Key takeaways:

• Relevant and consistent content is essential – 75% are more likely to consider an IT vendor who educates them through each stage of the decision process. 

• IT decision-makers are still challenged to find high-quality content, with the main reasons being too much marketing hype/buzzwords and lack of truly independent, unbiased information. Uncertainty if content is produced by a product expert or if it is AI generated does not top the list, likely because ITDMs are familiar with what AI is capable of doing.  

• Product testing/reviews/opinions, technology news articles, and product demos continue to be the top relied upon content types throughout the tech purchase process. Presentation of content is also important, as 76% of ITDMs say that they are more likely to engage with a variety of content if it is presented in an organized experience.  

• Vendors have a higher chance of gaining customers or receiving a response to outreach by understanding the importance of trust and brand reputation. More than three quarters of ITDMs say that they are more willing to exchange contact details with a company that they already have a relationship with.

• The number one rule in tech advertising – provide value. The majority (95%) of ITDMs have engaged with online advertisements, with addressing current needs, challenges or business objectives, or educated them about a technology or an important issue, increasing the likelihood of engagement.  

• Don’t miss the window – the average amount of time ITDMs think is an acceptable timeframe to receive sales follow-up after requesting information has expedited – 13 hours on average. This decreases to 9.6 hours for Gen Z and is 11.4 hours for Millennials. 

The findings and trends in this report solidify the need that tech buyers have for consistent, valuable and trustworthy content. These individuals are tasked with researching, evaluating, and implementing new technologies while shifting organizational processes and require the appropriate educational resources and relationships to do so. 

View the sample slides below for additional insight and to better understand and engage with tech buyers.

Additional buyer’s journey resources

Research blog

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Foundry’s 12th annual was conducted among the audience of 676 IT and business decision-makers. Foundry conducted this survey online throughout December 2025 to better understand the various types and volume of content consumed throughout the purchase process for major technology products and services. It also looks to gain insight into the preferences of IT decision-makers regarding IT vendor contact and follow-up during the purchase process. All respondents had IT or management titles, with 35% based in North America, 42% in Asia/ Pacific (APAC) regions, and 22% from Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA).

Contact us to explore the results by company size, region, generation, and more differences.  

The 2025 CIO Tech Poll: Tech Priorities research is based on 269 IT decision-maker respondents. This research is conducted to gauge which technology areas IT leaders are focused on over the next 12 months and measures the direction of spending within those categories. The study is global with 59% of respondents in North America, 21% in APAC and 20% in EMEA. To learn more about this year’s research, explore key takeaways from the study below:

Key takeaways:

IT decision-makers expect steady technology growth over the next 12 months. Areas that will see the most increase in spending include AI-enabled technology (71%), cybersecurity (60%), data analytics frameworks (57%), customer experience technology (53%), and BI/Analytics tools (51%). Budget growth also aims to support IT organization areas of improvement. 

Eighty percent of ITDMs say they are already using cybersecurity technology, and only 16% are still in the research or piloting stages. Another two thirds (67%) of ITDMs say they are already using AI-enabled technology, with 28% in the research or piloting stages. Looking into which specific AI tools ITDMs are actively researching, the top are Agentic AI, AI PCs, Large Language models (LLMs) – Private) and AI-optimized servers. 

While still largely in the researching or piloting stages, ITDMs anticipate increasing their spending towards AI-enabled technology (71%) over the next 12 months, as they feel it is the single most important IT project they are currently working on and that it has the most potential to significantly alter the way their business operates over the next three to five years (58%). More specifically, ITDMs anticipate their organization will use AI/ML tools to transform the business in the next three to five years for improving decision-making through predictive or real-time analytics, risk management/fraud detection, process automation and efficiency, and enhancing the customer experience.

When buying and deploying new technologies over the past 12 months, the biggest challenges IT decision-makers encountered were security concerns, lack of appropriate skillsets for deployment, inability to integrate with existing tools, insufficient training capabilities, and lack of budget.

provides insight into the progression of technology in business, as well as an in-depth analysis of who is involved in the IT purchase process and the information sources they rely on during each stage of the process. This global research of more than 721 technology decision-makers is a valuable resource for tech vendors to understand the decisions made around their products and services to gain an advantage in this competitive landscape. To assist technology marketers as they plan out their strategies for the upcoming year, we have outlined a handful of key findings below.

Key takeaways:

1. Technology is still seen as “recession proof” as budgets are expected to increase (52%) or remain stable (36%) over the next 12 months.
   
