Enterprise Strategy Group’s annual technology spending intentions report for 2022 surveyed 706 senior IT decision-makers at midmarket (i.e., 100 to 999 employees) and enterprise (i.e., 1,000 or more employees) organizations across North America, Western Europe and Asia Pacific. From an overall perspective, the good news is that 62% of organizations plan to increase overall IT spending. As part of that research, respondents with purchasing influence or authority for networking products and services were asked about their organization’s spending plans in this area over the next 12 months. The data indicates that 52% are expected to maintain the prior year’s budget levels and 43% will increase spending. Only 5% will shrink their networking budget.
Given that modern IT environments are highly distributed and complex, ESG also asked respondents to identify the areas where their organization would make the most significant investments in its network infrastructure over the next 12 to 18 months.
More than one-third (38%) of organizations will provide additional training to their networking staff on modern IT operations best practices; 36% will deploy cloud-based network management solutions; and 35% will deploy AI/ML for network self-healing and optimization capabilities. The responses largely confirm the demand for technologies highlighted in a 2021 ESG research report on network modernization.
As organizations modernize their IT and application environments, they recognize that doing so requires training network staff to ensure the network can support these new IT operations and best practices. The faster growth of closely related IT priorities — many driven by post-COVID-19 hybrid work environments — including cybersecurity and distributing applications to the cloud or edge, suggests that network infrastructure will continue to play a vital role in enabling these environments.
