Sept/Oct 19 - ChannelVision Magazine

Buyers Side “Unlike last year, when small orga- nizations mostly sat on the sidelines while midsize and large companies showed healthy operational budget growth, small companies in 2019 are leading the way with operational budget increases,” said CE researchers. As companies of all sizes continue along the path toward cloud trans- formation, IT organizations continue down a path of steady but modest growth in operational budgets, while capital budgets and hiring are essen- tially flat, according to findings from Computer Economics. But small orga- nizations are leading the way, increas- ing their operational budgets at a rate of 3.5 percent. That just ex- ceeds large organizations, which are increasing opera- tional budgets by 3.2 per- cent in 2019, and midsize companies at 3 percent. “After two years [in which] small organizations sat on the sidelines while larger companies grew their IT budgets above the rate of inflation, small companies are setting the pace this year,” said CE researchers. In recent years, Computer Econom- ics has reported that small increases in IT budgets, especially at small com- panies that tend to have fewer legacy systems, have been a harbinger of the success of the cloud in making IT more efficient and not a sign of economic un- certainty. The argument was that compa- nies could do more with less because of economic gains realized by using cloud systems. Small companies already are leaders in the use of cloud, and it ap- pears that they are now willing to supple- ment those efficiency gains by spending modestly more on IT. “The cloud transformation has a long way to go,” said David Wagner, vice president of research at Computer Economics. “Even among small compa- nies, who lead the way in cloud adop- tion, only slightly more than a third (38 percent) of companies have deployed even half of their application portfolio in the cloud. Use of cloud infrastructure is even less. Companies of all sizes are Small Organizations Lead Broad IT Spending Growth T his year, small companies in the U.S. and Canada are joining their larger counterparts and increasing their IT operational budgets at a higher rate than at any time in the cloud era, according to IT research firm Computer Economics. By Martin Vilaboy LT Sour IT Operational Spending Growth, by Organization Size Source: Computer Economics Small Midsize Large Median 6% 4% 3.5% 3.0% 3.2% 2% 0% N Primary Location of IT Environment Which of the following best describes where the majority of your organization’s current IT environment is located? Source: 451 Research Source: Computer Economics cy’s future cloud success? Small Midsize Large Median % 40% 60% 80% 100% Somewhat importa t ur firm’s approach to how you pitch your erever possible, we sell a standard, fully managed package t is the same for all or at least most clients e offer a Gold, Silver and Bronze-style graded system have an a la carte menu, where customers can pick which rvices they want and don’t want st engagements are completely bespoke 4% 3.5% 3.0% 3.2% 2% 0% Company-owned or leased datacenters Off-premises hosted/managed environments Third-party colocation datacenters Other 60% 42% 27% 46% 11% 10% 3% 3% Currently In Two Years Business d cision makers involved in thec purchase decisions Source: Spiceworks 38% 32% 28% 28% 27% 20% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% CEO/President Business Line Director Finance Procurement Business Lin Manager COO/CFO/ CMO Professional Staff L 56% 36% 44% 42% 45% 72 Channel Vision | September - October, 2019