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.
The Latest
MLOps or Machine Learning Operations are a combination of best processes and practices that businesses use to run AI successfully ... While it is a relatively new field, MLOps is a collective effort that captured the interest of data scientists, DevOps engineers, AI enthusiasts, and IT ...
The data is in: enterprises are not happy with their managed service providers (MSPs) and cloud service providers (CSPs). According to the latest CloudBolt Industry Insights report, Filling the Gap: Service Providers' Increasingly Important Role in Multi-Cloud Success, 80% are so unsatisfied with their existing MSP and/or CSP, they are actively looking to replace them within 12 months ...
The last two years have accelerated massive changes in how we work, do business, and engage with customers. According to Pega research, nearly three out of four employees (71%) feel their job complexity continues to rise as customer demands increase, and employees at all levels feel overloaded with information, systems, and processes that make it difficult to adapt to these new challenges and meet their customers' growing needs ...
Investing in employees will always be smart business. And right now, investing in employees means giving people the resources — and ability — to optimize performance ... For pretty much every company, that means delivering the digital tools necessary to facilitate seamless, secure, user-friendly access and connectivity ...
Digital transformation can be the difference between becoming the next Netflix and becoming the next Blockbuster Video. With corporate survival on the line, "digital transformation" is no longer merely an impressive buzzword to throw around in boardrooms. It's the ticket for entry into the digital era, a fundamental business strategy for every modern company ...
IT infrastructure has rapidly evolved over the last decade, and as a result important specialized tools have been developed and an entire dedicated industry has grown up to serve the need for monitoring these IT systems and services in order to keep them operational and efficient ...
At Cisco AppDynamics, we recently conducted research exploring consumer attitudes and behaviors in relation to wearable technology ... In our study, 87% of global consumers claimed that trust is a critical factor when choosing a wearable medical device or application brand. And, 86% expect companies offering wearable technology and applications to demonstrate a higher standard of protection for their personal data than any other technology they use ...
You've been here before: waiting for a web page to load. You keep refreshing it, but still no luck. How many times will you try to reload the page before visiting a different site? Probably not too many. Brands today have just a few moments at most to captivate and delight potential customers ...
In the DevOps world, observability is trumpeted and lauded in many corners. However, in reading much of the coverage, there seemed to be some more fundamental issues at play. It's time to demystify the idea of observability, shedding light on what it means in a broader context. And once we break down the concept and its true value to an organization, let's answer a more important question: Are we approaching an observability tipping point? ...
