Third Annual Reader Survey

The People Problem

Although 44 percent of the survey respondents say their organizations plan to spend more on IT in the coming year than they did the year before, only 12 percent say they intend to increase their IT head count. About 61 percent say they expect head count to stay the same, and almost 27 percent say their IT head count will decrease in the coming year (see charts left).

The upshot: Top management remains cautious about the economy. Most organizations, even if they're getting additional dollars for capital outlays and other new projects, remain reluctant to hire IT staffers who might have to be laid off if the economy turns sour again.

"We are seeing the 'perfect storm' in our IT organizations," says Christopher Clancy, director of technology for the Cleveland Clinic Health System, which is increasing the number of capital projects, but not head count. "We're continually restricting the human resources we need to weather the storm. Like most other IT organizations, we're forced to stretch limited resources across more requests."

As one manager put it, today's IT department is being asked to "do more with less and less and less." Many readers say they're stretching one person across two or more job descriptions. Others are shortening the list of projects they'll work on, even though they have the budget to do them. A few readers say they're asking business units to present an "IT case" for each project, forcing the units to justify the use of IT resources.

"Our priorities have been readjusted--again--to include only 'must do or die' IT projects," says Thomas Crandall, IT director at Northwest Media. "The rest have been eliminated, scaled back or just put on the back burner."

Despite the media frenzy around domestic and offshore outsourcing, surprisingly few readers report plans to supplement their people with third-party vendors. Whereas 52 percent of the respondents say they're using some domestic IT outsourcing services, only 12 percent say they'll increase the use of those services in the coming year. Fewer than 30 percent are using offshore outsourcing services, and just 10 percent plan to send more work offshore (see charts left).

Many readers say that though they're interested in offshore outsourcing, security concerns are holding them back."Every time I listen to a salesman and feel somewhat confident about outsourcing, I come across news articles that put back the fear that we could be contributing to terrorism," says Carol Kennedy, a systems analyst for the city of Vidalia, Ga. "No matter how much you encrypt or password-protect, there is always someone out there hunting for information he or she can use."

Jim Kennedy, vice president of IT at United First Federal Credit Union and no relation to Carol, puts it more succinctly: "Would you keep your money in a bank or credit union that had its IT functions performed in China, Russia or India?"

Politics Abound

With hiring still in a deep freeze and outsourcing only beginning to thaw, many IT professionals find themselves with even less time for the day-to-day "people" problems their departments have faced for years. For example, nearly 94 percent of the survey respondents consider politics among the worst aspects of their job.In many cases, the politics are internal to the department. "IT is very 'turfy'--systems versus networks, infrastructure versus applications, campus versus medical center," says John Brassil, a network engineer at Vanderbilt University. "The lack of central structures with well-defined roles and responsibilities really hurts us sometimes."

In other cases, the political problems are with management. "Trying to persuade the right people, in the right sequence, to support appropriate directions--while avoiding the quagmire of changing product scopes--is a maddening and frustrating exercise," says Steven Brunker, CIO at LSI Industries.

In fact, only 25 percent of the respondents agree with the statement, "High-ranking non-IT executives generally understand IT's challenges and benefits." More than 28 percent say they would most like to improve their relations with "top executives," while another 26 percent would rather improve relations with "business-unit managers" (see chart left). Top executives often don't understand how much time and money it costs to achieve business goals with technology, says Brian Lauber, IS manager at L.E. Smith Co.

"The hardest thing is fighting their belief that time lines can be compressed with pressure," adds Brad Kopecky, CIO at the Storefront Group. "Even though we have to be agile, we cannot rapidly spin from directive to changing directive."

Despite the staff shortages and office stress, most IT pros like their bosses and co-workers. In our survey, 64 percent of the respondents rank their organization's leadership as one of the best aspects of their job (see chart above). And nearly 70 percent name "co-workers" as a top benefit.

Although money isn't as big a reader concern as it was a year ago, "meeting IT goals on a limited budget" still ranks as the top challenge for the coming year, according to 30 percent of our respondents (see chart left). Last year, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed listed limited budgets as the chief obstacle to deploying new technology. This year, nearly 45 percent say IT budget cuts are among their most serious concerns going into 2005 (see chart right). Clearly, while IT spending may be up from the previous year, cost control remains a priority.

The tax division of the state of Alaska's Department of Revenue prioritizes all IT investments based on how much they will increase productivity without any increase in labor or cost over the previous year, says Clayton Lau, a microcomputer network specialist in the division. Other organizations prioritize their spending based on the potential business or customer-service impact.Many companies are getting creative. The Kentucky New Era, a regional newspaper, relies on managers' home computers--upgraded by the company--for disaster recovery, says systems manager Howard Keeter.

