We’ve just launched the 2020 Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey, which found that companies spent the equivalent of around US$15bn extra a week on technology to enable safe and secure home working during COVID-19. This was one of the biggest surges in technology investment in history – with the world’s IT leaders spending more than their annual budget rise in just three months, as the global crisis hit, and lockdowns began to be enforced.

The Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey is the largest technology leadership survey in the world, with over 4,200 IT leaders responding from organisations with a combined technology spend of over US$250bn.

We’ve had the privilege of launching the CIO Survey for a number of years, and once again, it has attracted the attention of the tech media world including – ComputerWeekly.com, Computer Business Review, Information Age, FSTech, IDG Connect, Diginomica, and National Technology News (to name but a few). This year, we also wrote six viewpoints based on the study, which were placed in the tech & HR press.

The survey also found that despite this huge surge of spending, and security & privacy being the top investment during COVID-19, 4 in 10 IT leaders report that their company has experienced more cyber attacks. Over three quarters of these attacks were from phishing (83%), and almost two thirds from malware (62%) suggesting that the massive move to home working has increased exposure from employees.

At the same time, organisations have struggled to find skilled cyber security professionals to support this dramatic shift to homeworking – and report that cyber security (35%) is now the most ‘in demand’ technology skill in the world. This is the first time a security related skill has topped the list of global technology skills shortages for over a decade.

Bev White, CEO of Harvey Nash Group said:

“This unexpected and unplanned surge in technology investment has also been accompanied by massive changes in how organisations operate – with more organisational change in the last six months than we have seen in the last ten years. Success will largely be about how organisations deal with their culture and engage with their people. In a world where location has dissolved, where the office now includes the kitchen table, and where over 80% of IT leaders are concerned about the mental health of their teams, organsations will need to reformulate their employee offer to attract and retain the talent they need to support them through the pandemic, and beyond.”