Technology spending is accelerating at an extraordinary pace. But are enterprises capturing the value, or simply funding another wave of supplier revenue growth?
The technology industry is heading into 2027 with plenty to celebrate.
According to Gartner's October 2026 forecast, worldwide IT spending is expected to reach $7.35 trillion in 2027, a 15% increase over 2026. Software, cloud infrastructure, data centers, and AI-related investments are driving much of that growth.
For technology suppliers, those numbers represent enormous opportunity.
For enterprise buyers? That's a different conversation.
CIOs are being asked to accelerate innovation. CFOs want measurable financial returns. Procurement executives are navigating increasingly complicated licensing structures, consumption commitments, and multiyear agreements.
Meanwhile, suppliers continue introducing new products, premium features, revised pricing metrics, and commercial models that can increase spending without necessarily delivering proportional business value.
The fundamental question isn't whether enterprises should invest in new technology.
It's whether they can afford to keep investing without first optimizing what they already own.
The Growing Disconnect Between Spending and Value
Consider another finding from Gartner's October 2026 CIO survey.
Only 13% of CIOs reported achieving significant or transformational value from AI, while 51% expected AI to increase the total cost of ownership of technology solutions.
That's a concerning combination: higher anticipated costs without widespread evidence of comparable returns.
Cloud economics present a similar challenge.
Flexera's 2026 State of the Cloud Report found that 85% of respondents identified managing cloud spending as a leading challenge, while estimated wasted cloud spending reached 29%.
Think about that.
Enterprises are pouring more money into cloud environments while substantial portions of those investments may be delivering little incremental value.
And the problem extends beyond unused cloud resources.
Organizations routinely carry oversized software commitments, redundant applications, unnecessary premium license tiers, unfavorable consumption rates, and contracts negotiated against outdated business requirements.
Some of these issues are operational. Others are commercial.
Both deserve attention.
Are You Optimizing Your Technology or Your Supplier's Revenue?
Technology suppliers are sophisticated businesses. Their commercial strategies are designed to increase recurring revenue, expand customer commitments, and improve long-term economics.
There's nothing inherently wrong with that.
But buyers need equally sophisticated strategies to protect their interests.
A supplier may offer a compelling discount in exchange for a larger multiyear commitment. An enterprise may celebrate the improved rate without recognizing that it's now obligated to purchase substantially more capacity than it needs.
Similarly, upgrading thousands of users to a premium software edition might provide impressive functionality, but little incremental value if most employees never use those capabilities.
A great discount on the wrong technology investment is still a bad deal.
That's why NET(net) advocates three fundamentals:
These disciplines should be applied across the entire technology portfolio, not just when an individual supplier agreement comes up for renewal.
Stop Negotiating Deals. Start Engineering Value.
The traditional approach to technology procurement is largely transactional.
A renewal approaches. The supplier submits a proposal. Procurement negotiates. The agreement gets signed.
Repeat next year.
But with technology spending growing across dozens or hundreds of suppliers, optimizing one contract at a time leaves substantial opportunities undiscovered.
A portfolio-level approach changes the equation.
At NET(net), we call this a Find Value, Get Value, Keep Value engineering lifecycle.
Find Value: Establish visibility into the complete technology supply chain. Identify underutilized resources, unnecessary commitments, unfavorable commercial terms, and suppliers offering the greatest optimization potential.
Get Value: Use independent market intelligence, technical expertise, and structured negotiations to convert those opportunities into measurable financial and strategic improvements.
Keep Value: Continuously monitor consumption, contractual commitments, supplier performance, and emerging market conditions to preserve and expand the value captured.
The objective isn't a one-time savings event.
It's building a sustainable process that continuously improves technology investment performance.
The CIO, CFO, and CPO Playbook
Making this work requires collaboration across three executive functions that don't always approach technology spending from the same perspective.
For CIOs: Establish a clear picture of what is deployed versus what is actually consumed. Evaluate cloud utilization, software adoption, overlapping platforms, and infrastructure requirements. Challenge proposed upgrades against measurable business outcomes.
For CFOs: Treat supplier optimization as a potential funding source for transformation. Establish financial baselines, distinguish realized savings from projected cost avoidance, and measure the net economic return after implementation and program costs. Direct verified savings toward prioritized innovation initiatives.
For CPOs: Move negotiations upstream. Benchmark pricing and terms, challenge minimum commitments, evaluate midterm adjustment opportunities, and negotiate protections against unexpected consumption and future price increases. Don't wait until the next renewal to identify an unfavorable agreement.
Together, these executives can turn technology cost management from a reactive budgeting exercise into an ongoing source of financial capacity.
And increasingly, that's exactly what's needed.
The 2026 State of FinOps Report found that organizations are being asked to help fund AI investments through optimization savings, reinforcing the growing connection between financial discipline and innovation.
What Does This Look Like in Practice?
This isn't simply a theoretical exercise.
In one NET(net) multi-supplier optimization program for a large healthcare enterprise, our Savings Cloud approach delivered $90.5 million in reported net savings and a client ROI of 1,886% through Q3 2026.
Those results were achieved through systematic optimization across multiple strategic technology suppliers rather than relying on a single transaction.
While individual outcomes vary, the example demonstrates what becomes possible when technology supply chain optimization is treated as an ongoing business discipline.
NET(net)'s Federated Market Intelligence, specialist negotiation expertise, and Savings Cloud programs are designed to help enterprises identify, capture, and sustain these financial improvements.
The Bottom Line: Make Your Existing IT Budget Work Harder
Enterprises shouldn't have to choose between innovation and financial discipline.
The opportunity is to connect the two.
Before approving another major technology investment, expanding a cloud commitment, or upgrading thousands of software licenses, executives should ask a straightforward question:
Have we captured all the value available from our existing technology investments?
Because the most effective way to fund tomorrow's innovation may not be securing a larger budget.
It may be recovering the value already hiding in today's supplier agreements.
Don't just fund the technology suppliers' next phase of growth. Make your technology investments fund yours.
About NET(net)
At NET(net), we don't just optimize IT investments, we weaponize them for competitive advantage. As the world's leading technology investment optimization firm, we've spent over two decades perfecting the art and science of extracting maximum value from technology supply chains while neutralizing vendor pricing manipulation.
Our battle - hardened methodology has influenced trillions of dollars in technology investments, captured hundreds of billions in documented value, and transformed how enterprises approach every facet of IT spend - from emerging technology such as AI, ML, IoT, RPA, Quantum, and Blockchain, to IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, to enterprise hardware and software solutions, and professional services arrangements including strategic outsourcing relationships.
We're not consultants who theorize about optimization, we're the specialists who help you devise and execute your strategy. Our proven frameworks turn vendor pricing chaos into strategic opportunity, licensing complexity into competitive advantage, and cost centers into value engines. Whether you're facing an aggressive vendor audit, navigating a forced migration, or simply refusing to accept runaway IT costs, NET(net) delivers the expertise, experience, and execution you need to dominate rather than merely survive.
Founded in 2002, NET(net) has established itself as the essential strategic partner for enterprises and technology providers who demand performance, not promises. We've mastered every major area of IT optimization because we understand that in today's vendor-hostile environment, half-measures guarantee defeat.
Experience the NET(net) advantage. Contact us at info@netnetweb.com, visit www.netnetweb.com, or call +1 (616) 546-3100 to discover how we can transform your technology investments from cost burden to strategic weapon.
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