For decades, IT investment meant heavy assets: datacenters, servers, and multi-year CAPEX programs. The bigger the budget, the stronger the illusion of control. That world is fading.
In the Post CAPEX Age, value increasingly comes from adaptive, service-based consumption. The annual budget cycle is losing relevance, and CIOs who rely on it may lose competitiveness by 2030.
Cloud, SaaS, and XaaS have rewritten the IT balance sheet. By 2026, over 75% of IT spending is expected to be OPEX-driven (Gartner). In 2023, many companies experienced unexpected “bill shocks,” with overruns averaging
around 23% above forecast (FinOps Foundation).
Traditional CAPEX models often struggle with this volatility. They can lock organisations into depreciating assets while the business races ahead. OPEX, by contrast, enables elasticity and speed: the ability to launch, test, and scale without lengthy
approval cycles.
But CAPEX still has its place. In industries like telecom, energy, or defense, CAPEX remains essential for sovereignty, regulatory compliance, and amortization. The goal is not to abolish CAPEX, but to abandon it as the default model.