Well, folks, turns out that despite the economic uncertainty, companies are not looking to reduce their budgets in the technology space.
Well, folks, turns out that despite the economic uncertainty, companies are not looking to reduce their budgets in the technology space. In fact, according to the TechTarget/Computer Weekly IT Priorities 2023 survey of 156 technology decision-makers from the UK and Ireland, 41% of IT decision-makers expect to increase their IT spending this year.
Cloud computing is a hot topic, with 50% of respondents reporting a cloud-first IT strategy. It's great to see IT leaders adopting cloud best practices to improve the efficiency of IT operations and the speed with which new digitally enabled business functionality can be developed. DevOps takes the cake for the top priority for application development plans this year, followed by business process automation and application programming interface (API) management.
It warms my tech-savvy hearts to see that organisations are focusing on increasing efficiency through automation, with APIs continuing to be top of mind as organisations strive to create a modern infrastructure to support their applications. The survey also shows that 82% of those involved in application integration initiatives are planning investments in this area.
Since 2022, we've seen an increase in continuous/automated testing, agile project management software, continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD), and DevSecOps and serverless architectures. It's not all about the fancy jargon though, low-code/no-code tooling is gaining traction. A lot of IT leaders are using it to enable developers and citizen developers to create new functionality to support business requirements faster. According to Gartner, by 2024, 80% of technology products and services will be built by people who are not full-time technical professionals. That sounds like one heck of a shift to me.
CIOs are being urged to reassess how and where they allocate resources to support digital business initiatives. The concept of “bring-your-own” application and data analytics is something that can be applied in organisations where IT teams cannot keep up with the level of software development work required by the business. Employees take on the responsibility of creating applications and analytics needed to do their work, while professional developers develop the IT integration and governance required to support this environment.
Rolls-Royce is one of the companies that are leading the charge in this area. They are using Power Apps from Microsoft to enable everyone in the business to deliver applications, even those who are not part of the IT team. The IT team challenged everyone to save £10,000 each without requiring professional IT people. Working with Microsoft, Rolls-Royce has used Power Apps to enable people to build digital tools and apps for themselves. This is true digital transformation that frees up IT professionals to focus on IT integration and governance required to support this speedy environment.
In conclusion, the TechTarget/Computer Weekly IT Priorities 2023 survey shows that organisations are increasing their IT spending and adopting cloud best practices and automation to improve efficiency. DevOps is the top priority for application development plans in 2023, followed by business process automation and API management. Low-code/no-code tooling is gaining traction, and CIOs are being urged to reassess how and where they allocate resources to support digital business initiatives. It's all about embracing the change!