Benchmarking report on IT spend and budgets

Nov. 15, 2010 - A new survey recently published by Forrester compares benchmarks for IT spending across different industries. Benchmarks continue to be of significant interest to CIOs as they look to defend their budgets and help to determine where to make cuts.

The survey of 1000 IT executives suggests that spending remains tight with the focus continuing on cost cutting with 60% saying that both their capital as well overall IT spending would be the same as or less than 2009.

The majority of IT organisations claim that their focus is on reducing the ongoing maintenance and operation's budgets to provide budget for investment in additional areas. These included infrastructure refresh and projects required to fulfil mandatory compliance requirements.

For Enterprise organisations, the report compares spending, as a percentage of overall revenue, on what it calls MOOSE (Maintain and Operate the Organisation, Systems and Equipment) with total overall IT budgets across different sectors.

Oil and gas sector came out the lowest with .8% (MOOSE) and 1.1% (total IT budget) with Professional Services having the highest proportion of 2.1% (MOOSE) and 2.7% (total IT budget).

Forrester recommends that organisations focus their benchmarking on the MOOSE element as this remains more consistent from year to year and between companies. The overall thrust is that by reducing their spend on MOOSE they can release investment for additional projects and new initiatives.

Forrester also reported on IT management and Technology priorities for the year. The top two management areas were streamlining business process and improving the overall efficiency of IT through programmes such as Lean IT.

From a technology perspective the top two priorities were to "consolidate IT infrastructure" and "significantly upgrade disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities"

Mat Middleton, Commercial director at Innovise ESM comments "The findings from this Forrester report are reflected in the work that we are doing with a number of global, blue-chip customers. We have been able to help them significantly reduce their maintenance and operational costs through the deployment of new management processes with leading edge enterprise management toolsets."

The full Forrester report can be obtained at:

http://www.forrester.com/rb/Research/2011_it_budget_planning_guide_for_cios/q/id/57508/t/2

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About Innovise ESM

Innovise ESM is a leading Enterprise Service Management (ESM) consultancy and solution provider, experienced in the provision, design, implementation and support of Enterprise Management Solutions. The company operates globally and is AIM listed. It has been recently formed out of three leading organisations including Abilitec, Harbrook and Infrasolve. Innovise ESM's all encompassing approach includes consultancy, solutions, training and support.

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