Dan Zarrella said “Marketing without data is like driving with your eyes closed.” Data comes in many forms, but one area that we love to explore and share is technology adoption. In 2018, more than 5,000 technology and security decision-makers shared how their organizations are embracing technology by participating in our new, first-year studies such as Digital Business, and our more legacy research like State of the CIO. To help tech marketers like yourself prep for 2019, we wanted to share some highlights that really caught our eye.

  • The Digital CIO: 88% of CIOs said that their role was becoming more digital and innovation focused in the 2018 State of the CIO As digital transformation continues to resonate throughout organizations, we expected this number to increase in the 2019 study, and we were proven correct. The just released 2019 data shows that 91% of CIOs agree this year.
  • Digital Business Top of Mind: In the first annual Digital Business study, we found that 89% of organizations have adopted or have plans to adopt a “digital-first” business strategy. Top objectives for a digital business strategy are to improve process efficiency through automation, create better customer experiences, and improve employee productivity. We are very excited to see how this data trends in the 2019 study – more to come on that in the next few months.
  • Edge Computing: Edge computing is redefining the network landscape, and this was deeply explored in the 2018 State of the Network The study found that 50% of enterprise organizations are planning to implement the Internet of Things (IoT) within the next three years, and with that comes more data generation and management. Edge computing is an integral part of this trend, and 56% of networking professionals said they have plans for edge computing within their organization.
  • Zero Trust & Blockchain Opportunity: Zero trust technologies and blockchain were also evaluated and there is significant interest in embracing these technologies in the future. In our 2018 Security Priorities research, we found that 52% of organizations expected their security budgets to increase within 12 months. Although not heavily invested in yet, 32% said blockchain was a potential new area for future investment, and 30% see potential investment for zero trust technologies.
  • Maturation of Cloud Computing: Our 2018 Cloud Computing research provided insight into the maturing and complex cloud environment. Seventy-three percent of organizations have at least one application in the cloud, compared to 51% in 2011. The idea of multi-cloud is coming into play as 42% of organizations are using multi-cloud, which is when organizations use multiple cloud providers/vendors.

While these are our key takeaways from our 2018 research, these data points are just the tip of the iceberg that our research covers. To learn more from our entire research portfolio and stay up-to-date on IDG’s 2019 research, check out our Tools for Marketers page or contact your IDG sales executive.