While 90% of IT professionals describe their organizations as resilient, fewer than half feel well-equipped to handle core challenges such as adopting AI, defending against cyber threats, or supporting distributed workforces.
The results of SolarWinds’ 2025 IT Trends Report, Fragile to Agile: The State of Operational Resilience, which surveyed more than 600 IT leaders across nine countries, found a distinct gap between perception and preparedness.
For instance, more than half (52%) reported feeling confident managing cyber threats. And 45% of those surveyed said they are confident in their ability to support remote and distributed workforces, while 38% of respondents indicated a comfort level with handling challenges such as artificial intelligence. More than one-quarter (26%) of those surveyed said they felt confident managing bring-your-own-device policies.
“When faced with IT problems and disruptions, urgency may pressure companies to turn to tactical technology fixes, like new tools or innovations,” said RJ Gazarek, senior director of product marketing at SolarWinds, in a statement. “However, as this report suggests, technology without a holistic game plan will not breed the results they’re looking for. Organizations must consider the people using the technology, their expertise, and how users plan to leverage the tools provided to them.”
Focus on people, process, and technology
The trio of people, process, and technology demands that organizations take a look beyond tools to solve some of their operational shortcomings.
According to SolarWinds’ report findings, respondents aren’t pointing to a lack of proper technology as the root cause of their efficiency and productivity issues. While many have already invested in tool stacks, the report suggests that tools alone don’t equate to resilience unless they’re integrated into well-functioning processes and team structures.
Key factors behind inadequate issue prevention and mitigation include:
- Inefficient workflows slow issue response: 53%
- Understaffing as a key challenge: 36%
- Lack the right tools: 13%
“Companies often default to solving problems with technology first. But if they don’t get the results they were expecting, they are left wondering why. So while they may buy the best-in-class tool to solve all their problems, they tend to forget about how people leverage the tools. They buy seats but forget the people sitting in them.” Gazarek stated in the report.
Critical issues lead to poor customer experience
Consequences of poor operational resilience often fall on customers, according to the report.
The survey found that 71% of respondents note customer experience as a core concern stemming from critical issues and systems outages. About one-third (32%) of those surveyed said they lost revenue from outages and other critical issues, and more than one-quarter (28%) cited brand damage as a result of poor performance and customer experience.
More than half (55%) of organizations measure performance metrics such as mean time to detect, acknowledge, or repair (MTTx), but 45% of those surveyed reported they do not track MTTx metrics. Among the most common reasons why respondents don’t use MTTx include:
- Lack of awareness: 38%
- Difficultly measuring accurately: 16%
- Prefer alternative performance metrics: 16%
- Not relevant to operational goals: 14%
- Resource constraints preventing implementation: 8%
- Would highlight deficiencies: 6%
Of those respondents measuring performance metrics, nearly one-quarter (73%) say that tools have the greatest impact on reducing MTTx, workflows come in a close second (67%), and teams land in third place, with 44% saying people play the largest role in reducing MTTx metrics.
“In today’s competitive environment, operational resilience is no longer a nice-to-have but rather a strategic imperative,” said Cullen Childress, chief product officer at SolarWinds, in a statement. “Achieving it requires more than just adopting new technology. Organizations must equip their IT teams with the right tools, workflows, and talent to stay agile and responsive. When obstacles are removed and resilience is built into daily operations, IT becomes a true driver of competitive advantage.”
Source:: Network World