Dive Brief:
- The majority of companies, 87%, are expecting budgets to remain the same or increase in the coming year, as 84% expect revenue to stay the same or increase in the same period, according to a SpiceWorks study of more than 700 buyers in North America and Europe
- Revenue and budget increases come alongside positive staff additions for 2018. Almost half of companies expect IT staff to stay the same while 45% expect it to increase. Larger companies expect more IT hiring: 60% of companies with more than 500 workers and 70% of companies with more than 5,000 employees plan to increase IT staff.
- Increased budgets will allow companies to spend more on priority areas such as hardware, software, hosted and cloud-based services and managed services, according to the report. Hardware and software are the biggest share of 2018 budgets, with 31% and 26%, respectively.
Dive Insight:
The shift to the service and digital economy has transitioned a new class of workers to become the foundation of the modern economy. Developers alone are expected to collectively boost GDP by $3 trillion in the next decade by acting as "force-multipliers."
An increase in resources and talent means more on the plate for tech leadership. Without executive buy-in, digital transformation and efficient workflow can fall to the side, counteracting the big investments a company is making.
While positions like machine learning engineers are rising in popularity with younger generations, less "sexy" positions in areas such as hardware are equally important. With cloud-based everything becoming the new norm, hiring has to fall in line with the intelligent and digital roadmap.
