Is Your IT Security Budget Immature?

With IT security breaches dominating the headlines, chief information security officers (CISOs) are asking, "Is my IT environment at risk?" Have we effectively tried to improve IT security maturity levels to mitigate risk?

Cybersecurity has become the global dilemma related to all things IT in the last few months. Key findings from the Gartner IT Key Metrics Data report specific to IT security spending patterns are:

• IT security spending ranges between 2% to 7% of total IT budget, with a modest increase, on average, to 5.6% of total IT spending.
• Network security spending continues to be the dominant category in the overall IT security budget.

Gartner ITScore data from 2011 and 2012 suggests that information security programs have not matured over the past 12 months.

Key highlights include:

• Overall, IT security maturity remains flat at 2.92%, with little variability year-over-year or between disciplines.
• Planning and budgeting remains more mature than the other disciplines, at 3.17%.
• Threat and vulnerability management is still the least-mature discipline, at 2.75%.

The chart illustrates average IT spending and budget trends over the past four years and highlights that spending appears to be constrained to within a small range in the past four years. Whether it's an application, IT modernization, disruptive technology, infrastructure and operations, or program management project, data protection must play a key role in secure architectures.

Are you using fact-based decisions to assist your IT investments, planning and assumptions?

Complete a short survey on your organization and receive a free IT Security Spending and Staffing Metrics Report from Gartner.

Contact benchmarkinginfo@gartner.com to find out more about Gartner IT Key Metrics.

Big Data Fattens Data Center Budgets

How much is big data increasing your data center budget? Is your spending keeping pace with your peers?

Every year, Gartner performs a global analysis of IT spending and staffing trends from leading organizations around the world. Key findings from this year’s Gartner IT Key Metrics report are:

• Data center spending now accounts for 22% of a typical IT budget, up from 20% in 2010.
• Data center spending as a percentage of the total IT budget continues to increase year over year.
• Data center spending is becoming more prominent – it's the largest contributor to an IT budget.

Do you understand why data center spending is growing? Is it because your absolute cost to operate a data center is increasing due to storage growth from big data demands?

Or is it because you have optimized costs in other IT domains, leaving the data center as a more significant part of your IT budget?

This chart illustrates data center spending trends. In today's world of economic uncertainty, IT is increasingly used as a competitive differentiator. But where you spend your IT budget, and how you make decisions, is key to enabling that differentiation.

Are you using fact-based decisions to assist your IT investments, planning and assumptions?

Complete a short survey to receive a free IT Spending and Staffing Metrics Report from Gartner. You can also and download a complimentary IT Metrics summary report.

Contact benchmarkinginfo@gartner.com to find out more about Gartner IT Key Metrics.

Will Your IT Budget Increase in 2013?

How are IT budgets increasing in 2013? Are you keeping pace with your peers?

Every year, Gartner performs a global analysis of IT spending and staffing trends from leading organizations around the world. Key findings from the current Gartner IT Key Metrics report are:

• Average IT spending increased by 4.0% in 2012
• Global CIOs estimate IT spending will increase by a further 2.9% in 2013

This estimated growth varies considerably by region:

• IT budgets in Latin America are expected to increase by nearly 6%
• CIOs in EMEA and North America expect their IT budgets to grow at a more modest pace, 2.8% and 1.9%, respectively

The global cross-industry average increase hides the variations across industries. For example:

• State and local government IT budgets are projected to decrease by 0.8%
• National and international government IT budgets are projected only to increase by 0.4%
• Software publishing and Internet services IT budgets show an estimated increase of 6.7%

The chart illustrates regional IT spending and budget trends. In today’s world of economic uncertainty, IT is increasingly used as a competitive differentiator. But where you spend your IT budget, and how you make decisions, is key to enabling that differentiation.

Are you using fact-based decisions to inform your IT investments, planning and assumptions?

Complete a short survey to receive a free IT Spending and Staffing Metrics Report from Gartner. You can also and download a complimentary IT Metrics summary report.

Contact benchmarkinginfo@gartner.com to find out more about Gartner IT Key Metrics.