In the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns, virtually all organizations made significant improvements to their end-user computing (EUC) environments, primarily by investing in existing solutions or by supplementing their historical solutions with new products. Now is not the time to let up. While the top EUC challenges businesses face today are the same ones they grappled with pre-pandemic (e.g., supporting remote and hybrid work, security, and identity access management), workplace locations and policies have changed. IT decision makers must rise to the challenge of a fluid and evolving workplace and implement EUC technologies that shape the future of work.
Insight
-
-
EUC Strategies Driven by Operational Efficiency Despite IT’s Continued Reliance on Legacy Technology
Most end-user computing strategies are carried out amid a complex mix of legacy systems and newer technologies. Organizations must balance their top priority (security) with the challenges IT faces in managing security for the growing array of endpoint devices preferred by employees. Cloud consumption models and newer security approaches hold promise for simplifying those responsibilities, cutting costs, and improving flexibility and service.
-
The quality and flexibility of endpoint hardware is now seen as the critical driver of unified communications and collaboration strategies. While networking requirements also play a major role, no factor influences the UCC employee and customer experience more than hardware. Organizations should keep end-user computing environments and endpoint hardware in the forefront of their UCC planning while seeking cost and labor savings from cloud delivery models.
-
Endpoint devices, with their growing capabilities and variety, are increasingly driving end-user computing strategies and have now overtaken operating systems and applications as the determining factor in EUC delivery models. While traditional desktop and laptop systems remain important, IT departments are investigating the viability of smartphones to serve as a single device for users, perhaps backed by cloud-based virtual desktop infrastructure. The potential support, security, and cost advantages from consolidating multiple end-user devices on one platform are significant. However, this isn’t the first time device consolidation has come up. Today’s device management and security strategies have evolved, as have the demands on digital workspaces, but is the landscape different enough to give it another shot?
-
To support the rise in remote work triggered by COVID-19 work-from-home mandates, most IT organizations (91%) maintain multiple meeting and collaboration platforms. Employee response to the number and variety of the unified communications and collaboration (UCC) platforms provided has been exceptionally positive, with 90% of survey respondents highly satisfied with their meeting and collaboration software. The challenge for EUC professionals is maintaining momentum. Employee experience vis-à-vis UCC technology has become a top EUC priority for businesses, second only to improving IT efficiency and on par with managing security risks. With hybrid work likely to remain the norm, even as employees return to offices, continued investment in UCC solutions will be needed to preserve the current high levels of employee satisfaction.
-
Challenged by ransomware and other password-related breaches and attacks, organizations are taking action to strengthen their authentication processes by deploying multifactor authentication (MFA). Like passwords, MFA is susceptible to attack, and doesn’t completely address the authentication problem. Passwordless authentication methods can protect against phishing and other attacks. To increase security and gain additional benefits, such as a better user experience and improved efficiency of IT and security teams, organizations need to operationalize strong authentication, making MFA or passwordless authentication mandatory.
-
Managing and securing the identities of an organization to increase security can be a challenge, and it is getting more challenging with the increased need for anywhere, anytime access to both cloud and in-house resources. Organizations are leveraging third parties and commercial solutions, including privileged access management (PAM) and identity governance and administration (IGA) to secure identities in their IT environment.
Already an Enterprise Strategy Group client? Log in to read the full report.
If you are not yet a Subscription Client but would like to learn more about accessing this report, please contact us.
-
As business activity shifts online, with a hybrid workforce, many activities are conducted over the network rather than in person, exposing an organization to fraud and attacks by nefarious individuals or groups or through identity theft. Organizations are increasingly protecting themselves from the uncertainty of working entirely online by using services to help screen their employees, contractors, and customers to prove they are who they say they are.
-
Building an in-house system to manage customer and third-party usernames and passwords may seem straightforward, but in practice may be an unexpectedly difficult task fraught with security risks. As a result, organizations are increasingly turning to customer identity and access management (CIAM) solutions to help increase performance and scalability with less effort and expense. While enterprises are turning to commercial CIAM solutions, IT and cybersecurity leaders are facing issues as they evaluate their CIAM options.
-
Despite global macroeconomic conditions, aggressive technology investments are expected to continue among more digitally transformed organizations. See highlights from research into these trends by TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group with this infographic, 2023 Technology Spending Intentions.
-
Security teams are challenged by the speed of modern software development processes. See data behind the movement to shift security left in an effort to increase security (without slowing down development) with this infographic, Walking the Line: GitOps and Shift Left Security.
-
Research Objectives
Based on a survey of 742 senior IT decision makers at midmarket and enterprise organizations, the 2023 Technology Spending Intentions Survey analyzes private and public sector technology spending expectations, the business and technology priorities driving those plans, and year-over-year trends in technology adoption and customer preferences. This year’s study from TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group finds that enterprise technology spending will generally slow due to global macroeconomic conditions and the threat of a worldwide recession, but aggressive investments are expected to continue among more digitally transformed organizations.
For more information on this research, please visit www.esg-global.com/2023-technology-spending.