Exhausted by the pandemic, worried about inflation and economic uncertainty, Canadian companies have never been so numerous to plan technological investments.
The 2023 IT Portrait drawn up by the Novipro group, which will be made public on Monday, also shows Quebec’s delay in the transition to artificial intelligence, explained in particular by the shortage of resources.
When business leaders are asked if they plan to invest in technology in the next two years, about three-quarters say yes. They were 92% to do so in 2019. This 7th Portrait of IT comes from a Léger survey conducted with 435 decision-makers last March.
“My explanation is that companies pay more attention to their money, are more cautious in their investments, analyzes Martin Pelletier, chief strategy officer at Novipro, a Montreal-based technology consulting firm founded in 1993. With the labor shortage, some projects are slowed down. »
Fear of recession and inflation are the most commonly cited reasons for pausing technology investments, cited by 41% and 40% of companies, respectively.
Virtually all investment sectors have been in free fall since 2017, we note.
Another big loser in the economic context, artificial intelligence no longer seems to be popular. Only 13% of companies plan to invest in it in the next two years, compared to 36% in 2019, which Novipro analysts call a “missed opportunity”.
“They underestimate the meteoric evolution to come from this technology and the impact it will have on their growth,” said David Chamandy, CEO of Novipro, in a press release.
Quebec, where 45% of companies say they have implemented AI and advanced analytics solutions, also lags significantly behind Ontario, where 63% have done so. The shortage of labor would be one of the reasons for this gap.
After the emergency investments during the pandemic to facilitate teleworking, among other things, there is also a certain loss of momentum for investments in cybersecurity. “There is a drop in training, in upgrading equipment,” summarizes Mr. Pelletier. If 74% of companies offered safety training to their employees in 2019, they are only 59% in 2022.
In all, 22% of companies claim to have been victims of a cyberattack, a statistic in the good average of recent years. The average cost of the threat was set at $500,000, and 43% of respondents say they have cyber insurance. What worries Novipro is that more than half of them, 57% more precisely, agreed to pay the ransom demanded by the cybercriminals.
“It’s a statistic that I find very bizarre,” admits Mr. Pelletier. If you are forced to pay, you were not prepared to protect your data; 57% paying is a lot. »
An illustration of this lack of awareness of the risks: only 58% of companies require employees to use a secure virtual private network remotely. Only 33% prevent their employees from downloading apps to their computers.
“A lot of people will consider it to be restrictive, but no, it’s purely security,” insists Mr. Pelletier. Your two most important preliminary requirements are to raise awareness and ensure good IT hygiene, with upgrades and the right secure versions. »