Strategising Your IT Investments: Key Considerations

April 14, 2022

After the global upheaval that left organisations seeking innovative ways to operate, 2022 is looking to be the boom year for IT acceleration. But despite a projected increase in tech budgets, financial pressure remains a significant challenge as demands continue to grow.

CIOs will need to be strategic about which technology their organisations should invest in, both in terms of quick wins and long-term goals. 2022 is going to be a busy year, and how companies decide to invest in IT might more meaningfully determine their future success than ever before.

For Q Associates, we wanted to find out more about the specific tech trends and IT challenges in order to better serve our clients. This is why we conducted an independent survey into 2022 IT trends, including how budgets might evolve.

Our results found an exciting – yet challenging – trend towards IT that could revolutionise organisations across all industries.

Continued investment in IT is driving the industry forward

We are seeing an unprecedented investment in technology, with 84% of all respondents reporting the same or increased amount of IT spend (a rise of 14% from 2021). According to Gartner’s latest forecast, worldwide IT spending is projected to total $4.5 trillion in 2022, an increase of 5.5% from 2021, and the largest year-over-year jump in more than ten years. Despite this, 33% of our respondents have noted experiencing budgetary pressure as a major challenge for the year.

On top of budgetary pressures are supply chain shortages, which were considered a “top five” challenge facing survey respondents. With the limited global availability of many products now driving a combination of extended lead-times and rising prices, CIOs and IT directors must both understand and prioritise the systems their organisations need.

This increasing expectation on organisations to both invest well and do more with less can present a challenge, but with the right planning, this IT boom can deliver prosperity across industries.

Strategising Your IT Investments: Key Considerations

In 2022, IT strategies will continue to harness flexibility and agility, alongside a refocus on the need for sustainability, cloud adoption, increasing data volumes and increasing network speeds.

Cyber security is the top consideration for decision makers, with 63% of our respondents noting that security threats are a challenge, and 68% stating that this is one of their main primary focus areas for 2022. Momentum has also been building to take a more proactive approach to cybersecurity, rather than defensive planning or securing perimeters with firewalls, the latter of which is becoming obsolete as businesses move to the cloud and mobile devices.

Automation is another challenge for businesses in 2022, with workforce shortages driving businesses to look for new ways to reduce human involvement and streamline processes. In our survey, 43% of respondents listed this as one of their top budgetary priorities.

While cyber security and automation are key focuses in 2022, 39% of our survey respondents also highlighted tech skills and resourcing as a major challenge. Some organisations may need to consider prioritising managed services and independent IT specialists.

SaaS Application Deployment and Hybrid Cloud are also reported as growing priorities among IT leaders, as organisations continue to drive increased operational performance through technology adoption and innovation.

There are a number of priorities to consider when budget planning in the IT sphere, and as we continue to shift from outdated legacy systems and upkeep towards technology investments that will provide a competitive edge, budgets will need to stretch.

Cybersecurity spending, automation, and resourcing investments are all key but potentially expensive. Investing in not only the right technology, but the right resources to help you strategise your IT path, can be extremely helpful for future growth.

Moving Forward: Long-Term Strategies

In 2022, we’re going to see businesses focusing on multi-year projects rather than fixing and padding the technology stack that they onboarded rapidly in 2020. This is further evidence that we will see increased spend on IT solutions moving forward. Businesses will likely focus on automation initiatives to free up employees to upskill in other areas whilst also addressing their current cybersecurity systems.

With such a buildup of IT skills demand, businesses will also benefit from outsourcing their projects to independent contractors and managed services on a more permanent basis. However, decision makers must first carefully strategise their spending to ensure they invest in technology that drives their business forward.

At Q Associates, we understand that each business has individual technology needs. Drawing on our independent knowledge, our goal is always to present the IT solutions and insights that best suit your unique situation and budget.

Our passion to help organisations optimise their technology inspired us to run an Independent UK Survey of IT Priorities to find out more about the specific IT trends and challenges set to have the biggest impact in 2022. We reached out to over 1,000 senior IT professionals to see what they had to say, and the insights we gained can provide you with invaluable information about current challenges and opportunities. To help you benchmark your own IT focus in 2022, download our survey for free.