IT spend on work-from-home infrastructure to touch 19 per cent in 2021: Report

NEW DELHI: As enterprises battle pandemic-induced challenges to arm the remote workforce with secure devices and collaborative solutions for maximum productivity, the IT spend on enabling work-from-home (WFH) infrastructure is expected to touch 19 per cent in 2021, marking a 27 per cent increase, a new report said on Thursday.

Enterprise challenges in the WFH era include security concerns (75 per cent), productivity losses (67 per cent), team management (34 per cent) and the need for a greater number of devices (45 per cent), according to the new CIO survey insights from CyberMedia Research.

In the wake of the pandemic, Indian enterprises have channelled their current IT spend towards enabling WFH, indicating that this spend will increase further in the next year. Education and healthcare verticals are going to see maximum increase in spend on collaboration, the findings showed.

"Every organisation must learn to adapt to the new normal and explore the right collaboration tools that drive efficiency, enable seamless communication, and are secure and reliable at the same time," said Anil Chopra, VP-Research and Consulting, CyberMedia Research (CMR).

The challenges are lack of knowledge about co-workers' availability and location (55 per cent), disconnect between business process and communication applications (52 per cent) and loss of business because of inability to reach decision makers on the first try (43 per cent).

In the new WFH environment, marked by sudden spike in collaboration needs, enterprises seek to build agility to resolve them. "Most of the organisations are looking for accelerated adoption of digital solutions during their process of recovering and reimagining the business and its operations. However, this may vary, depending on the sector, but the reality is that there will be adoption of digital solutions that can reduce operational costs during the next normal," said CMR President Thomas George.

"The sectors for critical products, such as pharmaceuticals are localising their supply chains and creating more stronger collaborative relationships with critical suppliers by building their digital capabilities."

According to the report, enterprises will focus more spend on enabling project task management and coordination, including employee time trackers (26 per cent), project management systems (23 per cent) and file sharing and management technologies.