Question

Current IT Trends: SIM Report of 2018

This article presents the major findings from the Society for Information Management’s (SIM) 2018 IT Trends Study. IT spending as a percentage of revenue is up sharply to 6.08% over last year’s 5.04% and the ten-year average of 4.55%. Correspondingly, 74.0% of organizations report increases in their IT budgets compared to 71.0% last year. Most of this spending is on people: 49.1 % is spent on Employees, Contractors, and Consultants; 39.3 % on Hardware, Software, and Facilities; and 11.6 % on Cloud Computing and Other. Hiring is increasing, with 61.3% of organizations increasing their hiring this year and 70.0% predicting increased hiring in 2018. Also, 94.8 % of the organizations report granting IT salary raises this year. In the areas of overlapping budget categories, “Keeping the IT Lights On” is the largest, followed by Software Development & Maintenance, IT Capital Investment, Outsourcing, Cybersecurity, and Business Analytics. In terms of new IT capital investments, organizations are investing in Business Analytics, followed by Security, Cloud, Application Development, and ERPs. Despite the spending, however, it appears that more organizations could and should be doing more about cybersecurity.

Question for Discussion:

Based on the attached SIM IT Concerns Survey discuss the following:

1. Which of the top 10 concerns would you rate as the top 3 and why?

2.What are the reasons for the new concerns added in the latest survey? Do you agree and why?

3.Which of the 10 Most Worrisome would you rate as top 3 and why?

4. Based on your reading of the findings of the SIM IT Trends Report and your own understanding of the field how would you as a CIO prepare for and respond to these issues and trends?

Submit a 2-page write up on the above.

Answer 1

Budget Allocations for IT

To all the more likely comprehend where IT dollars are being spent, respondents were solicited to give the rate from IT spending allotted to eight totally unrelated spending classes . Spending on Hardware, Software, and Contractors bounced back somewhat in 2017 while Facilities and Cloud Computing spending fell. This is intriguing given that last year, respondents anticipated a diminishing in all classes aside from Cloud. The absence of an expansion in Cloud spending could be an indication of a deferred selection, particularly since the expense per seat of cloud administrations expanded. Looking to 2018, associations hope to see impressive drops in spending over all classes with the exception of Cloud, like what was watched a year ago.

Despite the fact that IT spending plans have ascended since 2013, there has been a significant diminish in the percent of those financial plans spent on Hardware, Software, and Facilities. In the meantime, its percent spending plans spent on Employees proceeded with its continuous decrease while Cloud shows a little, though rough, ascent in the course of recent years.

From 2015 to 2016, increments were seen in Programming Development and Maintenance, Outsourcing, and Cyber security; however each of these classes encounters recognizable declines from 2016 to 2017. It is essential to note, in any case, that with by and large IT spending plans on the ascent a decline in the level of IT spending plans designated to a given classification does not really infer that associations are spending less cash in these regions and could mean the dollar sum spent continued as before or even expanded. IT Capital Expenditures is the main classification showing an expansion in 2017 more than 2016; despite the fact that, in light of the almost 40% drop in 2016 over the earlier year, the anticipated decline one year from now, and the anticipated development of cloud spending, this may not be characteristic of an upward pattern in IT capital speculations.

IT Salary Trends and Workforce

IT pioneers additionally showed the level of IT representatives anticipated that would resign inside the following five years. Most of the associations assessed that 6.92% of their IT representatives would leave inside this day and age. This speaks to a 20.52% expansion over the gauge announced in 2016 (5.5%). The quantity of organizations that gauge over 10% of their IT work force will resign in the following five years has expanded considerably since 2016.

IT staffing issues like maintenance and advancement have reliably showed up in the best ten arrangements of things that ought to get greater venture and those that IT pioneers find generally actually troubling. This year, partaking associations showed they spent a normal of 3.86% of their IT spending plans on preparing, which is by and large accepted to be a positive for pulling in and holding IT experts. Around 45% of these uses were coordinated at Managerial and Leadership Development and Training, with the staying 55% assigned for Technical Development and Training.

Cybersecurity Practices

The normal IT spending plan as a level of income is 5.8% for those that don't have CISOs contrasted with 6.7% that do have CISOs. While not all cyber security spending is assigned to the IT spending plan, it appears that those associations with formal authority over cyber security direction somewhat higher IT spending plans.

Since cyber security issues can affect almost all parts of associations, respondents were asked whether cyber security was considered when playing out certain business procedures and administration exercises. Most associations revealing, it is urging to see that the rate for about all regions expanded since a year ago proposing that associations are progressively incorporating cyber security worries into business forms also, basic leadership.

More associations are obtaining digital protection inclusion and requiring their workers to experience cyber security preparing. 56% of all associations as of now have digital protection (up from 47.5% out of 2016). 68.3% of associations require all workers to experience cyber security preparing (up from 60.7% a year ago). In any case, while considering digital protection inclusion, associations without CISOs dwarf those with CISOs. Maybe associations are adjusting for not having a formal cyber security work by exchanging some hazard to an outside protection bearer.