Companies spent the equivalent of around $15 billion 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.

The largest technology leadership survey in the world of over 4,200 IT leaders, analyzing responses from organizations with a combined technology spend of over $250 billion, also found that security and privacy is the top investment during COVID-19, and cyber security (35 percent) is now the most “in demand” technology skill in the world. This is the first time a security-related skill has topped the list of global technology skills shortages for over a decade. Four in 10 IT leaders report that their company has experienced more cyber-attacks, with more than three quarters of these attacks from phishing (83 percent) and almost two thirds from malware (62 percent), suggesting that the massive move to home working has increased exposure from employees.

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 (51 percent) of IT leaders expected a budget rise in the next 12 months, but during the pandemic this number declined to 43 percent. This still represents a net increase in budgets and remains almost twice as high as IT spend in 2009 - in the wake of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.

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 percent more organizations that are “very” or “extremely effective” at using digital technologies spending an additional 21-50 percent. These investments focused on large-scale implementations of Distributed Cloud (42 percent) and SaaS (34 percent). The crisis has served to emphasize a growing divide between organizations driving their strategy through technology, and those that aren’t.
• Concerns over mental health - 8 in 10 IT leaders during COVID-19 are concerned about the mental health of their teams, which has resulted in 6 in 10 IT leaders (58 percent) putting programs in place to support their staff.
• Cloud investment up – Investment in security and privacy is the most important technology investment during COVID-19 (47 percent), and investment in infrastructure/cloud is the third most important, with the number of IT leaders actively considering Distributed Cloud nearly doubling in just 12 months (from 11 percent to 21 percent).
• Skills shortages – Prior to COVID-19, 2020 skills shortages remained close to an all-time high. Subsequently, shortages in tech talent have remained high, only marginally dropping compared to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. In addition to cyber security skills (35 percent), the next three most scarce technology skills are organizational change management (27 percent), enterprise architecture (23 percent) and technical architecture and advanced analytics both at 22 percent.

Sean Gilligan, President, Technology Recruitment – North America, Harvey Nash USA, said, “The digital divide continues to pick up pace. Organizations that have leveraged technology as a strategy in 2020 and not just as a survival tool will outperform and out innovate their competitors. This includes using technology to enable the well-being of their remote workforce, avoid employee burnout, and intelligently scale employee productivity and hiring. This will be a determining factor for companies’ success in 2021.”

Steve Bates, Principal, KPMG in the U.S. and global leader of KPMG International’s CIO Center of Excellence, said, “IT in the New Reality will be shaped by economic recovery patterns unique to each sector, location, and company. While every CIO is responding to these forces differently, one thing remains consistent; the urgency to act swiftly and decisively. Technology has never been more important to organizations’ ability to survive and thrive.”

COVID-19: The business issues the board wants IT to address:

• Workforce enablement – In previous years, this has tended to be a mid-ranking priority for technology leaders, but it has jumped to the top three after the onset of COVID-19 (from eighth place before the pandemic) driven by the mass move to remote working. Operational efficiency and customer engagement keep their top positions, but the purpose of these has changed in the light of COVID-19.
• Digital transformation – For almost half (47 percent) of IT leaders COVID-19 has permanently accelerated digital transformation and adoption of emerging technology (AI, ML, blockchain and automation).
• Emerging technologies – Small scale implementations of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have jumped up from 21 percent before COVID-19 to 24 percent now, a significant jump in a period of only a few months.
• Marketplace Software as a Service (SaaS) – This is the big winner compared to 2019. Large-scale implementations more than tripled from 7 percent in 2019 to 23 percent this year. One in six organizations put one in place in the last 12 months.

Remote working and the new deal for employees:

• Remote working is here to stay – 86 percent of IT leaders moved a significant part of their workforce to remote working, and 43 percent expect more than half of their employees to work from home after the pandemic.
• Collaboration and culture – As a result of remote working, 70 percent of IT leaders report increased collaboration between the business and technology teams and over half (52 percent) said that it has created a culture of inclusivity in the technology team.
• The new deal for employees – Work location and remote working has risen to become one of the five most important factors for engaging and retaining key technology talent during, and after, COVID-19. Leaders will therefore need to rethink how they attract and engage their employees in a world where physical location is no longer a prime asset.

Influence of the technology leader:

• Influence on the rise - Almost two thirds (61 percent) stated that the pandemic has permanently increased the influence of the technology leader.
• Board membership - However, the downward trend for board membership continues from 65 percent in 2018 to 61 percent of CIOs, IT Directors and CDOs on the main board in 2020, suggesting technology leaders are finding ways to be relevant and influential without the need for permanent board / ExCo membership.

Diversity:

• Women in tech still an issue - The gender diversity of technology leaders remains broadly unchanged from last year’s survey (11 percent).
• South America is a leader - With 16 percent of its technology leaders female, South America has 60 percent more female IT leaders than the UK (10 percent). This is a direct result of the efforts there to create a growing hub for female STEM entrepreneurs and actively running multiple programs to get women into the world of technology.
• Promoting diversity – 24 percent of IT leaders feel that their organization is successful at promoting diversity, and this has improved trust and collaboration in the technology team (67 percent), access to the right skills (56 percent), and their teams’ ability to innovate (53 percent).