In May, 2021 research firm Gartner published “10 Megatrends That Will Define Your Future”.
These “megatrends” are political, technical and social, last for a decade or more, and have a broad impact on business and society. They are set to influence the success of business and technology strategies, which vendors will prosper or struggle, customer expectations, and the behaviour of regulators.
We are all seeing elements of these trends playing out before our eyes, impacting on all levels of decision making across organizations. But some trends will be of more significance to IT leaders who are making decisions on how to invest resources – often to the tune of millions of dollars – to empower highly distributed workers across the globe.
We are seeing “The Trust Crisis” is having the greatest impact on these IT executives we support at Voxxify, impacting on their ability to assess whether the solutions they are providing are the right ones for their end users. That’s true whether they are settling into a new role, getting ready to make some changes, or want to ensure they have value-for-money from the systems they have already invested in.
It’s clear that every decision maker wants to quickly recognise emerging issues, and develop a clear action plan to address key issues in a timely manner. To achieve this, leaders must firstly build trust between IT and end users, maintaining that trust by listening and responding where issues arise and ensuring “privacy first” and “security first” principles are put into practice.
According to Gartner, the Trust Crisis is characterized by a “downward trajectory in the level of trust between businesses, governments, and their stakeholders”. Trust, safety, and security is of increasing importance to organizations of all sizes, with companies facing an evolving threat of external risks such as disasters and cyberattacks, but also a range of internal challenges.
The emergence of hybrid working has made trust in IT departments more critical but also more difficult to achieve than ever. The rapid adoption of tech tools has empowered businesses to remain productive during a major disruption to “Business as Usual”. At the same time, with team members working remotely, distance can cause a breakdown in communication.
The failure of tech to completely fill this role as a business enabler makes people weary of it.
Trust is built through reliable unbiased data and, of course, strong communication.
At Voxxify we believe that in the medium term the success of the IT function in large organizations will be defined by the relationships they build. This includes their ability to align with strategic business goals and cooperate across departments. But the most fundamental relationship IT leaders will need to manage over the coming decade will be with their “internal customers” or “end users”. As end user trust weakens, maintaining employee engagement will become more difficult and emerging issues will not be identified.
Unlocking and maintaining trust will define the role of the IT manager in the coming decades. Happily, as our CEO and founder Steve Fleming says, “The data is there for the asking”.
This article was informed by Gartner’s Ten Megatrends on-demand webinar (see from 23m 28s for deep-dive on the Trust Crisis)
