NextPlane, a leading provider of communication and collaboration federation solutions, recently published a new report on the current business landscape. According to the survey, which looked at 750 IT professionals in a range of industries, explores the “Fight to Collaborate” in the enterprise. According to NextPlane, up to 82% of end-users are pushing back against management or IT when companies try to dictate which tools they should use. Despite this, IT teams continue to stand their ground. 63% of companies reported that they succeed even when staff pushes back.
The recent report from NextPlane explores the risks and threats associated with the rising use of unauthorised collaboration tools in the workplace. IT leaders are experiencing a consistent level of resistance from end-users who have specific preferences on which tools they want to use.
IT Teams Face Increasing Pressure
According to 54% of the respondents in the NextPlane survey, the company retains the final say on the tools that end-users use to do their job. However, 36% claimed that they only have some say over the applications their team members use. What’s more, only 23% of respondents feel confident that they have complete visibility over the platforms being used in their company. 13% even reported that employees continue to use their tools, regardless of what the business requires.
Although 84% of IT professionals said that they believe their companies are offering end-users the tools they need for better collaboration, they’ve also recognised that end-users sometimes stray from the software tools required for collaboration. Some users will stick with their preferred solutions, regardless of what IT says.
Unfortunately, this departure from the policies and rules of the IT team leads to severe issues for a company. When employees use technology without approval, 79% of experts worry about the security of the organisation’s data. Other problems with using unsanctioned apps include reduced IT efficiency (71%).
Who Is Winning the Fight?
Although IT teams are fighting back against the insubordination of their employees, there are limits to how much they resist. As businesses continue to face pressure to retain valuable talent, it’s difficult to tell an employee that they can’t use their preferred tools. More than two-thirds of respondents said that, if a highly valued employee threatened to leave over the tools they can or can’t use, the company would deal with the risk, rather than losing the team member.
As the number of collaboration tools on the market continues to rise, IT is being left to deal with a consistent pushback from end-users, as well as a platform of fragmentation where preferences cannot align. According to the CEO of NextPlane, Farzin Shahidi, IT needs a collaboration system that takes the needs and preferences of end-users into account, without compromising on experience.
