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Over 80% of Business Leaders Feel Optimistic About the Economy, Forecast Larger IT Budgets in 2024

Matt Cloke
Endava

The past few years have presented numerous challenges for businesses: a pandemic, rising interest rates, supply chain disruptions, and geopolitical conflict that sent shockwaves across the global economy. But change may finally be on the horizon. According to a recent report by Endava surveying nearly 1,000 organizational leaders and decision makers across North America and Western Europe, a majority of executives confirmed they are feeling optimistic about the current business climate, and as a result, are forecasting larger IT budgets, increased technology funding and rollout, and prioritized innovation in the coming year.

Image removed.

The report findings point to the importance of focusing on results over hype in today's business climate, as lasting success in business demands a holistic approach, not just one revolutionary idea. And while it's essential for leaders to keep a pulse on emerging trends, it's just as critical to adapt to the ever-changing markets. With today's uncertainties and the quickly evolving technology landscape, innovation, transformation, and optimization are always on the agenda, with technology playing a pivotal role in continuous problem-solving and adaptation.

Technology acceleration is a practice that blends innovative technology with leading methods; leveraging smaller projects that focus on optimization over transformation, while emphasizing composable architectures and iterative engagements. Through this research, Endava aims to provide perspective on the trends and technologies that are contributing to the emergence of technology acceleration, and the role that technology partnerships play in the rollout of this practice.

Other key insights from Endava's Tech Acceleration report include:

A boost to IT budgets

Nearly 75% of the organizations surveyed forecast a yearly IT budget increase, opening up more resources to hire additional staff, explore new markets, and make strategic investments that enable growth and innovation.

Artificial intelligence, big data, and predictive analytics as top priorities

Artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and predictive analytics ranked as top priorities for organizations included in the study. Over 50% of organizations prioritized AI very highly and just 2% said it wasn't a priority at all. Close to 40% prioritized big data and predictive analytics very highly.

When looking at individual technologies, artificial intelligence rose up as the undisputed champion. Nearly 80% of those surveyed regarded it as either a “high” or “very high priority” technology. Currently, interest in AI is exceptionally high, with Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT dominating technology discussions globally.

5G on the rise, again

5G has been a technology that for some time has struggled to take off. Survey findings suggest that interest in 5G is growing again, particularly in Telecom and Mobility. This aligns with a growing consensus of analysts that predict 5G will be a major element of society in the years to come, acting as the backbone across smart cities, connected factories and automotive, and immersive customer experiences.

Innovation over stability

Over half of the respondents (56%) plan to invest in innovation rather than operational stability. More dollars for technology mean that companies can hire additional staff, explore new markets and make strategic investments. When making such IT investments, organizations must balance pursuing operational stability with innovation that will set them apart from their competitors.

Composable architecture

A comparison between Endava's Emerging Tech Unpacked report and this study revealed that awareness of composable architecture and its application to business may be growing. Previous data showed that many organizations lacked a strategy regarding composability and were unfamiliar with it entirely, while data from this study shows that nearly 60% of respondent organizations are prioritizing it highly.

Organizations applying tech acceleration principles often rely on composability, artificial intelligence, big data, 5G, predictive analytics, microservices, and digital ecosystems. But it's critical to remember that technology acceleration encompasses both strategic and technological elements, so organizations looking to apply a similar framework and stay ahead of the competition must adjust more than just their software and hardware to see success, they must also adjust their thinking for the long haul.

Matt Cloke is Chief Technology Officer at Endava

Hot Topics

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Ask most IT leaders about their biggest concern with AI and you'll hear the same answer: hallucinations ... Today, however, the conversation has shifted ... As organizations move beyond chatbots and experiments, they are increasingly deploying AI agents that perform multi-step tasks. These systems retrieve documents, query databases, call APIs, generate reports, write code, and make recommendations. The issue is not whether the model can reason. The issue is whether the organization can see, verify, and govern the decisions being made along the way ...

While organizations want to take control of their telemetry, building telemetry pipelines from scratch can be a very daunting, complicated task, even when leveraging open-source standards like OpenTelemetry. It requires specialized knowledge across distributed systems, data engineering, and security. This fragmented approach across systems causes higher operational costs; it puts a strain on resources and reduces efficiency as teams have to work with different interfaces and processes ...

For decades, enterprise networks were designed around a simple assumption: work happened inside the office. Applications lived in centralized data centers, employees connected through internal infrastructure, and security focused on protecting the perimeter that surrounded everything ... But the way organizations operate today bears little resemblance to that environment. Cloud platforms host critical applications, employees connect from homes and airports as often as they do from offices, and partners collaborate through shared systems that exist far beyond corporate walls. In short, the corporate network no longer resembles the environment it was designed to protect ...

