Cybersecurity has been a major focus of government agencies, but they are investing in physical security as well. The Department of Homeland Security, which bears much of the responsibility for federal government security, earmarked some $12 billion for physical security in 2024. The department asked for additional funding for its fiscal 2025 budget.

On-premises or the cloud? For most organizations, the answer is a combination of both.

Organizations continue to capitalize on the benefits of the public cloud: minimal capital investments, seamless scalability and simplified management. However, they’re also recognizing its drawbacks.

Physical security is a concern for organizations of all sizes. They must take steps to ensure the safety of people, property and assets amid rising rates of workplace violence, theft and other crimes. Colleges, universities and K-12 schools must also reduce the risk of gun violence, bullying, harassment and other threats to students and faculty.

The cloud, distributed computing and remote work models have dramatically changed network traffic patterns. Traditionally, most traffic stayed within the company LAN, and networks were designed to move that traffic efficiently. Because remote users primarily accessed centralized applications and resources, WANs focused on moving traffic into and out of the LAN.

When organizations first began adopting cloud services, they treated them as an extension of their IT environments.

Unified communications (UC) platforms have become an essential part of the IT environment. UC gives users access to a range of communication tools in one interface, enabling the collaboration that’s critical to remote and hybrid work.

Traditionally, UC solutions were deployed on premises.

Gartner predicts that by 2028, most organizations will view the cloud as a necessity. That’s due in part to IT modernization efforts and the migration of more business-critical applications. In five years, 70 percent of workloads will be running in the cloud, up from just 25 percent today.

Conventional wisdom says that cloud computing is the ideal IT model for businesses. In practice, the model doesn’t always deliver the expected benefits.

Cloud services enable unprecedented scalability and flexibility while reducing the total cost of ownership of the IT infrastructure.

The contact center traditionally has been undervalued by business leaders, limiting investments in contact center technology. In light of today’s customer demands, however, organizations need to rethink their contact centers in order to enhance the customer experience.

The Software-as-a-Service market (SaaS) market continues to experience rapid growth, with surveys suggesting that almost all organizations now use at least one cloud application. According to the 2023 State of SaaSOps Report from BetterCloud, organizations use an average of 130 SaaS applications.

People are a company’s biggest expense. Wages, benefits, payroll taxes, training and equipment expenditures account for as much as 70 percent of total business costs. However, successful businesses understand that employees are also their most valuable asset.