The Next Value Accelerator for IT

The current state of workforce technology

The COVID-19 pandemic has created several new difficulties for global workforces and brought many existing challenges into sharp relief. For the first time, tens of millions of people are suddenly working in relative isolation amid varying circumstances. They might be at their primary or secondary home, caring for parents or children, or even on a road trip. To survive the aftershocks of coronavirus, companies have no choice but to embrace new techniques for productivity, connectivity, and security—and to do so quickly.

Global Workplace Analytics notes that 56% of U.S. employees (that’s 75 million workers) already have responsibilities that could be performed, at least in part, from anywhere. According to Gartner, 82% of company leaders still intend to permit some remote working as employees return to the workplace post-pandemic. Perhaps unsurprisingly, IDC’s May 2020 Tech Index noted that, despite budget cuts, IT demand is rising for the technologies required to support distributed workers, with top priorities being cloud, security, and workforce/employee tools.

This reality, of course, has major implications when it comes to protecting your users, applications, devices, and data. It’s accelerating the erosion of traditional network perimeters, and contributing to a rise in cyberattacks, especially phishing. According to the ISACA, 92% of technology professionals say digital attacks on individuals are growing, and 87% say the rapid transition to remote work has increased their data protection and privacy risk.

But COVID-19’s impact isn’t all d