Friday, January 23, 2009

More Surprising News on Small Business IT Spending in 2009

Though it is possible decision-makers have changed their minds since late November, as of that period, nearly a third of 2,000 U.S. IT decision-makers in businesses of all sizes said they expected their 2009 budgets would increase over 2008 levels, according to research from Compass Intelligence. 

If respondents follow through with their stated intentions, U.S. IT spending will grow more than four percent by the end of 2009, with growth rising through 2013, Compass Intelligence says.

Growth will tend to stem from small and mid-sized companies and less from enterprise businesses. While the total U.S. IT market will grow 4.1 percent in 2009, enterprise spending will account for just 2.8 percent of spending growth.

About a third of respondents expect to spend more, about a third expect to spend the same amounts as in 2008 while a third expect budgets to shrink. We might add that this is not an atypical finding. 

However, 2009 ICT revenues will not come easy and are likely to be earned after the first quarter of this year because IT decision-makers also indicated they will cautiously plan their investments in the first couple of months.

"This isn't the first time that we've seen a recession in the last decade, and most ICT decision-makers have been in troubled times like this before - so have the line-of-business managers influencing them," says Kneko Burney, Compass Intelligence president. "Most IT & Business decision-makers are planning to spend through this slow-down."

Key areas of spending priority for 2009 are computer systems, wireless applications and services, business Web sites or Web infrastructure and business networks according to the IT decision-makers surveyed.  The order of key priorities varies among size of business, but the top four priorities are, for the most part the same, regardless of business size, Burney notes.

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