IT Economic Outlook Brightens

The number of medium-sized companies expecting bigger budgets increased 10 percentage points from April to 64%, according to CDW.

 By K.C. Jones, InformationWeek, July 23 2008, 1000 hrs

Fifty-one percent of businesses expect IT budget increases in the next six months, up from 49% since the last bimonthly CDW IT Monitor gauging the IT marketplace.

In the medium-sized business sector, the number of companies expecting bigger budgets increased 10 percentage points from April to 64%, according to CDW.

Just 27% of small businesses remain confident they will see IT budget increases in the next six months, and just 9% of small businesses plan on hiring more IT staff in the second half of the year. Twenty-five percent of medium-sized businesses and 41% of large businesses plan to hire more IT workers.

"Small businesses in particular are still waiting to hire new staff or undertake even routine system implementations that would normally occur over cycles," said CDW VP Mark Gambill, who oversees market insights. "It's not surprising that small businesses, with relatively fewer resources, are lagging their larger brethren in confidence. Whether or not confidence returns to the small business sector will say a lot about whether the slight uptick in overall confidence we see in this IT Monitor reading is here to stay."

Gambill said IT leaders are readjusting expectations as they assess the economy.

"While a few are expecting increases in technology-related spending, others are lengthening project cycle times to optimally manage cost instead of cutting projects altogether," he said.

The overall CDW IT Monitor index rose one point from April to 73.

The index ratings are based on a scale of 0 to 100 and are designed to reflect sentiment in the IT marketplace. They are based on an IT Value Monitor, which measures how much IT is valued for achieving organizational goals and satisfying expectations. They also are based on the IT Growth Monitor, which measures organizations' IT expectations.

More data is available through CDW's Web site.