Measuring Uptime

For most IT organizations, though, impact on availability is the yardstick by which all investments are measured. More than 62 percent of the respondents agree with the statement, "IT's performance is evaluated primarily by the level of system uptime/ availability it delivers."

On average, IT professionals still spend more than 25 percent of their time monitoring, diagnosing and fixing IT problems--more time than they spend on developing business and IT strategies combined (see chart left). Nearly 43 percent of the respondents cite performance and availability as critical factors in making a technology purchase, second only to the features/functionality of the product being considered (see chart right).

The bottom line is that if a project or technology can improve system availability or reduce the time required to solve IT problems, it will get funding, because most IT departments are still fighting the uptime battle.

"IT overhead is killing us," says Northwest Media's Crandall. "Seventy percent to 80 percent of our staff have been so busy with the tactical, day-to-day fires that they've been unable to focus on the more strategic goals of the company."

One IT executive, who asked not to be identified, puts it even more starkly. "The most frequent scenario is that there's a crisis, and then we buy something," he says. "The scenario where we plan for it, research it, prepare for it and then buy it is the scenario that happens least often."With limited staff and still-tight budgets, which technologies--besides those that boost uptime--will IT organizations find a way to implement in the coming year? There are three priorities: security, security and security.

• More than 54 percent of the respondents say security projects will receive the highest or second-highest amount of funding in their budgets next year. Server hardware finishes second, at 37 percent (see chart right).

• Disparate security hardware and software rank as readers' highest integration challenge for the coming year.

• Sixty percent rate patch management as one of their top priorities.

• Half the respondents rank potential IT security breaches as one of their most serious concerns.

So what's driving this rush to deploy security technology? Eighty-four percent of the respondents cite worm and virus outbreaks as one of the top security threats to their organization. Nearly 47 percent say they're also concerned about internal threats.

Most readers' companies have programs to educate users on how to protect their systems, but these organizations plan to expand those programs over the next 12 months. Of course, many enterprises are also attacking the problem with new technology.

In our survey, only 26 percent of the respondents say they have patch-management tools in place, but 38 percent plan to implement them within 12 months. Only 28 percent are using security information management suites, but 69 percent plan to use them by the end of next year. Thirty-eight percent have deployed network intrusion-prevention tools, and 42 percent plan to deploy them this year--meaning 80 percent will have intrusion-protection systems in place.

Many respondents also report that their security technology implementations are paying off. When asked which technology has had the most positive impact on their enterprise over the past year, more than 15 percent cite a specific security-related product, such as firewalls, intrusion-prevention tools and patch-management software.What's Next

After security technology, server hardware and operating systems are the product categories most frequently cited by readers as ripe for deployment in 2005. There's no clear consensus on the size or make of the hardware--the respondents' organizations range from one-person shops to Fortune 100 multinationals. And it's clear that tomorrow's server environments will be a mixture of operating systems.

Two operating systems top users' priority lists for deployment on servers in the coming year: Windows Server 2003 and Linux. In our survey, 31 percent of the respondents say they've already implemented Windows Server 2003, and 44 percent say they'll implement it in the next 12 months. Linux implementation isn't far behind: 33 percent have it today, and an additional 22 percent will deploy it in the coming year.

Readers say they like Linux because it's open source (read: inexpensive) and reliable. About 5 percent of the respondents rank Linux as the technology that has had the most positive impact on their organization in the past year.

Storage is another technology on the rise. Although only 32 percent of enterprises use SANs today, that percentage will more than double in the next 12 months, according to the survey. Similarly, storage-management tools, now used by just 16 percent of the survey base, are projected to be deployed in 56 percent of reader organizations by the end of 2005.Surprisingly, some of today's "hottest" technologies may not be so sizzling after all. Only 37 percent of respondent companies plan to use enterprise search engines in 2005. Application switching, another next-generation technology, has only 37 percent of the respondents on board.

Interestingly, several technologies draw strong reactions from both supporters and detractors. Wireless, for example, is cited by more than 10 percent of respondents as the technology that has had the most positive impact on their enterprise in the past year. Yet it is cited by an almost equal number of respondents as the technology that has had the least positive impact on their organization.

Scott Bugbee, manager of IT for New Hampshire Public Television, says that if he could implement only one technology in the coming year, it would be a secure wireless LAN to let employees access company systems from anywhere in the building and give visitors Internet access. But for Greg Kilgore, a manager at Network Wizards, a regional computer sales and service provider in Keizer, Ore., wireless "is at the top of my list not to invest in," mostly because standards are still evolving.

