Business, CIO Insight

CIO Insight: Q4 Economic Outlook – Revenue and Hiring

With ongoing consideration of supply chain issues, COVID variants, inflation, and increased regulation, there are many reasons that may affect the c-suite outlook.

H. Michael Burgett

Contributing Writer

In the midst of wrapping up 2021 and building strategic plans for the coming new year, technology executives in the CIO Professional Network paused to register their thoughts on expected trends in revenue growth and hiring initiatives for their respective organizations over the next six months.

With ongoing consideration of supply chain issues, COVID variants, inflation, and increased regulation, there are many reasons that may affect the c-suite outlook and that unique vantage point from the seat of an organization’s top technology executive.

Consider that in mid-2021, 86% of technology leaders registered an expectation for revenue growth to close out the year, CIO confidence is slightly waning with only 69% now reporting expected revenue growth over the next six months. This reflects a net drop of 17 percentage points and is more in line with the 70% that was reported in early 2021.

Those executives projecting flat or negative growth came in at 31% up from 13% in June of this year. And similarly, that 31% rating is very close to the 30% that was reported during a similar poll of CIOs and CTOs at the start of this year.

Clearly, we are bookending the year with similar expectations for company performance, offset by a brief surge of optimism at the mid-point of 2021. Confidence while not quite as gloomy as in 2020, is on the decline.

And while there is a negative trend in revenue growth, in a nod to the increasing demand for innovation and transformation from the IT organization, technology executives are reporting an expected increase in IT hiring. In fact, 66% of respondents expect that IT hiring will pick up over the next six months and that is the highest number reported to date considering the 57% and 42% in the previous 2021 polls.

Call it an effect of the Great Resignation, rising salaries, the ongoing war for talent, the continued elevation of the IT function or the like, talent acquisition will and should remain a top strategic priority for technology executives in the coming year.

Contrast this rising need for resources against a backdrop of reduced projections for company performance, CIOs and CTOs will have their work cut out for them in early 2022.