Following the lessons learned during other crises, companies around the world are planning significant investments in technologies, to support ambitious expansion plans. The latest results from an annual Equinix survey of technology decision makers suggest that the plans of digital leaders across all industries and geographies are headed in the right direction. of a more connected world. Despite concerns of a possible impending recession and talk of the end of globalization at the World Economic Forum in Davos, companies appear to remain optimistic about their plans for further global expansion.
Of the 2,900 IT decision makers surveyed globally in the Equinix 2022 Global Technology Trends Survey, 72% of respondents indicated that their organization plans to expand in the next 12 months, either to a new city (31%), a new country (33%) or a new region altogether (38%). In Spain, 48% of those surveyed confirmed the intention of their companies to expand in the same period of time.
By regions, IT leaders in APAC (Asia-Pacific) they were particularly confident about expanding globally: 82% said their business had plans to expand into new markets, slightly above the 78% of leaders in the Americas (North, Central and South America). Reflecting economic factors, technology decision makers in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) were more cautious in terms of expansion plans, with 59% planning to expand into a new market in the next year.
Companies identified a number of potentially limiting factors when it came to global growth, with supply chain challenges highlighted as an area of particular concern. 59% stated that their business has shortage problems in the global supply chain, while 58% specifically pointed to the global shortage of microchips as a threat.
These ongoing supply chain issues appear to be driving the need for more virtualization, with real aspirations underpinned by significant planned investment in digital infrastructure. More than a third (35%) of respondents in Spain said they plan to facilitate global expansion plans by virtual implementation through the cloud, while 29% would do so using a bare metal solution. On the other hand, 31% of Spanish respondents said they expect more spending on neutral colocation solutions to facilitate the planned increase in digital implementations, and almost half (47%) acknowledged the intention to increase investment in placement services. interconnection as they plan their digital transformation and resilience-building progress.
digital strategies
Currently, the pandemic continues to have a significant impact on the digital strategies of companies around the world. In fact, more than half of the IT leaders in Spain (52%) —coinciding with the percentage globally— assure that they are accelerating the digital evolution of their companies due to the crisis caused by COVID-19.
Similarly, more than half (52%) confirm that their IT budgets have increased as a direct result of its effects, demonstrating the now widely recognized need for a robust digital infrastructure to adapt in an instant to changing business needs. In addition, the majority of those surveyed in Spain (64%) believe that the investments and technological changes deployed during the pandemic are here to stay.
According to Ignatius Velilla, Managing Director of Equinix in Spain: «The results of the survey reveal that after the pandemic, the IT market in Spain is more willing to bet on more transformative strategies and to continue accelerating its digitization processes. This trend means that 47% of those surveyed in our country are going to increase their budget in interconnection services throughout 2022, and that the preferred option when developing a digital-first strategy continues to be the cloud hybrid with 52%. In addition, we are especially proud that 76% of the IT decision-makers surveyed in Spain recognize the effort made by the data center sector when it comes to enhancing the connectivity capacity of our country, elevating it to the category of hub of interconnection for southern Europe”.
However, significant concerns remain around cybersecurity. Ensuring that expansions are supported by resilient digital models is critical to the business, particularly at a time of increasing volatility and emerging global threats. As part of their digital strategies, 96% of respondents in Spain confirmed that a key priority is to improve cybersecurity, above 85% overall. Likewise, 88% highlighted the need to prepare their businesses for the future, while 89% recognized that it is critical to comply with local market data regulations. According to IT specialists in our country, the most feared threats were cyber attacks (80%) followed closely by security breaches and data leaks (79%).
Also, survey data in Spain revealed:
- Priority in customer and employee experience: Recognizing that digital adoption affects end users, 93% of IT leaders in Spain said that improving the customer experience is a priority, well above the 83% reflected in the global survey. Companies in our country also widely recognized (86%) that improving the employee experience is critical to their transformation journey and talent retention, again outperforming global results (81%).
- Cloud migration continues: 67% of IT leaders in Spain said they plan to move more business functions to the cloud. Of those respondents, 40% plan to move more business-critical applications to the cloud, and more than half (54%) intend to move security features to the cloud.
- Hybrid cloud dominates: Hybrid cloud models were the preferred approach for 52% of respondents in Spain — well above 38% globally — but 40% of them still rely on a single cloud provider or none at all, compared to 22% of global digital leaders. Interconnection can step in here to help, with 23% of US respondents believing it increases the flexibility of connectivity, and 28% acknowledging they use it to enable hybrid multicloud environments.
- Invest in innovation: Many IT leaders are looking to future-proof their businesses and take full advantage of evolving technologies such as 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT), and Web3. 55% of respondents in Spain confirmed that they are moving to an “Everything as a Service” (XaaS) model, citing the simplification of the IT infrastructure (76%), the flexibility (56%) and the reduction of costs. costs (53%) as the key reasons for doing so.
- Focus on sustainability: As they innovate, digital leaders around the world are keeping a close eye on the sustainability of their IT infrastructure. 67% say they are actively measuring and trying to limit the environmental impact of their IT teams, and 65% will only work with IT partners who can meet key carbon reduction targets. In fact, 69% report that sustainability is now one of the most important drivers in their organization with commitments made to science-based goals.
