From Chaos to Control: Simplifying IT in the Fast Lane of Change
JumpCloud polled 900 respondents across Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The respondents were IT practitioners and decision-makers, including C-suite executives and non-executive managers. The survey was carried out in November 2024 with 300 respondents in Australia.
Top Takeaways and Insights:
- High incidence of data breaches and cyberattacks
- Insufficient investment in cybersecurity
- AI and its deployment is a headache
- Desire for simpler, unified security platforms
- Remote working and layoffs present key challenges
Security
Security Concerns Surge
Australian businesses feel unprepared for cyberattacks and aren’t investing enough in cybersecurity. Australian and UK businesses are currently spending less than their US counterparts, but most expect spending to increase over the next 12 months, with one in four anticipating a significant increase.
- 59%: More than half of Australian businesses are concerned about their organisation’s security.
- 60%: More than one in two Australian businesses experienced a cyberattack in 2024, higher than both the US (41%) and the UK (45%).
“What keeps me up at night? The thought that all [our] systems will be taken over and ransomed through a ransomware attack.”
— Anonymous survey respondent
Table: Cyberattack across regions
| Region | Percentage Experienced Cyberattack |
| Australia | 53% |
| U.K. | 45% |
| U.S. | 41% |
AI
AI: Too Fast or Too Slow?
AI is a particular headache for Australian organisations as it increases the complexity of cyber risk. 70% of organisations say AI is outpacing their ability to protect against threats (compared with 60% in the UK and 70% in the US), and 36% of organisations faced AI-generated attacks (compared with 29% in the UK and 33% in the US).
Table: My organisation is moving ______ around AI.
| Response | Percentage |
| At just the right speed | 60% |
| Too slowly | 19% |
| Too quickly | 19% |
| I don’t know | 2% |
74%: Three-quarters of Australian businesses are deploying AI initiatives over the next 12 months.
Australian organisations are split on employee access to AI. While 42% are encouraging staff to use AI tools like ChatGPT, 33% are blocking them from access — this conservatism is higher in Australia than in the US and the UK.
Table: Organisations blocking access to AI tools (by region)
| Region | Percentage Blocking Access |
| Australia | 33% |
| U.S. | 29% |
| U.K. | 23% |
The IT Landscape
Tool Overload and the Quest for Simplicity
Australian businesses are struggling with complexity as they scale, and have a desire for more unified solutions. An overwhelming majority (84%) expressed a wish for a single platform to manage identity, access, and security.
Table: How many tools or applications do you/your IT team use to manage the employee lifecycle and the resources they need to do their job?
(e.g. onboarding, device management, security tools, directory services, offboarding, help desk, etc.)
| Number of Tools | Percentage |
| 5–10 | 39% |
| 2–4 | 30% |
| 11–15 | 18% |
| 16+ | 11% |
| 1 | 2% |
Remote Working, Layoffs: Headache for Australian Businesses
Remote work is clearly adding to the pain, both in terms of the cost of solutions involved in managing remote workers (42%) and the challenges of ongoing management of remote workers (38%).
Table: Has your organisation gone through layoffs in the last six months?
| Response | Percentage |
| No | 35% |
| Yes, and I do not anticipate more layoffs | 27% |
| Yes, and I anticipate there will be more layoffs over the next six months | 19% |
| Not yet, but I anticipate there will be layoffs over the next six months | 19% |