Introduction

For this report, we specifically spoke with IT professionals to find out how IT departments across the country are navigating the impacts of the pandemic.

In organising this series of roundtables, we hoped to understand the specific ways businesses have been impacted as a whole, looking at the different departments and speaking with leaders from across industries.

We also wanted to understand better the tech investment that took place en-masse to adapt to our challenging circumstances and help address the future challenges we now face, such as skill shortages and training.

What was made apparent by all the IT professionals we spoke with, was the view that the development of a robust IT strategy, would require leaders to stop thinking of desktops and start thinking of users.

It was clear to all our attendees that investments and implementations would be more successful by developing strategies around employees – rather than for them.

IT teams globally have had to move rapidly and implement structures overnight, but now is the time to step back, take a breath and examine what is and isn’t working to keep making productive innovations for the workplace in a new hybrid world.

Distilling the information, experience, and knowledge gathered, the following report has been split into three key themes: “Challenges to Change”, “Desktops to Users”, and “The Evolution of the Cyber Challenge”.

We hope that this report will act as a guide to help business leaders support IT teams across the UK in developing stable, productive and future proof IT plans and infrastructures. We have also collated a series of recommendations for CEOs and senior leaders to support IT managers in leading change at work.