Infrastructure Slideshow: The Virtual Workplace

54 percent

54 percent of respondents say their organization is moving toward a virtual work environment.

50 percent

50 percent of respondents say their organization needs to adopt a flexible work environment to attract talented employees.

61 percent

61 percent say their organization will take steps to improve collaboration among dispersed teams within the next 12 months.

53 percent

53 percent say, within the next three years, the physical dispersion of their organization's staff will make it essential to improve the capability to work virtually.

43 percent

43 percent say their CIO/head of IT is an evangelist for a more collaborative environment.

Top perceived advantages of a collaborative/virtual work environment (percent respondents):

Improved productivity (51 percent)Increased efficiency (50 percent)An environment conducive to innovation/new ideas (31 percent)Fast response to market events (28 percent)Reduced infrastructure costs through methods such as virtualization/cloud computing (24 percent)

44 percent

44 percent say that collaboration's positive value on productivity/competitiveness outweighs its risks.

45 percent

45 percent say their organization has policies/practices that facilitate the formation of cross-functional and dispersed teams.

78 percent

78 percent say their organization supports a virtual environment by providing employees with mobile tech tools.

Other top ways to support a virtual environment (percent respondents):

Providing remote access to e-mail (76 percent)Allowing remote access to the corporate network and servers (72 percent)Establishing a corporate portal/Intranet (63 percent)Video conferencing (59 percent)Providing IM capability (52 percent)

45 percent

45 percent of respondents say a cultural resistance to changing tradition is the biggest obstacle to creating a virtual work environment.

Other top obstacles (percent respondents):

Concern over data security (26 percent)Cost of implementation of collaborative technologies (25 percent)Lack of an effective virtual-work strategy (24 percent)Lack of interest at the executive level (18 percent)

49 percent

49 percent of respondents say innovation is "extremely important" to their organizations.

Other priorities (percent respondents):

Productivity (47 percent)Retention of high-quality talent (44 percent)Recruitment of high-quality talent (43 percent)