It doesn’t matter what industry your organization is in – keeping up with technology advancements is probably a challenge you’re facing. If you’re in finance, you want to get the most out of your technology investments. If you’re in procurement, you want to control costs and reduce risk. If you’re in IT, you’re probably busy keeping up with daily demands and trying to stay abreast of new technologies.The problem is that technology is changing so quickly, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. These statistics illustrate the complexity of the issues you’re facing.
Technology Advancements in the Cloud. Cloud adoption has gone beyond expectations, with one of the big drivers being the pandemic. In 2020, an amazing 83% of the business workload was resident in the cloud. Revenue from the public cloud was at $175.8 billion in 2018, but it’s expected to grow to $331 billion by 2022.1
Increasing Sophistication of the Customer Base. How you communicate with customers is changing because customers’ expectations are changing. Today, customers expect to be able to reach a business using a variety of channels. This expectation has driven 46% of those answering a recent survey to take on new technologies.2
Unified Communications Capabilities Are Accelerating. Surveys indicate that 90% of IT leaders planned to phase out on-premise phone systems last year to take advantage of communications features in the cloud. And, the unified communications market is expected to grow to $48.3 billion by 2023.3
If those facts don’t shock you, you may be interested to know that 90% of the world’s big data was produced in the last two years, and 127 new devices connect to the internet every second.1 It’s no wonder that most of us get dizzy trying to keep up with technology advancements.
Some business leaders are asking themselves how they can keep their organizations competitive if their technology is outdated. Some are struggling with the issue of fitting the latest technology into their budget. There are several key technology advancements that you need to address to ensure that you’re making the best technology decisions for your business.
A CLOSER LOOK AT KEY TECHNOLOGY ADVANCEMENTS
The three technologies discussed below are evolving very rapidly and need to be addressed when you plan how you’ll handle the technology you use and how you plan upgrades.
CYBER SECURITY
The need to keep current with the latest cyber security technology is easy to understand. For example4:
- On average, security teams take 287 days to identify and contain a data breach.
- The cost to deal with cyber attacks was $3 trillion in 2015, and it is estimated to reach $10.5 trillion by the year 2025.
- The World Economic Forum reported that existing cyber security plans are increasingly becoming obsolete because cyber criminals themselves are getting more sophisticated all the time.
These statistics illustrate the fact that it is difficult to identify and contain attacks, which is driving up the cost to deal with them. And, because the cyber criminals are getting better at what they do, if you aren’t staying up to date with cyber security technology, you’re going to become vulnerable at a much faster rate than in the past.
The pandemic contributed to our cyber security problems. When the pandemic hit and businesses needed to send their employees home to work, a new category of vulnerability was born. Overnight, IT teams had to try to close all the gaps in their cyber strategy caused by employees working remotely on a massive scale. The problem isn’t going to get much better since many companies are planning to establish permanent remote or hybrid workforces. It’s now considered to be the workforce of the future.
MOBILITY
In the past, it wasn’t difficult for employees who traveled for work to stay in touch. Those employees could stop into a remote office to check the status of their work using company devices and networks. Or, they had a secretary or assistant who could access company systems and report back. Today, however, the days when everyone had a secretary or assistant are long gone.
In addition, employees want to be able to work on their own devices, including desktops, laptops, and smartphones. The pandemic increased the need for employees to be able to work from anywhere using any device, increasing technology challenges. Business systems need to provide access to the same networks, data, and applications that users would access in the office on something as small as a smartphone to let businesses continue to operate effectively.
As a result, security is an increasing concern since cyber criminals are targeting mobile devices more frequently. Mobile security research indicates that most organizations surveyed had been the victim of a mobile malware attack last year. Hackers have been busy creating malicious mobile apps to catch unsuspecting employees who download threats such as banking trojans or malware droppers.5 It’s critical to support mobility, but it must be done securely.
THE CLOUD
Gartner predicts that spending on public cloud services will grow to $494.7 billion in 2022, an increase of 20.4% over 2021.6 Companies are moving to the cloud to maintain or improve their competitive advantage for the following types of reasons:
- The cloud offers better backup than most on-premise systems, giving you peace of mind that you’ll be able to continue operating in the case of an emergency.
- You can reduce capital expenditures by letting your cloud provider acquire, maintain, and upgrade a leading-edge infrastructure.
- You’ll save on operational costs that you’d normally expend to administer your own infrastructure, manage patches, and more.
- Cloud systems can be quickly scaled to meet your requirements, while on-premise systems aren’t as agile.
- Your cloud provider is responsible for the security of the infrastructure so that you can concentrate on securing your applications.
- You’ll have access to the latest technology because your cloud provider will keep their architecture up to date.
You may agree that the technologies above are critical to the future health and growth of your business. But, you’re still facing the issue of how to find space in your budget for all the tech you need. What you’ll find is that you can get the information you need to make those decisions by conducting a variety of audits of your operations.
THE TECHNOLOGY AUDIT: THE ANSWER TO BUDGETING FOR LEADING-EDGE TECHNOLOGY
It is possible to get the best technology for your business and to acquire it from the right provider. All you need is an expert like those at JEBL Solutions to help guide you to the technology that will best meet your needs from the right providers. JEBL Solutions can help you achieve the best outcome with audits that will give you the information you need to feel confident in your technology selections. Technology audits are also designed to find ways to ensure that your choices fit into your budget.
CYBER SECURITY AUDITS
The purpose of a cyber security audit is to determine whether your controls, policies, and procedures are established and working correctly. The audit is conducted by a third party to ensure that you have a fresh set of eyes looking at your overall cyber security posture. It will identify whether there are gaps in your security infrastructure, point out any weaknesses, and provide direction for you to correct anything that is of concern.
TECHNOLOGY AUDITS
A technology audit will help you to identify any issues that may exist with your current service and find opportunities for improvement. The audit will help you find ways to save that will allow you to eliminate legacy technology and migrate to the cloud where you’ll have more features and benefits.
It will also evaluate your policies, procedures, and the applications you are using, and typically will identify other technologies that you can use to improve agility and keep up with technology advancements.
TELECOM AUDITS
One of the biggest problems companies run into with their telecommunications is the complexity of the billing systems. It’s easy to get charged for services that you aren’t using and pay for errors in the billing itself. A telecom audit will uncover those types of problems and let you resolve them. Typical savings come from eliminating contract compliance issues and billing errors, while optimizing pricing and service.
In addition, a telecom audit will help you evaluate your existing solutions to see if they’re fit to support hybrid work environments. Very often, there are improvements you can make to ensure that your hybrid workforce has the tools they need without sacrificing security.
FINAL THOUGHTS
JEBL Solutions has the expertise and resources to perform risk-free audits that will find opportunities to save. We can also point out how you can uncover the funds to acquire the advanced technology you need for your business. Learn more about our audits or contact us to discuss how we can help you cut costs, improve operations, and streamline your telecom/IT spend.
Sources
1 | https://techjury.net/blog/cloud-computing-statistics/
2 | https://techjury.net/blog/how-fast-is-technology-growing/#gref
4 | https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/34-Cybersecurity-Statistics-to-Lose-Sleep-Over-in-2020
