Since February, the U.S. Administration’s foray into tariff policy changes has created a whirlwind of unpredictable shifts and stock market turbulence. Foreign leaders across the globe are waiting to see what’s next. The latest twist occurred on April 11, when President Trump announced a pause on the recently installed tariffs – excluding China. By Monday, however, Administration officials including U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick qualified that tariff exemptions on electronic goods are temporary, with new levies coming soon. Semiconductors will be targeted, according to several news reports.
All this leaves CXOs, especially CIOs and CTOs, in a difficult position. Companies across all industries depend upon electronics to attain not only competitive advantage but day-to-day operations. IDC recently announced a bearish forecast for IT spending, downgrading its spending projections to 5% growth in 2025, rather than the 10% growth forecast previously.
“The wave of new tariffs introduced by the US administration will drive up technology prices, disrupt supply chains, and weaken global IT spending in 2025,” the research firm stated in a blog post on April 4.
So now what? CIOs can’t easily stockpile high-ticket items like servers, storage devices and networking equipment. Further, cost efficiency has been a mandate from above for several years; asking the CEO for another $2 million to prepare IT infrastructure and operations for tariffs may not play well. There is also the pressure on budgets for expanding cybersecurity protection and deploying AI.
Here are a few strategies to consider as IT leaders balance fiscal responsibility with critical IT initiatives:
Reconsider technology modernization initiatives. If you have plans over the next 12 months to replace an aging and legacy infrastructure stack, such as adopting HCI or higher-performing Flash storage, this might be the time to delay or pare down plans–unless your enterprise can afford 20 or 30% higher prices for new hardware.
Re-evaluate cloud storage. While the major clouds (AWS, Google and Azure) manufacture some of their own hardware, they still rely upon global supply chains to source the computing, networking and storage equipment and components that power their datacenters and services. Yet the cloud giants can absorb tariff changes more easily than the average enterprise—whether through negotiations, volume discounts or other workarounds. Cloud repatriations have been on the rise in recent years due to high costs and mismanagement, but savvy IT leaders may reverse course if cloud infrastructure becomes a better deal now, comparatively.
Get insights on unstructured data before buying more storage. When IT managers discover that they are running out of storage capacity, the traditional response has been to buy more. But this may lead to waste and/or the wrong storage technology later. Most (80%) of data is rarely accessed (cold), yet consumes expensive storage and backup resources. By gathering insights on all data across storage, you can understand data usage and access patterns, growth metrics, data types and costs to make the right decisions. With a thorough analysis, your organization may be able to avoid purchasing new storage altogether through cold data tiering and right-placing data into the optimal storage for its current requirements.
When IT managers discover that they are running out of storage capacity, the traditional response has been to buy more. But this may lead to waste and/or the wrong storage technology later.
Choose best of breed. IT organizations with just a few large IT vendors running their stack is not uncommon, as the giants continually expand their offerings to meet new needs of customers. But in times of supply-chain pressure, such as today, this may not be the smartest tactic. Having a multitude of vendors means they will work for your business and compete harder on pricing. This strategy may also give you the best cost and performance ratio for different workloads with some protection against a vendor raising its prices substantially or discontinuing an essential product.
Prolong the life of your infrastructure using software. Since new infrastructure is costing more for equivalent functionality, it is wise to see how you can delay hardware refresh cycles by getting more value from existing infrastructure. For instance, you can leverage older, slower storage infrastructure by using it as a cold tier for your high-performant storage. By using data management software to transparently tier cold files, you free up expensive storage capacity while also shrinking backup storage requirements.
Keep the future in mind. A cautionary note: despite growing concerns about tariff-induced inflation, IT leaders must always retain a strategic outlook. Making the best decisions for the business amid cost pressures should balance the need to develop an infrastructure that is AI-ready, secure across all areas with strong ransomware defenses, compliant with ever-changing global regulations, sustainable regarding energy constraints and flexible enough to quickly adapt to evolving business demands. Ensure that you make your data AI-ready with proper data analytics and data classification, as this is a first step for any AI data pipelines. Read more about how Komprise facilitates AI-ready data.
The threat of new tariffs and a prolonged trade war has created great economic uncertainty in 2025. With careful planning using the steps outlined above, you can achieve cost savings while minimizing additional infrastructure spend by intelligently managing your cold data and continually right-placing all data in storage.
