Latest Reports

• Best Practices for Benchmarking IT Budget Ratios

  Benchmarking is a popular way for IT organizations to justify their IT budgets and better focus their efforts toward continuous improvement. But without following certain principles, business leaders will likely question the validity of the outcome. This report, based on many years of benchmarking exercises at Computer Economics, outlines three complementary approaches to benchmarking.

  February, 2013

• Revisiting the Impact of COVID-19 on IT Organizations in 2020

  Our latest survey shows that that a K-shaped recovery of IT spending has begun. Nearly an equal number of companies have increased their IT budgets in response to the pandemic as those that decreased them, with slightly more actually increasing. This report outlines how the pandemic is affecting IT operational budgets, IT capital budgets, IT staff head counts, compensation, outsourcing, budgets for new projects, and the use of the public cloud. It also shows trends in working from home.

  October, 2020

• IT Security Staffing Catching Up with Existential Threats

  After years of remaining flat in the face of mounting security threats, IT security head count has finally risen as a percentage of the total IT staff. Until 2020, despite a growing array of threats and rising IT security budgets, IT organizations had not been increasing the size of their security teams and instead focused on technology to fight the problem. This Research Byte looks at the factors behind these trends.

  November, 2020

• The Impact of COVID-19 on IT Budgets in 2020

  The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has led to a worldwide recession, with a significant impact on IT budgets. Because our current IT spending benchmarks adjust based on levels of business activity, they can still be applied in times of economic decline. Nevertheless, many IT leaders want to understand how IT spending is being influenced by current pandemic and economic conditions. Based on our special survey, this report outlines how the pandemic is affecting IT operational budgets, IT capital budgets, IT staff head counts, compensation, outsourcing, budgets for new projects, and the use of the public cloud.

  July, 2020

• User-Satisfaction Surveys and IT Performance Metrics Adoption and Best Practices 2019

  Periodic surveys of user satisfaction are one way to measure how well an IT organization is delivering services, resolving issues, and managing perceptions. If user satisfaction is falling, it may mean that the service desk is understaffed or change requests are not being accommodated. At the same time, collecting data on service levels can be useful for tracking and monitoring performance in a service organization. But taking the next step and publishing the performance metrics for the community can be even more useful. In this report, we look at the maturity of surveying user satisfaction and publishing IT performance metrics.

  July, 2019

• Transforming Global Organizations in a Borderless World: Enabling Digital Innovation and Operational Excellence

  We are living in unprecedented times. While the digital economy was growing at a rapid pace the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) has forced us into unchartered territories almost overnight. The process of digitalization was already underway, but this crisis has accelerated that transformation and enabled virtual and digital workplaces

  October, 2020

• African Market Trends in Technology Services

  Few studies examine information technology and business process management in Africa. This report, based on research and interviews, analyses the tech sectors of 11 African countries and examines enabling factors such as information and communication technology infrastructure, government incentives and the regulatory environment. One key finding is that trade and retail, financial services, healthcare and agriculture offer the most opportunities for tech firms. This publication shares insights that will guide companies interested in offering information technology and business process outsourcing services in Africa. The report is also valuable for stakeholders, including tech hubs and start-ups, investors and government organizations.

  November, 2020

• Nobody Loves Two-Factor Authentication

  Two-factor authentication (2FA) is an IT security best practice that provides an extra layer of protection for system access, by asking a user for a second means of identification. It mitigates risk of unauthorized access and yet, despite these benefits, our annual survey of IT management best practices shows that too few companies apply two-factor authentication formally and consistently. This Research Byte explores some reasons for the lukewarm adoption of 2FA.

  February, 2020

• COVID-19: Enterprise Resilience Is Tested Like Never Before

  With the ongoing pandemic many stories emerged of resilience, responsiveness, and innovation, as many of us are forced to live in the future. People were asked to act against their nature and shift from a collaborative workplace environment to isolation at home, further blurring the lines between work and life. This led to a need to strengthen the digital muscle hinged around remote-first working, cloud acceleration, smart IT operations, and automated business operations. Infosys seems to have already laid down the digital rail tracks which helped boost revenue and profit, reflecting resilience and adaptability of its business model in this time of crisis.

  October, 2020

• Transforming the Enterprise: Driving Digital Innovation Through Hybrid Cloud

  As enterprises accelerate their digital transformation journey, Hybrid Cloud environments have become the platform for agility, innovation, high-performance computing, enterprise applications, data analytics, and automating data services.

  October, 2020

• IT Asset Management Adoption Grows, Despite Complicating Factors

  For IT organizations, the dream of having all IT assets fully documented and tracked within a formal system remains elusive. While IT organizations have been able to bring certain assets under control, as soon as one area has stabilized, the technology changes. Employee-owned devices and technologies designed to simplify IT asset management such as SaaS keep moving the goal line. This Research Byte provides a summary of our full report on IT asset management adoption and best practices.

  August, 2019

• Avasant Digital Forum: Securing The Enterprise In The Post Covid World: Next Generation Cyber Defense

  As enterprises rapidly shift to Cloud, Agile and Edge computing, their cyber security strategy has to adapt. The pandemic has further escalated the cyber-risks as organizations shifted to Work from Home and virtualized their operations. The Post-COVID enterprise security strategies must include a Cloud-centric model that spans across the extended work boundaries and a hybrid/multi-cloud environment. Securing your data against cyber threats and ransomware in this Extended Enterprise is now one of the most critical priorities.  

  December, 2020