Security and collaboration at the heart of hybrid work concerns

When it comes to supporting the emerging hybrid workforce, enterprise IT managers prioritize network and security. This is what can be seen in the Cisco Hybrid Work Index, which the supplier intends to update every quarter to follow the evolution of work habits and the use of technology in the wake of the pandemic of Covid-19. As Cisco explained, the Hybrid Work Index collects information from anonymous customer data points from some of its products, including the Meraki Network, ThousandEyes Internet Visibility, Webex Collaboration, and Talos Security Platforms. , Duo and Umbrella. It also incorporates data from surveys conducted by third parties among more than 39,000 people in 34 countries. Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the massive reliance on remote working, businesses have been challenged to fully support their hybrid workforce, and Cisco’s index reflects the changes brought about by this news working arrangements.

Some findings from Cisco’s Hybrid Work Index:

– “Home networks are now one of the most critical parts of the corporate network. The number of devices used in telecommuting has grown twice as fast as the number of office routers, showing that business connectivity is significantly expanding into the home environment, ”Cisco said.

– The number of devices connecting to corporate WiFi networks has increased by 61% compared to the situation six months ago. This growth is particularly important in the higher education, professional services and hospitality sectors.

– Before the pandemic, people used mobile devices 9% of the time to connect to their meetings. In the hybrid world of work, that number has tripled and now stands at 27%.

– During the pandemic, malicious remote access attempts have increased by a factor of 2.4. In September 2021, hybrid workers were targeted with more than 100 million email attacks every day.

– Remote workers use multiple remote and mobile devices to work, extending the threat perimeter. Hybrid workers use multiple devices and connect directly to the internet to access cloud applications. Work that was previously performed mostly on managed terminals is now performed on unmanaged terminals.

– Cloud provider networks are more stable than Internet service providers (ISPs): between January 2020 and August 2021, cloud provider networks only accounted for 5% of the volume of outage incidents. The remaining 95% of breakdown incidents concerned ISP networks.

– Small businesses have reopened their physical workspaces faster than large businesses and are using more bandwidth, relying more than ever on collaboration tools like video conferencing to communicate with internal and external contacts.

– Businesses See Collaboration Applications as Critical to Successful Hybrid Work: Collaboration applications are now the most heavily monitored globally. They have moved beyond secure access control and productivity monitoring solutions, which were more heavily monitored at the start of the pandemic and during the transition to working from home.

And the collaborative became essential

Cisco’s findings, especially with regard to collaboration tools, are in line with recent Gartner findings. In its 2021 Digital Worker Experience Survey conducted by the research firm between November and December 2020 among 10,080 employees of companies with more than 100 employees in Europe, the United States and Asia-Pacific, Gartner indicates that in 2021, 80% of people have used collaboration tools in their work, compared to just over half in 2019. Since the start of the pandemic, the use of collaboration tools in the professional context increased by 44%. “During the Covid-19 pandemic, collaboration tools have gained in importance because of their ability to ensure a good level of productivity between teams forced to work abruptly remotely,” said Christopher Trueman, senior analyst in a statement. of research at Gartner. “As a large number of companies move towards a long-term hybrid workforce model, cloud-based personal and team productivity technologies, along with collaboration tools, are fueling a series new work hubs that can meet the requirements of remote and hybrid staff ”.

Real-time storage / sharing and mobile messaging tools have also seen increased use during the pandemic, being used by 74% and 80% of respondents to the latest Digital Worker Experience Survey, respectively. The move away from face-to-face meetings is also expected to continue. Gartner predicts that by 2024, proportionately face-to-face meetings will drop from 60% to 25% of corporate meetings due to the adoption of remote working and changing workforce demographics.