The coronavirus pandemic has prompted nearly a quarter (22%) of IT budgets to increase over the next year, with 20% of ICT buyers forecasting a rise of more than 5% year-on-year.
"Most businesses are now seeing the advantages of working in the cloud and will start to look beyond just what systems like Teams can deliver," stated V12 Telecom co-founder and MD Charles Rickett.
The company worked with Larato to produce the Covid-19 Implications for Business survey, which pointed to a number of priorities occupying the minds of IT leaders.
"With the possibility of the PSTN switch off in less than five years, and with the Covid-19 experience under their belts, IT professionals need greater flexibility moving forward," added Rickett. "It won’t be long before many of them extend their entire unified communications structure there too."
Rickett noted that the Covid-19 lockdown and home working stampede was well managed by businesses well practiced in dealing with business continuity matters.
"Some were well prepared, with our survey showing that 24% already had the infrastructure in place to easily provision home working," added Rickett.
"Many of our customers had already been using Teams with Direct Routing which enabled them to add homeworkers to their system and carry on without interruption.
"For those businesses that had planned properly and now have secure and stable comms, their next goal is to look not just at how to keep their teams collaborating productively, but how to ensure the individuals in those teams are managing themselves."
"This human aspect will be a key driver for how organisations assess their needs and make decisions about their IT and comms requirements in the future."