2. The buying cycle is getting longer for advanced technologies – only 26% of ITDMs spend less than a year researching edge computing or internet of things products.Ěý
   
3. The average number of individuals who have influence over the tech purchase process increases to 26 people this year, up from 25 people in 2023. This varies by the technology being purchased. On average, there are 32 individuals involved in edge computing purchases, but only 18 in desktop/laptop purchases.
   
4. Brand awareness matters – 79% of ITDMs are more likely to consume content from known and trusted brands, which increases to 82% for Boomers and decreases to 75% for Gen Z.
   
5. During the purchase process, tech buyers rely on research, technology content sites, vendors, analyst firms and peers. The sources relied upon also vary depending on which stage of the purchase process ITDMs are in.
   

The findings in this report solidify the need that tech buyers have for consistent, valuable, and trustworthy vendor relationships. These individuals are tasked with researching, evaluating, and implementing new technologies while maintaining status-quo tasks. To do so, they seek reliable information sources and insight during each stage of the process to make sound purchase decisions.

View the sample slides below for additional insight and to better understand and engage with tech buyers.

That’s why it’s crucial for your sales and marketing teams to identify and connect with these buyers at the start of their buying journey.

In this guide, we’ll show you the importance of intent data and how you can use it to:

• Build better ABM target lists
• Personalize your outreach messaging and ads
• Gain deeper insights into your campaigns success

Explore insights from to learn about the business objectives driving digital initiatives and how vendors can assist technology buyers on their path to digital success. Key takeaways from the research below:

2023 Digital Business key takeaways:

1. When asked what their top objectives are for their organization’s digital business strategy, IT leaders ranked wanting to improve employee productivity/collaboration as their top objective (51%). This is up from the eighth-ranked objective when the survey ran in 2019 and up 7 percentage points from 2021 (44%).
   

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2. When it comes to achieving their digital objectives, ITDMs say that they are further along with some of them than they expected – improving security being their #1. Just under 40% of those surveyed believe that security is the most important step for success in digital transformation.
   

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3. The areas where organizations have made the most progress in order to become a digital business are with their data security/protection strategy (only 7% have no plans – 29% have already completed, 41% are in progress, and 23% are planning), data management strategy (with only 11% having no plans), developing a business case/roadmap for overall digital strategy, technology needs assessment, and determining the metrics of success.
   

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4. In order to become a digital business, organizations are actively researching AI/ML (32%), augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) (25%), and 5G (25%) – these are the top three technologies on their organization’s radars.
   

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5. When ITDMs were asked which emerging technologies they were investing in this year, cloud-native platforms (37%), AI engineering (32%), cybersecurity mesh (31%), decision intelligence (28%), and generative AI (25%) were the top five.
   

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View the sample slides below for additional insight and to better understand and engage with tech buyers as they move forward with their digital business initiatives.

A total of 379 respondents, all involved in making partner marketing decisions for their tech organizations, shared their experience to help us better understand partner marketing efforts within the technology industry, associated benefits and challenges, and budgetary trends with the goal of providing actionable advice for partner marketers regarding those efforts.

Key Takeaways:

• Partner marketing is complex, and competing priorities, misaligned goals, and lack of partner commitment can feed into that complexity.

• The number of technology partners organizations are working with is on the rise (129 in 2022 vs 115 in 2019) but there is a decrease in the number of system integrator partners and channel/reseller partners.

• Budgets ​reflect the ​value placed ​on partner marketing – 73% expect to increase their budges (up from 68% in 2019).​

• Strong partner relationships are essential but not easy – 59% of executives use strong partner relations as a measure of success.Ěý​

• If you don’t have a documented strategy, create one.​ 76% of companies with a documented strategy plan ​to increase their budgets over the next 24 months (compared ​
  to 48% of those without a ​strategy in place).​

• Need more reasons for a documented strategy? Lack of resources was cited as a top challenge by 36% of those without a strategy (compared to 22% of those with a documented strategy).​

View the sample slides below for additional insight and to better understand how this data can help as you build out your strategies for 2023 and beyond. To request a meeting with a Foundry sales executive to walk through the full study, including data cuts customized by company size and geographic region (NA, EMEA, APAC), please complete the form to the right.

While the research found that hybrid and remote work are here to stay, IT decision-makers expressed a handful of concerns that they will need to address with technology. Such as the ability to efficiently collaborate, employee and/or IT staff morale and burnout, and maintaining secure systems and processes. Additionally, 40% agree that it’s challenging to create an equitable and collaborative meeting experience for hybrid teams.

With that being said, IT decision-makers need support from their vendor partners in order to successfully move forward with their future of work plans. To better understand these plans, the concerns associated with them, and the technologies that your customers are seeking, view the key takeaways below and download the full executive summary.

Key takeaways for tech marketers:

1. Overall, IT decision-makers believe there has been a positive shift in the remote and hybrid work mindset due to the work from home transition.
   

