Complexity Expected to Grow in 2015 as IT Budgets Rise While IT Departments Feel a Hiring Squeeze
AUSTIN, TX–(Marketwired – Jul 23, 2014) – Spiceworks, the professional network for IT, today announced the results of its “2014 State of IT” report, a survey examining the technology budget and adoption trends of IT professionals in North America and EMEA. According to the survey, which included responses from IT professionals representing a range of company sizes in Spiceworks, organizations on average will spend $253,000 on IT products and services this year. Additionally, 42 percent of IT professionals expect an increase in IT budgets in 2015. However, despite higher budgets and a growing number of technologies entering the workplace, 60 percent of IT professionals said they don’t expect their organization to hire additional IT staff next year.
“Technology trends like cloud and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) are increasingly impacting the workplace, making it necessary for IT professionals to manage more complex environments so employees can remain productive,” said Kathryn Pribish, Voice of IT program manager at Spiceworks. “We’re finding that while companies are investing in technology solutions, they’re not committing to an equal investment in hiring the IT professionals who make sure technologies function properly and help employees get their jobs done.”
Cloud-based applications and infrastructure, virtualization and the influx of mobile technologies in the workplace have dramatically impacted the ways IT professionals do their jobs. While these technologies continue to help IT professionals address the needs of employees, they’ve also created additional complexity and require IT departments to address a number of new challenges including security, employee mobility and the tradeoffs between hosted and on-premise technologies. Additional survey highlights include:
Cloud services are here to stay, especially within smaller companies
Virtualization is a mainstream technology, but smaller organizations choose a cloud-based approach.
Companies implement BYOD policies to address the needs of mobile employees
Methodology
The survey was conducted in May 2014 and included 1,121 respondents from North America and EMEA. Respondents are among the more than 5 million IT professionals in Spiceworks and represent a variety of company sizes including small-to-medium-sized businesses as well as enterprises. Respondents come from a variety of industries including manufacturing, healthcare, non-profits, education, government, and finance. For more information and a complete list of survey results, visit www.spiceworks.com/marketing/state-of-it/report/.
About Spiceworks Voice of IT
The Spiceworks Voice of IT market insights program publishes statistics, trends and opinions collected from IT professionals worldwide. More than 640,000 IT professionals in over 100 countries have joined the program to share information and feedback on the technology issues that are important to them.
About Spiceworks
Spiceworks is the professional network more than 5 million IT professionals use to connect with one another and over 3,000 technology brands. The company simplifies how IT professionals discover, buy and manage more than $575 billion in technology products and services each year. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Spiceworks is backed by Adams Street Partners, Austin Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), Goldman Sachs, Shasta Ventures and Tenaya Capital. For more information visit http://www.spiceworks.com.