Scale is a perennial challenge for most IT teams. While organizations expect the same performance and experience whether 500 users are accessing essential applications or 50,000, IT headcount rarely increases in proportion with organizational growth. This often leaves IT departments overtaxed and pressed to triage the most urgent concerns. But even that requires good data to inform decisions — which can be in short supply.

Just ten days after the last major Microsoft 365 outage, Microsoft reported another incident at 8:48 am on July 30, 2024. The message on X was vague, offering limited details about the scope and impact of the problem. This left many IT teams preparing for what they anticipated would be another rocky day.

On July 18, 2024 at 6:38 pm ET, Vantage DX, Martello’s Microsoft 365 and Teams performance management solution, started to see indicators of a likely Microsoft outage impacting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services. Almost an hour later at 7:41 pm ET Microsoft issued a statement on X.

In 2024, the overall employee experience hinges, in large part, on the quality of their digital interactions. Digital Employee eXperience (DEX) encompasses all digital touchpoints between employees and their work environment and aims to enhance satisfaction, engagement, and productivity across any digital touchpoint.

IT teams often find themselves in a constant state of emergency: dealing with issues as they arise. So few issues are reported when they happen that IT teams are left with no choice but to be reactive. This reactive approach is not only a drain on resources, it also hampers system improvements and reduces user satisfaction.

The old saying that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” has never been truer for IT teams. Many analysts say proactive IT management is long overdue, and in domains such as cybersecurity and e-commerce, the push is on to detect and stop potential issues early instead of troubleshooting after the fact. So why are so many IT groups stuck in reactive mode when it comes to managing business-critical communication and collaboration applications like Microsoft Teams?

Hybrid work is very much here to stay. But in spite of that, many companies still haven’t come around to the idea, meaning the tools and systems offered aren’t always used to best effect. This leaves these businesses unprepared to embrace the hybrid world of work we now all find ourselves in. Take hybrid meetings for example – which combine in-person and remote participation, using digital tools to facilitate communication and collaboration across various locations.

Maturity models have proved to be powerful tools for assessing performance and driving improvement in a wide range of industries and disciplines from cybersecurity and quality control to project management and HR. With hybrid and remote work here to stay, organizations now have a new kind of maturity to aspire to, one that has a significant and direct impact on business results: virtual collaboration maturity.