Research

Report: IT Purchasing Decisions Shifting From Tech Refresh Cycles to Business Goals

• By Leila Meyer
• 02/03/16

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.