Biggest Driver for SMB IT Budget Increases in 2021 Was IT Infrastructure
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In the small business sector, companies were forced to invest heavily in their IT infrastructure. As a result, they had no other choice but to have their employees shift to working from home and gain access to work remotely, migrate to the cloud, and bolster their security. In an effort to assist employees who were new to the remote landscape with remaining productive, resilient, and dedicated to not only completing their work but doing a good job, IT departments activated essential technologies that could be used to empower the remote work landscape.
A shaky and uncertain economy was yet another issue that had to be contended with, as were interruptions that took systems that were well-established by surprise. This prompted many companies to reassess their budgets and scale back on expenses that they deemed non-essential – which, in many cases, included technology expenditures.
In order to acquire greater visibility into the legacy of these dynamic changes as business owners modified their operations and prepared for totally new market dynamics, Spiceworks Ziff Davis (SWZD) surveyed more than 1,000 tech buyers in companies located throughout Europe and North America to assess the information technology landscape. The findings of this survey were quite revealing.
Challenges Are Expected to Continue
The findings of the analysis that SWZD performed determined that many business owners expected the hardships that were unexpectedly thrust upon them and that they had no choice but to adjust to continue into 2022. Regardless of the obstacles that companies perceived, however, the annual study, which keeps tabs on trends over several years, revealed that businesses have a positive outlook on the future. They’re also more likely to invest in technology now than they were just two years ago.
Key Insights
The following is a rundown of the key insights that were revealed:
61% of businesses expected their revenues to increase in 2022, while just 8% projected a decrease in their revenues.
The growth of IT budgeting accelerated, with most business owners planning to boost their budgets for technology expenditures or keep their budgets the same year-over-year.
The share of information technology budgets that will be allocated to cloud computing and managed services will increase year-over-year, taking shares away from both software and hardware.
Companies will rejuvenate their budgets on futuristic technologies. As a result, emerging technology adoption plans, particularly for newer security solutions, experienced a marked increase year-over-year.
In 2022, technology buying challenges will continue, with more than 40% of companies expecting shortages, price increases, shipping issues, and logistical problems.
About ¼ of information technology professionals intend to look for or change jobs in 2022, and among those seeking new employment, about 86% will consider remote positions.
In 2021’s state of IT, 64 percent of businesses that enabled a remote workforce were recorded. A more recent analysis found that future remote work found that 55% of companies boosted tech spending to address the needs that were created by a global crisis.
