Companies are suspending IT projects not related to revenue growth or cost reduction, as well as cutting back on IT investments amidst indications of lower spending on capital upgrades and ERP projects, according to a global industry survey just released by Resources Global Professionals.

Resources Global Professionals conducted their Top IT Initiatives for 2009 survey amongst executives mostly representing firms employing between 500 and 7,500 or more staff.

Resources Global Professionals managing director (Asia Pacific), Jacinta Whelan, issued the results of the survey today, revealing that IT departments were focused not only on initiatives supporting revenue growth and cost reduction, but also on managing risk and improving service delivery.

Whelan said the survey indicated IT leaders are still focused on delivering needed capabilities to business and “this demonstrates that IT is fundamental, not ancillary, to most businesses. Priorities are largely the same; however, costs of initiatives are more scrutinised and less activity around launching new initiatives is occurring,”

According to the survey, when asked about their top five IT priorities for 2009, respondents indicated popular initiatives were:
• Business process improvement within IT dept (17% selected this as top priority)
• ERP systems improvement (16%)
• Solutions optimisation or re-implementation (12%)
• Business Continuity Planning/Disaster Recovery (11%)
• Implementing new ERP modules (10%)
• Security or privacy management (10%)
• Business intelligence (9%)
• Moving towards shared services (9%)

Whelan observed that “it was interesting that outsourcing was not identified as one of the highest priorities of senior IT leaders in 2009 – perhaps companies are focused on pursuing internal initiatives such as BPI and systems optimisation.”

According to Whelan, the survey showed that only about one-third of respondents had not changed their IT plans due to the slowing economy, and IT departments were focused on implementing and improving core services to the business and improving existing IT investments.

“We see our clients reorganising teams to enhance flexibility and service. Making good decisions every day about people and technology should enable companies to survive these challenging times,” Ms Whelan said.

Other results of the survey revealed that:

• Only in Europe was CRM seen as a top five priority, edging out hardware efficiencies (which
was a top five priority for both North America and Asia Pacific).
• 38% of Asia Pacific respondents named BPI within the IT department as their number one
priority, with almost 29% naming solutions optimisation/re-implementation.
• IT governance was a top 5 initiative for companies with fewer than 5000 employees (53% of
 respondents). 
• Only organisations with 5001-7500 employees identified HR systems as a top 5 priority