It’s that time of year again — industry leaders are making their predictions for the help desk and IT support trends to watch for in 2018. Part of keeping your organization in good shape is following industry trends that will help you reach your goals.
See how you can make the most of your resources to have a great year:
Budgets are Increasing
Many IT budgets are increasing, which is good news for IT departments!
A recent annual report showed that most of the companies surveyed are keeping IT budgets steady for 2018, or planning an increase. 44 percent are expecting an increase in their IT budget and 43 percent expect theirs to remain stable.
Of the companies increasing IT spending, there is a spending increase of 19 percent on average. This looks to be a good year for many to invest in new technology for a more effective workplace.
Stay tuned for our next blog article on how to get the most out of your IT budget. Subscribe to our newsletter so you don’t miss it.
More Cloud-Based Technology
Of these budgetary increases, 21 percent is expected to go toward hosted and cloud-based services. The same report indicates that, since 2017, the highest percentage of increase in spending categories is in cloud-based services. It’s clear that more and more organizations are moving to the cloud.
In a Capterra blog post, Trave Harmon, CEO of Triton Technologies, shares:
“Businesses are expecting to adopt cloud-based technologies in explosive, rapid numbers. From AWS, Microsoft, and beyond, businesses will be heading into the cloud. From email, phone systems, remote access, security, monitoring, and more, businesses will be moving away from on-premise servers and workstations.”
A main benefit of cloud technology is easy to access from any location. This is especially useful for help desks and IT support platforms. Users can make requests, track tickets, and read help resources whether they are at school, at home, or on the road. Support technicians can also check in at any time or any location.
Another significant benefit of using cloud-based solutions is that they are easy to scale up or down as needed. They offer a streamlined approach to operating a service such as a help desk without the associated infrastructure maneuvering and costs typical with organizational scale.
2018 is the year to migrate those dated systems and processes to the cloud.
Simplifying IT Architecture
Phil Simon, Professor at ASU’s W. P. Carey School of Business and technology authority, predicts that IT departments will get serious about simplicity in 2018.
“Convoluted systems and spaghetti architecture inhibit plenty of [organizations] from acting and reacting quickly, something that is becoming increasingly costly,” he writes. “I expect more of the holdouts to not only think seriously about how to streamline operations and systems, but actually begin the process.”
If these predictions hold true, 2018 will be the year for many CIOs of mature organizations to finally start embracing modern technologies. It is expected that organizations will spend more and invest more time in simplified, cloud-based technology.
Conclusion
While the IT department is often left to figuring out how to deal with technological changes and implementing them, the costs and infrastructure impact are often unseen by the rest of the organization. And while change doesn’t come easy, following the vision and striving to reach your organizational goals can keep you and your IT team from frantic and the associated costly catch-up mode in the future.
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