Gartner now offers little reason for treasurers to be optimistic about tech budgets.
Perhaps they got a better look at the budget numbers.
In early December 2009, consulting firm Gartner released a survey of senior executives in the US and UK revealing a bullish outlook for information technology spending in 2010. (Gartner wasn’t alone: Accenture also found more support for IT spending this year.) Zip ahead to January 2010 and things look a little less hopeful: A new Gartner survey of chief information officers shows flat spending in 2010. This follows an average drop of 8.1 percent in 2009 technology budgets.
Indeed, it appears IT has been spun through the way-back machine: CIOs now have about the same amount of money to spend on IT as they did back in 2005, as budget cuts wiped out several years worth of increases, according to Gartner.
In the latest survey, Gartner said IT budgets would increase by a weighted global average of 1.3 percent. Although not said explicitly, the lower spending might be attributed to cheaper alternatives in technology: Gartner points out that IT departments are transitioning to “lighter-weight” services vs. the heavier “owner operated solutions.” This may mean technology departments are moving to cheaper cloud computing services, which offer low-cost software, processes and storage remotely.
While the Gartner survey revealed that IT departments will spend less, they will still look to be just as effective in transitioning to a post-crisis world. In its previous survey, executives said IT would be critical in helping companies get out of the recession. In this latest Gartner said IT will continue to focus on “business process improvement, cost reduction and analytics.”
“CIOs see 2010 as an opportunity to accelerate IT’s transition from a support function to strategic contributor focused on innovation and competitive advantage,” according to Mark McDonald, group vice president and head of research for Gartner EXP.
The Gartner survey included responses from 1,586 CIOs representing more than $126 billion in corporate and public-sector IT spending across 41 countries and 27 industries.