Ninety per cent of IT buyers say pressure of digital transformation has led them to buy technology their IT infrastructure could not support.
That’s according to a new report by Pure Storage and Wakefield Research that identifies the obstacles organisations across industries face in the digital economy while on the path to modernisation and the investment priorities they are focused on to support business growth.
The report, ‘IT Leader Insights: The State of IT Modernization Priorities and Challenges Amid Economic Headwinds’, reveals the need to evolve from legacy infrastructure in order to reap the full benefits of emerging technologies investments.
IT buyers have cited that their top investments planned for the next five years are AI/machine learning (52 per cent) and sustainable technology (51 per cent). While less than half predict they’ll invest in infrastructure automation or orchestration.
An overwhelming 90 per cent of IT buyers stated that the pressure of their digital transformation agenda led them to buy technology their infrastructure could not support—and 74 per cent say this resulted in being unable to deploy new technology to leadership’s full expectations.
More than 62 per cent of IT buyers feel pressured all the time or often to make decisions on purchasing technology based on current needs without fully exploring the consequences of these decisions in the longer term. Seventy-six percent expect increased scrutiny on purchasing decisions over the next five years.
Nearly all survey respondents (99 per cent) plan to modernise their IT infrastructure to better support future technology investments over the next five years, of which 73 per cent are planning significant upgrades. The top areas of IT infrastructure in need of updates to better support adopting new technology include network and security (58 per cent), data management or storage (52 per cent) and data centre facilities (50 per cent).
Digital transformation has accelerated at lightning speed, bringing an unprecedented need for IT modernisation. In the face of economic headwinds, IT teams are still focused on operationalising and supporting new digital initiatives, but with the added pressure of tighter budgets and lower staffing levels.
Amidst current inflation and recession concerns, IT teams must strike a complex balance between supporting critical IT services for their organisation and setting up a foundation on which future initiatives can thrive. With thoughtful investments, organisations can keep vital systems running efficiently while accelerating their ability to keep pace with digital transformation.
“Investments in emerging technology such as AI and Machine Learning are exciting ventures for organisations interested in gaining a competitive edge, but without a modern IT infrastructure foundation the long-term success of these investments is at critical risk,” Shawn Rosemarin, vice president, R&D and customer engineering, Pure Storage, said.
“The findings in our report show how agile IT leadership will need to continue to challenge legacy infrastructure solutions in order to simplify their core structure, in turn driving significant efficiency and flexibility to fuel their future.”
