In 2021, IT Leaders need tools that will scale and stick

The employee experience has shifted dramatically over the past several months, with the rise in remote and distributed work forcing enterprise organizations to reimagine every aspect of their operations, including how work gets done and where. As a result, the cultural norms and nature of work which was once established and maintained in an office environment has been thrust into the virtual realm, where coming into the office and starting your day now means logging onto your computer.

Teams have largely navigated this shift successfully through their adoption of technologies to help them orchestrate their work. For CIOs and IT teams, this transition hasn’t been as simple, with many still grappling with how to keep workers productive, safe and resilient in a challenging virtual office environment. Now more than ever, IT decision makers must find new and lasting ways to support their employees in an all-digital world, including empowering teams with the new tech stack for the agile enterprise. 

Tool fragmentation is driving disengagement

The proliferation and rapid adoption of new tools and platforms, coupled with competing priorities and daily distractions, means the nature of work has become increasingly fragmented and misaligned. Individuals and teams now have a myriad of new tools to navigate – creating more silos and non-existent workflow processes. According to an Asana survey conducted in October 2020, enterprise workers are switching between an average of 10 apps 25 times per day, resulting in unconnected communication, reduced efficiency and increased duplication of work.

With no single source of truth, entire organizations are not only wasting time and energy switching between tasks and apps, they’re also becoming less connected. Informal recognition, which once took place in office hallways and meeting rooms, has almost disappeared, leaving employees feeling less seen, valued and driven by the impact of their daily work. At enterprise organizations with thousands and tens of thousands of employees, this impact is amplified, making it increasingly difficult to keep everyone aligned, engaged and striving to achieve the same mission.

To adapt to this new reality, organizations need to embrace the tech stack of the agile enterprise. This tech stack integrates the best in class essential employee apps, from Zoom to Slack to Asana, to remove boundaries and seamlessly connect employees no matter what department, or country, they sit in. 

Adoption of the new tech stack for the modern enterprise will ensure that tools don’t quickly become shelfware and that the organization as a whole will continue to thrive.

Success depends on scalable workflows

When you think about the most important initiatives at a company, they’re rarely driven by a single team and typically require the cooperation of cross-functional departments. As CIOs and IT decision makers reevaluate their strategic goals in the coming months, understanding what tools in their tech stack are going to stick and scale across their organization will become increasingly crucial to long-term success.

Research shows that 64% of IT leaders say that increasing operational efficiencies has become a top priority since the pandemic began, up from 53% who called it a top concern in 2019. In an era where connecting and configuring software has evolved from a massive scale IT project to a simple out of the box solution, there has never been a greater opportunity for leaders to roll out new tools to help their organization work smarter and more efficiently. Now with the click of a button, employees can automatically authenticate their accounts, leaving the entire organization with more time to focus on the work that delivers real impact.

Ensure employees and enterprise data remain safe and secure

When it comes to evaluating the tools that are going to offer scalable, cross-functional collaboration, alongside safety and security admin control, best-of-breed integrations have emerged as the industry standard.

At Asana, we recently released a new suite of admin capabilities and more ways for teams to work securely. Now, enterprise admins have the power to view, block and accept which third-party apps integrate with Asana. In a world with increasingly sophisticated security threats and more endpoints to secure, this helps give enterprise IT teams greater peace of mind that their company data is safe.

How to thrive in 2021 and beyond

In the COVID-19 era of unprecedented change and uncertainty, planning for what comes next may seem like an insurmountable challenge. But for CIOs and IT teams, it’s simple. Identify tools and that stick and scale. Those who embrace the new tech stack for the agile enterprise will be able to move faster and coordinate work effortlessly, no matter where their employees are located.

Find out more at Asana.com