Role of the Trusted Advisor Uncertain economic conditions. Changing workforce attitudes about work from home versus the office. Add to that the challenge of staying on top of change in the tech industry. Keeping up with digital transformation has always been hard to manage — that has become even more evident in 2024 with the explosion of interest in generative AI. Vendors are adding in ChatGPT-like functionality in an increasing number of products. It isn’t easy to tell if these new features are actually useful or not. Enterprises need to ask “Do these new capabilities make sense for our business? What impact and ROI can they have? How would you handle a platform migration?” Trusted Advisors have long played a role in mapping out strategies for using and implementing IT. In our latest survey, 66% of respondents believe that their internal teams are highly qualified to plan, manage, optimize, and troubleshoot the full range of their IT infrastructure (Fig. 2.1). Conversely, 34% think their teams are less than highly qualified, compared to 40% in our previous survey. Trusted Advisors play a role of recommending technology solutions 84% of the time (Fig. 2.2). Fig 2.1 To what extent is your internal team qualified to plan, manage, optimize, and troubleshoot your entire IT infrastructure? 9 Copyright © 2024 AVANT Communications, Inc. Source: AVANT Analytics State of Disruption 2024 The knock-on effect is a reported shift in the involvement of Trusted Advisors with IT decision makers (Fig. 2.2). Forty-four percent of survey respondents said they rely on Trusted Advisors to help recommend and operationalize technologies while strategic decisions are made internally. Interestingly, 19% of respondents said Trusted Advisors control all technology decisions and functions, up from 16% in our previous survey. Figure 2.2 Usage: Services of Trusted Advisors Source: AVANT Analytics State of Disruption 2024