Technology is changing at a scary pace. But, what really haunts IT decision makers as they sit in front of their computer screens late at night? What new innovations will rise up to take over the underworld? The answers come thanks to a new survey of 511 U.S. IT managers from Finn Partners (News - Alert) Technology Practice.
“The challenges that I.T. decision makers face each day are truly daunting,” said Sabrina Horn, managing partner and technology practice lead, Finn Partners. “From aging technology infrastructures to cybersecurity threats to the need to keep up with the latest innovations, it's no wonder we received a lot of scary, uncertain opinions about what lies ahead. But, these findings also highlight the need for technology providers to better communicate the business outcomes they deliver making it a little less uncertain for everyone.”
Terrifying Challenges Lay Ahead
The possibilities that keep these tech professionals hiding under their beds are pretty much what you’d expect, the survey results indicate: information or data breach, major service outages, ransomware, inside threats and rogue employees, zero-day virus, and DoS attacks.
These findings point to the ongoing business need for enterprises to invest in cybersecurity solutions, especially for companies with IoT and IIoT exposure. One interesting result was that female respondents were less worried about ransomware and inside threats than men, while those who were over 55 years old were more likely to worry about information or data breaches.
Not All Doom and Gloom
Of course, not all the results were negative, or driven by concerns. When Finn Partners asked which new technologies would rise up to provide the most value to their organizations over the next two years, they pointed to: cloud services, big data, virtual desktop infrastructure, 3D printing, virtual reality, machine learning, and mobile backend as a service.
In short, the cloud is still growing in influence, and any technology or service that helps collect and parse data is going to be very important moving forward. That means the IoT, in case you missed that. Larger enterprises are most interested, according to the results, with nearly one-third of responding companies with more than 500 employees saying that big data will become extremely valuable to their organization. Only 17 percent of smaller enterprises said the same.
“As I.T. decision makers continue to face challenges that keep them up at night, these findings help demonstrate the need for continual vigilance in finding ways to look for better I.T. solutions that protect enterprise from outside predators and ever-present zombies,” said Horn.