National Monitor
VERNON HILLS, Ill. – March 5, 2008 - Amid an unsteady economy, the information technology (IT) marketplace in the U.S. is demonstrating a cautious but hopeful belief in prospects for 2008, according to the latest reading of the CDW IT Monitor. The IT Monitor index registered a slight increase—from 69 in December 2007 to 73 in February 2008—indicating IT decision makers are somewhat more encouraged about the direction and momentum of the IT marketplace. The number of respondents who believe that overall IT budgets will increase in the next six months rose by 15 percentage points.
“IT decision makers are holding onto some hope for 2008,” said CDW Vice President Mark Gambill, the executive responsible for market insights. “However, even with 2008 budgets approved and IT decision makers looking forward to improving IT resources in the coming months, the greenlighting of actual technology investments will depend on the overall economic environment, which remains uncertain.”
The two sub-indices of the IT Monitor showed positive movements. The IT Growth Monitor, which measures anticipated investment in IT, registered a score of 69, up from 63. The IT Value Monitor, which measures the perceived value of IT, scored 76, up from 74. These scores are just seven points apart, compared with an 11 point gap two months ago.
“The narrowing of this gap indicates expected investment in IT may be slightly more aligned with the perceived value technology brings to an organization,” Gambill said. “But looking deeper into the data, we see small businesses are being much more cautious than medium and large corporations. Because small businesses are often on the front lines of an economic downturn, this data is reflective of an uncertain economy. These trends bear paying attention to as the year unfolds.”
The CDW IT Monitor is a bimonthly indicator of the direction, momentum and mindset of the IT marketplace in the United States, based on an online survey of at least 1000 IT decision makers from businesses of all sizes and all sectors of government. At the center of the CDW IT Monitor is an index number, which registered an initial benchmark reading of 69 in December 2007. Results are calculated on a scale of 0-100, with 100 indicating the highest level of confidence. Future readings of the CDW IT Monitor will continue to yield comparisons to previous scores, allowing for an interpretation of the direction of sentiment in the IT industry. The next CDW IT Monitor will be released in April 2008.
For more information and a further breakdown of the data, please visit www.cdwitmonitor.com.
- Only 39 percent of small businesses report that IT is helping their bottom line compared to almost 80 percent of medium and large businesses.
- Twenty-nine percent of small businesses expect to increase their IT budgets in the next six months, up only three percentage points from December.
- Since the results of the first IT Monitor in December, the number of medium and large businesses expecting increased IT budgets in the following six months increased by 20 percentage points.
- Six percent of small businesses expect to add IT staff in the next six months, up two percentage points since December 2007. IT hiring expectations at medium and large businesses registered increases of more than ten percent.
- Sixteen percent of government organizations plan to hire additional IT staff in the next six months, a five percentage point drop from December 2007.
The CDW IT Monitor was created by CDW Corporation, and research and analysis is conducted by independent polling firm Richard Day Research of Evanston, Ill. Decision makers are invited from two large national panels of IT decision makers built and maintained by Survey Sampling International. Data reported in this release is based on a survey of 1,063 IT decision makers conducted between February 4 and February 8, 2008.
Data are weighted to ensure that CDW IT Monitor calculations closely represent the overall population of corporate and government employers in terms of size, based on the number of employees. Corporate data are weighted according to U.S. Economic Census data, and government data are weighted according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual survey of government employment. The margin of sampling error for a survey based on this many interviews is approximately +/-4 percentage points for the business sector, and +/-6 percentage points for government.
About CDW
CDW®, ranked No. 342 on the 2007 FORTUNE 500 and No. 39 on Forbes magazine’s list of America’s Largest Private Companies, is a leading provider of technology solutions for business, government and education. CDW is a principal source of technology products and services including top name brands such as Acer, Adobe, APC, Apple, Cisco, EMC, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, Panasonic, Quantum, Samsung, Sony, Symantec, ViewSonic and Xerox.
CDW was founded in 1984 and as of December 31, 2007 employed approximately 6,300 coworkers. In 2007, the company generated sales of $8.1 billion. For more information, visit CDW.com.
