Hackers and budgets and training and backups. These are a few of your most worrisome things. Or so you say in Network World's third-annual Top Concerns survey.

The concern ratings Of growing and shrinking concern Your top concerns Survey demographics In the words of respondents Chart: Growing and shrinking, full lists

With the help of market research firm Research Concepts, we asked 100 enterprise IT executives to tell us if they are most concerned about technology, employees, their careers or the health of the network industry. Then we asked them to rate their concern about 38 specific items, from acquiring business skills to XML. Respondents used a scale of 1 through 10, with 10 being the highest level of anxiety.

This year, technology is the undisputed area of highest concern, named that by nearly half of respondents (see charts). Management - which tied technology as the top general concern in 2001 and was the top concern in 2000 - gathered a quarter of the votes. The health of the network industry is the top concern of 15% of respondents and career garnered 11%.

Respondents who say technology is their No. 1 concern name these reasons: avoiding outages, especially from security breaches; managing technology's speedy rate of change; and implementing new systems. As one respondent explains, "Our motto is ‘Your success is our business.' We work to improve our network infrastructure, both hardware and software, to ensure our company is as much as possible on the cutting edge."

Of the 38 specific items in our survey, your concern is increasing for 17 and declining for 17, year-over-year concerns ratings show (with four items new to the survey). However, this statistic belies your growing sense of anxiety. More items rate of major concern this year, 11 vs. nine in 2001. And of those 11, only one of which is new, the concern rating rises on eight (see chart).

Keeping the network safe from hackers is your biggest worry - for the second straight year - and it scares you more than ever. It rates a mean of 8.20 out of 10, compared to 8.13 in 2001 and 7.9 in 2000, for which it ranked No. 4. (In a trip down memory lane, your top concern for 2000 was finding and retaining qualified employees - now No. 8.

Also in the top 11 are career concerns over maintaining skills in established technologies, ensuring business-manager peers keep you in the loop on network-related projects and obtaining competitive pay. You've been successful at the latter, according to Network World's 2002 Salary Survey. Explains one respondent: "You really need the [skills] development to help you move forward. The rest of it, like the salary, takes care of itself."

Your top concerns When asked which of four general areas is the utmost concern, half of the 100 enterprise IT executives surveyed chose technology, followed by the pressures of being a manager. Delving deeper, respondents named the specific worries in both areas.

Source: Network World's 2002 Top Concerns survey

A sign of the times, securing reasonable budgets is your No. 2 problem, with a rating of 7.98. This compares with No. 9 last year at 7.01 and No. 6 in 2000 at 7.66. Respondents tell us they are running just as many projects as ever, but as the economy staggers through another year, they are bound by more rigid project budgets and restricted from hiring more staff. "Ninety-five percent of the time we have overlapping projects and we are short-staffed. It is very difficult to meet deadlines," one respondent says.

Higher anxiety over your career is also a trend. Acquiring skills in new and emerging technologies - always important - steps up to be your No. 3 concern with a nearly two-point gain in its concern rating, a 7.88 compared to 7.70 in 2001, which landed it at No. 4, and 7.74 in 2000 for No. 5. Your concern over acquiring and improving upon business skills, jumps seven spots to No. 4 at 7.51, from No. 11 (6.99) in 2001 and No. 8 (7.59) in 2000.

Concern about disaster-recovery and business-continuity procedures marks its survey debut by landing in the top with a 7.22.

Surprisingly, among the 17 items barely on your concern radar are many emerging technologies, such as converged networks, public-key infrastructure, supplier-management systems and XML.

The war zone this year comprises money, people and skills, the 2002 Top Concerns survey shows. Between budgets, career management and the ever-present threat of hackers, your favorite song this year is the bugler's call to charge.

Of growing and shrinking concern We asked respondents to rate their concern about 38 specific items on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 representing the highest anxiety. Of these, four were new to the survey, 17 worry you more this year than last and 17, too, became less worrisome. The charts below depict the three items that rose most in concern and the three that dropped most.

The concerns ratings We asked 100 enterprise IT executives to rate their concerns on the following areas, using a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 represents extreme concern. Of highest concern   Item Mean 2002 Mean 2001 1. Making sure network is hacker proof. 8.20 8.13 2. Securing reasonable budgets for projects. 7.98 7.02 3. Acquiring skills in new and emerging technologies (QoS, VPNs, etc.). 7.88 7.70 4. Acquiring and improving upon business skills. 7.51 6.99 5. Keeping employees trained. 7.48 7.68 6. Maintaining skills in established technologies, (routing, switching, etc.). 7.42 7.42 7. Choosing between high pay and quality of life. 7.32 6.88 8. Finding and retaining qualified employees. 7.23 7.72 9. Disaster recovery and business-continuity procedures*. 7.22 n/a 10. Synching with departmental and corporate managers, so that network-related projects proceed with your approval. 7.22 6.53 11. Obtaining a competitive salary and benefits. 7.04 6.84 Of middling concern   Item Mean 2002 Mean 2001 12. Costs of salaries/benefits for employees. 6.96 6.59 13. Maintaining morale during a recession*. 6.95 n/a 14. Defining reasonable scopes of work for projects. 6.82 6.59 15. Career development opportunities at your current company. 6.72 6.43 16. Implementing quality of service technologies. 6.38 5.92 17. Security of service providers and/or outsourcer's network and systems. 6.12 6.15 18. The career path generally available to you at user companies. 6.02 6.39 19. Implementing scaleable, manageable storage*. 5.97 n/a 20. Having a reasonable number of qualified vendors from which to choose. 5.69 5.43 21. Obtaining bonuses and stock options. 5.68 5.83 22. Establishing Web services, including training and implementation*. 5.62 n/a 23. Building remote-access and site-to-site VPNs. 5.59 5.90 24. Integrating e-commerce applications with legacy network equipment and applications. 5.53 4.54 25. Supporting wireless devices. 5.14 5.35 Of lowest concern   Item Mean 2002 Mean 2001 26. Managing outsourced contracts, such as Web hosting services. 4.87 5.16 27. Costs of outsourcing/outtasking. 4.87 5.24 28. XML. 4.78 4.68 29. Convergence of voice and data. 4.77 5.05 30. Implementing and managing PKI systems (digital certificates, digital signatures). 4.51 5.16 31. Finding outsourcers/outtasking that can handle the tasks you'd like to off-load. 4.45 4.76 32. Building and maintaining supplier management systems, such as e-marketplaces. 4.43 4.15 33. The opportunity presented by employment with a network vendor. 4.38 5.25 34. Replacement of your network staff with outsourced services. 4.29 4.50 35. Migration from 10/100 Ethernet to Gigabit Ethernet. 4.23 4.49 36. Developing applications for mobile devices. 4.14 4.00 37. The opportunity presented by employment at dot-com companies. 3.96 4.75 38. Implementing and managing ASP services. 3.80 4.22 *New to the 2002 survey Source: Network World's 2002 Top Concerns survey

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