WEBONLY IT leaders are now prioritising remote work, focusing on strategies to deliver the future of work, according to a survey by Citrix.

According to the results of a Pulse survey conducted by Citrix Systems, Inc, 100 per cent of 400 IT and security leaders across North America, EMEA, and APAC have adopted the hybrid model, and rank enabling it as job number one for their organisations.

“In 2020, IT was focused on survival amid the great remote work pressure test. In 2021, they overhauled their infrastructure and strategies to accommodate this new model. And in 2022, they will enact flexible technology strategies and workplace policies to deliver what is clearly the future of work,” said Meerah Rajavel, Chief Information Officer, Citrix.

Business leaders are now calling on IT to enable remote work with their top five priorities over the next five years being enabling distributed collaboration, ensuring always-on availability, empowering individual focus, providing a consistent, consumer-like experience from device to device and location to location and automating work.

However, respondents are facing certain challenges in executing strategies. 

When asked to identify the top obstacles to driving digital transformation, lack of understanding the needs across the business to effectively prioritize investments (41 per cent), Cumbersome, complex infrastructure (34 per cent) and lack of investment in cloud (24 per cent) have emerged as top challenges.

Top challenges

Security remained a major concern. Ransomware attacks (41 per cent), insider threats (18 per cent), API/software breaches and vulnerabilities (16 per cent) and phishing and cloud-related attacks (15 per cent) were flagged as some of the top threats facing hybrid and remote work.

IT leaders and their teams are stretched to the maximum, with 70 per cent respondents citing that they were working more hours while 50 per cent experienced decreased productivity. 49 per cent were less satisfied with their jobs while 24 per cent were disengaged.

Need of the hour

The leaders polled, plan to overcome these challenges by focusing on bridging the cybersecurity gap (32 per cent) and managing the pace of digital acceleration with cybersecurity investment (29 per cent).

Further focus areas include Zero Trust Network Access (14 per cent), Vendor consolidation/simplification (13 per cent), Security AI and automation (7 per cent), app/API protection and/or browser isolation for SaaS and web apps (3 per cent) and acceleration to SASE (2 per cent).

“When it comes to securing a workforce that cycles in and out of the office, ensuring an even playing field for collaboration and supporting employees through what remains a time of unprecedented upheaval, IT can no longer afford to make yesterday’s compromises between distributed collaboration and security,” Rajavel said. 

“Instead, they must implement solutions and strategies that help them balance these seemingly competing priorities and chart a new course that allows them to deliver the future of flexible work,” Rajavel added.

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