Top Priorities

 

Of those anticipating increased solutions investment, the greatest priorities in the next six months are networking (58 percent), security (57 percent), virtualization (56 percent) and cloud computing (47 percent). Security investments quickly moved up IT decision-makers' priority lists, increasing seven percentage points since October.

Optimism over increased IT spending remained strong and steady among IT decision-makers in the health care, manufacturing and IT industries, while anticipated budget increases in the professional services industry jumped 10 percentage points since October.

Confidence among IT decision-makers in the professional services industry translated to a jump in anticipated hardware investments (14 percentage points), software investments (17 percentage points) and in IT solutions (10 percentage points) over the next six months. The retail industry continued to increase its investment optimism, with IT decision-makers anticipating three and nine percentage point increases in hardware and software purchases, respectively, since October. In addition, anticipated hardware spending in the manufacturing industry grew seven percentage points, while solutions spending in the health care industry is slated to increase six percentage points in the next six months.

The latest CDW IT Monitor indicates that three quarters (76 percent) of IT decision-makers report their organizations allow employees to use personal mobile devices for work-related tasks. Among IT decision-makers in the public and private sectors, security protocol implementation, employee adherence, cost and lack of IT resources top the list of challenges for integrating personal mobile devices into organizations.

Of the companies currently allowing the use of personal mobile devices for work-related tasks, one-third (33 percent) said they were either not confident or only somewhat confident that their protocols and security measures are effectively managing risks. While more than half of IT decision-makers surveyed are using both IT security measures and protocols, 19 percent reported that they are not managing the new risks introduced by personal mobile devices being used within their organizations.

"While it should come as no shock that organizations are increasingly allowing their employees to use their personal mobile devices for work-related tasks, many will be surprised to find that nearly one in five organizations are not managing new security risks at all," Campbell said. "Organizations that fail to address new security risks are flirting with disaster, and could face threats ranging from business continuity disruptions to data theft."