Business Drivers Reshape IT Spending: IDG Survey
February 02 2016 - 9:30AM
Business Wire
Strategic Business Goals & Security
Concerns Are Driving More IT Investment Decisions
Organizations today are increasingly tying IT spending decisions
to strategic business goals rather than to traditional
considerations such as scheduled technology refreshes, according to
a new IDG Research Services survey of IT leaders conducted on
behalf of Datalink (Nasdaq: DTLK). The survey found that
business-related factors such as customer/client experience
improvements, cost management, operational efficiency gains and
risk mitigation now rank in the top five priorities in deciding
where to invest IT dollars, joining IT security enhancement as the
leading drivers of technology investments.
These findings indicate a major shift in IT spending habits.
Survey respondents reported that these top five investment drivers
as well as revenue growth have become up to 75% more important in
shaping IT expenditures in the last two years. In the same period,
technology-specific influencers have become 25% less important in
IT budgeting. Maintaining and/or gaining maximum value from legacy
technology, for example, ranked lowest on a list of factors
considered when evaluating IT spending, with just 17% of
respondents indicating a focus on this issue today.
In other key findings illustrating the growing pressure to align
IT investment strategy to business needs:
- 70% of IT decision makers believe that
the ability to link IT investments to key business outcomes is
critical in guiding IT spending.
- 68% indicate that IT operational goals
take a back seat to key business goals in making IT investment
decisions.
- 56% are planning to streamline their
operational processes to more effectively drive business outcomes
through IT investments.
- One-third of respondents are influenced
by upper management involvement in IT activities, including
increased scrutiny of IT spending at the C-suite level and
executive insistence on ROI.
“IT organizations are increasingly focused on helping their
companies derive more business value from IT. As a result, over the
past year, we have been seeing more clients move away from three-
to five-year technology refresh cycles and instead base their IT
purchases on how they can best use technology to advance the
organization’s business goals. This survey shows that the same
thing is happening for the market at large,” said Datalink
President and CEO Paul Lidsky. “This sea change in IT spending
patterns is also increasing the need for consulting services to
help companies synchronize their IT strategy and operations with
the needs of the business overall.”
Survey responses also revealed interesting trends in IT security
concerns, the perceived value of various technologies for achieving
business objectives, and the focus of current and planned
technology projects. Among the highlights:
- A heightened risk of security breaches
is by far the #1 factor impacting IT investment strategy,
outstripping the #2 and #3 factors (stricter compliance/regulatory
mandates and heightened user expectations) by more than 20 points
each. Security is also the #1 technology initiative currently under
way followed closely by disaster recovery/business continuity
projects, both reflecting the business emphasis on risk
mitigation.
- Process automation is viewed as the
single most technology initiative for achieving business impact in
multiple areas. As a result, process automation is now the #2
initiative in the build stage (21%), just behind agile development
platforms (22%). An additional 57% of respondents are either
planning (14%) or actively deploying (43%) process automation
projects.
- Migration to an IT-as-a-Service model
is the #1 initiative in the planning stage (21%), reflecting broad
market acceptance of the need for IT teams to move into a service
broker role. An additional 39% of respondents are either building
(17%) or running (22%) these projects.
- Converged data center infrastructure
remains a core IT focus, with seven out of 10 respondents currently
planning (13%), building (20%) or implementing (38%) this newer
architecture. This is consistent with the trend of tying IT to
business outcomes, since converged infrastructure is a building
block for efforts such as cloud projects designed to generate
specific business benefits.
The complete survey is posted at
www.datalink.com/idg-survey.
About Datalink
Datalink is a complete IT services provider that helps companies
transform their technology, operations, and service delivery to
meet business challenges. Combining extensive experience, a full
lifecycle of services and a comprehensive approach to producing IT
innovations that empower positive business outcomes, Datalink
delivers success across cloud IT transformation, next generation
technology, and security. For more information, call 800.448.6314
or visit www.datalink.com.
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Jill Schmidt PRJim Capalbo847.904.2198jim@jillschmidtpr.com
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