Skip to main content

4 IT Strategies for Success During the Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, top-tier enterprises were 2.6 times as likely to have grown revenue, 2.5 times as likely to have reached profit goals and 2.1 times as likely to have high employee satisfaction numbers, according to 2020 CIO Survey Report: Adjusting to Remote Work and the New Normal, a new Catchpoint survey of 200 enterprise CIOs and 200 enterprise work-from-home (WFH) managers.

Image removed.

Before COVID-19 hit, roughly one in three (33 percent) American enterprise employees worked from home at least some of the time. During the pandemic, this increased to three in four (74 percent).

In terms of engaging with customers, prior to the pandemic, less than half (43 percent) of customer engagements were face-to-face. During the pandemic, this dropped to just one in eight (13 percent).

The COVID-19 pandemic has been tough on most enterprises. The survey shows that the 3 biggest impacts on businesses were profitability, revenue growth and productivity. Within IT departments, the biggest impacts were security, app reliability and network availability.

"When it comes to today's Digital Workplace, reliable performance is critical for employee productivity and morale, and with a fast-increasing number of employees working from home, systems are more prone to reliability, availability and performance issues affecting remote workers," said Mehdi Daoudi, CEO at Catchpoint. "The ability to measure, visualize and proactively react to outages and slowdowns can deliver a 1st class digital employee experience."

Not every enterprise had the same experience and some did surprisingly well during the pandemic. To see the differences, the survey divided the responses into three tiers. Top tier are organizations that performed the best in terms of business and IT metrics and bottom tier performed the worst. Catchpoint then compared the top and bottom tiers to explore those differences and what the top tier was doing differently.

The survey found 4 keys to top-tier enterprises' impressive results:

1. Focus on Reliability

The top tier is fully committed to reliability. Nearly all (91 percent) of the top tier has implemented a formal site reliability engineering methodology (SRE). This compares to just 69% of bottom-tier organizations.

2. Focus on Work-from-Home Tech Stack

The top tier is committed to making Work-from-Home (WFH) employees as productive as possible. For example, the top tier is 33 percent more likely to train their employees on work-from-home technologies.

The top tier also does a better job of equipping their WFH employees — nearly 3X as likely to say their employees' collaboration tools are extremely effective.

3. General Networking Initiatives

Top-tier organizations are more engaged with cutting- edge initiatives that optimize remote work. For example, top-tier are 1.8 times as likely to be involved with robotic process automation.

4. Security Initiatives

Finally, top-tier organizations are also more engaged with cutting-edge security initiatives. Top-tier reported being 1.4 times as likely to be involved with better security management and working with software-defined perimeters.

Methodology: Catchpoint commissioned ReRez Research of Dallas, TX to conduct the survey. CIOs and managers came from enterprises with at least 1,000 employees and were geographically dispersed across the United States and comprised a wide range of industries. Enterprise managers surveyed worked from home during the crisis and used a computer for 50 percent or more of their day.

Hot Topics

The Latest

Industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025. Part 5 covers the infrastructure and hardware supporting AI ...

Industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025. Part 4 covers advancements in AI technology ...

Industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025. Part 3 covers AI's impact on employees and their roles ...

Industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025. Part 2 covers the challenges presented by AI, as well as solutions to those problems ...

In the final part of APMdigest's 2025 Predictions Series, industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025 ...

E-commerce is set to skyrocket with a 9% rise over the next few years ... To thrive in this competitive environment, retailers must identify digital resilience as their top priority. In a world where savvy shoppers expect 24/7 access to online deals and experiences, any unexpected downtime to digital services can lead to significant financial losses, damage to brand reputation, abandoned carts with designer shoes, and additional issues ...

Efficiency is a highly-desirable objective in business ... We're seeing this scenario play out in enterprises around the world as they continue to struggle with infrastructures and remote work models with an eye toward operational efficiencies. In contrast to that goal, a recent Broadcom survey of global IT and network professionals found widespread adoption of these strategies is making the network more complex and hampering observability, leading to uptime, performance and security issues. Let's look more closely at these challenges ...

Image
Broadcom

The 2025 Catchpoint SRE Report dives into the forces transforming the SRE landscape, exploring both the challenges and opportunities ahead. Let's break down the key findings and what they mean for SRE professionals and the businesses relying on them ...

Image
Catchpoint

The pressure on IT teams has never been greater. As data environments grow increasingly complex, resource shortages are emerging as a major obstacle for IT leaders striving to meet the demands of modern infrastructure management ... According to DataStrike's newly released 2025 Data Infrastructure Survey Report, more than half (54%) of IT leaders cite resource limitations as a top challenge, highlighting a growing trend toward outsourcing as a solution ...

Image
Datastrike

Gartner revealed its top strategic predictions for 2025 and beyond. Gartner's top predictions explore how generative AI (GenAI) is affecting areas where most would assume only humans can have lasting impact ...

