionals from Insight Enterprises, the global integrator of Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions™ for organizations of all sizes, only 24% of businesses were able to adapt to the new environment with no downtime, while 56% said 2 or fewer weeks of downtime.
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The 2020 Insight Intelligent Technology Pulse: The Impact of COVID-19 on Business Readiness report further reveals that 46% of IT professionals felt extremely or very prepared to pivot to the new business landscape. Consequently, businesses could be more proactive about involving IT in contingency planning: 40% of survey respondents reported having to develop or refine business resiliency plans in response to the pandemic.
“COVID-19 has delivered a crash course in agility for organizations of all stripes,” said Mike Gaumond, senior vice president and general manager, Connected Workforce at Insight. “The pandemic accelerated the long-brewing shift from an on-site to dispersed workforce and forced companies to reckon with their technology shortfalls. The businesses that have adapted successfully are the ones that kept an eye on the horizon.”
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You cannot enable remote work without managing it, as well
About half (49%) of survey respondents said their IT priorities were very impacted by the pandemic. When asked to share their top priorities before and after the pandemic, although equipping remote workers has been an essential initiative, managing that infrastructure grew in importance more than other priorities for IT professionals. However, no IT initiative took precedence over security – half of respondents cited improving data and network security and recovery as a top 3 priority both before and after COVID-19:
|
|
% citing these among their top 3 IT priorities BEFORE COVID-19 |
% citing these among their top 3 priorities AFTER COVID-19 |
|
Improving data and network security and recovery |
49% |
48% |
|
Enabling remote IT management |
26% |
42% |
|
Increasing cloud-based networking |
39% |
33% |
|
Implementing collaboration suites |
31% |
30% |
|
Adopting more cloud services |
40% |
28% |
|
Sustaining employee adoption and engagement with tech |
24% |
28% |
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