New Cisco Research Reveals Collaboration, Cloud, and Security are IT’s Top Challenges in EMEAR

IT leaders in the region are adapting to new challenges by prioritizing digitization, with collaboration, cloud, and security more crucial than ever before

• The report identifies core priorities essential to IT and digital transformation success including focusing on security and collaboration for a hybrid workforce, delivering the best end-user experience, driving innovation and security in a cloud-first world, and leveraging technology to invest in employees and tackle societal issues.
• To address these challenges, 50% of IT decision-makers are investing in network security, 49% in cloud applications, 44% in cloud security, and 40% in multi-cloud infrastructure in 2021-2022.
• Read the full report.

Al Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 24 May 2021 — According to Cisco’s new Accelerating Digital Agility Research, CIOs and IT decision-makers (ITDMs) across Europe, The Middle East, Europe, and Russia (EMEAR) are looking to maximize investments in digitization and drive innovation after a difficult year which raised the profile of IT leaders in driving critical workplace innovation. 

Over the past twelve months, CIOs and ITDMs from across the globe have been challenged to accelerate their digital and cloud capabilities while protecting their organizations from a growing list of expanding security threats. In their efforts to create smart workplaces, IT leaders in EMEAR must look to maximize critical investments made in 2020.

To set up their organizations for success in 2021 and beyond, IT leaders have adapted priorities and strategy to focus on core issues including delivering secure collaboration tools to keep distributed workforces productive, maximizing technology investments from the past year, delivering the best digital experience to employees and customers, embracing cloud and “as a Service,” and tackling corporate and societal issues with technology. 

“IT leaders are at the forefront of ensuring critical success for their organizations in 2021,” said Reem Asaad, Vice President, Cisco Middle East, and Africa. “Even as questions remain and new challenges will surface, CIOs and IT decision-makers in the EMEAR region are telling us they need to accelerate digital agility for their teams, so they have the speed, flexibility, and choice to consume services across both traditional and modern environments.”