Few would argue that the novel coronavirus pandemic hasn’t dramatically changed enterprise IT. This is especially so when it comes to both the management of IT as well as the very relationship between IT staff and the rest of the business. But how many would have predicted that the relationship between IT and business leaders would have improved since the start of the pandemic?
According to a recent survey, that’s been precisely the outcome for roughly 43% of organizations. The study is from IT services provider Ensono, which questioned 153 IT decision-makers within the United States and the UK. The research was conducted during the first week of July 2020.
Further, 32% of IT decision-makers said that their IT budgets are increasing, and 33% have been given more scope to define IT spending since the beginning of the pandemic. Just 5% said that they’ve been given less scope to define their IT spending.
The survey also confirmed that the pandemic has increased pressure for enterprises to transform themselves digitally. Fortunately, IT has proven its value, at least when it comes to reliability. Despite staff having to work remotely and maintain socially distant, thereby increasing demand for software access, 1 in 4 respondents said they didn’t face any downtime issues. At the same time, only 2% reported between 24 and 48 hours of downtime.
Additionally, 38% of respondents said that the pandemic helped to improve their understanding of IT. In comparison, 30% of IT decision-makers said they now have more control over business decisions, while only 4% said they now have less control. For 10%, there has been no perceived change in their relationship with the rest of the business outside IT.
These findings echo those of an earlier study this year from services provider BDO, whose 2020 Digital Transformation Survey, which measured the digital transformation efforts of middle-market organizations, found many of the digital transformation failures stemmed from leadership failures. These include lack of skills or training (41%), employee pushback (30%), poor communication or project management (28%) and lack of leadership or vision (28%) as top reasons for digital efforts failing. “Change readiness is a function of culture, commitment, and capacity to meet the objective and see it through. In a time of competing priorities, systemizing an approach to change management is more essential to organizational agility than ever,” BDO said in its statement.
It’s certainly essential for those organizations that participated in the Ensono survey, with 56% reporting being under greater urgency to digitally transform their business and about 25% of organizations reporting that events have forced them to begin their digitalization efforts immediately.