Some 35 percent of survey respondents say they have wireless LAN technology in place, and another 35 percent say they'll implement it this year.

VoIP produces a similar range of responses. About 3 percent of readers say VoIP is the technology that has had the most positive impact on their enterprises in the past year; about 6 percent say VoIP has had the least positive impact.Just 15 percent of the respondents say they've deployed VoIP, while 30 percent say they'll implement it in the next 12 months. About 55 percent say they have no plans to deploy VoIP.

Several "hot technologies" of previous years' surveys reached "commonly used" status this year. Windows XP is in place in about 60 percent of reader organizations, and 29 percent plan to deploy it in the next 12 months. Web services are now operational at 49 percent of reader sites, with 32 percent planning to implement them in the coming year. Fifty-eight percent of the respondents say their organization has deployed a VPN, and an additional 24 percent say their enterprise will do so in 2005.

IT's Not Just a Job

Most IT professionals like their jobs. Nearly 88 percent of the survey participants say one of the best things about their work is the opportunity to learn new skills. Eighty-five percent like the challenging work. Eighty-three percent say they enjoy the exposure to exciting new technologies.

About 58 percent of those polled have received a pay raise in the past 12 months, on par with last year. Still, nearly 20 percent say it has been at least two years since their last raise.Most readers are still struggling to identify the role that IT should play in the overall business. More than 53 percent agree with the statement that in their organization, "IT is generally perceived more as a service provider than as part of the core enterprise."

Interestingly, readers disagree on whether this attitude is a positive or a negative. "Businesses that view IT as central to their existence have more opportunities than those that don't," says LSI Industries' Brunker. "I have spent a lot of time educating business managers and executives to view IT as a means to increase flexibility and responsiveness, rather than as just a support tool."

More than half the survey respondents say their IT organizations are working more closely with the business units than they did the year before.

Meanwhile, other IT departments prefer to play the "service provider" role, keeping a respectful distance from the everyday activities of the business units.

"I'm not yet sure if we want to integrate IT more deeply into the core business," says Northwest Media's Crandall. An IT department that focuses too heavily on serving external customers sometimes loses sight of providing good service to internal customers, he observes.Whether or not they're perceived as service providers, most IT organizations still wish they could be brought into business initiatives earlier. Only 42 percent of the survey respondents agree with the statement that "IT is usually consulted during the planning phase of a new business initiative."

"In many cases, the business units eventually trip over technology issues, and they call us in to pick up the pieces," says Thys Coetzee, director of IS at Zinpro Corp., which makes mineral supplements for cattle and other livestock. "We use these [examples] to help reinforce the idea of coming to us first. It is a learning process for the business units."

Which brings us, inevitably, back to the people issue. With all their concerns about security, technology and budget, the most common--and daunting--challenges faced by IT organizations are those related to people. Whether it's finding enough good technicians to staff a project or learning the right skills to "sell" a top executive, IT professionals are under the gun not only to identify and maintain the right technologies, but also to manage people, both up and down the org chart, to achieve business goals with limited staff and budget resources. And slowly but surely, they are making it happen.

Geeks indeed.

Tim Wilson is Network Computing's editor, business technology. His background includes four years as an IT industry analyst and more than 14 years as a journalist specializing in networking technology. Write to him at [email protected].We posted our third annual reader survey on the Web from July 7 to Aug. 27, 2004. We provided links to the poll on www.nwc.com, in our e-mail newsletters and in two print editions of Network Computing. We also sent personalized e-mail messages with an embedded link to the poll to all subscribers who had agreed to allow e-mail communications from us. We received 2,891 valid responses from IT staffers, managers, and midlevel and corporate executives. About 88 percent of the respondents are IT staff and management, the rest in business management.

More than a third of the respondents gave Network Computing editors permission to follow up and interview them further. We grilled readers in a variety of industries, including computer services, education, government, health care, manufacturing, retail sales and banking, about their attitudes toward IT, their technology plans, and their methods for interacting with users, IT staff and top management.

The survey was tabulated by CIC Research. The margin of error was +/- 2.0 percent at a 95 percent confidence level.

According to our readers, the following are the top ten technology or technology initiatives that have had the MOST positive impact on their companies within the past year:

According to our readers, the following are the top ten technology or technology initiatives that have had the LEAST positive impact on your company within the past year:

Download the full results of our third annual reader poll (in an easy-to-read spreadsheet).

