COVID-19 is a global shock unlike anything that has gone before. A two-in-one combination of economic and health crisis, it has far-reaching implications for many businesses, not just in terms of the direct financial impact, but also how they are operationally  structured. Across the planet, employers responded to overnment mandates by enforcing strict work-from-home (WFH) orders for staff, creating a distributed workforce on an unprecedented scale. Some estimates suggest that as many as two-fifths of employees will continue remote working even after the pandemic has receded. 

Before the virus emerged, IT leaders were already concerned about several challenges. Endpoint visibility gaps were so acute that 71 percent told us they find previously unknown IT assets on a weekly basis. Tool sprawl, shadow IT, siloed IT teams and legacy tech were also cited as key challenges. Most (53 percent) IT chiefs were concerned that these gaps could expose them to cyber-attacks, as well as damage the brand, lead to non-compliance fines and negatively impact customer churn.

In order to discover the extent to which the crisis has exacerbated such challenges, and how organizations are preparing for what comes next, Tanium commissioned this global study.

The report was compiled from interviews with 1,004 CXOs (CEOs, CIOs, CTOs) and VPs in the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany. All of their organizations shifted to a distributed workforce during the global COVID-19 pandemic and employ 1000+ people.