Enterprise IT budgets in 2009 are nearly flat, and CIOs must drive business process improvement while creatively using existing resources to advance their organizations' agendas. So says the latest research from Gartner Inc., a Stamford, Conn.-based consultancy, as well as interviews with CIOs, who put business process improvement atop their agenda for 2009. Today, Gartner releases the results of its 2009 CIO Agenda survey, which took the pulse of more than 1,500 CIOs between Sept. 15 -- just as news of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s bankruptcy filing broke and stock markets subsequently tumbled -- and Dec. 15, 2008.
The survey finds that IT budgets in 2009 will rise, but by such a miniscule percentage -- .16% -- as to be considered flat.
Therefore, organizations are not slashing their IT budgets wholesale -- "in fact, they are using IT to change the way the company works, to make it more effective and efficient," said Mark McDonald, a group vice president at Gartner and author of the study. "CIOs are essentially going to have the same resources as last year to address a whole new range of problems."
