Priorities for CIOs are shifting across industries as business and companies continue to grapple with coronavirus pandemic-related budget cuts, lockdowns and reopenings, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Five things to know:
1. Global IT spending is anticipated to decline this year by 7.3 percent to $3.5 trillion, according to IT market research firm Gartner.
2. Smaller budgets will cause many CIOs to invest in cloud services and subscription software to lower upfront costs, "but the improvements in IT spending, as CIOs strive to become more digital than planned, come at the expense of many other spending lines,” Gartner's research vice president John-David Lovelock told the Journal.
3. Enterprise IT providers such as Microsoft and IBM said that corporate customers are delaying major tech projects and instead accelerating projects focused on installing collaboration and business continuity software that supports remote employees.
4. Vast Bank, a Tulsa, Okla.-based lender, told the Journal that because of the pandemic, it had to put several IT projects on hold to redirect funds into digital signature and document capabilities.
5. Instead of upgrading help desk software and developing self-service password resets, Vast Bank prioritized implementing Microsoft Teams to enable remote working for staff and built new apps to serve customers while reducing the number of employees at bank' branches.