CIO Pulse Report: Do More with Less

After a turbulent 12 months for business with soaring inflation, global conflict, and continued supply chain disruption - there’s a question on everyone’s mind...what’s in store for IT leaders in 2023?

We recently surveyed 600 IT leaders to understand their IT spending and priorities for the year ahead. Our study revealed that despite 93% of CIOs expecting IT budgets to increase in 2023, 83% say they are under pressure to make their budgets stretch further than ever before.

In this week’s edition of The SoftwareOne Scoop, we deep dive into our findings from the CIO Pulse Report as IT leaders face a challenging landscape that will require the intelligent balancing of innovative new services with the optimization of existing technology.

Budgets Are Increasing, But So Are Expectations?

Even amid turbulence and uncertainty, IT budgets are widely expected to increase this year, with 93% of respondents reporting budget increases of some kind. Our respondents plan to invest in technology to drive innovation, accelerate digital transformation and boost security across an expanding attack surface. However, 83% believe they will have to achieve more with less.

As budgets increase, so do expectations. The underlying strategy for digital spending is to boost agility (46%), as organizations recognize the importance of being able to adapt to a rapidly changing world. Almost half of respondents (45%) are also increasing spending in hopes of improving security for a massively increased community of remote and hybrid workers, while the same percentage say they want to invest to transform the customer experience.

CIOs need to make smart investments in the year ahead to maximize the value of their spending. It’s never been more important for IT spending to pay off.

Managing and Prioritizing Legacy Technical Debt

Think of your organization's digital transformation as a car driving down a road. Technical debt and legacy IT issues are like potholes in the road that can slow you down and cause damage to your vehicle. Moving to the cloud without proper preparation is like driving at high speeds without checking for potential road hazards.

To ensure a smooth ride toward digital transformation success, you need to address these issues by modernizing your existing cloud implementations and migrating critical applications to reduce costs and technical debt. It's also important to reduce IT vendor costs, just like you would try to find the most cost-effective gas station to fill up your car. By improving your infrastructure and cloud strategy, you'll be able to navigate around these roadblocks and reach your digital transformation goals.

Understanding Risks and Optimizing Cloud Investments

While CIOs understand the importance of transforming digitally and optimizing cloud investments, these strategic motions do not come without complexities.

As transformation occurs quickly, many organizations struggle with having control over their cloud environment which can cause rushed implementations, higher workload costs, and even shadow IT. Further, 95% of respondents in our surveyed group agreed that having increased visibility and control of cloud investments will be a priority for their organization during an economic downturn.

You can stay ahead of these challenges and get a handle on rising cloud costs and performance by using FinOps practices (better known as financial operations). In fact, 80% of respondents in our survey say that they will increase their investment in FinOps this year to address the efficiency and effectiveness of cloud IT spend and 40% of respondents rated FinOps as a priority to reduce IT costs.

ITAM Virtual Summit 2023: Optimize Your IT Budgets and Drive?Innovation

IT leaders are facing pressure to make their budgets stretch further than ever before, while also investing in technology to drive innovation, accelerate digital transformation, and boost security. Enter ITAM.

Register today for our 2023 ITAM Virtual Summit for your opportunity to hear from ITAM industry experts from SoftwareOne, Flexera, ITAM Review, Apptio, FinOps Foundation, AWS, and Microsoft on the importance of identifying and managing your IT assets more effectively in order to make more informed decisions about where to allocate your budgets.

When:?April 20th, 2023

Time: 12:00 pm ET

RSVP: ITAM Virtual Summit 2023

And that’s the scoop! We’d love to hear from you. What did you like? What do you want to see more of? Leave us a comment below????so we can make sure we’re serving up the best content for you. And don't forget to subscribe????so you don’t miss our next edition!