Executive Summary:
In mid 2009 CNET Direct and ZDNet UK conducted a major survey of
880 senior UK IT decision makers about their IT priorities, technology
implementation plans, and the effect of the global financial crisis
on their IT operations. The data analysis was conducted by market
research company Connection Research.
Carry on reading for a
summary of the results or
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presentation of the research.
The respondent group was widely distributed across 11 industry
sectors and a full spectrum of organisational size, from SMEs to
large corporations and government instrumentalities. The
respondent breakdown is shown in Chapter 14 of the report.
The report examines the key IT objectives and challenges facing
IT departments throughout the United Kingdom. It provides a
comprehensive overview of IT considerations, strategies and
technologies being implemented and planned by large and
small IT-using organisations.
Overall, the picture of IT priorities in the UK in 2009 is a
conservative one. There are significant areas of investment
activity, such as laptop computing, but largely because of
the global financial situation, the key distinguishing feature
of the IT priorities of UK users in 2009 is on saving money and
operating within constrained budgets.
A key distinguishing feature is the deferral of many short term
projects, a reduction in IT budgets, and the referral of many
IT decisions, which may have previously been made by the CIO
or IT manager, to the CEO or CFO. Money is tight, and senior
management is taking a greater interest in the justification of
IT expenditure than was previously the case.
But there are some bright sides to these changing circumstances.
There is a stronger emphasis on ensuring IT applications have a
better fit with business processes. Improved access to information
is rated very highly, with half the respondent base willing to spend
up to £50 thousand on technology products and services within the
next 12 months, and more than 10% willing to spend more than £10
million over the next year. The money is there, but people want to
spend it wisely.
Some of the most significant intended areas of expenditure
over the next 12 months are in the data centre and end user
hardware. Other popular areas of expenditure are in web
applications, network security, virtualisation, enterprise-wide
information access, mobile working solutions and unified
communications. These are investments in the future, and as
such are signs of optimism.
Green IT and carbon footprint reduction, although widely
discussed in the press, are not generally considered to be a
high priority by a majority of UK IT departments. Initiatives to
reduce power consumption and improve efficiency are often
considered to be part of a long term strategy, but plans for
implementation are in most cases not likely to be considered
within the next 6-12 months.
When comparing the responses by small, medium and large
enterprises, it is very much the smaller organisations which
are more likely to focus their IT priorities on customer and
partner expectations, service responsiveness and increased
productivity, while it is the medium to larger organisations
which are more likely to focus on internal cost saving objectives,
IT logistics and decreasing IT budgets through a more formalised
approach to IT best practice and efficiency. Less tangible issues,
like Green IT, are also much more important to larger organisations,
which tend to have more resources to concentrate on
such matters.
IT investment, like the economy and so many other aspects
of human life, tends to go in cycles. This survey shows that
we are perhaps at the lower end of a cycle, but also that
investments are occurring that indicate optimism for the
future, with many important new investments beginning to
occur.
Respondent Base
CBS Interactive’s IT Insights and Priorities 2009 research is
based on an online survey of 880 UK IT decision makers across
a wide spectrum of IT job functions from CIOs, IT Directors and
IT Managers to Network, Infrastructure, Security, Database,
Software, Applications, Web and Support specialists.
Respondents to the 15 question online survey were generated
through email marketing activity to CNET Directs permission
email database of 210,000 UK Business IT Professionals plus
online advertising across CBS Interactive online business IT
properties; ZDNet UK, Silicon and Tech Republic.
Respondents come from many different sizes of organisations
(respondents representing one-person organisations were
excluded from the analysis). The largest single group (24.9%)
were from organisations with 2 to 9 employees, but nearly
one third (14.8% plus 14.9%) were from organisations with
more than 1,000 employees.
Respondents come from a wide range of different industry sectors. One quarter (25.0%) come
from IT related industries and one in ten respondents work in education and R&D related
industries (13.0%), business services (9.9%), retail/ banking/ insurance (7.4%).
Half of the respondents (53.0%) are willing to spend up to £50,000 (GBP) on technology products
and services within the next 12 months.
One in ten (7.4%) are prepared to spend more than £10 million. Nearly one third (33.9%) will spend
less than £10,000.
Two thirds (59.9%) of the respondents influence IT purchases and nearly as many are involved with
evaluation of their organisation’s IT solutions (57.7%). More than half specify IT requirements
(52.7%).
More than one in ten (13.3%) are not involved in any IT strategy or implementation at all.
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