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IT Now Viewed as Strategic Differentiator During COVID-19

Bhanu Singh

There are few positives that have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, but as the spotlight has shined on IT, tech organizations have responded with performances worthy of an award.

Even as the US economy remains tenuous with more than 10 million people out of work, IT budgets have held up remarkably well, thanks in large part to the recognition of the critical role technology plays in the successful launch of products and services.


A new survey from IT operations software company OpsRamp finds that 60% of organizations have either significantly or moderately increased their IT budgets in the last several months, and a majority also continue to maintain (or accelerate) digital transformation (DX) plans. Only 22% significantly or moderately reduced their IT spending in the last two quarters, the survey found.

There's more good news for IT: On balance, technology organizations have not had to incur massive layoffs — in fact, most are growing staff and hiring both senior leaders as well as various operational roles, according to the survey, The Change Agents: How IT Operations Teams Are Driving Enterprise Transformation and Value Creation During Uncertain Times.

The October survey of 230 US and UK IT operations leaders delved into their spending plans, tech priorities and hiring plans.

Not surprisingly, the pandemic has made digital touchpoints a critical differentiator for customer interactions while resilient technology infrastructure remains a priority for employees working remotely.

With digital initiatives being deployed in unprecedented timeframes, there's no denying that organizations that fail to invest in technology during an economic slowdown will lose market share to digital-first competitors.

What Is Front and Center for IT Budgets?

In the second and third quarters of 2020, IT leaders have increased funding for technology initiatives involving information security and compliance (59% in October versus 62% in April), remote work and collaboration (55% in October versus 42% in April), and public and multi-cloud infrastructure (50% in October versus 45% in April).

In 2020, performance monitoring tools have played a vital role in pinpointing and addressing gaps in the customer experience area. Specifically, technology leaders used or plan to use these performance monitoring tools to ensure compelling customer and employee experiences:

■ Artificial intelligence for IT operations (57%) solutions help technology practitioners maintain the uptime, reliability, and performance of technology services with contextual, actionable, and predictive insights.

■ Digital experience monitoring (50%) tools put a clear spotlight on business transactions and customer journeys by surfacing end-user interaction insights for complex enterprise services.

■ Network performance monitoring and diagnostics (50%) tools ensure responsive network infrastructure with instrumentation analytics and visualizations for device, flow, and packet-level data.

To keep employees productive and collaborating during the pandemic, IT teams have increased virtual team meetings (58%), upgraded network technology infrastructure (56%) and expanded security investments (56%).

Hiring Remains a Priority

Looking ahead, IT teams plan to hire people who can not only help them stay relevant during the pandemic but also build a proper foundation for growth when the economy eventually recovers in 2021, the survey found.

In the next six months, 49% of technology executives expect to increase headcount by 5% to 10%, while 17% plan to grow their overall staff by 11% to 20%, and 10% of respondents believe they will increase their IT teams by more than 20%, the OpsRamp survey found. Only 13% of IT operations leaders in the US and the UK plan to reduce headcount, while 11% expect not to hire any additional team members in the next two quarters.

Enterprises have either recently hired or are planning to recruit the following positions:

■ Financial analysts (54%) who can help IT teams present a compelling business case for technology investments

■ Senior IT leaders (47%) who can marshal the right resources to successfully execute digital transformation programs

■ Cloud operators (44%) who can shift, monitor, and maintain enterprise workloads on public cloud infrastructure

■ Cloud architects and engineers (37%) to migrate and manage their business-critical services hosted on public clouds

The survey also found that three biggest challenges in transforming the business are business-IT alignment (35% in October versus 41% in April), available technology solutions (22% in October versus 18% in April), and economic uncertainty (17% in October versus 25% in April).

To drive cost optimization across their IT operations portfolios, technology leaders are increasingly using self-service tools (60% in October versus 54% in April). Respondents embraced open source (51% in October versus 50% in April), and reduced technology suppliers (51% in Octobers versus 59% in April).

Tough times are expected to continue, but IT leaders who are both thoughtful in decision-making and take calculated risks to manage uncertainty and deliver new customer value will gain a head start in 2021.

The most successful IT operations leaders today are investing in relevant technology capabilities, staff skills, and organizational processes for the post-pandemic era. Organizations that fail to make these IT investments in this critical phase will lose customer mindshare, fall behind their competition, and slowly become irrelevant in a global economy that is delivering disproportionate returns for digital leaders.

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IT Now Viewed as Strategic Differentiator During COVID-19

Bhanu Singh

There are few positives that have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, but as the spotlight has shined on IT, tech organizations have responded with performances worthy of an award.

