Companies globally spent the equivalent of around US$15bn extra a week on technology to enable safe and secure home working during COVID-19, reveals the 2020 Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey. This was one of the biggest surges in technology investment in history – with the world’s IT leaders spending more than their annual budget rise in just three months, as the global crisis hit, and lockdowns began to be enforced.

“This unexpected and unplanned surge in technology investment has also been accompanied by massive changes in how organisations operate – with more organisational change in the last six months than we have seen in the last ten years,” Bev White, CEO, Harvey Nash Group said. 

“Success will largely be about how organisations deal with their culture and engage with their people. In a world where location has dissolved, where the office now includes the kitchen table, and where over 80% of IT leaders are concerned about the mental health of their teams, organisations will need to reformulate their employee offer to attract and retain the talent they need to support them through the pandemic, and beyond.”

The largest technology leadership survey in the world of over 4,200 IT leaders (265 based in Australia), analysing responses from organisations with a combined technology spend of over US$250bn, also found that despite this huge surge of spending, and security & privacy being the top investment during COVID-19, 4 in 10 Australian IT leaders report that their company has experienced more cyber attacks. Nearly nine in ten (89%) reported an increase in phishing attacks, and over two thirds (77%) of these from malware (suggesting that the massive move to home working has increased exposure from employees.

“It may seem obvious that the threat to an organisation’s cyber security would increase with so many employees working remotely, but for 4 in 10 that threat has become very real,” Bruce Goldsmith, Managing Director, Harvey Nash Australia said. 

“This is exacerbated by the fact that the same number of organisations are also suffering from a shortage of skills in cyber.  Hopefully with the increase in investment in cyber and privacy these organisations can protect themselves going forward, particularly as many employees won’t be going back to the office full-time.”

Australian organisations have struggled to find skilled cyber security professionals to support this dramatic shift to homeworking – with 42% of Australian CIOs reporting that cyber security is now the most ‘in demand’ technology skill. This is the first time a security related skill has topped the list of global technology skills shortages for over a decade. 
 
Although technology spend has risen dramatically during the pandemic, the survey found that technology budgets will be under more strain over the year ahead. Prior to COVID-19, over half (55%) of Australian IT leaders expected a budget rise in the next 12 months, but during the pandemic this number declined to 38%. This still represents a net increase in budgets.

Other key findings from the world’s largest technology survey include:

• Digital companies pull away – Digital leaders were more likely than non-digital leaders to make additional technology investments as a result of COVID-19 – with 50% more organisations that are ‘very’ or ‘extremely effective’ at using digital technologies spending an additional 21-50% globally -  notably  in Australia this figure is three times more. These investments focused on large-scale implementations of Distributed Cloud (42% - 30% in Australia) and SaaS (34% - 32% in Australia). The crisis has served to emphasise a growing divide between organisations driving their strategy through technology, and those that aren’t.
• Concerns over mental health - 9 in 10 Australian IT leaders during COVID-19 are concerned about the mental health of their team which has resulted in 8 in 10 IT leaders (78%) putting programs in place to support their staff.
• Cloud investment up – After investment in security and privacy (58%), investment in infrastructure and the cloud was the third (fifth in Australia) most important technology investment during COVID-19, with the number of IT leaders actively considering Distributed Cloud nearly doubling in just 12 months (from 11% to 21%).  This has tripled in Australia from 7% in 2019 to 22% during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Skills shortages – Prior to COVID-19, 2020 skills shortages remained close to an all-time high. Subsequently, shortages in tech talent have remained high. In addition to cyber security skills (42%), the next three most scarce technology skills are organisational change management (24%), advanced analytics (24%) enterprise architecture (22%) and IT strategy (17%).

Guy Holland, Partner-in-Charge, KPMG Digital Delta in Australia said “Technology has never been more important to Australia organisations’ ability to survive and thrive in the new reality IT has proven its role as a critical enabler throughout the pandemic as organisations have rapidly transitioned to hybrid working. As the new reality continues to be shaped by economic recovery patterns unique to each sector and location, digital transformation will become a key driver of recovery and growth. One thing remains consistent; the urgency to act swiftly and decisively.”

For more information about the survey and to request a full copy of the results, click here.

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