There was no shortage of news last week, but here’s an item that caught my eye: “The U.S. economy grew 2.1% in the fourth quarter, closing out a year in which gross domestic product decelerated to its slowest pace in three years amid a continuing drag in business investment,” writes Jeff Cox of CNBC.
As technology executives and leaders, we understand that investment is absolutely critical to growth. From my perspective, it was extremely reassuring to see that technology investment remained strong, even as gross private domestic investment fell sharply.
The overall loss of investment dollars was mitigated “by a 5.9% increase in intellectual property products, the best gain since the first quarter and boosted by software investment,” according to CNBC.
As the old saying goes, “You have to spend money to make money.” Clearly, the value of new and innovative technology is still appreciated, even when investors are skittish about placing large bets in other sectors of the economy.
It’s especially gratifying to know that many of our HMG Strategy partners are trendsetting leaders in the hottest areas of new tech. Our strategic partners include these amazing companies:
Nutanix, whose Enterprise Cloud OS software delivers one-click simplicity to infrastructure and application management, elevating IT focus.
Zoom, a leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video, audio and more.
Lenovo, a Fortune Global 500 company focused on the bold vision to deliver smarter, world-changing technology for all.
UiPath, which is leading the ‘automation-first’ era by delivering free and open training and through its robotic process automation (RPA) platform.
RingCentral, a global provider of flexible, cost-effective cloud enterprise unified communications and collaboration solutions.
Adobe, whose tools help customers create highly compelling content, and whose innovations drive the future of digital media.
Darktrace, a leading cyber AI company whose “Autonomous Response” technology is modeled on the human immune system.
Moveworks, which provides an AI platform purpose-built to solve one issue for large enterprises—resolving their employees’ IT support issues.
Info-Tech Research, the fastest growing and most innovative IT research and advisory group, serving 30,000 IT professionals.
BetterCloud, the leading platform for SaaSOps professionals.
Equinix, a global interconnection platform linking the world’s leading businesses to their customers, employees and partners.
Zendesk, a powerful and flexible customer service and engagement platform which scales to meet the needs of any business.
Ivanti, which unifies IT and security operations to better manage the digital workplace, reducing risks with insights and automation.
Pure Storage, a data platform powered by all-flash storage, offering a simple, effective way to build a better world with data.
Box, a Cloud Content Management company that empowers enterprises to revolutionize how they work.
CrowdStrike, a leader in Cloud-delivered endpoint security that delivers actionable intelligence and real-time protection.
Fortinet, which provides top-rated network and content security, as well as secure access products that share intelligence and work together to form a cooperative fabric.
OutSystems, the number-one low-code platform for rapid and simplified application development, with high attention to detail.
Catalyte, an AI company that solves a superlative challenge in IT today: creating a diverse, affordable and sustainable ready-to-hire workforce.
As I have said and written previously, these companies are role models for a new and vibrant generation of technology firms. They are blazing a trail for all of us, and clearly showing the world how continuous innovation and creative disruption are fundamentally essential to business growth and widely shared prosperity.
These companies represent the future of our industry and I am deeply grateful for their presence and involvement in our summits and events.