As an analyst who researches how IT organizations design, build, and operate their networks, I find that network data is a constant source of pain. Network teams struggle with data quality, fragmentation, authority, access, and trust. And these issues undermine everything they try to do. Here are the numbers: Only 45% of network teams are completely confident in the accuracy of their network source of truth, which documents the intent of their network ...

The 2026 Global Data Center Survey from Uptime Institute reveals an industry navigating workforce constraints, escalating outage expenses, even as rising costs remain the top concern for management teams ...

The next observability gap may not be in the code. It may be under the rack. That sounds strange until you think about how AI incidents actually feel in the middle of an investigation ... The application dashboard may be accurate. It may also be stopping at the wrong boundary. AI systems depend on software, but they also depend on a dense physical stack: racks, power paths, thermal margin, maintenance activity and, in many environments, liquid cooling. Those physical dependencies can change slowly before they look like a software incident ...

Certificate expiration is the rare outage you can see coming. Every TLS certificate carries the date it stops working, so the moment it will begin breaking connections is knowable in advance. That's what makes an expired certificate such a frustrating way to lose a service. What's changing now is how often that date comes around ...

Enterprises operate different combinations of workloads across cloud, hybrid and multicloud environments. For business-critical workloads, teams need to consider monitoring and observability early so they can detect health issues, investigate failures, and understand operational impact. Organizations place workloads on cloud platforms based on a combination of technical requirements, economics, existing dependencies, organizational standards, and business priorities. Their monitoring priorities therefore depend on what they operate and where those systems run. Those priorities will not look the same for every organization ...

Top-performing businesses prioritize data-driven decision making, enabling leaders to move from intuition and gut feel towards evidence-based judgment. But that judgment is only sound when the data underpinning decisions is accurate. With incident management, data accuracy is particularly important. Long-term revenue, customer trust, and operational stability depend on high-quality data that enables teams to quickly identify and address the root cause of major incidents. Against this backdrop, governance becomes a critical endeavor to ensure the right data drives the right action ...

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 26, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses network compliance ... 

Over 80% of Business Leaders Feel Optimistic About the Economy, Forecast Larger IT Budgets in 2024

Matt Cloke
Endava

The past few years have presented numerous challenges for businesses: a pandemic, rising interest rates, supply chain disruptions, and geopolitical conflict that sent shockwaves across the global economy. But change may finally be on the horizon. According to a recent report by Endava surveying nearly 1,000 organizational leaders and decision makers across North America and Western Europe, a majority of executives confirmed they are feeling optimistic about the current business climate, and as a result, are forecasting larger IT budgets, increased technology funding and rollout, and prioritized innovation in the coming year.

Image removed.

The report findings point to the importance of focusing on results over hype in today's business climate, as lasting success in business demands a holistic approach, not just one revolutionary idea. And while it's essential for leaders to keep a pulse on emerging trends, it's just as critical to adapt to the ever-changing markets. With today's uncertainties and the quickly evolving technology landscape, innovation, transformation, and optimization are always on the agenda, with technology playing a pivotal role in continuous problem-solving and adaptation.

Technology acceleration is a practice that blends innovative technology with leading methods; leveraging smaller projects that focus on optimization over transformation, while emphasizing composable architectures and iterative engagements. Through this research, Endava aims to provide perspective on the trends and technologies that are contributing to the emergence of technology acceleration, and the role that technology partnerships play in the rollout of this practice.

Other key insights from Endava's Tech Acceleration report include:

A boost to IT budgets

Nearly 75% of the organizations surveyed forecast a yearly IT budget increase, opening up more resources to hire additional staff, explore new markets, and make strategic investments that enable growth and innovation.

Artificial intelligence, big data, and predictive analytics as top priorities

Artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and predictive analytics ranked as top priorities for organizations included in the study. Over 50% of organizations prioritized AI very highly and just 2% said it wasn't a priority at all. Close to 40% prioritized big data and predictive analytics very highly.

When looking at individual technologies, artificial intelligence rose up as the undisputed champion. Nearly 80% of those surveyed regarded it as either a “high” or “very high priority” technology. Currently, interest in AI is exceptionally high, with Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT dominating technology discussions globally.

