The unanimous move to remote and hybrid work has added impetus to the collective digital transformation journey. IT spend is on the rise as more organizations are trying to invest in data analytics, cloud migration, real-time access and, in general, a more enriching user experience. Erik Bradley, Chief Strategist at ETR, shares survey results from the latest ETR research and insights on evolving tech priorities and what IT buyers are looking for this year.
On a macro basis, this data visualization from our 2022 Macro Survey depicts the areas of technology that our IT community is prioritizing. As you can see here, Security remains the highest priority.
Based on ETR data, we see strong indications to increase overall budgets in 2022, driven by a recognition that remote and hybrid work is here to stay, and investments need to be made to support that permanency. In addition, continued digital transformation, cloud migration, and real-time streaming data analytics demand net-new investment. Lastly, the backdrop of IT skills shortages and a tight labor market, in general, are also fueling the need for more automation to stabilize business practices, as well as increase margins across all industries. Based on our data and community feedback, a confluence of factors is driving robust IT budgets for 2022. Given the backdrop of healthy spending, we will drill down one step further to identify a handful of select technology vendors where Increased spending and Adoptions are strongest.Â
Data and Analytics
The premier vendor for data and analytics throughout the survey remains SnowflakeOpens a new window . While not a dark horse pick, the elevated data suggests that the $90 billion market cap juggernaut has no intentions of slowing down. The company’s underlying value of being cloud-agnostic, the portability between hybrid and multi-cloud environments, and the pricing benefits of the vendor’s ability to separate storage from compute resonates just as strongly with IT decision-makers heading into 2022 as it did in past years. More than 80% of all respondents in ETR’s most recent survey indicated a positive spending intention (Adoption or Increase spend) for Snowflake, which retained the highest Net Score in the entire survey universe with substantial growth in citation Pervasion and almost non-existent negative spend indications. Â
As the Head of IT for a large financial services enterprise recently said, “Snowflake is the one vendor that everyone in our company knows. It is an indication of the value we derive out of Snowflake that it’s become that visible. The learning curve was very quick, and it ties well into a migration to cloud infrastructure. Snowflake has quickly become a common denominator.â€
Sticking to the Data Analytics space, we turn our attention to DatabricksOpens a new window , a data-science-based analytics vendor with expectations of an upcoming IPO that seems to be setting itself up for a crash course to compete with Snowflake. In our most recent survey, Databricks enjoyed a 29% growth in Net Score (i.e., spending intentions) among all respondents over the past four surveys. Its total Net Score of 67%, is among the highest of all vendors in the TSIS universe. Survey Pervasion (citation growth in our survey) also grew 20% over the past four surveys among all respondents, indicating substantial customer growth among our community of IT decision-makers. The community feedback for Databricks is overwhelmingly positive, with this director of IT infrastructure for a large technology enterprise stating, “If you’re looking at extending your warehouse and your analytics programs to include AI and ML for prescriptive analytics, Databricks is the complete shop. They have the foundation, the tools, and the ecosystem.â€
See More: IT Spending Expected To Rebound Amid Renewed Focus on Modernization Projects
Infrastructure Software
HashiCorpOpens a new window is another name that jumps off the ETR data screen with the highest Net Score and second-highest Adoption percentage in the entire sector among vendors with more than 50 citations. Amidst the backdrop of a recent IPO that has faltered, HashiCorp’s most recent data remains elevated and climbing steadily. In aggregate, HashiCorp respondents indicate expansion rates (Adopt + Increase) of 60% versus contraction (Decrease + Replace) of only 4%. Meanwhile, Pervasion (citation growth in our survey) climbed by 36% y/y.Â
In addition, the customer feedback from our IT community suggests that HashiCorp has a very bright future ahead, as illustrated by this comment from the director of build and release engineering for a large technology enterprise: “HashiCorp is doing a really good job of hitting the high points in all of the areas that people are looking at across the full stack of DevOps tools. HashiCorp is starting to go to market in a way that Atlassian did in the early days, where they get these products out there and get the developers to fall in love with them, and then when they become mission-critical for the organization, then there will be a market for them to capitalize on.†Another CTO of a global travel enterprise recently added, “I can only speak great things about HashiCorp’s Terraform. In terms of infrastructure automation and continuous deployment, it’s at the heart of our native cloud environment in terms of automation.â€
Storage, Backup and Recovery
Lastly, we land on the storage, backup, and recovery space, where the undisputed leader of ETR’s data is RubrikOpens a new window . Another private company with IPO anticipation surrounding it, Rubrik has seen a resurgence in Adoption rates, increasing Net Score, and very healthy Pervasion growth in our most recent data. Rubrik leads all peers in Adoption within the Storage sector and is third in ETR’s (much broader) Big Data sector. While the data paints the picture of the vendor’s strong positioning and future prospects, it is ETR’s IT Community that adds valuable context, with this director of IT from a large financial services industry organization explaining: “Rubik is really well known for its disaster recovery capabilities. I feel as more companies go to the cloud, or even extend their data center, you need the ability to recover because there’s more pressure to have the site be available. With a lot of the databases and applications, you need to have them available in near real-time so you can bring them back. That’s where Rubrik provides its dominant, capabilities so you can recover really quickly with Rubrik in your infrastructure.â€
We also hear positive feedback on the company’s positioning from a security perspective. This CISO for a large hospitality enterprise describes: “Rubrik has done a really good job considering the security aspects of their solution, not just the availability, but the confidentiality and integrity. Ransomware attacks have continued to plague the industry, and the bad actors always target your backups. Rubrik is also successful because it resonates with security teams, as you look at how to protect the data not just from natural disasters, but also from adversaries.â€
Buying Right
Like a proud parent, ETR does not have a favorite child, so this exercise to highlight a small sample of the hundreds of enterprise technology vendors that we research proved difficult; however, in the end, I believe this sampling of companies is poised to continue their adoption and growth due to solid value propositions, robust efficacy and powerful marketing resonance with the enterprise IT community.
What trends in IT spend can you predict for the months to come? Let us know on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We love it when you share with us!