This month's Cutter Benchmark Review is the second in our annual series on IT budgets and the IT budgeting process. The budgeting process is one of critical importance to IT and business professionals in our subscriber base. This is perhaps even more important today as we continue to see a recovery in IT spending as well as the shifting of priorities away from a narrow focus on cost cutting and efficiency (a trend that we picked up in last year's data).
Spotting emerging trends is exactly the goal of the annual surveys we do -- the one we publish in August on budgeting and the one we issue each January on IT trends and technologies to watch for in the new year.
As you will see, our contributors this month were able to begin drawing some conclusions from year-over-year trending. We certainly know that two data points are not enough for serious trend analyses, but comparing this year's and last year's results offered some interesting food for thought and insight. As we continue these yearly surveys, we will be able to draw even more long-range conclusions. This year's survey yielded 98 responses, a 29% improvement over the 76 we received last year. I, selfishly, will interpret this result to mean that you, our readers, are recognizing the importance of such a survey and that you will be supporting us more and more in the future -- a 29% increase year-over-year is something I can gladly live with for the next four or five years!
In order to provide consistency with respect to the responses we seek, our contributors have identified a core set of survey questions we intend to ask with each yearly survey -- these are the issues that we feel you would inquire about. Recognizing that we will have fluctuations in importance of topics over time, some of the other survey questions will inevitably change. This approach enables us to identify trends around the core set of issues while still being flexible with respect to the relevance of each survey item.
In order to provide consistency in the analysis and to capitalize on the year-over-year trending ability our data affords us, we asked last year's contributors to come back and comment on this year's results. They gladly accepted.
Our academic contributor is Dennis Adams, Chair of the Decision and Information Sciences Department at the University of Houston (USA). Those of you who follow CBR already know Dennis, as he is also the academic contributor for our annual issue on IT trends and has participated in various capacities on a number of other CBRs. Providing our view from the field is another cast of characters well known to Cutter clients: Bob Benson and Tom Bugnitz, Senior Consultants with Cutter's Business-IT Strategies practice and members of The Beta Group.
Dennis begins his contribution by contextualizing the IT budgeting process and pointing out something we know but all too often forget: organizational processes are enacted by humans, and humans have their share of biases. He then takes a step back to provide an overview of recent economic and technology trends that may impact this year's budgets. With this as a background, Dennis dives into the survey data, drawing conclusions and comparisons to what we saw last year. He concludes with some implications for managers as well as tangible guidelines for future action.
Bob and Tom bring their years of consulting, writing, and educational experience to bear in their commentary on the survey results and interpretation of the trends. In their article, they systematically address the key aspects of the survey. Whether you agree with some of their more controversial stances or not, I think you will particularly value their ability to intersperse analysis of the survey results with their knowledge and suggestions from their many articles and books. (This is particularly valuable since we recognize that you are busy and may have little time to go dig them out -- all the key points are here.) I found the charts they developed to make a compelling case for the lack of trends and patterns -- a result that has not changed from last year.
While commentators often suggest that the IT budgeting process is (or at least should be) a very rational process, this is often not the case in real-world organizations. Thus, keeping with the tradition of CBR, our objective is not only to benchmark what is happening in order to give you some comparison data to evaluate your own organization, but also to provide practical guidance and food for thought as you define the optimal budget and priorities for your own firm. I think you will find that we have hit the mark. I also hope that you will see the value of longitudinal data and will make it a point to provide us with your firm's perspective for our next budgeting and IT trends surveys.
-- Gabriele Piccoli, Editor, Cutter Benchmark Review
