Despite the economic downturn, some companies in Benelux, Nordics and Australia are confident about their future outlook, with planned IT budget increases outstripping IT budget decreases, according to Datamonitor research.
“It is clear there has been a noticeable decline in enterprise confidence. However, the findings are not as negative as might have been expected,” says Daniel Okubo, technology analyst with Datamonitor and the report's author.
“Despite the rise in the proportion of IT budgets that are remaining flat, there are still a sizable proportion of enterprises planning to increase IT expenditure. Technology vendors should be keenly aware that the economic conditions of a country directly impacts enterprise IT budgets.”
The report: 'How will IT budgets hold up in 2009', shows that even in the industries worst affected by the downturn, such as manufacturing and retail banking, there are opportunities for technology vendors. The report expects that areas such as sales, customer relations management, financials, procurement and manufacturing execution will continue to see healthy levels of investment, and technology vendors should focus on these areas.
Datamonitor surveyed 520 IT decision-makers towards the end of last year. Across all of the 14 countries surveyed, the percentage of IT decision-makers who plan to decrease their IT budget significantly in 2009 has risen to 8% from 3% over the last six months.
IT budgets have been hit the worst in developed economies, which are falling into a recession, Okubo says. “Although there is a noticeable correlation between an economy's future outlook and projected growth in enterprise IT expenditure, there are opportunities in every vertical market if vendors understand enterprise requirements.
“Enterprises are more interested in raising efficiency than cutting costs. Technology vendors should tailor their sales and marketing to address the specific needs of the enterprises they are targeting, while taking into account the economic conditions they are operating in.”
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