IT budgets to soar in 2001

The year 2001 brings happy news for IT salespeople of a big boost in internet and IT budgets.

In a poll of 138 small to medium-sized companies, a staggering 98 per cent said their spend would substantially increase over the next 12 months.

Of the companies with a budget of less than £100,000, all but one were looking to up their spend by an average of 20 per cent, with money set aside for website design (62 per cent), ecommerce initiatives (12 per cent), other initiatives (20 per cent) and information security (six per cent).

In the £100,000 to £1m category, 99 per cent of firms surveyed were set for a hike, upping their spend by an average 32 per cent, while three had doubled their 2000 budget. Money was expected to be put aside for IT initiatives (39 per cent); design or redesign (32 per cent); ecommerce (18 per cent) and security (11 per cent).

Budgets were also booming for respondents with in excess of £31m to spend. While just one company was seeing a downturn of 10 per cent, the remainder were upping the ante by a staggering 51 per cent on average.

These budgets are to be divided between IT initiatives (54 per cent), ecommerce (25 per cent), website design/redesign (15 per cent) and information security (six per cent).