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Keeping Employees Connected in Remote-Work Environments

The use of unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) solutions has increased since the start of the pandemic, and this increased use has created challenges for IT teams, according to a survey commissioned by NETSCOUT SYSTEMS.

According to Gallup's annual Work and Education Poll, one in four US workers now work entirely from home with the number of remote-work telecommuting days doubling since last year. This dramatic increase places an added burden on IT departments to address complex UC&C solutions and manage the rise in IT helpdesk calls and tickets, especially given the added complexity of having multiple solutions without the visibility to identify issues.

Survey findings include:

■ 97% of respondents stated that collaboration platforms, applications, and tools have become much more critical in the current work environment.

■ In response to the increased use of UC&C platforms, 85% stated they were upgrading their solutions to provide a better workforce experience.

■ Respondents stated that UC&C platforms have become much more critical to their business with 85% of those surveyed indicating usage has either increased or significantly increased.

■ More than 73% stated that increased usage has been problematic, citing cybersecurity, privacy concerns, response time, network visibility, bandwidth issues, and ensuring users have the proper equipment as leading factors.

■ Problematic UC&C platforms place an incremental burden on IT departments, with respondents citing an increase in calls to IT (63%), open tickets (59%), user frustration (55%) resulting from issues associated with UC&C platforms.

■ When asked how many collaboration platforms and tools they supported, 29% stated 3-4, 34% said 5-9, 12% stated 10-15, while 10% stated 16 or more.

"With so many people working from home, there has been an inevitable increase in the reliance on real-time services like UC&C," stated Paul Barrett, CTO, Enterprise, NETSCOUT. "However, such services are highly sensitive to network problems such as packet loss and latency, and as a result, IT departments need to quickly understand the root cause of issues such as a saturated VPN concentrator or a problem that resides with a software-as-a-service provider. Hence the need for comprehensive monitoring solutions that give them the visibility they need to ensure a better remote-work experience."

"UC&C solutions and network infrastructure combine to serve up the best possible end-user experience," stated Richard Costello, Senior Research Analyst, IDC. "But, that's no easy feat. Complete network visibility and control enabled by network analytics solutions facilitate the reliable real-time delivery of enhanced communications and collaboration in the onrushing digital era."

Methodology: Respondents to the survey fielded between Sept. 17 and Oct. 15, 2020, included 300 IT decision-makers from large enterprises with $1 billion or more in annual revenue.

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Keeping Employees Connected in Remote-Work Environments

The use of unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) solutions has increased since the start of the pandemic, and this increased use has created challenges for IT teams, according to a survey commissioned by NETSCOUT SYSTEMS.

According to Gallup's annual Work and Education Poll, one in four US workers now work entirely from home with the number of remote-work telecommuting days doubling since last year. This dramatic increase places an added burden on IT departments to address complex UC&C solutions and manage the rise in IT helpdesk calls and tickets, especially given the added complexity of having multiple solutions without the visibility to identify issues.

Survey findings include:

■ 97% of respondents stated that collaboration platforms, applications, and tools have become much more critical in the current work environment.

■ In response to the increased use of UC&C platforms, 85% stated they were upgrading their solutions to provide a better workforce experience.

■ Respondents stated that UC&C platforms have become much more critical to their business with 85% of those surveyed indicating usage has either increased or significantly increased.

■ More than 73% stated that increased usage has been problematic, citing cybersecurity, privacy concerns, response time, network visibility, bandwidth issues, and ensuring users have the proper equipment as leading factors.

■ Problematic UC&C platforms place an incremental burden on IT departments, with respondents citing an increase in calls to IT (63%), open tickets (59%), user frustration (55%) resulting from issues associated with UC&C platforms.

■ When asked how many collaboration platforms and tools they supported, 29% stated 3-4, 34% said 5-9, 12% stated 10-15, while 10% stated 16 or more.

"With so many people working from home, there has been an inevitable increase in the reliance on real-time services like UC&C," stated Paul Barrett, CTO, Enterprise, NETSCOUT. "However, such services are highly sensitive to network problems such as packet loss and latency, and as a result, IT departments need to quickly understand the root cause of issues such as a saturated VPN concentrator or a problem that resides with a software-as-a-service provider. Hence the need for comprehensive monitoring solutions that give them the visibility they need to ensure a better remote-work experience."

"UC&C solutions and network infrastructure combine to serve up the best possible end-user experience," stated Richard Costello, Senior Research Analyst, IDC. "But, that's no easy feat. Complete network visibility and control enabled by network analytics solutions facilitate the reliable real-time delivery of enhanced communications and collaboration in the onrushing digital era."

Methodology: Respondents to the survey fielded between Sept. 17 and Oct. 15, 2020, included 300 IT decision-makers from large enterprises with $1 billion or more in annual revenue.

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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 ...

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