ANZ CIOs expect 3.1% budget growth in 2022

CIOs in Australia and New Zealand are expecting the highest annual budget growth for more than a decade in 2022 due to anticipated growth in cybersecurity spending.

A survey of CIOs in the region conducted by Gartner found that respondents on average forecast a budget growth of 3.1%.

But the anticipated budget growth is below the global average of 3.8%. Meanwhile, nearly three in four (73%) ANZ CIOs expect cybersecurity to be their biggest technology investment in 2022, prompting concerns there will not be sufficient budget to address growth in demand in other areas.

After cybersecurity, the most popular planned investments for 2022 include business intelligence/data analytics (58%), integration technologies and APIs (45%), cloud platforms (44%) and digital business transformation (38%), Gartner said.

The most popular emerging digital technology investments include distributed cloud (53%), AI (35%), edge computing (33%), Secure Access Service Edge or SASE (27%) and 5G (27%).

“This continuing need to invest heavily in cybersecurity in ANZ is creating a cybersecurity ‘tax’, hindering progress in other areas by redirecting investments that could be used for future innovation — a risk-based approach is needed to make sure organisations are not spending too much,” Gartner Distinguished Research Vice President Andy Rowsell-Jones commented.

“The increase in IT budgets means CIOs and technology executives have a greater choice of where to invest. Without big deficits to remedy elsewhere, they can afford to invest in composability, especially for developers and business architects who can design in a composable manner, as well as invest in packaged business capabilities.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Monster Ztudio