Even as the US economy remains tenuous with more than 10 million people out of work, IT budgets have held up remarkably well, thanks in large part to the recognition of the critical role technology plays in the successful launch of products and services.


A new survey from IT operations software company OpsRamp finds that 60% of organizations have either significantly or moderately increased their IT budgets in the last several months, and a majority also continue to maintain (or accelerate) digital transformation (DX) plans. Only 22% significantly or moderately reduced their IT spending in the last two quarters, the survey found.

There's more good news for IT: On balance, technology organizations have not had to incur massive layoffs — in fact, most are growing staff and hiring both senior leaders as well as various operational roles, according to the survey, The Change Agents: How IT Operations Teams Are Driving Enterprise Transformation and Value Creation During Uncertain Times.

The October survey of 230 US and UK IT operations leaders delved into their spending plans, tech priorities and hiring plans.

Not surprisingly, the pandemic has made digital touchpoints a critical differentiator for customer interactions while resilient technology infrastructure remains a priority for employees working remotely.

With digital initiatives being deployed in unprecedented timeframes, there's no denying that organizations that fail to invest in technology during an economic slowdown will lose market share to digital-first competitors.

What Is Front and Center for IT Budgets?

In the second and third quarters of 2020, IT leaders have increased funding for technology initiatives involving information security and compliance (59% in October versus 62% in April), remote work and collaboration (55% in October versus 42% in April), and public and multi-cloud infrastructure (50% in October versus 45% in April).

In 2020, performance monitoring tools have played a vital role in pinpointing and addressing gaps in the customer experience area. Specifically, technology leaders used or plan to use these performance monitoring tools to ensure compelling customer and employee experiences:

■ Artificial intelligence for IT operations (57%) solutions help technology practitioners maintain the uptime, reliability, and performance of technology services with contextual, actionable, and predictive insights.

■ Digital experience monitoring (50%) tools put a clear spotlight on business transactions and customer journeys by surfacing end-user interaction insights for complex enterprise services.

■ Network performance monitoring and diagnostics (50%) tools ensure responsive network infrastructure with instrumentation analytics and visualizations for device, flow, and packet-level data.

To keep employees productive and collaborating during the pandemic, IT teams have increased virtual team meetings (58%), upgraded network technology infrastructure (56%) and expanded security investments (56%).

Hiring Remains a Priority

Looking ahead, IT teams plan to hire people who can not only help them stay relevant during the pandemic but also build a proper foundation for growth when the economy eventually recovers in 2021, the survey found.

In the next six months, 49% of technology executives expect to increase headcount by 5% to 10%, while 17% plan to grow their overall staff by 11% to 20%, and 10% of respondents believe they will increase their IT teams by more than 20%, the OpsRamp survey found. Only 13% of IT operations leaders in the US and the UK plan to reduce headcount, while 11% expect not to hire any additional team members in the next two quarters.

Enterprises have either recently hired or are planning to recruit the following positions:

■ Financial analysts (54%) who can help IT teams present a compelling business case for technology investments

■ Senior IT leaders (47%) who can marshal the right resources to successfully execute digital transformation programs

■ Cloud operators (44%) who can shift, monitor, and maintain enterprise workloads on public cloud infrastructure

■ Cloud architects and engineers (37%) to migrate and manage their business-critical services hosted on public clouds

The survey also found that three biggest challenges in transforming the business are business-IT alignment (35% in October versus 41% in April), available technology solutions (22% in October versus 18% in April), and economic uncertainty (17% in October versus 25% in April).

To drive cost optimization across their IT operations portfolios, technology leaders are increasingly using self-service tools (60% in October versus 54% in April). Respondents embraced open source (51% in October versus 50% in April), and reduced technology suppliers (51% in Octobers versus 59% in April).

Tough times are expected to continue, but IT leaders who are both thoughtful in decision-making and take calculated risks to manage uncertainty and deliver new customer value will gain a head start in 2021.

The most successful IT operations leaders today are investing in relevant technology capabilities, staff skills, and organizational processes for the post-pandemic era. Organizations that fail to make these IT investments in this critical phase will lose customer mindshare, fall behind their competition, and slowly become irrelevant in a global economy that is delivering disproportionate returns for digital leaders.

The Latest

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...

An overwhelming majority of IT leaders (95%) believe the upcoming wave of AI-powered digital transformation is set to be the most impactful and intensive seen thus far, according to The Science of Productivity: AI, Adoption, And Employee Experience, a new report from Nexthink ...

Overall outage frequency and the general level of reported severity continue to decline, according to the Outage Analysis 2025 from Uptime Institute. However, cyber security incidents are on the rise and often have severe, lasting impacts ...