4 IT Strategies for Success During the Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, top-tier enterprises were 2.6 times as likely to have grown revenue, 2.5 times as likely to have reached profit goals and 2.1 times as likely to have high employee satisfaction numbers, according to 2020 CIO Survey Report: Adjusting to Remote Work and the New Normal, a new Catchpoint survey of 200 enterprise CIOs and 200 enterprise work-from-home (WFH) managers.

Image removed.

Before COVID-19 hit, roughly one in three (33 percent) American enterprise employees worked from home at least some of the time. During the pandemic, this increased to three in four (74 percent).

In terms of engaging with customers, prior to the pandemic, less than half (43 percent) of customer engagements were face-to-face. During the pandemic, this dropped to just one in eight (13 percent).

The COVID-19 pandemic has been tough on most enterprises. The survey shows that the 3 biggest impacts on businesses were profitability, revenue growth and productivity. Within IT departments, the biggest impacts were security, app reliability and network availability.

"When it comes to today's Digital Workplace, reliable performance is critical for employee productivity and morale, and with a fast-increasing number of employees working from home, systems are more prone to reliability, availability and performance issues affecting remote workers," said Mehdi Daoudi, CEO at Catchpoint. "The ability to measure, visualize and proactively react to outages and slowdowns can deliver a 1st class digital employee experience."

Not every enterprise had the same experience and some did surprisingly well during the pandemic. To see the differences, the survey divided the responses into three tiers. Top tier are organizations that performed the best in terms of business and IT metrics and bottom tier performed the worst. Catchpoint then compared the top and bottom tiers to explore those differences and what the top tier was doing differently.

The survey found 4 keys to top-tier enterprises' impressive results:

1. Focus on Reliability

The top tier is fully committed to reliability. Nearly all (91 percent) of the top tier has implemented a formal site reliability engineering methodology (SRE). This compares to just 69% of bottom-tier organizations.

2. Focus on Work-from-Home Tech Stack

The top tier is committed to making Work-from-Home (WFH) employees as productive as possible. For example, the top tier is 33 percent more likely to train their employees on work-from-home technologies.

The top tier also does a better job of equipping their WFH employees — nearly 3X as likely to say their employees' collaboration tools are extremely effective.

3. General Networking Initiatives

Top-tier organizations are more engaged with cutting- edge initiatives that optimize remote work. For example, top-tier are 1.8 times as likely to be involved with robotic process automation.

4. Security Initiatives

Finally, top-tier organizations are also more engaged with cutting-edge security initiatives. Top-tier reported being 1.4 times as likely to be involved with better security management and working with software-defined perimeters.

Methodology: Catchpoint commissioned ReRez Research of Dallas, TX to conduct the survey. CIOs and managers came from enterprises with at least 1,000 employees and were geographically dispersed across the United States and comprised a wide range of industries. Enterprise managers surveyed worked from home during the crisis and used a computer for 50 percent or more of their day.

Hot Topics

The Latest

Industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025. Part 5 covers the infrastructure and hardware supporting AI ...

Industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025. Part 4 covers advancements in AI technology ...

Industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025. Part 3 covers AI's impact on employees and their roles ...

Industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025. Part 2 covers the challenges presented by AI, as well as solutions to those problems ...

In the final part of APMdigest's 2025 Predictions Series, industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025 ...

E-commerce is set to skyrocket with a 9% rise over the next few years ... To thrive in this competitive environment, retailers must identify digital resilience as their top priority. In a world where savvy shoppers expect 24/7 access to online deals and experiences, any unexpected downtime to digital services can lead to significant financial losses, damage to brand reputation, abandoned carts with designer shoes, and additional issues ...

Efficiency is a highly-desirable objective in business ... We're seeing this scenario play out in enterprises around the world as they continue to struggle with infrastructures and remote work models with an eye toward operational efficiencies. In contrast to that goal, a recent Broadcom survey of global IT and network professionals found widespread adoption of these strategies is making the network more complex and hampering observability, leading to uptime, performance and security issues. Let's look more closely at these challenges ...

Image
Broadcom

The 2025 Catchpoint SRE Report dives into the forces transforming the SRE landscape, exploring both the challenges and opportunities ahead. Let's break down the key findings and what they mean for SRE professionals and the businesses relying on them ...

Image
Catchpoint

The pressure on IT teams has never been greater. As data environments grow increasingly complex, resource shortages are emerging as a major obstacle for IT leaders striving to meet the demands of modern infrastructure management ... According to DataStrike's newly released 2025 Data Infrastructure Survey Report, more than half (54%) of IT leaders cite resource limitations as a top challenge, highlighting a growing trend toward outsourcing as a solution ...

Image
Datastrike

Gartner revealed its top strategic predictions for 2025 and beyond. Gartner's top predictions explore how generative AI (GenAI) is affecting areas where most would assume only humans can have lasting impact ...