Pandemic impact: Two-thirds of polled Reg readers say it's business as usual in the IT dept, one in ten panicking
- Reference: 1585652434
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/31/it_spending_pandemic/
- Source link:
For 24 hours on Thursday, we ran a small and simple poll for site visitors: it would have appeared in a little box on article pages. While not a full-blown reader survey, it was nonetheless eye-opening. The goal was to gauge how IT departments and decision-makers are coping amid the spread of the virus, which has forced employees to work from home where possible and non-essential businesses to close across the US and UK, Europe, and beyond.
Todo lists will have been cleared, and new priorities identified, such as connecting, motivating, and securing a freshly remote workforce; ensuring business continuity; and recalculating technology and services spending.
To test the waters, we thus asked our readership of IT and technology pros, "What is the state of your IT department today, given the pandemic?" with the option to vote for one of the following: "We're paralysed by it"; "Spending is going through the roof as we go mobile"; "Struggling to manage the remote workforce"; "Petrified by the security challenge"; and "Business as usual."
[1]
Global results, which are more or less in line with EMEA and NA ... Click to enlarge
Across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), including the UK, and North America (NA), fewer than one in ten of respondents were paralyzed by the bio-nasty outbreak, so we're glad you're, at least now, generally on top of things. Patience and business continuity plans pay dividends. It may be that the initial shock of county and country-wide near-lockdowns, to prevent the spread of the virus, is somewhat over, and now we're all focusing on the job at hand: keeping the lights on, systems running, and boosting capacity where needed.
Nearly 20 per cent were struggling to manage their remote workforce. While some have been unable to adapt, others have tapped into the wealth of instant messaging and video conferencing platforms available. These services have experienced [2]soaring [3]growth in the past month, each with their own pros and cons and [4]growing pains .
A tiny percentage in each region felt the need to increasing spending or were scared of the security implications – the latter, we suspect, due to trust in corporate VPNs and gateways, access policing, intrusion detection, and data-management systems to keep staff work remotely and keep miscreants out.
And two-thirds said it was business as usual.
[5]
APAC results were slightly different ... Click to enlarge
In Asia-Pacific (APAC), things were slightly different. Some 15 per cent admitted they were paralyzed by the pandemic, and one in four said they were struggling to manage a remote workforce, perhaps due to connectivity in the region. And less than half said it was business as usual.
Below is a table of results from the question: "What is the state of your IT department today, given the pandemic?"
Answer
Global
EMEA
NA
APAC
We're paralysed by it
9%
8%
7%
15%
Spending is going through the roof as we go mobile
4%
4%
3%
8%
Struggling to manage the remote workforce
18%
16%
16%
24%
Petrified by the security challenge
3%
3%
5%
4%
Business as usual
66%
68%
69%
48%
Let us know in the comments below how you're coping, and what your priorities are right now, and spending plans. There are literally millions of folks out of work right now, in industries from hospitality and travel to manufacturing, as well as hundreds of thousands sick. We hope you're doing well, given the circumstances. ®
Poll sample: 2,179 global responses, averaged from 1,640 in EMEA, 219 in NA, and 318 in APAC, collected on March 26, 2020.
[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/03/31/reader_poll_global_it_pandemic.png
[2] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/19/teams_toys/
[3] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/24/azure_seems_to_be_full/
[4] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/16/microsoft_teams_wobble/
[5] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/03/31/reader_poll_apac_it_pandemic.png
Struggling to keep up ..
One of the problems inherent with idle project owners is that they tend to invent lots and lots of new ideas that they want done to their Apps or websites or or APIs. My book is now full until at least end July 2020 with clients who realise that this is the perfect time to make their digital staff work extra hours ("its not as if you can get out much you know"). To illustrate, in the past week I have been asked to architect the redesign of the app and web app for a well-known London football club, formerly built very clumsily using a now out of date version of Drupal. In addition my other clients want to take this opportunity, while page visits are reduced, to increase maximum effectiveness using those out of date WebTrends reports - this usually requires a major page template redesign.
3D Pie Charts
[1]Just say no....
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/pie-charts-are-the-worst-2013-6
Got away with it!
We completed a migration to a new fibre leased-line into our office a week before the lockdown. This also entailed switching from using Cisco ASA as the boundary firewalls and VPN endpoint, to using pfSense appliances by NetGate.
We've been pleasantly surprised at how easy the pfSense firewalls are to configure, and the migration to OpenVPN clients, instead of Cisco AnyConnect, for all our workers has been almost painless.
I shudder to think what fun we would have had if we'd left it a week later!
Surely this is the time....
To realise that work is a thing that you do, not a place that you go to.
However, not for one second am I suggesting that we all abandon the concept of the workplace: Many of my colleagues really don't live in the biggest of places (This is london, after all), and it really wouldn't be good for one's mental health.
However, I work longer hours when I'm at home, am not interrupted as much and work for a company that's embraced home working as long as I can remember.
I do miss the free coffee, though. Costing me a fortune in Mail Order Monmouth Coffee!
Remote Japan
In the small Japanese export company I work for we have always reject requests for home working. Now we have set up VPN access for IT development to continue *if* the call goes out to halt commuting.