Singapore IT leaders are the most optimistic globally about budget growth, new research from Colt Technology Services shows.
Some 70% of Singapore’s IT leaders expect a robust increase of more than 10% as businesses invest in their technology infrastructure to deliver on their growth plans.
Hong Kong ranked second in the stats with 49% expecting similar levels of growth, outpacing peers in the US, UK and Europe.
Improving security (Hong Kong: 47%, Singapore 44%) and adding AI and Machine Learning capabilities (Hong Kong: 42%, Singapore 32%) topped the list of priorities for investment in the coming 12 months.
Other trends and behaviours uncovered by the research include:
• Businesses are exploring emerging tech – One in three businesses in Hong Kong and Singapore rated implementing emerging tech as a priority – with 25% using IT to explore new revenue streams
• Building in flexibility is critical – 28% of businesses in both financial hubs named improving network flexibility as a priority, compared to the global average of 23%. However, businesses in Singapore (13%) were much less focused on enabling a remote workforce compared to Hong Kong (24%) and globally (20%)
• They continue to roll out the ‘building blocks’ of Digital Transformation – 26% of Hong Kong continued to name cloud migration as a top priority, compared to 19% in Singapore. One in five (20%) businesses in Hong Kong and Singapore also identified investing in collaboration applications as a priority
