CIO Probing Reveals Increased IT Budgets for 2017

Corporations are likely to invest more in information technology (IT) products and services this year, according to a CIO survey by asset management firm Piper Jaffray.

Nearly 75% of CIOs surveyed for the study said they had decided to increase their IT budget, says news portal ReadITQuick, which analyzed the report.

The study, which polled more than 160 CIOs across 10 industries, asked the executives which technologies they planned to increase their spending on in 2017.

Thanks to rising incidents of cybercrime, DDoS attacks, and stories such as Russia’s involvement in the U.S. presidential elections, securing data has become more of a priority for many corporate firms.

According to the report, 80% of respondents talked about investing in security-related technology. That means securing data appears to be their major aim rather cutting cost.

Around 68% of CIOs said they would invest more money in software and cloud services, adding that they were planning to streamline their business operations further with the help of the technology.

Demand for cloud service has been on the rise for the past three years, but this year is likely to keep cloud vendors more busy than last year.

Servers are also likely to attract a lot of investment this year. In the survey, 36% of respondents said they were planning to increase investment in servers, while 48% said they would keep up spending on servers.

It’s clear that advances in digital technology and business models are putting pressure on CIOs to refurbish their IT environments. According to Gartner’s recent CIO Agenda survey of 2,944 CIOs in 84 countries, CIOs are expecting their companies’ digital revenues to grow from 16% to 37% in the next five years.