Channel Health Check By Bruce Christian After two exhausting years interrupted by surges and retreats of COVID-19 and its variants, hope seems to be dominating the channel’s outlook for 2022. No one knows for certain if the waning of the Omicron variant means COVID-19 simply will enter an endemic stage, and we will treat it as we do the annual flu. But one thing is for sure, telecom, IT industry professionals and channel partners are ready to move on and to make 2022 a year of resurrection. Recent studies show IT professionals expect budgets to rise in 2022, allowing them to focus on issues that have been on hold since COVID-19 forced the mass office exodus of 2020 and a redirection of IT spending toward propping up work-fromanywhere scenarios. The Omdia IT Enterprise Insights Report showed the highest priority item on the business planning agenda among 59 percent of responding IT professionals in 2022 is to increase technology spending. Since the pandemic accelerated digital initiatives exponentially, IT budget growth plans by industry align with revenue outlook expectations. In most vertical sectors, the projected IT spending growth is higher than those expecting revenue increases. The research shows strong IT growth plans (more than 6 percent growth) are pervasive in health care (33 percent), utilities (31 percent), life sciences (31 percent), and manufacturing (28 percent). The financial markets industry also has seen a strong change in the proportion of institutions planning strong IT spending growth (8 percent in 2021 to 24 percent in 2022) as has retail (11 percent in 2021 to BUYERS SIDE IT spending, optimism on the rise among partners for 2022 By Bruce Christian 50 CHANNELV ISION | JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2022
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