Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2022. Read them in this 14th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
IT Will Continue to Evolve in the New Normal
By Alex Hoff, Founder & Chief Product Officer, Auvik
Over the last two years, COVID-19 has had a lasting impact on the way we work, with many businesses shifting their way of thinking about remote and hybrid work models to allow for more flexibility. It has also forced a new wave of digital transformation to support remote and hybrid workers and ensure business continuity, not just with the implementation of tools like Slack, Zoom, and Google Drive, but with IT processes as a whole.
What’s next for the new normal? As remote and hybrid work models continue to mature, additional changes are needed for business tech stacks, IT processes, and company culture to ensure simplicity, cut costs, boost productivity, and support workers.
Tech consolidation
In 2020, many organizations hastily implemented new digital tools to ensure business continuity in the age of COVID-19. As a result, many technology providers and MSPs saw immense revenue growth throughout the pandemic. However, after nearly two years to settle into this “new normal,” 2022 is likely to be a year of tech consolidation as organizations reevaluate their tech stack to simplify and cut costs.
For MSPs and technology providers, this means it may be time to reevaluate services and offerings to maximize the value we provide to customers. That could mean providing more services or software to cover the full tech stack or moving beyond traditional IT services to establish their company as a trusted IT advisor and consultant. For example, we’ve seen MSPs expanding their service stack over the last several years with more cloud, security, and data-focused services.
The future of the network
With the continuation of hybrid and remote work, businesses will need to take steps in 2022 to make networks more mobile and agile. We’ve already seen many organizations take these steps, with Auvik’s recent Network Vendor Diversity Report finding a 0.8% increase over the last year in access points and a shift to higher-quality access points in-office, but additional investments are needed to support flexible workforces.
In addition to access points, it may be beneficial for businesses to consider investing in home office networks to support remote workers, providing a monthly budget to improve bandwidth or providing remote user network performance monitoring. After all, 2020 research found that home workers waste an average of 30 minutes per day as a result of unreliable internet connections, and a more recent survey found that 35% of survey respondents had difficulty completing daily job tasks due to a weak internet connection. It pays to invest in remote workers’ home networks.
Where more investments aren’t needed? Physical routers, with Auvik’s research finding many businesses are no longer investing in – a trend that is likely to continue in the coming years with less emphasis on in-office networks.
Hybrid work culture
In addition to tech changes, cultural changes are still needed to better support remote workers and bridge the gap between remote and traditional workers. Particularly in the age of the “great resignation,” it’s important for companies to rethink what “company culture” means and how they can provide a great experience to all employees, regardless of where they may be working from. One change that Auvik has made to ensure all of our employees feel included is implementing a “one remote, all remote” call policy – if even one teammate is working from home, the rest of their team joins calls from their desk rather than congregating in a conference room to make sure no one feels left out.
The rest of 2022 may still be uncertain – if only Auvik could provide visibility into the future in addition to networks! However, with remote and hybrid work models here to stay, it’s safe to say that we’ll need to remain flexible and open to continued tech and cultural changes, whatever our new normal may hold.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alex is a co-founder of Auvik and leads the company’s product management and partner success teams. Prior to co-founding Auvik in 2011, Alex worked at Sandvine Corporation for over eight years, starting as a software engineer in January 2003 and ultimately serving as Senior Product Manager of Sandvine Corporation from November 2008 to October 2011. Alex holds a bachelor of mathematics degree with a major in computer science from the University of Waterloo and a master of business administration degree from Wilfrid Laurier University.
