COVID-19 Pandemic Changes IT-Priorities

Moscow, August 04, 2020. – In July 2020, AQCMS and Information Agency “Business-Inform” organized and conducted four online-conferences on various issues of office printing industry. The conferences saw the participation by 380 heads of IT-departments of public and large commercial organizations from 17 Russian cities. All the participants were offered to fill in the questionnaires developed by the specialists of Information Agency “Business-Inform” with the aim of studying various issues related to the influence of COVID-19 pandemic on organizing the work of IT-departments in Russian public organizations and large commercial companies.

 

Information Agency “Business-Inform” received 358 completed questionnaire forms in total; their analysis has shown the following:

1. More Work

95% of the respondents (341 of 358) think that switching to remote mode of work (work from home) by the part of their personnel has led to increasing the workload no less than by 1 hour a day; 48% (173 of 358) –no less than by 2 hours a day, 18% (64 of 358) – no less than by 3 hours a day.

2. Work Becomes Chaotic

91% of the respondents note that the remote work of the part of the personnel has made IT-management considerably busier in terms of discussing and solving of trivial issues, which in usual conditions would be going practically unnoticed. 38% of the respondents note that the increase in the workload for solving unimportant issues causes annoyance and sometimes even aggression.

3. The Personal Contact is Essential

87% of the respondents note that working remotely they feel deprived of a personal contact with one or several of their personnel members from their departments. The absence of such contact causes them to feel discomfort. The contact via Skype, Zoom, MS Teams, etc. doesn’t solve this problem completely.

4. Remote Work Negatively Affects Attitude

92% of the respondents think that the remote mode of work of the part of their personnel does not allow them to maintain 100% efficiency of their department’s work. 79% of the respondents claim that their departments’ work includes several tasks whose execution becomes problematic due to some of the personnel working remotely. 61% of the respondents think that organizing the further remote work of the part of their personnel will require considerable changes in departments’ structure and official functions.

5. Technical Policy Requires Changes

90% of the respondents note that the experience of working in the COVID-19 pandemic conditions has demonstrated the necessity of introducing considerable changes to the technical equipment and re-equipment plans for their IT-departments. 52% of the respondents think that working in pandemic conditions will require the increase in procurement of personal printing devices (printers/MFPs) and corresponding consumables. 49% of the respondents think that the need for high-output network printingcopying devices will decrease in pandemic conditions, therefore it is reasonable to refrain from buying such devices in 2020-2021, or it is sensible to perform the procurement only to replace “old” devices. 76% think that they will lower the procurements of consumables for network printing devices in 2020-2021 by 20% or more.

6. Remote Work Changes IT-Priorities

74% of the respondents note that they are sure that part of their personnel will continue working remotely at least until the end of 2021. In this situation 69% of the respondents think that issues related to MPS-services implementation has lost their actuality. Among the most important and urgent issues for today they have named the implementation of modern cloud technologies within their IT-departments (96% of the respondents) and data safety solutions (92% of the respondents).

7. Growing Number of Contacts Stimulates New Ideas

94% of the respondents claim that forced extension of their contact base in the conditions of COVID-19 pandemic has already given them new ideas and solutions which they plan to implement in 2020-2021. 92% of the respondents think that remote working experience has allowed them to get a refreshing outlook on work organization, distribution of functions and the usefulness of personnel in their departments. 91% of the respondents think that new contacts will be used by them even after their departments will return to normal working mode.

AQCMS: info@aqcmsrus.ru