Researching the actual needs of IT services

2020 brought tremendous changes to the lives of people around the world, which naturally affected all spheres of the economy and business. As a company that prioritizes the interests and objectives of our clients, we have conducted research and identified changes in the needs of IT services of companies in various business sectors.

Goals and objectives

The purpose of the study was to study the current needs of IT services, as well as the changes that have occurred in their work in 2020.

Methodology

The research was carried out using the online survey method. To get the most accurate results, we used a specially designed form that included 9 questions. The respondents filled out the form on their own. After receiving all the completed questionnaires, the data were processed and presented in a generalized form.

In total, more than 200 heads of IT services from various sectors of the economy took part in the survey.

The largest number of respondents are from industry and retail. We also surveyed companies in the financial, education, healthcare and IT sectors.

Branches of participating companies
Branches of participating companies

Research results

In a pandemic situation, many companies and, accordingly, IT services have switched to a remote or hybrid work format.

In this regard, systems that allow employees to work remotely have begun to be used more actively. Paperwork has been reduced, and various platforms have been introduced for organizing online communications.

However, not all respondents called the changes significant, since in a number of companies the practice of remote work has already been introduced for a long period.

Among the significant changes, the priority of the implementation of business processes using external services was noted, the speed of decision-making increased, and the flexibility increased.

Some companies noted an increase in activity in the b2c segment, which also affected the work of IT services.

Business process changes
Business process changes

The study showed that the degree of quality of work of corporate information systems is at a high, but not ideal level.

More than half of the respondents said that corporate service outages occur less than once a month.

Moreover, representatives of the healthcare industry almost did not notice failures, and in IT companies and the educational sector, significant failures occur every month.

Failure rate
Failure rate

Roughly half of those surveyed reported having experienced a data loss situation.

Data loss
Data loss

At the same time, audits and system tests are carried out mostly not on a regular basis, but when necessary. These important processes are given close attention in the IT segment. And this is not surprising, because IT people know for sure that a “fire” is easier to prevent than to extinguish.

System audit and tests
System audit and tests

When IT systems fail, companies act differently. Approximately half of them decide issues on their own, while others act depending on the situation (often resorting to the help of external specialists). It should be noted that financial and IT companies often cope with problems on their own due to the highly qualified staff.

Actions in case of failures of IT systems
Actions in case of failures of IT systems

More than half of the respondents expressed satisfaction with the speed of solving problems by the company’s full-time employees. At the same time, representatives of the financial sector said that they were rather dissatisfied with this parameter, while representatives of the IT industry, on the contrary, were completely satisfied.

Satisfaction with the speed of solving problems by full-time employees
Satisfaction with the speed of solving problems by full-time employees

As for the quality of solving problems by full-time employees, here the representatives of IT companies also expressed complete satisfaction, while the majority of respondents chose the option “Rather satisfied”.

Satisfaction with the quality of solving problems by the company's full-time employees
Satisfaction with the quality of solving problems by the company’s full-time employees

Almost 45% of the respondents considered the costs of the company’s IT infrastructure to be optimal. At the same time, about half of the health sector representatives participating in the survey reported that they do not fully consider the costs to be optimal.

Optimal cost of IT infrastructure
Optimal cost of IT infrastructure

Many CIOs reported having planned projects to develop, optimize or modernize IT systems in 2021. Not surprisingly, the importance of developing and expanding IT projects has been evident and has had an impact on business for several decades, while the last year has shown how critical this can be.

Availability of planned projects
Availability of planned projects

RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Summarizing the data obtained, we concluded that:

  • in 2020 there was a significant increase in the load on IT;

  • problems in case of failures are solved mainly by internal employees;

  • a little less than half of organizations lost data after failures;

  • system audits and tests are not carried out regularly;

  • the speed and quality of solving problems on their own – satisfactory;

  • more than half of organizations are planning projects in the field of IT development, optimization / modernization.

Based on the results obtained, we have prepared the following recommendations for IT managers:

  • conducting a database audit at least once a quarter, especially if the system is business-critical;

  • upgrading the qualifications of IT service employees through training or attracting external experts to carry out joint complex work.

Besides

  • when planning a migration to open source, it is necessary to pay attention to the complexity of the work and conduct a survey for the possibility of such a migration, draw up a migration plan and agree on a downtime window with the business;

  • to improve the efficiency of interaction between company employees, it is worth considering the possibility of creating an internal corporate portal or using other modern technological solutions;

  • perhaps it is also worth paying attention to the implementation of projects according to the Agile scheme and / or microservice architecture.

We presented the results of the study at a webinar, with video recordings of which you can familiarize on our Youtube channel.

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