Latest Reports

• Understanding Fair Market and Residual Values in Negotiating Leasing Options

  The terms “fair market value” and “residual value” have different meanings, and it is important to know the difference when buying or leasing PCs, laptops, and other equipment. In addition, those who hold the leases (lessees) and leasing companies (lessors) use different methodologies to create their own definitions. This article outlines the perspectives of lessees and lessors, and how the former benefits from negotiating lease contracts in a considered way.

  March, 2019

• How to Plan for New Desktop Equipment Acquisitions

  There are many complex decisions that must be made during the PC procurement process—especially in cases where there are several thousand units involved. This report examines the various decisions required in this process, explores the pros and cons of purchase versus lease, and provides an outline to ensure that the final contract will deliver sound economics and flexibility for your organization.

  January, 2019

• Very Small Organizations Struggling for IT Budget

  For the first time, Computer Economics has conducted a study on the IT spending habits of organizations in the U.S. and Canada that are too small to qualify for our annual benchmarks survey. We decided to examine the IT spending habits of these “very small organizations” with a dedicated survey to determine their spending habits and priorities, and to provide some metrics that can be used to benchmark their spending. This Research Byte provides a summary and description of our full report on IT spending and staffing in very small organizations.

  November, 2019

• IT Spending Benchmarks for Very Small Organizations 2019-2020

  For the first time, Computer Economics has conducted a study on the IT spending habits of “very small” organizations in the U.S. and Canada, a population that is beneath the size threshold for our annual IT spending and staffing benchmark study. This report examines high-level IT spending, staffing metrics and trends for such very small IT organizations. We further break down the high-level metrics by three sectors: manufacturing, retail and wholesale distribution; professional and technical services; and financial services. To qualify as very small for the purposes of this study, a company has to be either under $50 million in revenue or under $1 million in IT operational spending. (36 pp., 17 fig.)

  November, 2019

• Worldwide IT Spending and Staffing Outlook for 2020

  Although IT leaders worldwide have a positive outlook for the global economy, that outlook seems a bit tinged with frustration compared to previous years. This report, based on our Q4 survey, provides data on the global and U.S./Canadian trends for IT spending and staffing in 2020. This year, our report assesses IT operational and capital spending plans, executive priorities for IT investment, and plans for hiring, outsourcing, and pay raises for IT organizations worldwide and in the U.S. and Canada. (34 pp., 24 fig.)

  January, 2020

• IT Leaders on Edge as Budgets Continue Only Modest Gains

  Here at the end of 2019, we find that IT leaders worldwide have a positive outlook for the global economy. Nevertheless, hat outlook is tinged with frustration compared to previous years. It is not exactly that leaders fear a recession (though an increasing number do) so much as they are becoming fed up with years of modest increases and not-so-modestly increasing demands for service. This research byte summarizes the full report, Worldwide IT Spending and Staffing Outlook for 2020.

  January, 2020

• Employee Centricity and Customer Experience Takes The Forefront

  COVID-19 has brought focus back on collaboration, automation, and security, however this time it centers around employee engagement and customer experience. Owing to the pandemic, there is sudden change in people’s habits and preferences, specifically the way they operate and interact as they embrace work-from-home culture. Progressive enterprises are adopting a “cloud-first” strategy and looking for newer digital ways of working and serving their customers. Zensar, being cognizant of this trend, has already identified and laid out a digital enterprise priority, hinged around enabling experience, business agility, and automation.

  October, 2020

• Amid Changes, Communications Support Staff Increases

  Corporate communications systems have become more sophisticated in recent years. As a result, it is becoming more difficult to determine how to staff the role of supporting them. As such, the size of the communications system support staff as a percentage of the IT staff has been prone to large fluctuations in recent years. This Research Byte provides a summary of our full report on communications support staffing ratios.

  January, 2019

• Covid-19 Pandemic Boosting Demand for Web/E-commerce Personnel

  Web/e-commerce support personnel have been increasing as a share of the typical IT staff over the past five years. And now, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, this IT staff position is getting a big boost as organizations are having to increase their digital interactions with customers, partners, and suppliers.This Research Byte summarizes the five-year trend in web/e-commerce staffing ratios.

  April, 2020

• Application Maintenance Staffing Ratios 2019

  As an organization’s application portfolio grows, the application maintenance role becomes a more critical function and IT organizations can benefit from periodic assessment of their staffing levels. This report uses three metrics to make that assessment: application maintenance staff as a percentage of the IT staff, users per application maintenance staff member, and applications per application maintenance staff member.

  March, 2019

• Application Maintenance Staff Getting Pulled in Two Directions

  The share of the typical IT staff devoted to applications maintenance declined this year.. However, this metric is not yet showing a trend and is fluctuating as organizations grapple with expanding software portfolios at the same time they are converting some of their portfolios to SaaS, which should require less of a maintenance effort. This Research Byte provides a summary of our full report on application maintenance staffing ratios.

  March, 2019

• How CIOs Risk Becoming Irrelevant

  During the late 1990s the median IT organization in North America experienced double-digit IT operational budget growth. Even as recently as 2006 to 2008, IT budgets were growing in the 4% to 5% range. But today, IT budgets are growing only 2 % at the median and the outlook for 2012 is unchanged.

  December, 2011