Manufacturers in Australia looking at bigger IT budgets

Australian manufacturers should start planning to beef up their investments in information technology over the next 12 months, according to a recent survey.

The world-wide survey of 530 manufacturers across some 40 countries, revealed that 38% of Australian ( and New Zealand) manufacturers plan to deploy e-commerce solutions and another 27% are planning customer relationship management (CRM) projects in the next financial year.

The Global Manufacturing Survey 2002, sponsored by IT vendor, SSA Global Technologies, showed 56% of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) expect to have bigger budgets next year. Conversely, only 12.5% manufacturers anticipate a contraction in their IT budgets. Furthermore, approximately 47% of Australian and New Zealand respondents said they planned to deploy a new application over the next year.

Many manufacturers have also developed very optimistic expectations of budget plans next year, the study showed. More than 60% of respondents anticipate increases in IT spending of 5 to 10%. Similarly, the Asia Pacific region overall is optimistic with a third of respondents anticipating moderate increases of 5 to 10% and about 25% expecting their budgets to increase by more than 10%.