Pure Storage, in partnership with Wakefield Research, yesterday released a new report it said identifies the obstacles organizations across industries face in today’s digital economy while on the path to modernization, and the investment priorities they are focused on to support business growth.
Findings revealed that IT buyers’ top investments planned for the next five years are artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), which came in at 52 per cent, and sustainable technology – 51 per cent. Less than half (46 per cent) predict they will invest in infrastructure automation or orchestration.
An overwhelming 90 per cent of IT buyers stated that the pressure of their digital transformation (DX) agenda led them to purchase technology that their infrastructure could not support—and 74 per cent indicated this resulted in being unable to deploy new technology to leadership’s full expectations.
The new report, entitled 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.
The survey of 500 IT buyers at companies with 500+ employees also revealed that:
- More than three in five IT buyers (62 per cent) 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 modernize their IT infrastructure to better support future technology investments over the next five years; 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).
According to a release, “digital transformation has accelerated at lightning speed, bringing an unprecedented need for IT modernization. In the face of economic headwinds, IT teams are still focused on operationalizing and supporting new digital initiatives, but with the added pressure of tighter budgets and lower staffing levels.
“Amidst current inflation and recessionary concerns, IT teams must strike a complex balance between supporting critical IT services for their organization and setting up a foundation on which future initiatives can thrive. With thoughtful investments, organizations can keep vital systems running efficiently while accelerating their ability to keep pace with digital transformation.”
Shawn Rosemarin, vice president of R&D and customer engineering with Pure Storage, said that investments in emerging technology such as AI and ML are exciting ventures for organizations interested in gaining a competitive edge, but without a modern IT infrastructure foundation, the long-term success of these investments is at critical risk.
“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.”