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IT Organizations Rethink Strategies for Enabling Hybrid Work

Forced by the pandemic to provide employees with access to the systems and information they needed to work from home, IT organizations around the world turned to traditional technologies like Virtual Private Networks (VPN). And they worked. But as the world moves to hybrid work, 96% of IT leaders who participated in a recent global survey conducted by Gartner Peer Insights on behalf of Citrix Systems, Inc., say they no longer cut it. And they're rethinking their approach.

A Seismic Change

Hybrid models have radically changed where and how work gets done — and even who does it. Of the organizations who participated in the poll:

■ 96% have a hybrid work policy or allow both fully remote and hybrid work

■ 85% say their workforce is more geographically dispersed than it was two years ago

■ 75% have seen an increase in the number of seasonal, contract, or freelance workers

A Major Miss

When it comes to supporting these changes, respondents say the solutions they put in place to enable remote work fall short in the following areas:

■ Fail to protect against additional security risks posed by employees working from anywhere (96%)

■ Create a digital divide between in-office and remote employees (63%)

■ Don't provide a consistent user experience (46%)

■ Hinder efficient collaboration among distributed employees (46%)

■ Don't support bring-your-own-device initiatives (33%)

■ Difficult to scale and manage (25%)

A Strategic Shift

And they are increasing their investments in technologies that allow them to provide a simpler, more consistent and secure experience for employees regardless of where they work, including:

■ Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) (69%)

■ Virtual apps and desktops (56%)

■ Desktops as a Service (DaaS) (42%)

■ Zero trust network access (34%)

A Layered Approach

VPN remains the most popular solution to support remote work. But as the research reveals, it's not enough to enable safe and productive hybrid work on its own. According to the poll, 87 percent of respondents using VPN have implemented at least one other solution to close the gaps, including:

■ VDI (69%)

■ Virtual Apps and Desktops (49%)

■ DaaS (39%)

Desired Results

And in doing so, they're achieving their goal. When asked to identify the top three benefits their hybrid work solutions provide, participants in the poll said they:

■ Provide layered protection for all devices on the network, including unmanaged and BYOD

■ Create an equitable work experience by providing employees with consistent and reliable access to applications and data regardless of where they are working

■ Provide layered protection and consistent security management for all applications

"Hybrid work is the future of work" said Tim Minahan, EVP of Strategy, Citrix. "Innovative organizations recognize this and are reimagining the solutions used to support it so they can deliver it today."

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IT Organizations Rethink Strategies for Enabling Hybrid Work

Forced by the pandemic to provide employees with access to the systems and information they needed to work from home, IT organizations around the world turned to traditional technologies like Virtual Private Networks (VPN). And they worked. But as the world moves to hybrid work, 96% of IT leaders who participated in a recent global survey conducted by Gartner Peer Insights on behalf of Citrix Systems, Inc., say they no longer cut it. And they're rethinking their approach.

A Seismic Change

Hybrid models have radically changed where and how work gets done — and even who does it. Of the organizations who participated in the poll:

■ 96% have a hybrid work policy or allow both fully remote and hybrid work

■ 85% say their workforce is more geographically dispersed than it was two years ago

■ 75% have seen an increase in the number of seasonal, contract, or freelance workers

A Major Miss

When it comes to supporting these changes, respondents say the solutions they put in place to enable remote work fall short in the following areas:

■ Fail to protect against additional security risks posed by employees working from anywhere (96%)

■ Create a digital divide between in-office and remote employees (63%)

■ Don't provide a consistent user experience (46%)

■ Hinder efficient collaboration among distributed employees (46%)

■ Don't support bring-your-own-device initiatives (33%)

■ Difficult to scale and manage (25%)

A Strategic Shift

And they are increasing their investments in technologies that allow them to provide a simpler, more consistent and secure experience for employees regardless of where they work, including:

■ Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) (69%)

■ Virtual apps and desktops (56%)

■ Desktops as a Service (DaaS) (42%)

■ Zero trust network access (34%)

A Layered Approach

VPN remains the most popular solution to support remote work. But as the research reveals, it's not enough to enable safe and productive hybrid work on its own. According to the poll, 87 percent of respondents using VPN have implemented at least one other solution to close the gaps, including:

■ VDI (69%)

■ Virtual Apps and Desktops (49%)

■ DaaS (39%)

Desired Results

And in doing so, they're achieving their goal. When asked to identify the top three benefits their hybrid work solutions provide, participants in the poll said they:

■ Provide layered protection for all devices on the network, including unmanaged and BYOD

■ Create an equitable work experience by providing employees with consistent and reliable access to applications and data regardless of where they are working

■ Provide layered protection and consistent security management for all applications

"Hybrid work is the future of work" said Tim Minahan, EVP of Strategy, Citrix. "Innovative organizations recognize this and are reimagining the solutions used to support it so they can deliver it today."

Hot Topics

The Latest

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...

Today, organizations are generating and processing more data than ever before. From training AI models to running complex analytics, massive datasets have become the backbone of innovation. However, as businesses embrace the cloud for its scalability and flexibility, a new challenge arises: managing the soaring costs of storing and processing this data ...