Top 3 Considerations for 2016 IT Budgets

As 2015 comes to a close and businesses look ahead to 2016, now is the time to create a plan in order to successfully navigate IT budgets. Businesses realize that allocating IT budget is core to a business, as the financial, image and monetary risks are significant enough to impact the success or failure of an entire company. Budgets are among the most scrutinized initiatives in business, representing a company’s outlook and goals for an entire year ahead.

In 2016 there are three key areas to consider when allocating budgets. This is an important time to make sure your IT department is geared up for potential pitfalls that could cost even more if not properly prepared for.

Security

Due to the ever-growing number of breaches, security is one of the most costly and important issues with which an enterprise has to deal. The number of security threats continues to grow as hackers find more advanced ways to counter new security measures being taken. Installing antivirus software or setting up a firewall doesn’t adequately do the job.

The problem is most security vulnerabilities happen in places companies do not expect. Having comprehensive security measures in place is imperative when planning for 2016. That doesn’t only mean traditional security software either. There’s a growing need for software that detects things like out-of-date and past end-of-life software in order patch any loop holes that may rear their ugly heads.

What’s worse is that some CIOs know these software holes exist somewhere in the enterprise, but don’t know where, or how many instances there are. For example, Shellshock and Heart Bleed bugs tore through networks at the end of 2014 and continued to impact users that didn’t properly update their systems.                                                                                                                                                                      

As these examples point out, there are many outside-the-box security measures that should be considered right alongside the default protections. Spending more now will save a company more down the line.

BYOD

In theory, BYOD sounds like an IT budget dream come true. Employees get to use their own phones and computers without companies making the investment. In fact, Gartner predicts that half of employers globally will require employees to supply their own device for work purposes by 2017.

Despite there being many benefits to BYOD, cost is not one of them given the risks – including program and formatting inconsistencies, security holes and the potential for software audits. It will get worse before it gets better.

Letting employees use their own software can become a corporate liability if they unknowingly bring pirated software into the IT environment by using the device as a channel to connect to the corporate network. The risk is that the company could be found responsible for the theft during a potential software audit, resulting in hefty fines from vendors. When it comes to security concerns, IT departments also must take into consideration the chance that BYOD devices can be stolen, allowing an unauthorized person to access sensitive information and documents on devices that are not securely managed

BYOD is a reality that IT departments need to consider moving forward and must know how to budget for implementation in order to quell any potential pitfalls. There may be kickback initially, but companies are getting faster at managing BYOD, which is a good initiative that can increase employees’ comfort level by allowing them to use products they’re familiar with.

Data Analytics

A few years ago “big data” was all the rage in the IT world. However, it’s not going away any time soon with new buzzword technology like the “Internet of Things” increasing the collection and output of data. Companies have now shifted their focus to tools to analyze mass amounts of data. To put the current market for big data programs in perspective, a recent IDC report predicts that annual spending for big data technology and services will reach $48.6 billion in 2019.

Not everyone uses data the same way though. Some enterprises may use it to gain insight into the performance of their products in order to optimize them. Others may use it to gain actionable insight for marketing and sales purposes. This increase in data affects IT spend at almost every vertical. According to the report, the top verticals right now are discrete manufacturing, banking and process manufacturing. The fastest growing industries include securities and investment services, banking and media.

Analyzing data doesn’t just refer to “big data.” Enterprises also need at analyze data in their own IT infrastructure. Having a handle on internal IT and being able to define latent values in existing data allows organizations to have all the data they need to secure their environment properly and make better decisions. Typically, latent value is hard to extract due to its size, varied information and velocity of it. Mining through these three things to determine value is the fundamental problem.

Getting a handle on data allows IT departments to ensure quality and enrich it with additional content to increase ROI. Businesses must prioritize the task of managing data as organizations wrestle with rapidly growing volumes of information and IT assets; they must prioritize the task of managing it.

As President of BDNA, Walker White creates a better way for enterprises to extract value from their existing IT data