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2. Organizations are planning for hybrid or remote work, with very few preparing for an office-only environment. Smaller organizations are more likely to have either an office only or remote only option without hybrid.
   

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3. Along with flexible work, tech decision-makers expect increased investment in security solutions to be a long-lasting impact due to the pandemic and remote work.
   

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4. While employees value the flexibility, there are a few concerns around hybrid/ remote work including efficient collaboration, morale and burnout, and security maintenance.
   

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5. IT decision-makers are easing these concerns with technology – when making a product selection they look for value, business need, and quality factors.
   

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View the sample slides below for additional insight and to better understand and engage with IT decision-makers as they navigate their future of work plans. To request a meeting with a Foundry’s sales executive to walk through the full study, please complete the form at the right.

According to , 88% of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) agree that the collection and analysis of data has the potential to fundamentally change the way their company does business over the next 1-3 years. These organizations are investing in tools such as predictive analytics, process automation, and business intelligence platforms to give them a competitive advantage in the market.

According to our latest research, close to half (46%) of IT decision-makers state that the improvement of customer insight and engagement is a key driver for these data-driven initiatives. In fact, to help them craft personalized and engaging experiences for their customers. As they do so, they’re bringing data and analytics tools to various parts of the business including product management and marketing – which is supported by the fact that 83% of respondents to the 2022 study stated that providing self-service tools to make data more accessible to business users is a top priority. However, lack of appropriate skill sets is a top challenge that IT decision-makers experience when making progress on their data strategies.

Explore insights from the study to better understand data-driven priorities, the investments ITDMs plan to make, and the challenges they’re experiencing along the way to learn how you can best assist them.

Key takeaways from the 2022 Data & Analytics study:

1. The majority of organizations have plans or have already implemented data-driven projects. More than 1/3 (36%) of organizations have already deployed projects, which is up from 28% in 2021.
   

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2. Through the use of data and analytics solutions, IT decision-makers hope to improve internal business processes, customer insight and engagement, and customer service/support.
   

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3. Organizations are making progress in some of the challenges that plagued them last year. More than half report to have a clearly defined data and analytics strategy which is up from 46% in 2021.
   

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4. Investments are continuing to be made in the data & analytics space. Organizations will spend an average of $12.3 million on data initiatives in the next year and 55% expect their budgets to increase, which is up from 44% in 2021.
   

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5. To combat challenges and pursue their data initiatives, organizations are in need of analytics training, data management, data security, data integration and business intelligence skills.
   

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View the sample slides below for additional insight and download the full summary to better understand and engage with tech buyers as they navigate their data & analytics initiatives. To request a meeting with a Foundry’s sales executive to walk through the full study, please complete the form at the right.

After initial declining budgets last year, it is reassuring to see that tech budgets are holding strong for 2021. Half of ITDMs anticipate an increase over the next 12 months, 42% anticipate their budgets will remain the same, and only 8% expect a budget decrease – which is in line with the 7% in December 2019 prior to the pandemic. The research also found that cybersecurity is the single most important technology project to date and is expected to see the greatest increase in spending, which is no surprise given the recent data breaches and ransomware attacks.

Download this study to explore key findings, including:

• Cybersecurity, business intelligence/analytics, business process management, and customer experience technologies are expected to see the largest increases in tech spending over the next year.
• ITDMs are actively researching 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) and blockchain, but from a usage standpoint, these technologies still have a little way to go.
• Security continues to be a top priority, as ÂĽ of ITDMs say that cybersecurity is the single most important project their organization is currently working on.
• The biggest challenges around technology implementation remain the same – lack of budget, staff and skillset. Tech vendors much do all they can to make the implementation process as smooth as possible for their customers.

Download this study to explore key findings, including:

• Organizations are taking a measured return to office approach – 37% have already begun, and another 47% say they will begin in the second half of 2021
• Technology organizations will support a mix of environments with more than a third (38%) saying they will support a hybrid work environment going forward
• The top concerns for organizations around the hybrid work environment are the ability to efficiently collaborate (55%) and employee and/or IT staff morale and burnout (54%).
• The top technologies that will be invested in to address these concerns include enhanced collaboration/meeting tools (56%), enhanced security controls (53%), headphones (31%), “hoteling” applications to enable employees to reserve desk space (27%) and wireless devices (25%).
• Almost half (49%) agree that the effect of the pandemic continues to accelerate companies’ digital transformation efforts.
• Digital business objectives that have increased in importance align with concerns expressed with RTO plans including increase operational efficiency (65%); improve security (65%); improve business resiliency (61%); improve customer experience (59%) and increase internal collaboration (56%).