An online survey of 96 IT decision makers from large enterprises and SMBs was conducted to understand their top technology priorities for 2014. The survey found that key business priorities like improving productivity and reducing expenses were top priorities across organization sizes. Most respondents said that specific company objectives would impact IT spending in 2014. The survey also found that hybrid cloud was of high interest among large enterprises, while software defined networking remains unclear to most. Information security and choosing the right technologies were among the top challenges cited.

1. By Anil Chopra, Editor PCQuest and CIOL
An online survey of IT decision makers from large enterprises as well as SMBs
to tell us their top tech priorities for the coming year. We received 96
responses, which were almost equally split amongst SMBs (100-999
employees) and large enterprises (1000+ employees). All the subsequent
graphs therefore show results according to employee count of the
respondents' organizations.

2. Key Business Priorities for 2014
Interestingly, key business
priorities for 2014
resonating across
organizations of all sizes,
whether it's SMBs or large
enterprises, are mostly
similar. Barring the top one,
which is to improve
productivity in case of large
enterprises and reduce
operational expenses for
SMBs, the remaining
business priorities fall
within the same order.

3. Specific Company Objectives Will Govern IT Spends
Company objectives and
initiatives will obviously
depend upon the economic
conditions and IT spending
will also move accordingly.
That's why, a majority of the
survey respondents across
both SMBs and large
enterprises said that
specific company
objectives/initiatives were
the prime factor that would
impact their IT spending in
2014.

4. Hybrid Cloud of Immense Interest to Large Enterprises
While public cloud
computing services may not
have made a big dent in the
market as expected last
year, there's bound to be
more action around hybrid
cloud this year. At least 46%
of the large enterprise
respondents and 17% of
SMBs expect to deploy
hybrid cloud in 2014.

5. SDN Continues to Remain a Mystery for Most
Software Defined
Networking, or SDN,
continues to remain a
mystery for most CIOs, it
seems. Because when we
asked their plans for
deploying SDN, nearly 40%
of the respondents from
SMB and large enterprises
had no answer.

6. Tablets Continue their Disruptive Penetration
Mobility has completely changed
the dynamics of IT and is likely to
continue doing so in the future as
well. A key disruptive cause
behind the mobility drive are
tablet PCs. We asked our
respondents about how they're
using tablets in their
organizations. Interestingly, a
good chunk of the respondents,
from both SMB and large
enterprises, continue to purchase
tablets for their top management.
About 28% of large enterprise
CIOs are buying tablets in place of
laptops for their top
management, while another 30%
are even building custom tablet
based apps.

7. Mixed Feelings on Using Social Media for Business
Leveraging social media still
remains elusive to most IT
heads. On a scale of 1 to 5,
where 5 is extremely
important, only 33% of large
enterprise CIOs and 29% of
SMB IT decision makers
rated social media as 4/5
and 5/5 for their business
this year. Here again, the
rating was more skewed
toward 4/5, meaning social
media is important, but not
critical.

8. Information Security of Utmost Importance to all
As more data becomes
digitized, the fear of losing
that data becomes even
more pronounced. That's
why, out of all the
technologies that SMB CIOs
plan to adopt this year, 57%
find information security on
top of their list. In case of
large enterprises,
technologies for bandwidth
optimization are of utmost
importance for CIOs this
year, while information
security following right on
its heels as the second
highest priority.

9. Choosing the Right Product/Technology the Most Challenging Task
With more technologies
come more products and
technology offerings from
different vendors. This
increases choice and the
confusion on what to really
choose. That's why, more
than 60% of the
respondents from both SMB
and large enterprise
respondents said that
choosing the right product
or technology was their
topmost challenge.

10. Industries of Respondents from Large Enterprises
A break-up of the
industries of
respondents from
large enterprises
(1000+ employees)

11. Industries of Respondents from Large Enterprises
A break-up of the
industries of
respondents from SMB
companies (100 to 999
employees).

12. To get a copy of the complete report, mail to the Editor PCQuest at pcquest@cybermedia.co.in with "Tech
Priorities 2014 Complete Report" in the subject line and your complete name, designation, company name,
mobile number, and number of employees in your organization in the message body. The report provides more
info about which business apps are SMBs and enterprises likely to deploy or move to the cloud, what are their
plans around enterprise mobility, social media usage, software defined anything, and much more.