Our poll participants had an opportunity to share with us which technologies they feel have or will have the greatest impact on them, plus which tasks they'd remove from their to-do lists and how they'd spend that free time. The following are some of the most memorable quotes we received:

"What keeps your fellow IT Professionals up at night and occupies their waking thoughts during the day? After reading the complete survey results of this issue's Reader Poll, where we asked you which single task you would remove from your job and why, our first impression was, "a lot." Below you can find an alphabetized listing of the choicest responses to this question. Read on and commiserate.""A+ tasks (glorified parts changer) -- Unfortunately with the staffing limitations in place, I'll never do away with this task. It doesn't make sense to be interrupted while working on a $200,000 project to change a faulty HDD on a laptop."

"Administrivia -- Everyone I know spends too much time handling administrative tasks that management should own. An example is trying to manage priorities for which projects get attention - allow us to keep focused on the work required."

"Annual picnic planning -- My department consists of a bunch of introverts who love their work, it's very difficult to get them excited about picnics and holiday parties!"

"Answering the same questions over and over about spam in a user's email box. -- because it doesn't matter how many times I explain it, most ordinary people don't understand that i have to allow it to come through, because if we don't, that vital contract or file won't make it to you, so you have to wade through the spam to get to it."

"Arms length training Company executives -- Executives make the decisions without adequately understanding the impact of technology and application changes on the business. For some reason there is a belief that the business and it's technology and applications are independent of each other.""Being tasked to PM projects -- I am not a project manager, but due to high demands for projects, and continual reductions through outsourcing, there are not enough PM's so we get tasked with that, as well as our normal tasks."

"Being the one to investigate "application slowness" -- This is one of those vague things, they want a sniffer to watch things, thinking it might be cabling, network, server, whatever, and if we watch with the sniffer we'll magically be able to resolve whatever is wrong."

"Budget reforecasting based on changes in business units -- Lack of centralized budget planning leads to frequent business unit reforecasting. This in turn shuffles the IT budgets related to those business groups, particularly around project and development spending."

"Change Management Process -- With the new Sarbanes-Oxley requirements that our IT department has implemented, it creates a heavy burden on our whole staff adding much paperwork with no decrease in project workload."

"Dealing with outages due to virus/worm outbreaks -- This is a major pain and causes me to work too many hours. My quality of life is horrible because a new virus or worm comes out on a regular basis.""Desktop application support -- In the 1920s automobile dealers would provide mechanics who rode around with drivers helping them understand how the automobile worked and should be driven. Do we have those today?"

"Different priorities between areas of IT -- We are frequently working for different results. On the delivery side we are working to deliver more faster with less. On the technology and planning side they don't appreciate the challenges faced by the business."

"Documentation -- Too much documentation requested for the sake of documentation - no one does anything to manage the documentation. It gets written and lost in the gigabytes of other documents that are not managed and then recreated."

"End user support/phone support -- End users rarely have the skills and confidence to enact even the clearest well thought out policies, procedures and tasks to maintain the systems they are using. It is like walking through knee deep mud working with end users."

"Handling techsupport issues -- Along side with duties of system administration, the IT staff must also handle all techsupport issues. Since the IT staff configured the systems, users assume 1) fixes can be implemented instantly, and 2) all problems are caused by the IT staff.""Implementing Microsoft Patches / System Updates -- Because it can take your entire day. And it never stops. Most automated patch updating still requires user input which they don't perform or whine incessantly about."

"Managing Windows server security -- It takes an inordinate amount of my departments time while also being the single highest point of failure in my job-- when things go wrong with updates it is high profile and the department looks bad and it looks at though my department was asleep at the wheel."

"Politics -- 90% of all morale issues and 50% of all technical issues originate with executive management refusing to accept an accurate assessment of our current needs and resources."

"Project time tracking -- While useful to managers, tracking project time adds just another layer of bureaucracy to every step of my daily job. It cuts down on my efficiency, which I feel reflects poorly on me (and frankly, I hate being inefficient)."

"Providing support for personal products utilized in the office (i.e., PDAs) - Too many different products and programs. Would prefer to support only company purchased products or limit support on personal products to company approved brands/vendors.""Security -- Due in part to lack of vendor responsibility, my time can be hijacked by hackers/virus writers at their whim. I have spent as much as 20% of my time dealing with hackers in the past (on a yearly basis)."

"Security -- Needs a full-time employee to keep up with the constant monitoring, changes, and updates. The risks we take as a company by not investing in that type of position are very real and could affect our ability to service customers."

"Software license management -- So many licensing programs, so many vendors- it is time consuming and frustrating. And never ending."

"Spam -- nuff said."

"The Jack of all Trades Syndrome -- I'm not sure how it is elsewhere, but, here, I find that because I know so many aspects of computing I am also expected to fix the copier, the fax machine, the telephone systems and calculators."0