Report: 76% of non-IT workers say pandemic is preparing them to take on IT roles

ManageEngine Vanson commissioned Bourne to conduct a global study to examine the role of IT and how business will evolve in the future. The report found that everyone across the enterprise, not just IT, has a stake in how technology is selected, deployed, configured and used.

Most departments outside of IT—especially quality control (24%) and finance (21%)—use it artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML). Additionally, 76% in North America agree that their organization encourages non-IT staff to develop their own applications using down/no code platforms – the highest of any other region surveyed – establishing itself as the best marketing department applications.

While non-IT workers agree that they are more knowledgeable about IT now than before the pandemic (76%), business decision makers believe lack of training (48%) and basic technical knowledge (47%) are the main barriers. when it comes to employees taking advantage of existing technologies.

IT decision makers (ITDM) believe that other departments need more technical skills training, especially marketing (52%), finance (45%) and sales (43%). This suggests that these teams may be abusing these technologies and need more support from IT to course correct.

Decentralizing IT can lead to increased collaboration, and the benefits may outweigh the drawbacks. 74% of ITDMs in North America reported that their organizations have already successfully centralized their IT structures, the highest of any other region surveyed.

Despite this, nearly all ITDMs surveyed (99%) said their organization would face challenges if they continued to decentralize. Their top three concerns center around maintaining IT security levels (56%), maintaining quality levels (41%) and reliability of ongoing support (37%).

Regardless, decision makers believe that the importance of IT’s role in the business will be more recognized as a result of decentralization (57%), and 89% agree that the success of the IT department is directly related to the overall success of the organization.

Methodology

Vanson Bourne conducted this global study of 3,300 decision makers across IT and other key business functions, including 500 in the US and Canada.

read it full report From ManageEngine.