Entry Details

About the Entry

Category: 
All Content > Original Research Article > New England

Title of entry: 
Technology spending steadies with 2024 IT budgets flat or up

Issue or Publication date:
3/25/2024

Publication name: 
SearchCIO

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https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/

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https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/Technology-spending-steadies-with-IT-budgets-flat-or-up

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Entry Essay: 
This article, based on TechTarget's "2024 Technology Spending Intentions Survey," provides a detailed snapshot of the global IT spending climate at a time of tight budgets and economic uncertainty.
TechTarget industry editor John Moore analyzed the data from the survey of 938 technology and business decision-makers worldwide to identify critical spending trends for the SearchCIO website's readership of IT leaders. The spending intentions survey, which was published by TechTarget's Enterprise Strategy Group research division, considered respondents' budget expectations and spending plans overall and across core IT initiatives, including AI, cloud, cybersecurity and data management.
The resulting article focuses on a handful of key research takeaways. Those include:
• Stabilization in IT spending. The survey found that 96% of respondents expected to keep their 2024 technology budgets even with 2023 levels or increase spending compared with the previous year. Significantly, only 5% of the IT leaders polled expected budgets to drop, a sharp decline from the 12% that anticipated lower spending in the 2023 version of the annual survey. The results suggested a stabilization in IT spending, an important economic insight for readers.
• The rapid rise of generative AI. TechTarget's 2024 survey underscored the sudden rise of generative AI as an important factor in enterprise technology spending. Generative AI tied at No. 5 in the ranking of technologies respondents viewed as increasing in organizational importance, making its first appearance in the annual survey. The result signals to readers that their peers -- and potential competitors -- are moving GenAI up the list of IT priorities.

• The enduring importance of cybersecurity. The survey showed cybersecurity both heading the list of investment drivers and being the technology area most likely to receive a spending increase in 2024. The data underlines a continuing enterprise commitment to cybersecurity despite, and to some degree due to, the arrival of generative AI.
The article, while data-driven, includes input from four Enterprise Strategy Group analysts and several IT and business leaders to push beyond the numbers and illustrate the top spending trends. For example, an interview with the CEO of BriteCo, a jewelry insurance company, brings to life the data on budget trends and generative AI investments. The executive projected a 25% year-over-year technology budget increase in 2024, citing the goal of harnessing technology to boost customer experience. With that in mind, the company built a customer service chatbot based on ChatGPT.
In addition to analyzing the survey data and reporting and writing the article, Moore worked with TechTarget Editorial's graphic designer to create five charts that help readers visualize the key data. The charts cover IT budget plans, major technology initiatives, AI spending intentions, cloud deployment strategies and data governance trends.
Together, the survey data, C-level commentary and supporting graphics provide a comprehensive and easy-to-consume overview of salient IT pocketbook trends.