Continual industry consolidation in today’s marketplace is creating a cost-conscious, budget-driven IT end user. Today's CIOs, IT directors, and LOB managers have a growing need to justify their IT budgets, not only against the perceived benefits of IT investments but also against peers and competition in their industry. The United States IT Budget Benchmarking program provides in-depth IT budgeting, staffing, and growth benchmark metrics for the end users that are seeking to compare and justify their IT budgets against competitors and industry averages.

In addition, the United States IT Budget Benchmarking service will assist IT vendors seeking to analyze metric-driven opportunities within end-user industry segments. These industry-specific IT benchmark metrics complement IDC's United States IT Wallet service, providing IT vendors with a holistic sales methodology to target their existing and new end-user client segments.

This product covers the following segments of the IT market:

• U.S. enterprise IT end-user industry
• Large and midsize enterprises

Throughout the year, this product will address the following topics:

• IT expenditure ratios
• IT staffing allocations
• IT growth metrics

Our research addresses the following issues that are critical to your success:

1. How are my peers allocating their IT budgets? How can I justify an increase in my IT spending? How can I review my IT budget items to avoid overspending?
2. What is an appropriate level of internal IT staffing? How can I analyze my IT outsourcing requirements with evolving industry standards?
3. What is the IT investment focus of competition in my industry? How can I effectively budget for emerging initiatives?
4. What is the evolving IT spending propensity of end users in different vertical segments? How do I tune my vertical sales strategy to changing vertical IT spending patterns?

IDC's United States IT Budget Benchmarking program provides IT end users with quantitative market metrics to justify their IT investments and staffing needs. It provides ongoing insight into the IT budgeting priorities of peers and competitors in their industry segment. The program also keeps IT vendors informed about the state of IT budgeting, staffing, and investment priorities of end-user vertical segments, arming them to optimize their sales and marketing efforts in serving their clients operating in various industries.

Throughout the year, this product will offer insight into the latest trends impacting the market. Potential studies include:

The report will provide key IT expenditure ratios, budget allocations, and annual growth expectations on key budget items for different industry segments.

The report will provide key internal IT staffing and external outsourcing benchmarks of end users in different industry segments.