Dive Brief:
- Stay-at-home orders caught 72% of IT decision makers with a tech stack underprepared to handle a companywide pivot to remote work, according to a survey of 600 IT executives from Xerox.
- As businesses prioritize sustaining operations, tech budgets are set to increase at 56% of surveyed companies. More than half (55%) of leaders say they're prioritizing tech spending on remote technology resources. Another 40% say their budget will focus on a mix of remote and in-office resources.
- The top three areas for increased IT spending are cloud-based software, remote IT support and collaboration software, according to surveyed executives.
Dive Insight:
A return to a pre-pandemic office scenario is a long ways out, with companies already preparing for phased returns of certain workers with a heavy focus on distributed work whenever possible.
Tech industry bellwethers such as Microsoft have already pushed a full return to the office until the last quarter of the year, with similar policies rolled out at Google, Facebook and Twitter. For 82% of the workforce at surveyed organizations, a return to company headquarters is expected in 12 to 18 months, on average.
The long tail of remote work put strain on tech organizations, leaving CIOs to support the backbone of distributed operations in the wake of hiring freezes, budget cuts and layoffs
Tech outfits spun up chatbots and automated IT support processes to enable staff onboarding. The tech side of the C-suite is also expected to devote resources to supporting contact tracing and other tech tools designed to keep workers safe in a phased office comeback.
As more industry verticals slowly restart operations, one-third of finance leaders say growth will drive tech spend in the coming 12 months, according to PwC's COVID-19 Pulse Survey.
