Mid-market companies are facing the future with IT operational demands that are growing in complexity every year. To counter this, they’re looking for ways to streamline key functions like application delivery and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) support; improve application and workspace security and make hybrid cloud management as efficient as possible. Unlike enterprises with more robust budgets, mid-market CIOs and IT leaders constantly must make hard choices like how much to invest in AI versus more in on premises or the cloud. The options are plenty, but mid-market budgets are finite.
Also Read: The Future of Data Backup and Disaster Recovery in the AI Era
To help navigate these challenges, here are three key IT strategies:
#1: Is Your Virtual Environment a Hit or Miss?
At its best VDI gives users the flexibility they desire, accessing their desktop on any device, whether remotely working or at a company location. However, mid-market IT teams have found that some VDI, or desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) application delivery solutions can be less than economical, requiring more resources and often, consuming more budget.
In evaluating whether the current VDI structure is proving sufficient benefit, CIOs should consider these elements:
- Have the costs significantly escalated since implementation? Are maintenance costs and licensing fees getting prohibitive?
- Can you scale down or up, without any time-consuming hurdles?
- Are users satisfied with the current VDI application delivery, or are help desk tickets increasing?
- Is ongoing management adding more time and tasks to IT teams?
Mid-market IT executives are finding that the traditional large enterprise VDI solutions may not be the best fit. According to a recent survey, 63% of midsized organizations are currently looking for a new VDI or DaaS solution, with 94% wanting to implement it in the next year. Time to value is a critical factor—they need solutions that can be deployed quickly and deliver operational benefits in a shorter timeframe, ensuring they see a return on investment sooner. Mid-market IT teams prioritize simplicity and flexibility. Many lack large IT staff and require solutions that are easy to implement and manage. Additionally, a traditional, multi-year locked-in agreement may be too restrictive for organizations on tighter budgets. They are looking for licensing agreements, as short as one year, which can be updated to newer versions and with options to renew yearly. Having this flexibility also allows IT teams to more easily scale their VDI deployment or react more effectively to new initiatives like AI.
At the endpoint, IT’s goal is application delivery that provides 24×7 user satisfaction, regardless of device or location. This requires an application delivery solution capable of supporting a wide variety of operating systems and browsers. To conserve IT management time the best approach is a single, central, console from which IT can support workspace and application delivery across sites. With users often moving between on site, home, or other locations, centralized management is the most efficient, and cost-effective solution.
#2: Are Your Workspaces Secure Enough?
Cybersecurity is the evergreen challenge for mid-market companies who must continue to strengthen their cyber defense with more limited funds. The diverse computing environment that users work in today – multiple devices, browsers, and hybrid cloud environments – all contribute to the cyber-attack surface. In fact, 35% of mid-size organizations experienced a security breach in the past year. Securing workspaces and providing secure application delivery in this composite environment remains one of mid-market’s IT administration’s key pain points.
To be proactive in securing applications and data access at the workspace, a mid-market security defense should include:
- User monitoring to spot anomalous behavior
- Fully encrypted user sessions
- Built-in multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- Rule-based data access
- Single sign-on
Every solution used by mid-sized companies should embed these protections to mitigate risk rather than requiring security to be layered on later.
An area getting more attention is browser isolation. As users more and more need access to applications like Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and other cloud-based and AI applications, currently, 33% of mid-sized organizations have remote browser isolation technology deployed. This technology thwarts web-based cyber threats by enabling a separate browser session in the cloud, so that a user can lock down the data, preventing others from accessing or exfiltrating it. Since it sits between the internet and the end user’s browser, it can also isolate web content that could be destructive, preventing it from attacking the end user’s device or entering the network. Combined with access policy controls, the isolation software gives IT another weapon against web-generated attacks.
Mid-market IT security teams need all these defense practices to counter the growing threat of AI-generated threats, which can originate via the web. As part of an updated roadmap, IT will also need to clearly define access and policy protocols to control AI application delivery to the workspace. This is necessary to prevent data breaches in violation of compliance regulations, scams, and ‘shadow AI’ security threats from rogue applications entering the network.
Also Read: Software Supply Chain Security Across IT/OT Environments: Strategies for CIOs
#3: What Does Your Cloud Future Look Like?
For mid-market CIOs, cloud strategy is no longer a binary decision. The reality is that mid-market companies don’t rely on a single infrastructure model – instead, they adopt a mix of multi-cloud (47%), or hybrid cloud, integrating both on-premises and cloud (35%). Yet, this variety also brings concerns, including cost overruns, operational complexity, and vendor lock-in. At the application delivery and workspace endpoint, users must be able to access applications and data from this mix of hybrid sources. Therefore, to better manage budgets and IT staff time, modern cloud roadmaps require agility. To achieve this, mid-market CIOs need solutions that:
- Support multi-cloud, hybrid, and on-prem deployments.
- Ensure scalability without driving up costs.
- Seamlessly integrate with Azure, AVD, AWS, and private cloud.
- Provide secure, efficient virtual application and desktop delivery.
Mid-market businesses don’t want to be forced into a specific cloud model. They need the flexibility to pivot, balancing performance, cost, and security as business needs evolve. The right cloud strategy isn’t about choosing cloud vs. on-prem—it’s about designing an adaptive IT ecosystem that aligns with both business priorities and budget realities.
Final Thoughts for CIOs
Mid-market CIOs must make strategic IT investments that balance cost, security, and scalability. By optimizing VDI, strengthening security, centralizing IT management, preparing for AI threats, and future-proofing cloud strategies, IT leaders can build a more resilient, efficient infrastructure that supports business growth.
