Investment in ICT in A/NZ is forecast to recover slightly (+6.7%) in 2010, rebounding from a 32 percent decline in 2009 according to the survey. The result equates to an estimated A$23 million increase in revenue for the region’s ICT providers.

The 400 organisations responding to the survey represent a A$373 million share of Australasia’s estimated A$5.0 billion ICT investment market.

Uptake of Software as a Service (SaaS) or “on demand” applications showed a significant gain in share, and are now fimly in mainstream acceptance. In a reduced overall ICT investment market, SaaS applications have grabbed market share from the traditional application providers.

CRM, eMail and Web hosting/content management are the leading SaaS applications, but increased usage has occurred across all SaaS categories, with just one exception – eMail hosting – which declined from 13 percent to 11 percent of organisations - most likely reflective of a larger organisational skew in this year’s results.

Small business (<20 employees) are bearing the brunt of the recession, and are still under pressure. Despite the overall recovery, these firms are planning to reduce expenditure by 27 percent.

The sentiment among respondents (large and small) is a strategy to “just keep the lights on” with only necessary maintenance expenditure, and nil or minimal new investment. On top of the 70 percent reduction in small business investment last year, vendors will be looking forward to servicing pent-up demand when conditions improve and businesses are forced to upgrade.

Server and network infrastructure holds the top spot among technology investment options with 51 percent of companies planning some investment in 2010. ERP is the leader in the application space with 35 percent of firms planning upgrades or replacements.

The big movers in the popularity stakes are wireless networks and mobile applications – a result borne out anecdotally in our feature on ROI (refer page 18) as workers become more mobile.

Big Business Sweet Spot
The medium-large sector (200-500 employees) are more bullish. Respondents are forecasting a 38 percent increase in spend, taking the average investment in this category up over the $1 million mark as businesses gear up for growth, and look for the productivity gains that technology can provide.



General Manager of iStart, Hayden McCall, commented that while the increase looked encouraging, it is off a low base.

In releasing the results, McCall commented “The question is whether spend will ever fully recover to pre-recession levels, or whether intense competition, ‘right-sizing’ of solutions and SaaS uptake mean lower investment levels are here to stay.”



iStart, who have run the survey for the past 5 years, say the results show up the consolidation that SaaS applications will create in the ICT market. “When decisions are being made, the majority of businesses are looking at SaaS options, seeing the benefits and often choosing the Opex over Capex path,” McCall added.

For those readers who are making investment decisions, The iStart research portals are the place to go with hundreds of case studies across A/NZ and buyers guides for the leading solution providers.

A big thanks to all those who responded to the survey. We have included a representative selection of your comments below...

“B2B links for our 1000 dealers and 500,000+ users is a priority.”

“Capital budget still massively reduced, since recession.”

“Continuing to keep CapEx to essentials only. Likely to be playing catch up in 2011 (I hope!).”

“Current year will only be minor upgrades to client systems.”

“Looking at doc/image management system to stem duplicated files.”

“Currently still 'lights on' budget with replacements only.”

“Intend to keep spending minimal on ICT for this year.  Doing as much improvements as possible in house.”

“looking to implement a more comprehensive website to drive business leads.”

“Some investments planned during the recession as products will be cheaper. But hard to predict at this stage as our investments will be lead by important innovations in the IT industry. We don't upgrade just to upgrade - has to make sense.”

“New systems planning will need to pass a rigorous ROI benefits scrutiny.”

“Spending funds on developing CRM/Database application incorporating BI and eCommerce.”

“The construction industry is still slowly recovering from the economic meltdown and all capital expenditure has been suspended. We can not see this situation changing in the next 12 months.”

“Trying to do more with what we already have (including streamlining business processes), adding utilities to fill gaps, pending an optimistic wholesale recovery in a few years.”

“Trying to standardise to single solutions is the primary focus of the investment decisions.”

“Very much in consolidation mode.”

“We are subsidiary of Australia so most systems are delivered out of Australia and often over ride what we want (!)”

Click here to read the full version of the iStart Investment Intentions Survey in PDF





> iStart - Technology in Business
W: www.istart.co.nz & www.istart.com.au
E: hayden.mccall@istart.co.nz
P: 1800 462 388 - Australia
P: 09 623 1480 - New Zealand

Click here to read the full version of the iStart Investment Intentions Survey in PDF