News
New Report Details IT Spending
- By Scott Bekker
- January 20, 2000
How much does that IT department cost? A new report from the Gartner Group shows that the average North American enterprise spends about 2.9 percent of their revenue on IT.
Most would expect that an IT budget would be devoured by hardware and software, but people and training eats up almost half the dollars - 48 percent - and about 11 percent goes to outsourcing.
The Gartner Group (www.gartner.com) polled 556 business and governmental organizations on their IT spending habits. The average business spent about $7,756 per employee on IT. The securities and insurance industries spend the most per employee, at $38,676 and $38,632, respectively.
Securities and telecommunications spent the most money relative to revenue. The average securities company spent 10.6 percent of revenue, and the average telecommunications enterprise spent 8.4 percent. Mining and paper goods came in at the bottom of the stack.
The Gartner Group suggests that this report will be useful for IT managers who want to defend their expenditures. -- Christopher McConnell
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.