While it seems that employees are successfully working outside their traditional offices, employers have new questions about how to measure productivity in a virtual world. Companies are working on new measures to avoid exposing employees to undue health risks through widespread return-to-office initiatives ahead of available vaccines.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to shift the landscape for how global CIOs manage, collaborate and respond to their stakeholders, so too does the demand for strong leadership and core emotional dexterity competencies.

A Gartner, Inc. survey revealed that 90% of HR leaders plan to allow employees to work remotely at least part of the time, even after the COVID-19 vaccine is widely adopted. Sixty-five percent of respondents reported that their organization will continue to offer employees flexibility on when they work.

The pace of change is wearing down finance teams, so finance leaders must navigate both big and small changes to protect employees’ mental energy, according to Gartner, Inc. Over time, excessive effort breaks down employees’ mental energy, leading to change resistance and turnover.

Automation of routine work with artificial intelligence (AI), digital dexterity, and hybrid work with distributed workforce will be three key trends impacting the future of work that CIOs should focus on, according to Gartner, Inc.

The growth of connected devices, incorporation of network virtualization functions, and shift to a multi-tenant cloud infrastructure are key factors driving the global Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) testing market. Compared to other markets, the impact of COVID-19 on the Gigabit Ethernet testing market was mild due to the shift to working from home.

As the number of workloads operating in the cloud grows, organizations are recognizing that, in a multicloud world, they must adopt the correct strategy for digital transformation. Demand for resiliency has seen the growth of hybrid cloud.

Most digital transformations fail, but making sure that six critical success factors are in place can reverse the odds of success from 30% to 80%, according to a new report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Flipping the Odds of Digital Transformation Success, released today.

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, CIOs faced epic challenges and the road to recovery stretches ahead. For many business leaders, recovery isn't just a return to their former state, but a top to bottom rethinking of what business they need to be in, and how they must be run.

Sweeping market changes have made it clear that supply chains, long managed to be cost-effective and reliable, must also now be resilient and sustainable. Making this resilience a reality requires executives to have visibility into how materials and goods enter and move through the chain, as well as tracing inputs and outputs all the way to the hands of the customer.

CFOs and senior finance executives are facing a growing list of responsibilities and demands from internal stakeholders as the pandemic has stress-tested the finance labor model in real time. More than 1,000 finance leaders participated in the global survey conducted in July and August 2020.

“Supply chain leaders spend a lot of time working to understand and improve their internal operational metrics, but it’s important to introduce customer experience metrics into the supply chain scorecard,” said Beth Coppinger, senior analyst with Gartner.

Six forces in the IT industry will present a fundamental threat to technology and service providers (TSPs) through 2025. “Forces outside of a TSP’s control demand a response – adapt to thrive or struggle to survive,” said Rajesh Kandaswamy, research vice president at Gartner.

The uncertain post-pandemic situation will compel smart cities to focus more on developing collaborative, data-driven infrastructure to provide appropriate healthcare facilities as well as public security services. They will create significant business opportunities with a market value of $2.46 trillion by 2025.

IT spending is forecast to contract across all categories and regions in 2020. While businesses in most industries have begun to reopen, pandemic mitigation measures have created financial burdens, with the transportation, manufacturing and natural resources industries the most severely impacted.

Frontline and overlay sellers have the lowest data proficiency despite their focus on sales data and buyer activity. The Gartner report revealed that sales reps are considered to have one of the worst data proficiency (43%) in the organization – significantly lower than marketing teams (49%), customer service teams (49%) and finance teams (53%).

The technology developmental trend for pipeline therapeutic medical devices is shifting towards manufacturing portable, lightweight, and easy-to-use devices for patients, allowing for use in home settings. The integration of these devices with digital technologies aims to increase patient engagement and improve the treatment outcome.

A 2020 Gartner, Inc. survey of 1,000 employees in March revealed that they are facing a greatly increased frequency of “career moments”, resulting in increased incidences of employee misconduct and more negative perceptions of corporate integrity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused stress, anxiety, and depression - generating a significant need for solutions to manage the lack of physical access to therapy and treatment. Global investments are estimated at nearly $1.4 billion in 2020 for health-tech companies in the mental health management sector, with about 75% of it directed to the U.S. market.

Despite the disruptive impacts of COVID-19, 47% of organizations plan to increase their investments in the Internet of Things (IoT). 35% of organizations reduced their investments in IoT while a larger number of organizations are planning to invest more in IoT implementations to reduce costs.