Though most IT decision makers think business users are at least somewhat satisfied with the accessibility and quality of customer data, spending on customer information continues to climb, according to a survey of more than 870 IT decision makers at large North American companies released yesterday.
The survey by Forrester Research, Cambridge, MA, found that portals will see the greatest growth in deployments (61 percent), followed by content management (56 percent) and business intelligence software (48 percent). Also, manufacturing and retail and wholesale companies are 1.5 times more likely to increase deployments of business intelligence solutions.
IT spending continues to inch upward, the survey said, and CIOs' rising optimism about the economy will translate into a 2.4 percent spending increase this year, up from the 1.7 percent projected six months ago.
The survey found that business services such as consulting, transportation and construction as well as finance and insurance firms lead other industries in year-over-year IT spending increases, with an increase in 2004 budgets of 4 percentage points.
The survey also found that regulatory concerns, such as Sarbanes-Oxley, are propping up spending on enterprise applications, with 30 percent of companies increasing spending on enterprise resource planning to support compliance. However, adoption of other enterprise applications, such as procurement, supply-chain management and CRM software, has leveled off.
