Budgeting

To understand how IT decision-makers are responding to the current turmoil in worldwide financial markets, Computer Economics conducted a special survey in October 2008. The results are analyzed in this report, which breaks down changes in IT operational budgets over the past three months and analyzes IT executive expectations for actual 2008 spending versus budget. In addition, we discuss the budget-cutting actions that IT executives have taken over the past three months in response to economic conditions. We also report IT staffing level changes over the past 12 months and IT executive expections for 2009 IT spending and staffing levels by organization size. We conclude with our analysis of why the outlook is not as negative as one might expect. (10 pp., 11 figs.)[Executive Summary]

November, 2008