Are any of your IT budget items recession-proof? Which ones?
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I don’t think anything is ever really recession proof. Long term contracts like a fixed rate on your mortgage make costs more predictable and appear like a recession proofing. They also give you the opportunity of time to plan, pivot and procure as opposed to being exposed to needing to take quick actions as markets change!
Some business critical IT initiatives around core enterprise security and core IT infrastructure is recession proof for our enterprise. We are expanding on hybrid cloud (AWS, Azure and GCP) and that expansion will likely be slowed due to a recessionary event.
IT budget focused on Cybersecurity and automation are recession-proof. Cybersecurity is one of the focus areas for most companies. During recession times, the cyber criminals continue to attack and in some cases there are more malicious attacks due to economic and geopolitical stress. Automation solutions are considered as cost saving levers and companies tend to invest more into automation technologies to save on labor cost.
As with most of the respondents I've seen on this post, long term software or service contracts are the only elements fairly recession proof, though beware of loopholes spelled out in tiny print about "periodic reevaluation" and "unforeseen necessity". Tech is a major priority in our healthcare niche, with laser, electronic microscope and other high-end equipment getting the lion's share of the tech budget. Aging servers and endpoints need to be cajoled into functioning for another year. Regular maintenance and keeping up with patches helps to some extent.
We are a start up and we dont buy lifetime access of any software or purchase any subscriptions. So that is managed. Our concern is the customer might get stingy during this period.