The 2019 State of IT

Every year Spiceworks conducts a lengthy survey of over 700 IT professionals spread across North America and Europe.  They summarize their findings in the 2019 State of IT.  The report is broken up in four sections:

1. IT budgets
2. Future workplace technology
3. IT careers
4. IT Marketing

The report gives the reader insights into information technology trends among other companies and IT professionals.  Read the entire 2019 State of IT.  Every year, we look forward to reading Spiceworks report because it contains valuable information on the industry, we are a part.

IT Budgets

• 89% of companies expect their IT budgets to grow or stay steady in 2019.
• 64% of companies are ramping their budgets due to the need to upgrade outdated IT infrastructure.
• Large enterprises are increasing their cloud budgets in 2019.
• Large enterprises of 5,000+ employees said new technology features are the primary driver enticing them to purchase new tech.

For national brands that are ramping their budgets, approval is just the start.  Organizations that have sites spread across the country are at a natural disadvantage for project management. It is far harder to execute projects in a timely and efficient manner.  Optus provides technology project solutions for several of the country’s best-known national brands; Enterprise Rent-A-Car, O’Reilly Auto Parts, and American Cancer Society.  Organizations need to determine a way to upgrade outdated IT infrastructure not only by a cost-conscious method but in a way that will free up workload to focus on more strategic initiatives such as, future technology.

Future Technology

• Large enterprises adopt emerging technology ten times more often than in small businesses.
• A quarter of large enterprises use blockchain technology, a figure expected to jump to more than 50% by 2020.
• Financial services organizations are the earliest adopters of most emerging tech, while government is behind the curve.
• End-user security awareness and testing tools are considered the most effective solution for preventing security incidents.

Generally, enterprise companies that integrate emerging at a headquarters location have in-house expertise.  However, when technology is rolled out to hundreds of sites implementation gets tricky.  Optus has experience implementing and supporting new technologies such as SD-WAN, facial recognition, and cloud at the site level for national brands.  Organizations, such as 84 Lumber, rely on Optus to deploy technology rollouts to every one of their 270+ locations.  Many national brand IT departments are not capable of executing a 270+ site rollout due to workload and other day-to-day responsibilities. Many enterprise businesses find that a managed service partner provides the means to implement technology rollout projects.  Whether an emerging technology or a simple network upgrade, an MSP will give IT departments not only cost advantages but strategic advantages over competitors because they can move fast and agile.

IT Careers

• Nearly one in three organizations plan to increase their IT staff in 2019.
• Behind cybersecurity skills, AI tech expertise is the number two skill large enterprises are seeking.
• In 2019, one in four IT pros plans to seek new employment; millennials are most likely to job hop.
• Job-hopping IT pros are primarily seeking better salaries and opportunities to advance their IT skills.

Investing in employees career growth is a necessity.  Providing employees with new skills and opportunities does however reduce the amount of time spent on day to day job responsibilities.  Optus’ core solutions enable organizations to augment the capabilities of an existing team so that the organization can focus on the business and take care of customers.  MSP can help companies give back time to employees to learn and grow.  Optus’ partner, Enterprise Rent A Car, outsources their telecommunication help desk to do just that.  Their move to the managed support lets the telecommunication and IT team turn their attention on personal career growth and strategic initiatives.

Read the entire 2019 State of IT.

Optus is an MSP who offers managed services for large multi-site businesses.  We specialize in the management of projects at site locations including network infrastructure, telecommunications, and IP endpoint deployment.  Optus is also a managed service provider for telecommunications support.

Optus solutions may not play on the cutting edge, but we are the most experienced and most reliable.