IT Budgets are Growing. Why?
Spiceworks, a professional network for the IT industry, surveyed 780 technology leaders and found that 89% of respondents expect their IT budgets in 2019 to either increase or stay the same, with 64% of respondents feeling the need for IT to upgrade their outdated infrastructure. Most importantly, companies of all sizes expect IT budgets in 2019 to increase by 20% on average, with only 6% expecting a decrease.
These budget increases are being driven largely by the need to upgrade aging infrastructure, accelerate a shift to the cloud, and improve the employee experience of what IT offers. Let’s dig into these drivers.
Transform and Secure
When breaking down to organizational size, expenditure increases for smaller companies are driven by performing system upgrades and larger companies are locking down and securing the systems they have in place. Larger companies are realizing that with an extensive customer base and therefore extensive customer data, it pays to protect their information. They are boasting budgets to protect against everything from phishing emails to malware. While smaller companies are realizing the significance of digital transformation, investing mainly in infrastructure.
Spending in the Cloud
According to Forbes, 83% of enterprise workloads will be in the cloud by 2020. Because of this, many companies will be increasing their IT spending to join the cloud if they haven’t already. In the cloud services, online backup and recovery leads the way, with 15% of cloud services budgets being allocated towards this area, followed by email hosting (11%), online productivity (9%), and web hosting (9%).
Employee Experience
An additional area expected for budget growth is the employee experience. This can be everything from building access to hardware in the office, all aimed to streamline the employee experience for the better. The technology your employees use every day have a huge impact on their experience. From how well their laptops work, to the clarity and ease of a video call.
Good IT leads to greater engagement and retention of your employees. Ensuring their phones and computers work efficiently is the most basic level of caring for your employees and it helps to ensure success.
Budgets Keep Growing
As mentioned before, companies of all sizes are expecting their IT budgets to grow an average of 20% in 2019. This has grown from the average 19% in 2018. And only six percent of companies expect their IT budget to decrease in 2019, compared to 11% in 2018. Even if some company’s IT budgets are staying consistent, allocations will likely shift to allow larger technology spending in other departments.
From Finance and HR to Sales and Marketing every department now needs and uses technology. It allows departments to leverage the specific advantages technologies can give them to perform their duties more efficiently, and overall better the company. It’s become obvious that companies which fail to invest in technology will be left behind by the companies that choose to use technology to foster innovation. Don’t let your company fall behind.
About Plow
Headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee, Plow is a Total Service Provider (TSP) with several distinct business practices that, when consumed together, offer our clients a unique, best-in-class experience that give them peace of mind, valuable time back and the economies of scale that come with having one partner that is focused on exceeding their expectations with every engagement.
