MARCH 2022
IT Buyer Survey #3, BCG November 2021
Key takeaways Source:
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IT budgets are poised to increase as prices rise
- 82% of respondents expect their companies’ IT spending to grow in 2022, in part due to inflationary pressures,
- with respondents anticipating a 5.1% weighted average price increase
Half of respondents expect to expand their IT investments
- At least 50% of buyers expect to increase their AI, machine learning (ML), analytics, and cloud services systems or suppliers,
- while roughly a third expect to consolidate their server infrastructure
Risk management is an ever-increasing focus
- IT buyers increasingly choose risk management initiatives as a major IT priority, although strategic advantage initiatives are still the leading focus
Only marginal changes are expected in cloud investing
- Workloads remain heavily on the cloud,
- with less than 20% of buyers planning to shift any workloads off the cloud in the next two years;
- those shifting are mainly pulling back in enterprise resource planning because of data security concerns
Decision-making power is diffusing slightly
- IT decisions are still predominantly made by IT;
- however, substantial power is shifting to operations teams, particularly in IT operations management and devices
Remote-selling concerns are waning
- Many buyers have become more comfortable signing large contracts without in-person engagement
- and are more willing to sign new vendors remotely
IT spending is expected to increase in 2022 across most major industries, especially financial services, education, and technology — healthcare comes 4th (5,7%)
68% of buyers expect prices to rise in 2022, supported by budget expansion
Respondents expect to expand some areas of IT investment and consolidate others
Top expansion areas are : AI/ML; Cloud Services; Analytics; Servicy Infrastructure
Risk management is an increasing priority for IT buyers, although strategic advantage remains the leading focus
Risk management initiatives saw the greatest year-on-year acceleration
Less than 20% of buyers are shifting workloads off the cloud; those shifting are mainly pulling back in enterprise resource planning
Workloads remain heavily on the cloud, at 40% to 70% per category, with marginal changes since Q4 2020
While still predominantly driven by IT, substantial decision-making power is shifting to operations
Concerns with remote transactions are waning slightly, although buyers are still more comfortable dealing with the vendors they know
Leading concerns with remote buying now revolve around stakeholder engagement
Originally published at https://web-assets.bcg.com
