IT Spending Trends in 2022 – Where Normal is Abnormal

A poll conducted by TechCrunch of IT decision-makers indicates that companies could well be bracing for a period of high inflation, possible recession and unsteady supply chains. As a result, the spending on IT across large enterprises may show a decline over the rest of 2022. 

However, this trend could be bucked by higher IT spending in the small and medium enterprises over the same period. This year’s poll done at a global level reached over 1,200 IT decision makers who controlled a whopping $570 billion in annual IT spending, says the publication. 

Over the past three years, IT managers had to shift focus from key result areas such as energy, finance and operations to security and work-from-home requirements. This resulted in most of the planned system expansions and upgrades going into a limbo. However, with employees returning to their desks, IT priorities have shifted again, the report says listing out 8 such trends:  

Total IT spends slated to fall

As against an 8.7% annual growth in IT spending expected last December, the current survey leads one to believe that the number to rise by only 6.7% over 2022 compared to 2021. A major factor could be the stalling of new IT projects since the beginning of the year. However, this has not bucked the trend of an accelerated hiring demand in the space. US government figures predict that over 660K jobs would be added in the current decade, with salary bills likely to rise due to a paucity of experienced professionals. 

Small and Medium Businesses are spending

While the large enterprises are in the throes of an indecisive phase on whether to kickstart stalled projects or wait for better signs of economic recovery, there seems to be no such doubts amongst the SMEs. The survey claims that this sector is growing stronger with vendors in this market facing good demand and hence hoping to jack up marketing spends to boost lead generation and content marketing. 

Energy sector is spending more

While the energy sector, which has traditionally been on the conservative side when it comes to IT spending, has shown some of the biggest budget increases, education as a business appears to have gone off the boil on this front.  In terms of geographies, the Latin American market could see a 30-40% higher growth compared to North America and the APAC. 

Cybersecurity remains big

Amongst the key segments, cybersecurity remains a top priority for enterprises, given the spike in cyberattacks during the pandemic period. There was a 150% increase in ransomware attacks during 2021 with remote workers being the prime target. This trend continues till date the demand for security solutions remains robust. 

The hardware supply challenge remains

Supply chain disruptions that were caused during the pandemic haven’t yet normalized. This has resulted in it becoming tougher for enterprises to acquire necessary equipment for new IT projects. The survey suggests that enterprise IT managers would be well advised to factor in plenty of lead time to procure business critical equipment over the next few months. 

Migration to the Cloud

Finally, the number of organizations adopting cloud computing and SaaS is growing faster than ever before. The cloud computing model appears to have matured and proven cost-effective for most enterprises – be it public, private or hybrid clouds. Over the next few months, companies offering such solutions could witness robust revenues.