Business decision makers’ (BDMs) and IT decision makers’ (ITDMs) understanding of current IT trends are much closer than they are generally perceived to be, according to the new Dell State of IT Trends 2016 global study.

In the past, business and IT leaders had different levels of understanding of IT trends and technologies. However the study shows that over time, business and IT leaders’ perceptions of technology have evolved and more closely aligned as new technologies have entered the market and become increasingly critical drivers of an organization’s success.

The Dell State of IT Trends 2016 global study reveals a greater sophistication and alignment in understanding of IT trends between the two groups. The results indicate that IT and business leadership are better collaborating and having in-depth conversations about not only how technology works but how it can propel the business forward.

“There is a lingering misperception that business leaders are disconnected during strategic IT discussions, but times have changed,” said Matt Baker, Executive Director, Enterprise Strategy, Dell. ”This study reveals that there is an increasingly common understanding between business and IT decision makers on the key IT trends and the growth opportunities that IT can deliver.”

In today’s data-driven economy, companies need IT that is agile, efficient, scalable and capable of responding to business applications in real time. According to the Dell survey, increasing business productivity is the main IT consideration for both ITDMs (81 percent) and BDMs (77 percent), followed by growing the business (71 percent and 69 percent, respectively).

Global decision makers, in companies of all sizes and in both developed and developing markets, are most closely aligned on the following IT trends:

■ ITDMs (62 percent) and BDMs (51 percent) agree that cloud computing is the most important technology trend for their companies.

■ The ability to burst to public cloud as needed is important to both ITDMs (83 percent) and BDMs (74 percent)

■ 88 percent of ITDMs and 80 percent of BDMs say their organization is considering adopting a software-defined data center (SDDC), is in the process of transitioning, or has already completed the transition to one.

■ Global BDMs are more likely to say they are considering adopting SDDC, while global ITDMs are more likely to say they have already started the transition.

■ Both groups agree the benefits of SDDC are flexibility, simplicity, efficiency and cost-savings, although ITDMs also place a greater value on increased scalability (57 percent) than BDMs (40 percent).

■ By 2:1 margins, both ITDMs and BDMs say they will use more open data center technologies in the future.

■ 86 percent of ITDMs and 85 percent of BDMs agree that compute-centric is the best approach to gain a flexible, scalable and open data center.

In terms of technology spending for 2016, cloud is the main priority among both ITDMs (67 percent) and BDMs (59 percent). This is followed closely by data storage upgrades or purchase (54 percent and 48 percent, respectively).