CompTIA Study: Government IT Spending Dictated by Cost and Good ROI

Comp TIA (News - Alert), a nonprofit association for the IT industry, conducted a survey of 375 federal, state and local IT buyers and influencers. It released its findings based on data collected during late February 2011.

According to the CompTIA new research study titled “Second Annual Government IT Purchase Plans”, it emerged that the key driver for government IT purchase plans over the next 12 months was identifying technology solutions that were efficient and cost-effective.

While at least 60 percent of the government IT decision makers or influencers surveyed expressed such a view, at least 54 percent of respondents cited mandatory or regulatory compliance as a reason for IT spending.

In addition, other factors also influenced IT purchasing. While 53 percent claimed that IT solutions needed to be in tune with the needs of the citizens and staff, 47 percent felt a complete overhaul of aging systems was necessary and any technology solution chosen should be able to plug the loopholes in the security system.

IT solutions that offered new data backup and recovery, security, virtualization, content management, unified communication, cloud computing and training modules for an effective workforce also appeared to influence IT purchasing in varying degrees.

Summing up the situation, Amy Carrado, director, market research, CompTIA (News - Alert) allayed vendors fears about restrictive spending and said, “Government technology spending will continue, particularly on solutions that help to ease the challenges of resources and security, but with money to spend increasingly precious, agencies are likely to demand greater returns on their investments and require vendors to clearly prove the effectiveness of their solutions.”

In the ultimate analysis, considering the tight budgets and bureaucratic hurdles, apparently agencies want the best run for their money and want to ensure that any IT purchasing solutions are not only cost-effective but efficient too.