5G on the rise, again

5G has been a technology that for some time has struggled to take off. Survey findings suggest that interest in 5G is growing again, particularly in Telecom and Mobility. This aligns with a growing consensus of analysts that predict 5G will be a major element of society in the years to come, acting as the backbone across smart cities, connected factories and automotive, and immersive customer experiences.

Innovation over stability

Over half of the respondents (56%) plan to invest in innovation rather than operational stability. More dollars for technology mean that companies can hire additional staff, explore new markets and make strategic investments. When making such IT investments, organizations must balance pursuing operational stability with innovation that will set them apart from their competitors.

Composable architecture

A comparison between Endava's Emerging Tech Unpacked report and this study revealed that awareness of composable architecture and its application to business may be growing. Previous data showed that many organizations lacked a strategy regarding composability and were unfamiliar with it entirely, while data from this study shows that nearly 60% of respondent organizations are prioritizing it highly.

Organizations applying tech acceleration principles often rely on composability, artificial intelligence, big data, 5G, predictive analytics, microservices, and digital ecosystems. But it's critical to remember that technology acceleration encompasses both strategic and technological elements, so organizations looking to apply a similar framework and stay ahead of the competition must adjust more than just their software and hardware to see success, they must also adjust their thinking for the long haul.

Matt Cloke is Chief Technology Officer at Endava

Hot Topics

The Latest

Ask most IT leaders about their biggest concern with AI and you'll hear the same answer: hallucinations ... Today, however, the conversation has shifted ... As organizations move beyond chatbots and experiments, they are increasingly deploying AI agents that perform multi-step tasks. These systems retrieve documents, query databases, call APIs, generate reports, write code, and make recommendations. The issue is not whether the model can reason. The issue is whether the organization can see, verify, and govern the decisions being made along the way ...

While organizations want to take control of their telemetry, building telemetry pipelines from scratch can be a very daunting, complicated task, even when leveraging open-source standards like OpenTelemetry. It requires specialized knowledge across distributed systems, data engineering, and security. This fragmented approach across systems causes higher operational costs; it puts a strain on resources and reduces efficiency as teams have to work with different interfaces and processes ...

For decades, enterprise networks were designed around a simple assumption: work happened inside the office. Applications lived in centralized data centers, employees connected through internal infrastructure, and security focused on protecting the perimeter that surrounded everything ... But the way organizations operate today bears little resemblance to that environment. Cloud platforms host critical applications, employees connect from homes and airports as often as they do from offices, and partners collaborate through shared systems that exist far beyond corporate walls. In short, the corporate network no longer resembles the environment it was designed to protect ...

As an analyst who researches how IT organizations design, build, and operate their networks, I find that network data is a constant source of pain. Network teams struggle with data quality, fragmentation, authority, access, and trust. And these issues undermine everything they try to do. Here are the numbers: Only 45% of network teams are completely confident in the accuracy of their network source of truth, which documents the intent of their network ...

The 2026 Global Data Center Survey from Uptime Institute reveals an industry navigating workforce constraints, escalating outage expenses, even as rising costs remain the top concern for management teams ...

The next observability gap may not be in the code. It may be under the rack. That sounds strange until you think about how AI incidents actually feel in the middle of an investigation ... The application dashboard may be accurate. It may also be stopping at the wrong boundary. AI systems depend on software, but they also depend on a dense physical stack: racks, power paths, thermal margin, maintenance activity and, in many environments, liquid cooling. Those physical dependencies can change slowly before they look like a software incident ...

Certificate expiration is the rare outage you can see coming. Every TLS certificate carries the date it stops working, so the moment it will begin breaking connections is knowable in advance. That's what makes an expired certificate such a frustrating way to lose a service. What's changing now is how often that date comes around ...

Enterprises operate different combinations of workloads across cloud, hybrid and multicloud environments. For business-critical workloads, teams need to consider monitoring and observability early so they can detect health issues, investigate failures, and understand operational impact. Organizations place workloads on cloud platforms based on a combination of technical requirements, economics, existing dependencies, organizational standards, and business priorities. Their monitoring priorities therefore depend on what they operate and where those systems run. Those priorities will not look the same for every organization ...

Top-performing businesses prioritize data-driven decision making, enabling leaders to move from intuition and gut feel towards evidence-based judgment. But that judgment is only sound when the data underpinning decisions is accurate. With incident management, data accuracy is particularly important. Long-term revenue, customer trust, and operational stability depend on high-quality data that enables teams to quickly identify and address the root cause of major incidents. Against this backdrop, governance becomes a critical endeavor to ensure the right data drives the right action ...

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 26, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses network compliance ...