Forrester Study: Some Growth in IT Spending Expected

Cambridge, Mass. (March 4, 2003) -- Information technology spending among finished goods and manufacturing companies is expected to grow 7.4 percent over 2002 levels, while spending by IT and business decision-makers, retailers, and services companies should increase nearly 2 percent, according to a recent Forrester Research study.

Forrester revealed these latest findings and more in its Business Technographics Benchmark survey of 877 executives, directors, and managers at North American companies. Nearly half of the survey’s respondents work at firms with $1 billion or more in revenues, while the remainder work at firms with between $500 million and $1 billion in revenues.

The study also indicated that in mid-2002, fewer than one in five firms considered purchasing customer relationship management or enterprise resource planning software. Demand for both has, however, returned to pre-2002 levels. In fact, 45 percent of companies surveyed will buy business intelligence tools in 2003.

Additional findings indicate:

  • 60 percent of firms will buy disaster recovery products or services, paced by healthy budgets in manufacturing
  • 36 percent of IT shops will reduce their use of outside consultants and contractors from last year's levels
  • the number of firms completing at least one project involving a web services standard, such as XML or SOAP, grew from 11 percent at the midpoint of 2002 to 31 percent currently
  • 34 percent of companies surveyed describe business unit leaders outside of IT as being "very involved" in setting IT priorities and direction.

-- Electronic Accountant Newswire

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