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Just 7 percent of organizations in the United States expect to increase their IT budget, compared with 38 percent in the United Kingdom and 31 percent across the world, according to a survey report released by Axios Systems.
Survey respondents include IT service management (ITSM) professionals from large enterprises with 500 to 5,000 employees. The findings are part of an industry-wide research paper on global service management trends.
The report highlights regional comparisons on IT budgets and ITSM maturity levels and also examines ITSM variations by industry and company size, and explores what these insights mean for companies with similar characteristics.
“Organizations can no longer afford to pay for functionality that they do not leverage – they need to go beyond the common trap of shelf-ware and ensure they can execute on the vision they were sold,” Markos Symeonides, Axios executive vice president, told eWEEK. “This is truly the key to keeping costs down and maximizing efficiency within the organization. Now, more than ever, it is about the journey after the sale. Vendors need to not only provide top service to their customers, but partner with them in the process.”
Nearly one in two U.S. respondents expect their IT budget to decrease, however ITSM maturity has reached level 3 or higher for nearly 70 percent of U.S. organizations, the report found.
“In many ways, the overall message about IT budgets in the U.S. staying flat or decreasing is most concerning to larger IT firms seeking to compete on a global level,” Symeonides said. “But SMBs should also take note, particularly if they work in a niche sector, are a start-up or are providing borderless digital services. The benefit of investing in your organization’s IT maturity is that you free up IT and business resources to pursue value-adding innovations—these are the opportunities which allow any organization to pull ahead of its competitors.”
He explained doing more with less is not a new concept in this industry, and following the financial crisis in the late 2000s, the majority of organizations Axios has spoken with have been much more conservative in budgeting.
“As it stands, more than 90 percent of respondents in our recent survey expressed the view that budgets would remain constant or decrease for the foreseeable future,” he said. “This is where the real value of an effective service management strategy shines brightest: it allows you to do more with less, to continue innovating even when the numbers say it shouldn’t be possible.”
He said on an everyday level, IT organizations need to find ways to achieve greater efficiencies, for example by using self-service and IT asset management, both of which can reduce operational costs and free up scarce resources to pursue strategic innovations that align with business objectives.