Covid-19 has altered the list of priorities in the IT sector, as companies had to facilitate the sudden shift to the digital space. Vincentas Grinius, CEO at Heficed, shares what areas are most likely to remain at the centre of attention once the crisis has dialled down. 

When the pandemic first struck, many ventures realised that IT solutions, which were set in place at the time, did not have the capacity to facilitate the widespread shift to the online space.

In an effort to accommodate the newly-found needs of their workers and clients, as well as sustain their business growth, companies pooled their resources to develop new and improved integrations concerning work-from-home infrastructure support, cloud-based services, and the use of advance technology solutions to perform cybersecurity activities.

But, why are these factors likely to remain so relevant, even in the aftermath of the pandemic?

WFH infrastructure development 

Unable to resume business as usual, workers continued to carry out their daily tasks from the comfort of their homes.

Companies pivoted their IT budgets to VoIP services, secure VPNs, remote desktop protocols, and other solutions aimed at streamlining collaboration among employees.

While at first the shift was intended to be temporary, soon enough many adopted a more flexible, or even a permanent approach. Thus, WFH (work-from-home) infrastructure development will remain highly relevant in order to accommodate the ever-growing number of remote workforce.

“It is unlikely that workers will ever fully return to the pre-pandemic state as most have acknowledged the various benefits of remote work, such as less time spent commuting, less distractive environment and others”, said Grinius.

“Therefore, providing secure and reliable access to a company’s network will only grow in importance in order to sustain the same high-level process quality as in-office.”

Hybrid cloud solutions

During the pandemic, the matter of moving to cloud-based infrastructures went from being optional to a must-have integration for mid to large scale companies seeking to sustain its operational capacity further on.

A study by KPMG confirms the shift in opinion, as one in two executives have reported cloud migration has become an absolute necessity.

That said, IT professionals turned their heads to hybrid cloud solutions, as opposed to full switch, as it enables to leverage in-house assets alongside cloud-provided benefits.

“Partial integration with cloud mitigates the possible risks of service disruption in case of in-house server issues,” said Grinius.

“As part of the infrastructure remains on-premise, it eases the pressures related to the integration process, as well as puts less strain on a company’s budget.”

AI-supported cybersecurity

Covid-19 sparked a significant increase in ransomware. With a sky-high level of cyber threats, companies shifted their focus on minimising dependencies on human resources as much as possible and instead reduced to tackling cyber threats with AI-driven solutions.

According to Grinius, scammers will only become more technologically sophisticated further down the line, thus AI and deep learning are next in line in pre-emptive measures that would help limit their impact.

“Leveraging AI-supported pre-emptive measures will enable to react and respond to network abnormalities in real-time, putting a swift end to criminal activity towards the system”, explained Grinius.

“Therefore AI-supported cybersecurity solutions are likely to remain one of the key areas of interest for all companies, aiming to prevent their data falling into the hands of fraudsters.”