Organizations are focusing investments on security and analytics, while actively researching emerging technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, according to the 2018 CIO Tech Poll: Tech Priorities survey.
After five years of increases, tech budgets remain constant. The data shows that a greater percentage of tech leaders expect their IT budgets to remain the same; however, enterprise organizations still expect strong tech budget growth. Overall, 50% of tech leaders anticipate budget increases in 2018 – which increases to 57% for enterprises (1,000+ employees).
The survey shows the greatest increase in budget allocation towards predictive analytics (47%), business continuity/disaster recovery (47%), public cloud (46%) and hybrid cloud (45%).
Applications that will see an increase in investment include business intelligence and analytics, mobile enterprise apps, and projects to secure enterprise information assets.
The focus on security continues – when asked which technology project is the single most important project that their IT department is working on currently, the majority of IT leaders surveyed said business continuity/disaster recovery.
“IT departments continue to make strides towards a more digital and secure organization,” said Adam Dennison, SVP/GM, IDG Events, and Publisher, CIO. “This year’s Tech Poll results confirm that emerging technology projects and applications remain top of mind for tech leaders, and that these capabilities are essential for organizations to remain competitive in this time of digital transformation.”
Emerging technologies continue to play a role in developing a digital business. The top technologies that are being actively researched by CIOs align with this mentality, which include machine learning (44%), artificial intelligence (AI) (44%) and Internet of Things (IoT) (37%). All of which are also being piloted at various organizations – IoT (15%), AI (14%) and machine learning (11%).
Additionally, IoT and machine learning fall on the top five list of technologies that are expected to have a great impact on organizations over the next three to five years. Organizations are not just considering new technologies, they are open to new vendors. Tech leaders report that 15% of tech spending will be spent on new tech companies this year.
