Bolster your budget proposals with IT market basket statistics

Tracking and comparing the costs of IT staples such as equipment, connectivity, and training can underpin your budget proposals with hard numbers. IT spending projections for the year 2000 remain surprisingly low. A review of all companies surveyed reveals a maximum IT spending increase of 30 percent at one end of the scale and a maximum spending decrease of 25 percent at the other end, numbers that reveal a strange symmetry. Perhaps more significantly, the average change in expenditure is very small: only a 2 percent spending increase. Worse, now when the industry needs skilled workers more than ever, employee training days per year continue their steady decline worldwide, from 8.5 days in 1997 to 7.25 days in 1999. The paper considers how you can fight these trends and win with solid statistics and an approach to IT activities that positions your department as a value center for driving technology investments.