Data Security Remains Top Concern For Tech Leaders
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
While tech spending is on the rise, leaders say current IT Infrastructure gets a “B Minus”
While the vast majority of corporate technology decision-makers anticipate tech spending to remain the same or increase for 2016, tech leaders say their current IT infrastructures rate only a “B Minus” grade and 65 percent report concern about disruption from technology innovation, according to an Insight Enterprises report.
“Disruption is on the horizon, and to deal with it companies are turning to intelligent technology as a smarter way to run their businesses. Today’s technology infrastructure and application deployment environments offer flexibility, scalability, and consumption options that simply were not around a few years ago. It’s an exciting time to harness this new model toward speed, agility and competitive positioning. This is why tech decision-makers are moving more aggressively to invest in the right combination of intelligent technology solutions,” said Steve Dodenhoff, President, U.S., Insight Enterprises.
The findings of the report suggest there is substantial concern about data security and much room for improvement, which could be good news for VARs and MSPs.
The Insight Enterprises Intelligent Technology Index finds only 6 percent of companies are planning to spend less on IT than last year. Medium-sized companies will lead the way in tech spending growth with 60 percent of them planning to increase their budget by an average of 17 percent. Meanwhile, 42 percent of small companies reported an anticipated average 27 percent increase, while 44 percent of large companies reported a projected an average 18 percent increase.
According to Insight’s new survey-based whitepaper, The Rise to Enterprise IT Revolution, “CIOs and other IT executives must often wonder how they can possibly keep up with the pace of change in Intelligent Technology products and services. At the same time, they must meet the demands of increasingly technology-savvy end users and customers, staying within tight budgets and keeping the organization’s data and systems secure.”
One other reality hindering new technology adoption is the reliance on legacy technology, as more than half of tech decision-makers (55 percent) say the current technology in place at their companies is a hindrance to incorporating or adopting new technologies.
VARs and MSPs can capitalize on this reality by helping companies close the gap in order to keep up with technology. The most pressing areas in need of improvement are Network infrastructure/moving into the cloud (61 percent), hardware and devices (58 percent); and data security (56 percent).
Meanwhile, data privacy remains a top concern (69 percent), followed by keeping IT equipment well-maintained (50 percent), improving customer experiences (49 percent), monitoring budget and costs (48 percent), and the ability to adopt new technology (37 percent). The survey also revealed data security (57 percent), cloud computing (52 percent), and mobile solutions (43 percent) are the top areas that budgets need to grow.
“Technological innovation continues to accelerate at unprecedented rates. In recent years, new devices, applications and software solutions have hit the market with incredible frequency. The old adage of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ has never been more relevant than when applied to businesses trying to compete and harness the power of emerging technologies,” said Mike Guggemos, Insight Enterprises’ CIO. “Large and medium-sized organizations have deeper pockets to help them in the race but often face organizational hurdles, while smaller and more nimble businesses often lack financials to experiment prior to making investments.”