Jumpcloud survey, topping costsavings by about 20 percentage points (56 percent to 37 percent.) Turning to enterprise spending and budgets, security also was cited most often as a category of technology or telecom that will see increased spending in 2024, according to a McKinsey survey of more than 3,000 business decision makers in charge of telecom spending. With 69 percent of respondents planning increases in security spend during the next 12 months, it topped other hot categories such as cloud (67 percent), IoT (65 percent) and next-gen connectivity (64 percent). “The days of table stakes product selling of antivirus and firewall packages is unlikely to be enough for firms that really want to drive revenue from cybersecurity pursuits,” said CompTIA researchers. According to CompTIA, partner organizations that say they are in better shape today than two years ago singled out offering cybersecurity services (separately from any solution provider activity) by a wide margin over companies that reported being in the same or worse shape. Forty-four percent of the former group vs. 26 percent of the latter count cybersecurity services as a main business line. “Before generative AI devoured much of the tech industry hype in 2023, cybersecurity was the main stage player, and it still is in terms of its importance/need among customers and its revenue-driving ability for the channel,” continued the IT association. EX/CX as X Factors While the concerns and opportunities around cybersecurity encompass a lot of solutions areas and scenarios – from the cloud and network down to the device to compliance, training, awareness and insurance – one area in which IT departments are screaming for assistance in some ways represents the unintended consequences of “locking things down.” It’s generally assumed that the more security that is applied, the more cumbersome the user and customer experience becomes. This may be a harsh reality that IT departments must face, but it’s a reality that is of increasing consequence to IT departments, and it could be one area in which partner providers and trusted advisors can stand out, suggest Auvik’s findings. That’s largely because, right along with their concerns around cybersecurity and the increasingly complex attack surface, both IT and C-suite executives have shown a heightened awareness around user and customer experience. According to findings from Info-Tech Research Group, exponentially improving customer experience is among the top five priorities of CIOs for 2024 – along with often-stated objectives such as leveraging generative AI, updating risk assessments and amping innovation. Indeed, an enhanced experience is often inherent to digital transformation strategies and is precisely where much of the earliest investments in AI have been directed. It’s not hard to understand why customer and employee experience are being prioritized. According to the Auvik survey, nearly four of 10 respondents said customer/user satisfaction is “most important” in how IT professionals are evaluated on their work. More the eight in 10 said it was very or most important. That was enough to make customer/user satisfaction the top parameter for how IT professionals are evaluated, ahead even of factors such as number and severity of incidents, percentage of uptime/ downtime and cost of IT overall. CHANNEL MANAGEMENT How do you expect your budget or spend by product category to evolve over the next 12 months net of inflation? Increase Reduce Avg. Stated Spend Change Security 69% 9% +8.5% Cloud 67% 8% +8.0% IoT 65% 9% +8.5% Next-gen connectivity 64% 10% +7.7% End-user devices, services 63% 9% +7.6% Business applications 63% 9% +8.4% Communications and collaboration 61% 11% +7.5% Fixed connectivity 54% 12% 12% Mobile connectivity 53% 14% +6.5% Source: McKinsey & Co. How IT Professionals Are Evaluated on Their Work Very Important Most Important Total Very, Most Important Customer/user satisfaction 43% 38% 81% Percentage of uptime/downtime 52% 23% 75% Severity of incidents 47% 28% 75% Cost of overall IT 46% 27% 73% Mean time to resolution (MTTR) 49% 24% 73% Number of incidents 48% 24% 72% Cost of downtime 47% 25% 72% Number of tickets closed in a time period 49% 22% 71% Source: Auvik IT Trends 2024 38 CHANNELVISION | JULY - AUGUST 2024
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