Global economic woes slow IT spending

IT budgets are expected to increase an average of only 3 percent this year, down from 6 percent reported last year, according to CIOmagazine’s latest Tech Poll of 200 IT leaders.

The survey, conducted in April, showed that budget increases are in store for nearly half of CIOs, up from 32 percent roughly 9 months ago.  Just one in five CIOs anticipate IT budget cuts.  

There is also a big shift underway in terms of where IT spending is being targeted. CIOs are increasing spending on outsourced IT services, including cloud, plus  mobile/wireless and applications.

Here are some other highlights from the survey:

The percentage of CIOs increasing spending for outsourced IT services and compensation costs continues to rise while fewer IT leaders plan hardware spending increases.   Enterprise IT leaders in organizations with 1,000 or more employees are significantly more likely than their small and mid-size (SMB) counterparts to have plans for mobile/wireless (61 percent, versus 40 percent) and applications spending increases (57 percent, versus 42 percent).  Spending on new projects is relatively consistent from a year ago with 55 percent planning to increase the percentage of their total IT budget allocated to new projects, compared to 54 percent reported in April, 2011.  

Network World - IT budgets are expected to increase an average of only 3 percent this year, down from 6 percent reported last year, according to CIOmagazine’s latest Tech Poll of 200 IT leaders.

The survey, conducted in April, showed that budget increases are in store for nearly half of CIOs, up from 32 percent roughly 9 months ago.  Just one in five CIOs anticipate IT budget cuts.  

There is also a big shift underway in terms of where IT spending is being targeted. CIOs are increasing spending on outsourced IT services, including cloud, plus  mobile/wireless and applications.

Here are some other highlights from the survey:

The percentage of CIOs increasing spending for outsourced IT services and compensation costs continues to rise while fewer IT leaders plan hardware spending increases.   Enterprise IT leaders in organizations with 1,000 or more employees are significantly more likely than their small and mid-size (SMB) counterparts to have plans for mobile/wireless (61 percent, versus 40 percent) and applications spending increases (57 percent, versus 42 percent).  Spending on new projects is relatively consistent from a year ago with 55 percent planning to increase the percentage of their total IT budget allocated to new projects, compared to 54 percent reported in April, 2011.  

CIOs predict a shift in budget dollars away from core technologies such as infrastructure, network, storage, compute and ERP toward edge technologies including mobile, CRM, m-commerce, cloud, social, and marketing automation.

To see the full survey results, download this pdf.

Read more about infrastructure management in Network World's Infrastructure Management section.