120 IT managers and line managers from big companies in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) took part in the 2020 IT-Trends Study . A total of 63% of the companies (up from around 44% in the previous year) in the German-speaking countries intend to boost their IT expenditure. One in four organizations is planning to raise their budget by more than 10%. Expenditures for digitalization in 2020 will come to over one third of the entire IT budget, which represents an increase of roughly 11% over the previous year. Companies still see the ramp-up of digitalization as the number one priority, yet this is the first time since 2016 that energy efficiency gains and lowered costs have gained in significance.

The proportion of expenditure on intelligent technologies such as machine learning, predictive analytics and image recognition has so far gone up from less than 10% to around 14% of the total IT budget, on average. This issue, however, takes priority for less than one in ten organizations. It is predominantly companies from the automobile industry, logistics service-providers and energy suppliers that are active in this area.