IT Priorities 2019: UK investment intent for AI intensifies, SaaS applications mature beyond CRM

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) initiatives have continued to strengthen as critical areas of enterprise software focus for IT systems buyers in the UK, and across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), according to the Computer Weekly/TechTarget IT Priorities survey for 2019.

Last year, 18% of UK and Ireland respondents indicated AI/ML were priority initiatives for 2018. For 2019, the figure was 27% – an increase of 50%.

Another developing trend that emerged from the IT Priorities Survey is the growing sophistication of the range and depth of software-as-a-service (SaaS) deployments for enterprise applications.

Customer relationship management (CRM) still holds the top spot, at 35% of the UK and Ireland respondents, but that is down as a relative priority from 44% in 2018.

Cloud deployments of business intelligence (BI) and analytics (30%) and database software (27%) both emerged from the research as strong SaaS categories, specifically. Indeed, 17% of respondents are using the cloud for their data science platforms, which is at the sophisticated end of business intelligence and analytics.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) – always the most central and strategically important of enterprise applications – edged up a little in interest, in a cloud mode, among respondents, from 17% to 18%.

The survey of 387 IT professionals in the UK, and 1,578 in the EMEA region as a whole, was carried out in the fourth quarter of 2018 and focused on buying decisions for 2019.

Across EMEA, business intelligence and analytics took the top spot for software as a service delivery, at 33% of respondents, edging out CRM. Moreover, 25% said they were likely to shift their ERP to the cloud, indicating that the region as a whole is looking to be more progressive than the UK.

AI and blockchain continue to gain traction

In last year’s survey, artificial intelligence and blockchain spiked as priority areas. AI leapt from 8% to 18% as a priority area in the UK, and from 8% to 16% in EMEA, from 2017 to 2018. Blockchain went from 3% to 6% as an investment priority area in the UK, and from 5% to 10% in the region as a whole, again from 2017 to 2018.

Blockchain, in this most recent survey, seems to be holding fast to this position. Some 10% of UK respondents put it as a broad initiative for 2019.

Also, the increased use of automation and artificial intelligence was cited as supportive of general digital transformation by 25% of respondents – less than the 42% of those surveyed who put forward the increased use of cloud services as similarly key, but a significant proportion, nonetheless. Breaking down data silos was also cited by 29% as important to digital transformation, and so having a “big picture” significance.

A similar picture obtains for the EMEA region as a whole. Some 14% declared blockchain to be a priority broad initiative – 24% said AI was key to their digital transformation programmes and 22% said busting data silos was similarly important for digital change in organisations.

Compare with last year: read results from the Computer Weekly/TechTarget annual IT Priorities survey for 2018

• Where senior IT managers plan to spend their budget in 2018.
• Artificial intelligence and blockchain initiatives are earmarked for a doubling of investment in 2018.
• Data protection continued to be a key focus for IT security investment for European firms in 2018, as did the emphasis on cloud and mobile security.