Report: IT Purchasing Decisions Shifting From Tech Refresh Cycles to Business Goals
When
it comes to IT purchasing decisions, three- to five-year technology
refresh cycles have been losing steam over the past year or two.
Instead, IT decision-makers have shifted their attention to ways
technology can help organizations meet business goals, according to a
new survey from IDG Research Services and Datalink.
IDG
conducted the survey on behalf of Datalink to find out where
organizations are investing their IT budgets and how business goals are
affecting those decisions. The survey asked executives and senior
managers at large organizations how IT investments are affecting
business outcomes, how IT can benefit those outcomes, and what
challenges organizations are facing in terms of deploying and
maintaining technology.
Key findings from the survey:
- 70 percent of respondents think it's critical to link IT investments to key business outcomes;
- 70 percent think improving IT security is one of the top 5 business outcomes driving investment decisions;
- 56
percent think streamlining operational processes is the most important
action needed to improve IT's effect on business outcomes; and
- 53
percent think think their IT organizations need to do a better job of
communicating or demonstrating the effect of IT investments on business
outcomes.
"IT organizations are increasingly focused on
helping their companies derive more business value from IT," said Paul
Lidsky, president and CEO of Datalink, in a news release. "As a result,
over the past year, we have been seeing more clients move away from
three- to five-year technology refresh cycles and instead base their IT
purchases on how they can best use technology to advance the
organization's business goals. This survey shows that the same thing is
happening for the market at large."
Datalink commissioned IDG
Research Services to conduct the survey, which polled more than 100 IT
executives and senior level managers from large organizations
throughout the United States.
The full survey results can be found on Datalink's site.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].