The retail and wholesale industry now prioritises cyber security over all other technology investments, according to Softcat.

The business technology solutions provider surveyed over 1,600 of its customers across 18 different industries to reveal the biggest technology priorities for 2020.

It found that 55 percent of UK firms have experienced a cyber attack in 2019, up 15 percent compared to last year, with 83 percent of industries ranking cyber security as their biggest technology priority.

The report showed that 56 percent of industries ranking end user computing as their second biggest technology priority, followed by investment in data centres and cloud.

Print services were rated as the lowest priority for businesses, but emerging technologies like Big Data analysis, the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) also score poorly.

Craig Lodzinski, chief technologist for data and emerging technologies at Softcat, commented: “It’s surprising to see low interest in Big Data, IoT and AI but for many organisations, these aren’t business as usual technologies yet.

“However, recent developments mean emerging technologies are becoming easier to adopt and as such, we expect investment to grow over the next few years as industry catches up.”

Share Story: