FRAMINGHAM, MA--(Marketwired - Jul 10, 2014) - IDG's CIO -- the executive-level IT media brand providing insight into business technology leadership -- reveals the CIO Tech Poll: IT Economic Outlook results for May 2014. The research indicates that the majority of organizations (87%) are increasing or maintaining IT budgets in the coming year, with an average budget increase of 4.9%. Technology budgets will be distributed across core and edge technologies, including mobile, social, CRM and marketing automation.
Edge Technologies Still Gaining Momentum
Core technologies, from infrastructure to network and storage, still receive the largest allocation of technology budgets; however, in the past year spending on edge technology has increased by 5% to 32%. This increase is short of the 2012 estimate, where IT leaders anticipated edge spending would hit 39% in the next 1-3 years. One area that is seeing growth is applications. More than half of organizations are increasing spending on applications, which is a 6% increase year over year. Mobile investments are strong, with 47% of IT executives increasing spending followed by outsourced IT services, including cloud, at 40%.
Understanding the Budget Breakdown
New projects and emerging technology trends continue to impact the division of IT spending. In the coming year, 47% of IT leaders will increase spending on new projects. The focus on new projects aligns with overall business goals, with 36% allocating budget to projects that directly contribute to increasing topline revenue at their organization. Enterprises, organizations with 1,000+ employees, are more likely to focus new spending on customer interactions and experience compared to SMB organizations, organizations with less than 1,000 employees.
"Enterprises are not only spending on new projects to help advance their organizations' goals, they are investing in solutions from new technology companies at a much higher rate than SMBs," said Adam Dennison, SVP and publisher, CIO. "Enterprises are looking for the best solution and are not worried that those solutions are coming from new companies that could potentially be acquired. This provides new vendors a great opportunity to showcase their agile and innovate technology solutions to help exceed business results."
IT in Purchase Process Across Organizations
No matter what department is driving the technology investment, 98% of CIOs surveyed reported IT involvement in technology purchases. When the purchase is funded outside of the IT budget, nearly a quarter of respondents categorize IT as the driver for identifying the business need and brings their recommendations to line of business (LOB). Forty-five percent of CIOs say that LOB identifies the technology opportunity and reaches out to IT for feedback and recommendations. It is extremely rare that IT receives zero contact until a problem arises (5%).
To schedule a meeting to review the full results, contact Adam Dennison, SVP/Publisher, CIO at adennison@cio.com.
About CIO Tech Poll: IT Economic Outlook Research
The CIO Tech Poll: IT Economic Outlook Research is conducted once a year, among heads of IT, to gauge how current economic conditions are impacting IT spending. The current CIO Tech Poll: IT Economic Outlook was conducted between April 9, 2014 and May 4, 2014 through the CIO Forum on LinkedIn and the CIO customer database. Results are based on 178 respondents who indicated they are the top IT executive at their company or business unit.
About CIO
CIO is the premier content and community resource for information technology executives and leaders thriving and prospering in this fast-paced era of IT transformation in the enterprise. The award-winning CIO portfolio -- CIO.com, CIO magazine (launched in 1987), CIO executive programs, CIO custom solutions, CIO Forum on LinkedIn, CIO Executive Council and CIO primary research -- provides business technology leaders with analysis and insight on information technology trends and a keen understanding of IT's role in achieving business goals. Additionally, CIO provides opportunities for IT solution providers to reach this executive IT audience. CIO is published by IDG Enterprise, a subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading media, events, and research company. Company information is available at http://www.idgenterprise.com/.