“Interestingly, C-suite roles are more likely to list customer satisfaction as the most important metric (46 percent), compared to technicians (26 percent), IT operations managers (33 percent) and VP/directors (38 percent),” said the Auvik industry report, “suggesting that the higher you go in the organization, the more the customers’ experiences are emphasized.” And the importance of experience isn’t just a subjective notion. Auvik also found that the majority (64 percent) of internal IT departments spend between 10 to 20 hours per week resolving end-user requests, while a whopping 16 percent spend more than 20 hours a week on these reactive tasks. Almost half (47 percent) of government IT pros, for one, report spending more than 20 hours a week on end-user requests. “One answer for how to improve the balance between resolving highpriority items and giving end-users a great experience may lie in outsourcing some IT tasks to an MSP,” surmised Auvik researchers. That could have something to do with why configuration, monitoring and troubleshooting are among top networking tasks outsourced by respondents to MSPs and trusted advisors. Slowing the Sprawl Often directly related to employee experience, corporate networks are connecting to an expanding number of tools, devices and applications, both locally and in the cloud. And whether those tools fall under the category of shadow IT or sanctioned and certified resources, IT departments admit they are challenged to contain and maintain the ongoing sprawl. Nearly half of IT pros, for starters, (45 percent) require five to 10 tools to manage worker lifecycle, according to Jumpcloud’s findings, while more than a quarter (28 percent) require 11 applications or more and 10 percent require more than 15. In turn, a full 84 percent of IT pros said they would prefer to use a single platform that consolidates multiple solutions into one interface to manage user identity, access and security over a mix of best-in-class point solutions – an increase from the 75 percent who expressed the same in Q1 2024. At the same time, Enterprise Strategy Group, in a survey performed for network performance company Viavi Solutions, found that 65 percent of IT departments are using seven or more tools to monitor network performance, with 38 percent using 11 or more and the overall average at nearly 10 network monitoring tools in use. While it’s necessary, as ESG analysis point out, to have some mix of tools to adequately cover the many inter-related technologies that comprise today’s IT infrastructure, and having a lot of monitoring tools can have benefits – such as greater detailed visibility across distributed, heterogeneous infrastructures – too many tools also bring disadvantages, such as inefficiencies and a higher total cost of ownership “Some have so many [tools in place] they need dedicated roles just to keep up with tool sourcing and maintenance,” said the Viavi study, while it’s not uncommon for organizations to have duplicate tools. “While having more tools may improve end-to-end visibility and supports remote workers, it becomes a serious liability for integrating new technologies and services,” the report continued. “And those with more than 10 tools were 64 percent more likely CHANNEL MANAGEMENT Which network tasks or functions are outsourced? Configuration 44% Configuration backup 42% Monitoring 41% Troubleshooting 41% Wi-Fi management 41% SaaS/Cloud monitoring 40% Mapping 35% Documentation 35% Planning 35% Reporting 34% Network automation 32% Unified endpoint management 30% Other <1% Source: Auvik IT Trends 2024 Number of SaaS Applications Used 0 to 5 5% 6 to 10 9% 11 to 25 11% 26 to 50 15% 51 to 100 18% 101 to 250 17% 251 to 500 17% 501+ 7% Roles responsible for supporting end-users, their workstations, and SaaS applications General IT operations 25% Network operations 21% Network security 18% Application management 15% Help desk/service desk 12% DevOps 9% Other <1% Source: Auvik IT Trends 2024 40 CHANNELVISION | JULY - AUGUST 2024
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