An Ivanti study shows: 72 percent of IT departments are currently losing experts due to high workloads and unrealistic expectations of IT. Time-wasting "service request" puts a strain on IT teams / IT service automation reduces workload and increases the positive perception of teams in the company.
IT teams are all too often overworked and undervalued. In fact, however, they play a central role in the economic success of a company. Automated IT processes are treated as an important step to reduce the burden on teams and increase their productivity. As part of a recent study, Ivanti analyzed the connection between automated IT service offerings and the perception of IT teams in the company.
72 percent of those surveyed are currently losing employees in the IT teams
According to the study, the top IT challenges for decision-makers today are keeping up with digital transformation (32%) and retaining professionals in technical positions (26%). At the same time, the survey confirms that companies have a fundamentally positive perception of the performance of their IT departments: For the majority of those surveyed (61%), the teams are crucial for a company's growth and business strategy. The result that 72 percent of those surveyed are currently losing employees from the IT team is all the more critical. Almost half of those surveyed (41%) cited heavy workloads as the main reason for the attrition. Other reasons included unrealistic expectations of the team (34%) or lack of managerial support (32%).
Lack of automation and gaps in best practices
It is striking that just 1 percent of decision makers have already fully completed the introduction of automated IT services. This could significantly reduce the stress problem. In today's Everywhere Workplace, employees expect to be able to access corporate networks, data and services from a variety of devices. This expectation has significantly increased the burden on IT team members in recent months. In addition, most IT organizations see their own degree of maturity in the use of best practices such as ITIL or other IT standards only in the middle. Just 8 percent classify their level of maturity as high.
Heavy workloads, coupled with gaps in best practice adoption and a lack of automation, are impacting the time IT departments spend processing service requests. 80 percent spend between one and six hours solving each individual service ticket.
Automated services could bring relief
That's how long IT departments need for a ticket (Image: Ivanti).
Automated services could bring significant relief here. However, these are not yet the norm in IT departments: almost two-thirds of those surveyed (65%) state that a maximum of 30 percent of their IT services are automated. But even with such a moderate degree of automation, decision-makers are already saving time. The majority of respondents (55%) estimate that automating processes saves one to eight hours per service request. For companies that have already automated more than half of their IT services, the time saved per service request increases to more than 16 hours.
The results in the area of self-service portals are also interesting: 63 percent already offer such services for IT and/or other departments - for example HR or facility management. Human resources in particular will benefit from this. 65 percent of non-IT self-service is currently available to HR departments.
Further challenges, especially in IT
“We have already arrived in the post-Covid era. The way we work has changed significantly and has been partially normalized. This development is far from complete and will present us with further challenges, especially in IT," says Andreas Schmid, Director of Sales Engineering for Central and Eastern Europe. "It follows that the workload and the pressure to perform that weighs on IT teams will continue to increase in the future. The only way to alleviate some of that burden and retain technical professionals is by automating IT services. It allows team members to focus on activities that drive the business and contribute to corporate strategy.”
Interestingly, exactly this importance is perceived very differently by IT departments within companies. This is particularly visible in a comparison between the C level and the departments. The departmental level views the IT department more exclusively as a cost center (27%), while this assessment is shared by just 19% of respondents from the C-level.
Automated IT services as a growth driver
Here, too, the degree of automation of IT services influences perception: three quarters of the decision-makers (74%) in companies in which more than 50 percent of the IT services are automated see the services of the IT department as crucial for growth and the company's business strategy. This shows the special value of automation. Ivanti surveyed 2021 IT professionals at organizations in North America, APAC and EMEA from August to October 250.
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About Ivanti The strength of unified IT. Ivanti connects IT with security operations in the company in order to better control and secure the digital workplace. We identify IT assets on PCs, mobile devices, virtualized infrastructures or in the data center - regardless of whether they are hidden on-premise or in the cloud. Ivanti improves the provision of IT services and reduces risks in the company on the basis of specialist knowledge and automated processes. By using modern technologies in the warehouse and across the entire supply chain, Ivanti helps companies improve their ability to deliver - without changing the backend systems.