Uptick in Customer Service Spending Drives Security Concerns

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European organizations are starting to invest in customer service—which in turn is generating unprecedented levels of customer data. As a result, data security is top of mind for IT staff.

A report from Quocirca found that the fastest growing IT concerns include security threats (up 25% since 2013), data chaos (up 22%) and poor customer experience (up 21%), all of which contribute to an increasingly complex landscape for IT managers.

 “A post-financial crisis easing of budgetary constraints means IT departments are refocusing on delivering value to the business, including delivering better customer experience as interaction becomes reliant on multiple channels,” said Bob Tarzey, analyst at Quocirca. “Supporting this cross-channel experience results in growing IT complexity and greater volumes of machine data, which, if unmanaged, increases data chaos.”

The report also found that those with the strongest operational intelligence capability are most likely to conquer the complexity and mitigate some of the risk. If this data is collected and analyzed, it can provide better insight through improved operational intelligence, enabling those with the capability to reap the benefits: better security awareness, higher system uptime and improved customer service levels.”

The increasing use of cloud services adds to IT infrastructure complexity as systems are becoming more hybridized and organizations struggle to get equal insight into both on-premise and cloud-based infrastructure. As organizations move to more heterogeneous and complex IT platforms, security looms.

The biggest and fastest growing IT management concern in both 2013 and 2015 was security threats through compromise of IT systems.

“Splunk customers gain real value in many areas of their business by harnessing machine data for real-time operational insights,” said Adam Bangle, vice president of EMEA at Splunk, which sponsored the survey. “It is no surprise that organizations with the strongest operational intelligence capability are best equipped to deal with the complexities of the modern IT landscape.”

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