IT budgets to grow at a 10-year high in 2022: Gartner

IT budgets in 2022 are expected to grow at 3.6% on an average, marking a 10- year high, as more CIOs and technology leaders deploy tools to support business composability, said research firm Gartner Inc., based on the findings from its annual global survey of over 2,000 CIOs and technology executives. 

Cyber and information security was at top of the investment agenda of 66% of participants, while 51% have eyes on business intelligence/data analytics and 48% on cloud platforms, as per the survey.  

The recent spate of cyberattacks has cost organisations billions of dollars in losses incurred on ransom payments, business disruption, and penalties slapped by data regulators.   

The average cost of a data breach in 2021 rose to 4.24 million dollars from USD 3.86 million a year ago, the highest average in the last 17 years, according to IBM’s cost of data breach report 2021.  This has made cybersecurity a top priority for CIOs.  

The shift to remote work and now hybrid work has made the migration of workflows to the cloud a necessity for business continuity and sustained growth. This has triggered a massive spending spree on different cloud platforms.  

Gartner’s April 2021 report shows that worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services in 2021 is likely to grow by 23.1% to $332.3 billion, up from $270 billion a year ago.  

“There is a continued need to invest in cybersecurity as the environment becomes more challenging. A high level of composability would help an enterprise recover faster and potentially even minimize the effects of a cybersecurity incident,” Monika Sinha, research vice president at Gartner, said in a statement. 

In addition to talking about the key investment areas, the Gartner survey also emphasises the relevance of composability.  Sinha called it an “antidote to volatility.”  

According to Gartner, business composability is a fusion of “mindset, technologies, and operating capabilities that enable organisations to innovate and adapt quickly to changing business needs.” 

The survey revealed that organizations with high composability on average are more likely to witness a higher jump in revenue (7.7%) and IT budget (4.2%) in 2022 as compared to organizations with moderate or low composability which are expected to see revenue grow by only 3.4% and IT budget by 3.1%. 

Further, the survey shows that CIOs and technology leaders in organizations with high composability have been more proactive in terms of iterative technology development, sharing data across systems and people, and building out integration capabilities data, analytics and applications. 

Gartner interviewed 2,387 CIOs and technology leaders from major industries in 85 countries including India. They accounted for approximately $9 trillion in revenue/public-sector budgets and $198 billion in IT spending.