Nobody could have predicted in January that we’d spend most of the rest of the year working from home. By June, though, IT leaders had embraced reality and rethought their operational and spending priorities. Out went upgrading on-premises infrastructure, hardware refreshes, and hiring. In came improving cybersecurity and enabling remote work.
We weren’t surprised to hear that the place most IT leaders opted to focus on was identity and access management. When all your employees are working from home, it’s that much more important to make sure that they can get into your network and access the applications and data they need to do their jobs. It’s also that much more important to restrict their access to only the things they’re authorized for – and to keep out anyone who shouldn’t be there at all.
And since many companies are planning to continue allowing (or requiring) remote work for some time to come, we also weren’t surprised to learn that IT leaders are more likely than they were pre-pandemic to invest in emerging technologies, especially cybersecurity technologies enhanced by artificial intelligence and machine learning.
What are your priorities for your 2021 budget? Are you planning to maintain a mostly remote workforce, and if so, how will you make sure your employees can continue working effectively and securely? If you’re still trying to figure that out, contact us. We can help you draw up a plan and put it into action for a more productive, secure 2021.
