The IT budgets will essentially be flat this year across the globe compared to last year when it declined by 8.1 per cent, says an industry survey.

"The year 2009 was the most challenging for CIOs in the corporate and public sectors as they faced multiple budget cuts, delayed spending and increased demand for services with reduced resources," Gartner EXP group Vice-President and Research Head Mark McDonald said today.

This is set to change in 2010, as the economies recover from recession and enterprises transition their strategies from cost-cutting efficiency to value-creating productivity, he added.

The survey includes responses from 1,586 CIOs representing over $126 billion in corporate and public sector IT spends across 41 countries and 27 industries.
McDonald said while technologies are transitioning from 'heavy' owner-operated solutions to a 'lighter-weight' services model, the CIOs are, in turn, transitioning IT beyond merely managing resources to taking responsibility for managing results.

"The CIOs see 2010 as an opportunity to accelerate the transition of IT from a support function to strategic contributor focused on innovation and competitive advantage," McDonald said.

According to the survey, business process improvement and reducing enterprise costs are top two business priorities for the CIOs, while virtualisation and cloud-computing emerged as the top two technology priorities.

"These technologies, implemented properly, create the opportunity for IT to change its role and the operational performance of the enterprise," McDonald said. The data were collected in the fourth quarter of 2009 and provides a snapshot of the CIO plans, priorities and budgets for 2010 as they stood at the end of the fourth quarter of 2009, Gartner said.