Despite an expected 5.1% increase in global IT budgets in 2023, with a 4.8% expected increase in North America, such gains remain behind the projected 6.5% global inflation rate next year, TechRepublic reports. Future trading condition pessimism and inadequate corporate resources have caused increases in IT spending to lag inflation as reported in a Gartner survey of 2,000 chief information officers around the world, according to Gartner analyst Andy Roswell-Jones. The findings also showed that improvements to operational excellence and customer experiences were most prioritized by CIOs. Such an investment pattern is poised to continue, with most CIOs planning to raise spending for cyber and information security, business intelligence/data analytics, and cloud platforms. "CIOs must prioritize digital initiatives with market-facing, growth impact. For some CIOs, this means stepping out of their comfort zone of internal back-office automation to instead focus on customer or constituent-facing initiatives," said Gartner Vice President and analyst Janelle Hill.