Methodology Format Scoring UPSTACK developed a survey to be sent to its advisory Ratings partners—a dynamic group of 40+ technology professionals Responses were rated on a scale of 1-5. A score of 5 was consid- that collectively bring a wealth of real-world experience and ered to be “Most significant” and resulted in a positive point tally. specialized solutions expertise with a laser focus on positive A score of 1 was deemed “Not significant” and was a negative outcomes for all clients. Our Advisory Partners were given two score in the tally of points. A score of 3 was considered neutral weeks to complete the survey. The survey consisted of a series and was not tallied. of questions meant to elicit their opinion on which trends they anticipate will have the greatest impact on customers in 2024, Write-ins and thus deserve the most attention and resources from IT If a write-in was provided, it was assessed as being “Most signifi- decision makers, in the following technology areas: cant” and given a default score and tally as if it were rated a 5. The write-in responses were reviewed and sorted. If they were relat- 1. Security and/or Network Security ed to an existing trend, they were added to its tally. If they were 2. Customer Experience net-new, they were scored accordingly. In some cases, there was 3. Data Centers/Colocation/Hybrid Colo+Cloud overlap in write-in responses and their score became statistically 4. Cloud/Managed Hosting Services significant, in which case they were weighed in the scoring. If a 5. Connectivity write-in had no other correlations, they were discarded as statis- 6. IoT tically insignificant. Calculation Questions The points were awarded as below and added together. They The questions were asked in the following ways: were then divided by the number of votes. If a write-in was given, the points were added to the tally, and the denominator was Rating on a scale increased by 1. Respondents were asked to rate a series of trends related to each respective technology area on a scale from 1-5* according Reporting to how impactful they believe each trend will be in 2024. While all data is reported, the top technology areas by rank and the top five technology trends were identified as a result of their *See scoring below for more details. statistical role as key findings of the report. This report is simply presenting and interpreting the data collected. Write-in responses Respondents were then asked to list any additional trends for the respective technology area that they believe will be impactful Trend identi昀椀cation to customers in 2024. Write-in responses consist of important Once scored, trends were compared against each other accord- trends absent from the scoring question. ing to technology area, as well as stack ranked. This was done through a data visualization technique called a Diverging Stacked Advisory partners insights questions Bar Chart. This is a type of chart used to report on Group Rank- The final three questions of the survey were the most open-end- ing, Grid Ranking, and Drag & Drop Ranking questions. The chart ed. Respondents were given an opportunity to add additional table includes a row for each item (trend) in the Group Ranking context or list trends that would impact customers in 2024 with questions. The Distribution is a diverging stacked bar where a fewer confines around their responses, meaning the only prompt shade or a color is assigned to each possible rating. Because was a broad, generalized question. items align with each other around a midpoint (Neutral), this method provides the most effective visualization of the spread of negative and positive values across the rating scale. UPSTACK © The 2024 Technology Trends Report | 13