A new study commissioned by Nology partner Intermedia, has pinpointed the biggest challenges across IT functions and the level of confidence IT decision makers current feel they have in tackling them. The study reveals a modest overall Confidence Score of 7.2 out of 10, IT decision makers expressed concerns about the resources available and allotted to them for addressing cybersecurity threats and meeting current and future business demands.

The study surveyed 350 IT decision makers, statistically measuring IT confidence levels on a 10-point scale (where zero represents “not confident at all” and 10 represents “extremely confident”). Questions spanned across four topic categories – Security, General IT Services, Infrastructure and Skilled IT Workforce.

Jonathan Levine, CTO at Intermedia, said: “Given the critical role IT plays in underpinning business today, a Confidence Score of 7.2 is worrisome. You wouldn’t feel comfortable boarding an airplane if the pilot had a 7.2 confidence level in the plane’s airworthiness. This modest confidence suggests that organizations may be more exposed than leaders realize. We’ll be watching closely to see if further cloud adoption helps improve confidence, or if the insufficient attention given to IT concerns today will further erode confidence in the coming year.”

Index finds that small companies are struggling the most

Across all four categories, the Index revealed a stark contrast in overall confidence levels with small companies with fewer than 50 employees (Confidence Score of 5.9) versus medium to large companies, which had higher Confidence Scores (8.7 and 8.9, respectively). As company size and cloud adoption increased, so did confidence levels.

Other highlights include:

• Cyber threats take a toll on confidence: Relative to the Security category, IT decision makers were the least confident in their organization’s ability to prevent, withstand or stop ransomware, botnets and DDoS Attacks.
• Cloud applications have overtaken on-premises applications: On average, 56 percent of internal IT applications currently run in the cloud. Thirty-seven percent of IT decision makers expected to increase this number over the next six months.
• IT investments are inadequate for current and future business needs: Relative to infrastructure spending, IT decision makers gave an IT Confidence Score of 6.5 – the lowest of all categories tracked – indicating that companies may not be investing enough.

To download the report and view complete results from the 2016 IT Confidence Index, please visit: Intermedia.net/ITConfidence2016.