IT Business Outlook Remains Strong After Q1, CompTIA Says
Business confidence among IT industry business leaders slipped nearly one percentage point to 63.1 percent for the second quarter of 2016, according to a new report from CompTIA.
The CompTIA IT Industry Business Confidence Index (BCI), is based on IT executives’ opinions about their businesses, the industry and the broader U.S. economy.
Overall, the BCI remained healthy, with three quarters of respondents saying they were on-track or ahead of revenue plans for the year.
“A strong majority (75 percent) of IT channel firms report being on-target or tracking ahead of revenue goals through Q1,” the report states.
Nearly one in five (19 percent) companies said they were ahead of plan, with the top reasons including reaching new customers and greater operational efficiency.
The factors most contributing to growth concerns include price-sensitive customers being hesitant to spend (45 percent), and decreasing IT industry margins (39 percent).
CompTIA also asked respondents for reaction to a recent Gartner forecast that IT spending would decline by half a percentage point.
More than seven in 10 executives (72 percent) disagreed with assertions that growth would turn negative this year.
But even the number those predicting contraction falls sharply when removing consideration of a stronger dollar abroad.
“When backing out the effects of currency fluctuations, growth predictions for IT spending tend to turn far more favorable,” according to the report.
The survey of 277 U.S. IT companies also found more evidence of talent shortages affecting the operations of channel companies.
Nearly half of respondents (47 percent) said they were understaffed to some degree.
More than one in 5 firms (21 percent) report cancelling or postponing projects because of understaffing, and 72 percent described the hiring environment as “challenging.”
Responding firms varied in size, with 28 percent of the companies having 500 or more employees, and another 28 percent having fewer than 10.
One in four (25) percent were described as IT solutions providers, and 11 percent designated specifically as managed services providers.
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