is three times more. These investments focused on large-scale implementations of Distributed Cloud (42 percent – 30 percent in Australia) and SaaS (34 percent – 32 percent 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
Nine 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 percent) putting programs in place to support their staff.
Cloud investment up
After investment in security and privacy (58 percent), 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 percent to 21 percent). This has tripled in Australia from 7 percent in 2019 to 22 percent 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 percent), the next three most scarce technology skills are organisational change management (24 percent), advanced analytics (24 percent) enterprise architecture (22 percent) and IT strategy (17 percent).
company has experienced more cyber attacks. Nearly nine in ten (89 percent) reported an increase in phishing attacks, and over two thirds (77 percent) of these from malware (suggesting that the massive move to home working has increased exposure from employees.
At the same time, Australian organisations have struggled to find skilled cyber security professionals to support this dramatic shift to homeworking – with 42 percent 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 percent) of Australian IT leaders expected a budget rise in the next 12 months, but during the pandemic this number declined to 38 percent. 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 (3) were more likely than non-digital leaders to make additional technology investments as a result of COVID-19 – with 50 percent more organisations that are ‘very’ or ‘extremely effective’ at using digital technologies spending an additional 21-50 percent globally – notably in Australia this figure