Increase in company IT budget

Increase in company IT budget

Three quarters (76%) of the European companies will increase their IT budgets this year: a Toshiba study unveils that this growth is directly linked to the increase of remote workers. The more remote workers a company has and the more the investments in new technologies increase.

The research, conducted in partnership with Walnut Unlimited, involved over 1,000 senior IT managers of medium and large companies in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Benelux. The investment priorities are focused on data security (62%), cloud-based solutions (58%) and productivity improvement (62%). This shows that, compared to a similar research conducted by Toshiba in 2016, data security has gone up in importance (54% in 2016), as has investment in cloud-based solutions, with 58% of companies considering it a priority, compared to the 52% registered in 2016.

The increase in flexible work is what pushes these 3 main investment priorities (data security, cloud-based solutions and better productivity). 68% of the interviewees said that at least one tenth of their employees work remotely, mainly during travel or, in any case, with no fixed location.

To help ensure productivity, regardless of where employees are located, the companies’ decision makers have been implementing definite changes to their IT solutions. Today, 61% of those interviewed provide their off-site teams with notebooks and 55% provide them with smartphones; however, over the next 3 years, smartphones and notebooks will both fall to around 38%, while interest in more innovative technologies, such as mobile edge computing devices (10%) and thin/zero client solutions (9%), is growing.

Large companies (with over 500 employees) are destined to pave the way for the integration of wearable devices in the workplace: 24% expect smart glasses to be used by workers over the next twelve months; only 16% of those working in companies with a number of employees between 100-499 gave the same answer. 82% expect smart glasses to be used within their companies over the next three years.

The drivers behind the use of corporate smart glasses also include the imminent arrival of the 5G standard, as indicated by 40% of those interviewed. In addition, 59% of those working in the manufacturing sector said that hands-free functionality is a key advantage that will incentivize the use of glasses among employees