Top technology area: Security and/or Network Security Additional insights Interestingly, Customer Experience (CX) was ranked second. For example, manufacturing or agriculture uses IoT-enabled As with Security, CX is not a tactical infrastructure topic. It’s a sensors and devices. So do many public agencies like waste- business topic–one that can play a strategic role in both brand water treatment or electricity generation and transportation. As equity and the strategic advantages/market position of the such, the bulk of readers may dabble in IoT devices but are not enterprise. Security is also a business topic, where mitigating seeing many use cases that will have an impact on their business. risk translates in equal measure to protecting brand equity and strategic advantages/market position. There were two statistically significant additions to the tech- nology areas covered: BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) This commonality ranked highly in the results of the survey. and (Managed Service Provider) MSP Services. BPO is often Our assessment of this ranking is as follows: IT has evolved from related to CX, as outsourcing contact centers is a very common being “plumbing” for the business that allows it to run to having use case. Leveraging technology to seamlessly transfer calls to a strategic role in the business. It is now a topic of conversation an outsourced center, along with leveraging AI and omnichannel from boards of directors all the way down. contact center solutions, can give enterprises a better way to monitor, manage, and maintain the desired experience, KPIs, It’s notable that Data Centers/Colocation/Hybrid Colo + and metrics like CSAT. This allows the enterprise to leverage the Cloud ranked above cloud. Despite talk over the last decade cost benefits of outsourcing without compromising on a quality about the transition to the cloud, our advisory partners indicate customer experience. that IT departments continue to maintain a hybrid approach to building networks. Whether that’s because they haven’t fully MSP services are, of course, a way to outsource other functions transitioned or because they have found that different solutions of IT network management to trusted organizations that have are appropriate for different workloads is not spoken for in the more capabilities and/or scale so that basic IT functions can survey, and would be an interesting topic of future research. be moved off of the IT team’s plate, allowing them to refocus resources on more strategic projects. IoT’s lower position in the rankings was a surprise. With IoT capturing many industry-trade mags and even mainstream The clear common thread here is the concept of outsourcing. news headlines (including discussion related to IoT devices by Our advisory partners tell us that time is the most valuable and the current White House administration), there was speculation rare resource for IT teams. By outsourcing functions, they can its ranking would be higher. However, its place can be explained redeploy that time towards more productive initiatives. by UPSTACK’s culture. Our advisory partners balance between the utilitarian and the aspirational. The truth is, IoT is only rele- vant for a small segment of businesses that have specific use cases where IoT has made inroads. UPSTACK © The 2024 Technology Trends Report | 4