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IT Solutions: Learning from the Past and Investing in the Future

Bart De Graaff
ngena

Disruption has become constant. From the pandemic to the war in Ukraine, supply chain shortages and inflation — the one thing that remains consistent for businesses is disruption.

Disruption is stressful and forces change. Businesses are connecting and collaborating differently. In order for businesses to continue smooth operations, IT teams must be equipped with new tools that simplify processes, supplies and minimize risk.

To better understand IT needs in the ever-changing workplace, ngena recently conducted a survey of over 375 IT teams. The key themes that surfaced in the findings include: the expediting of remote and hybrid work; the resulting pain points and worries brought forward by IT teams; reflections on how teams could have been better prepared, and how they plan to be ready for such changes in the future.

Looking Back 18-24 Months

The sudden transition to remote work was not something businesses and their IT teams were prepared for at the pandemic's onset. In fact, perhaps not surprisingly, 83% of IT team leaders and members noted feeling stress and anxiety over the change to hybrid or remote work; with 77% of IT teams expressing that they did not feel fully prepared overall for the change.

And the lack of preparedness brought unique challenges — lack of communication tools being the largest one. When the pandemic hit, employees communicated in-person and by email. When the in-person communications stopped, many businesses were not set up with tools like Slack and Teams that help facilitate ongoing remote communications. This was followed by issues tied to speed of remote deployments, and managing of key components including network security threats, networks overall and multiple endpoints.

Along with stress and anxiety, the dispersed workforce environment also caused respondents to report a 77% lack of visibility and a 71% lack of control of operations. Feeling out of control led IT teams to think about and look for new solutions to their connectivity issues.

When asked how their teams could have been better prepared for the swift change in the workplace, the top four responses were: better communication tools, stronger network security, stronger network connection and faster remote deployments.

Looking Forward in Preparation

Nobody knows what the future holds, or when things will change again. That's why it is important for IT teams to be prepared for it. It's concerning that while 52% of respondents feel confident in their company's IT preparedness for another major disruption, just under half (48%) classified themselves as not confident or only somewhat confident. Companies need to prioritize IT needs to make sure that if and when the next major disruption hits, solutions are in place to minimize damage.

IT teams believe that their biggest IT challenges over the next three to five years will be keeping up with existing technology, innovating new technology and addressing security and risk. When asked about how they plan to face these future challenges, 40% of respondents chose “secure connectivity as a service” as the number one solution they were exploring, a strong indicator for where the market may be trending.

If the pandemic has taught businesses and IT professionals anything, it's that response to change needs to happen quickly — 65% of IT teams are planning to implement new solutions within the next year.

A More Connected Future

The loss of visibility and control in the workplace left IT professionals feeling stress, anxiety and a lack of confidence in their ability to handle the next major disruption. IT leaders need to find solutions that will support them throughout the entire network lifecycle, from start to finish. Having everything available to them on one platform can help guide them through the next major disruption in the workplace.

Increased pressures to adapt to new circumstances paired with the importance of keeping everything running smoothly has created a need for new tools that simplify work processes and minimize risk. IT professionals are looking for solutions that can simplify the network while positioning their business for connectivity in the Cloud era.

The implementation of these new tools will help IT team members and companies as a whole reduce stress and anxiety when preparing for the inevitable unknown.

Bart De Graaff is CEO at ngena

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

IT Solutions: Learning from the Past and Investing in the Future

Bart De Graaff
ngena

Disruption has become constant. From the pandemic to the war in Ukraine, supply chain shortages and inflation — the one thing that remains consistent for businesses is disruption.

Disruption is stressful and forces change. Businesses are connecting and collaborating differently. In order for businesses to continue smooth operations, IT teams must be equipped with new tools that simplify processes, supplies and minimize risk.

To better understand IT needs in the ever-changing workplace, ngena recently conducted a survey of over 375 IT teams. The key themes that surfaced in the findings include: the expediting of remote and hybrid work; the resulting pain points and worries brought forward by IT teams; reflections on how teams could have been better prepared, and how they plan to be ready for such changes in the future.

Looking Back 18-24 Months

The sudden transition to remote work was not something businesses and their IT teams were prepared for at the pandemic's onset. In fact, perhaps not surprisingly, 83% of IT team leaders and members noted feeling stress and anxiety over the change to hybrid or remote work; with 77% of IT teams expressing that they did not feel fully prepared overall for the change.

And the lack of preparedness brought unique challenges — lack of communication tools being the largest one. When the pandemic hit, employees communicated in-person and by email. When the in-person communications stopped, many businesses were not set up with tools like Slack and Teams that help facilitate ongoing remote communications. This was followed by issues tied to speed of remote deployments, and managing of key components including network security threats, networks overall and multiple endpoints.

Along with stress and anxiety, the dispersed workforce environment also caused respondents to report a 77% lack of visibility and a 71% lack of control of operations. Feeling out of control led IT teams to think about and look for new solutions to their connectivity issues.

When asked how their teams could have been better prepared for the swift change in the workplace, the top four responses were: better communication tools, stronger network security, stronger network connection and faster remote deployments.

Looking Forward in Preparation

Nobody knows what the future holds, or when things will change again. That's why it is important for IT teams to be prepared for it. It's concerning that while 52% of respondents feel confident in their company's IT preparedness for another major disruption, just under half (48%) classified themselves as not confident or only somewhat confident. Companies need to prioritize IT needs to make sure that if and when the next major disruption hits, solutions are in place to minimize damage.

IT teams believe that their biggest IT challenges over the next three to five years will be keeping up with existing technology, innovating new technology and addressing security and risk. When asked about how they plan to face these future challenges, 40% of respondents chose “secure connectivity as a service” as the number one solution they were exploring, a strong indicator for where the market may be trending.

If the pandemic has taught businesses and IT professionals anything, it's that response to change needs to happen quickly — 65% of IT teams are planning to implement new solutions within the next year.

A More Connected Future

The loss of visibility and control in the workplace left IT professionals feeling stress, anxiety and a lack of confidence in their ability to handle the next major disruption. IT leaders need to find solutions that will support them throughout the entire network lifecycle, from start to finish. Having everything available to them on one platform can help guide them through the next major disruption in the workplace.

Increased pressures to adapt to new circumstances paired with the importance of keeping everything running smoothly has created a need for new tools that simplify work processes and minimize risk. IT professionals are looking for solutions that can simplify the network while positioning their business for connectivity in the Cloud era.

The implementation of these new tools will help IT team members and companies as a whole reduce stress and anxiety when preparing for the inevitable unknown.

Bart De Graaff is CEO at ngena

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

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 ...