A new survey of CIOs predicts that the technology spending freezes implemented in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic may be slowly thawing. While tech leaders still expect to spend four percent less in 2020 than they did a year ago, they predict the fourth quarter will be better than Q3 and that spending will rise two percent in 2021. RPA may take a back seat in the immediate future but remains an important strategic technology. This according to a report from Enterprise Technology Research.
Cybersecurity, cloud migration, collaboration, analytics, networking and AI/ML all remain higher priorities for CIOs than RPA, according to the report. But, an analysis by the New York City-based research firm indicates a reordering of tech priorities does not mean the outlook is dire for RPA.
“We think IT organizations were scrambling to plug holes in the dike, whereas RPA is more strategic,” the report’s authors wrote. “Our data suggests that RPA remains one of the most elevated spending categories. Way more people are spending more than spending less, so this category has lots of legs. In fact, with the exception of container orchestration, we think RPA [is a higher priority] than AI and higher than cloud. It’s just that IT had to keep the ship afloat when Covid hit, which shifted priorities.”