Blog What defines the IT agenda for Belgian businesses? Here’s what our clients tell us.

Insight’s core business has always been helping its clients to create a digital strategy and to support them with the implementation of their digital roadmap. As we all know, the pandemic has really accelerated the digital transformation of companies: working from home, e-commerce, online collaboration…all of which evolved from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a ‘must-have’ overnight.

However, not everything can be done at the same time. There is simply not enough budget and resources within companies to deliver on all that is needed for a truly digital environment. Companies need a long-term and a short-term set of priorities. What is needed in the ideal digital world versus what can we accomplish now?

We read a lot about the long-term strategies and objectives. But what about the short-term priorities?

We tackled the question head-on and held one-to-one conversations with clients to find out, backed it up with an online survey (large organizations, cross industries, CIO/IT manager level). Here is what we found out about the short-term objectives:

1. IT budgets will not be reduced, but rather scrutinised and optimised;
2. Priorities in IT spending in the short-term are: better hardware, better security and more efficient use of existing cloud resources;
3. As a priority – and the most recent government directions for homework make this crystal clear: remote working needs to be improved quickly.

IT budgets scrutinised and optimised

Two out of three businesses in Belgium are spending the same on IT but are looking at how and where to best spend the budget. This could mean different priorities or going further with the same money. There is room for improvement in cloud services, where a lot of the budget seems to be spent on unused services. As for cloud applications we see that a thorough analysis allows for better cloud usage and software licensing so that companies only pay for actually used services.

Multiple priorities in IT spending force short-term choices

Updating employee hardware and better security came out as top priorities. Remote working has caused a surge in updating mobile devices, screens, etc. Those priorities were shortly followed by ‘new cloud applications & improving cloud infrastructure’ and ‘software licensing optimisation’. Securing the business and workforce agility are really key drivers in IT investments in the short-term.

Remote working needs to be improved

The government decided overnight that people should work from home wherever possible.

This led to three IT challenges:

1. People were not trained efficiently on remote applications;
2. Network issues hampered collaboration;
3. Not enough software licenses to allow remote working in a compliant way.

Because ‘digital transformation’ is the heart of what we do, Insight employees were fully prepared to work from home or remote locations. Learning from the pandemic real-world experience over the past months, Insight has three tips for other organisations:

1. Ensure a functional and uniform digital working environment;
2. Structure the day and provide guidance to your employees;
3. Train your managers in remote leadership.

With our deep expertise and end-to-end capabilities, we are here to help our clients with their priorities. We’ll work to understand where you currently are and create a short- and long-term strategy that gives your digital evolution a boost.

We welcome your feedback and thoughts!