IT spending is up: What your competitors are buying

Tech spending is up. Here’s what your company’s competitors are buying for their IT departments now.

Nearly one-third of IT departments plan to increase investments in IT in order to increase growth and efficiency, according to a recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Overall, IT budgets are expected to increase as companies turn to technology to help drive growth. The average IT budget projects to become 6.6% of the company’s total budget, compared to 5.6% last year.

Specifically, here’s what IT departments plan to spend money on over the next 12 months:

1. 70% will spend to beef up security
2. 64% will invest in IT maintenance
3. 50% will improve data management and analytics
4. 48% will invest in tablets and other mobile technologies
5. 46% will spend more on social media
6. 40% plan to increase their use of cloud computing
7. 38% plan to invest in virtualization
8. 36% will spend on video conferencing
9. 36% will focus on IT innovation, and
10. 12% will spend on offshore IT support.