IBM Survey: Where IBM IT is Headed in 2007
Pete Elliot reports on some of the results of IBM worldwide survey of IBM IT needs and characteristics he received from top IBM planners.

As October came to a close, Key Director of Marketing Pete Elliot headed to IBM’s offices at 590 Madison Avenue in Manhattan to meet with IBM business planners. He learned what IBM sees ahead for the IBM products base in 2007. Here, Elliot shares a quick summary of some of IBM’s findings based on their worldwide study.

IBM Market Intelligence – Business Priorities
According to research from IBM market analysts, on the top business priorities of small and medium businesses, the #1 priority is product improvement to increase customer satisfaction (67 percent for both small and medium sectors). Close behind are reducing operating costs and faster response to customer requests. “Clearly, on-demand solutions and automating business processes will gain in importance in 2007,” reports Elliot. The highest IT priority voiced in this survey for small business is the fourth entry in the chart: Improve automation of basic business functions (55 percent) while the highest for medium business is: Expand capability to meet market demand (54 percent).

IBM Market Intelligence – Growth Potential
The industries in the SMB market with the greatest growth potential in descending order of growth rate are: aerospace/defense, banking, life science, telco, financial, local government, health and wholesale. “Key has significant experience and client base in all of these high-growth areas,” notes Allen Shahdadi, Key’s Director of Sales. Big laggers in growth include education, travel and the housing market. Banking stands out in terms of its total expected worldwide growth of $3.5 billion. Knowing where your industry falls on this assessment and other industry projections can help in setting realistic growth targets for 2007.

IBM Market Intelligence – Relative Growth Rates
IBM’s market analysis survey also shows the relative growth rates of all forms of IT resources. The incremental growth opportunity of 2007 over 2006 is $32 billion for all IBM products and services supplied by any organization. Sixty-five percent of that growth will come from services where a $21 billion incremental increase is projected. Hardware growth potential represents about half that of services and software comes in at around one-third of the amount for services. “Key embraces professional staff training and both IBM’s and Microsoft’s certification programs to keep up with the growing demand for unerring system integration services,” states Lief Morin, Key’s President.

More findings from IBM’s worldwide study of small and medium business plans will be covered in future issues of INsights.