IT Budget Trends: How Companies Spend on IT

Impact of COVID-19 on IT Budgets & Emerging Tech in 2021

The unusual nature of the crisis has created the worst situation for almost all industries. This crisis has hit businesses to revolve through a new set of challenges but also has imposed businesses to alter and form their business strategies.

The advancement of technology involving today, enables rapid change and development, causing an increased rate of trends, it will become exponential to adapt the trends that can work for your industry type.

Although it is not only technology trends that are evolving, a lot more has transformed this year due to the outbreak of COVID-19 making, IT professionals change their strategies if one doesn’t work. And an IT professional in 2020-21 will have to continuously learn, unlearn, and relearn the technology hypes and upcoming advancements.

Yet not to forget that today’s organizations rely more than ever upon technology to deliver services and meet the needs of their customers. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, companies with the ability to connect to customers quickly and adapt to an ever-changing business environment will set themselves apart from those that have yet to truly embrace digital transformation. 

The most fortunate businesses are undoubtedly the ones that spend the most on their IT and Marketing budgets. Ongoing assessments are essential to the budgeting process, providing decision-makers with an accurate picture of the company’s existing technology and identifying which investments will deliver the greatest benefits. A comprehensive technology assessment can also showcase the opportunities for reducing costs and improving efficiency. 

Without accurate IT budget planning, organizations are left without any guidance when it comes to technology decisions. Every technology-related decision has the potential to impact costs, so it’s important to have a clearly defined budget in place to maximize both operational and strategic agility.

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, most marketing forecasts expected IT budgets to continue trending upward. 

As the COVID-19 crisis unrolled, Forrester altered its tech market forecast. The market research firm now looks for global tech market growth to reduce about 2% in the best-case scenario, with a 50% chance that the market will decline by 2% in the worst-case. 

The greatest impact COVID-19 has done on IT budget planning is that to shift the remote work. Also, the cloud computing services that permit employees to reach and acquire critical data and applications remotely have experienced the highest spike in demand. For companies that rely on these platforms to facilitate collaboration, IT budget planning has likely continued the trend toward increased cloud spending. 

This increasing demand for cloud services among employees has also encouraged companies to enhance their IT infrastructures and therefore that’s another area businesses are currently investing in. Working on cloud projects can also help businesses in cutting down costs, and upgrading to advanced technologies during this unbelievable COVID crisis. 

Knowing companies are now working with a huge amount of data, and therefore it has become imperative for them to have a software-as-a-service (SAAS) to manage the data, visualize it as well as analyze it. Just for the depth understanding, we have examined that it has highly benefited cloud giants like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, as many organizations are moving beyond their traditional data centers to adopt cloud.

Finding the right technology partner with the right combination of services to deliver the greatest services in a crisis is critical to the success of IT budget planning. Rather than relying on multiple vendors for data protection, data recovery, and cloud connectivity, joining forces with a single provider who can deliver comprehensive, integrated technology solutions can simplify budgeting and greatly enhance flexibility.

Check out some below predictions and impacts on IT budgets due to COVID 19

  1. Gartner predicts IT spending will decline by 8% in 2021.  
  2. Globally investing in IT infrastructure, with public and private cloud, accelerated 2.2%.
  3. 54% of CFOs are planning to continue remote work permanently.

According to the Forbes report, IT spending’s downturn, spending on remote working apps and platforms is predicted to reach double-digit growth. 

As per the research Cloud-based telephony and messaging and cloud-based conferencing are also predicted to grow 8.9% and 24.3%. Also, 13% of companies are uplifting their IT budgets due to the pandemic to experience some positive ray of light. 

Also, 57% of organizations are leaving their IT budgets unchanged and 30% are decreasing them.

For brewing up, all the former epidemic, Emerging technology is the one that supports developing practical applications that are still largely unrealized.

For the current 2021 evolution and grappling the COVID pandemic for Technologies, check out the trending technologies of 2021. 

  1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  2. Machine Learning
  3. Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality (AR & VR)
  4. IoT (Internet of Things)
  5. Blockchain
  6. Cyber Security
  7. Hybrid Cloud
  8. Privacy and Confidential Computing
  9. Work from Home Technologies
  10. Hyper Automation
  11. Distributed Cloud
  12. Fintech
  13. 5G Network
  14. Voice Assistance
  15. Predictive Analysis

Technology Trends 2021 might have just gotten started. But, you will see major changes this calendar year.

It is highly playing a vital role in our lives for ages. From the beginning of Human Intelligence to the implementation of chatbots and robotics in many works, All have become possible due to the acceptance and realization of these techniques in our day-to-day lives.

Although the pandemic has created a huge disruption in the IT industry, it has also created opportunities for cloud service providers as well as businesses that are working with emerging technologies like AI, Analytics, and Robotics.

If there’s anything you would like to discuss or know more, or collaborate with directly reach us on 855-203-8196 or email at info@vsynergizeoutsourcing.com