CIO UK has released an updated list of the 100 top spenders on IT in the UK – available here. The DWP, MOD, Shell, Tesco and the Department of Health top the list, while RBS has slipped out of the top 5 and Lloyds out of the top 10.

It’s hard to draw significant suprising trends from the list – public sector largely moving up the list, banks still near the top but slightly down, sectors like construction and retail taking a hit…

Where the list is particularly interesting is in the detailed profiles of each organisation’s IT strategy/performance/existing infrastructure. There are also some specific examples of popular projects for the year:

“Many were considering overhauling their communications networks to support either voice over IP or unified communications. Upgrading Microsoft Office and operating systems was also high on the list of tasks, as were improvements to e-commerce and customer management systems.”

It’s valuable information; now the question becomes how you best use this insight to support decisions/activities focused on these organisations. (You might also ask, assuming all the compeition will be targeting the top 100, how you get hold of the names of the organisations that came 100-150 on the table…)

We’ve been tracking for a few weeks now the growing opportunity for propositions related to e-commerce.

The last time there was such a flurry of interest in online retailing was probably nearly ten years ago. The pace of change in e-commerce adoption seems to have been accelerated by the recession, with new research showing that 65% of UK spenders are planning on increasing the amount they spend online in order to save money.

Here are a few choice articles… highlighting e-commerce growth at many large and high profile retailers:

CIO Magazine says French Connection is losing money but the e-commerce side of the busines is growing

M&S’s results highlight an online rise in sales in their recent, better than expected, results

John Lewis to launch designer fashion web store in response to sales increase of more than 24% at John Lewis Direct

Dominos Pizza sees 74% increase in web revenue in 2008

Tesco looks to web to revive sales

…and it isn’t only e-commerce: the trouble for retailers is creating outsourcing opportunities too.

Iceland signs outsourcing services deal

CIO’s list of the top 100 IT spenders in the UK is now available here http://www.cio.co.uk/cio100/companies/.

Some of the more detailed company profiles have useful intel on their operations and infrastructure (hardware, software, Database, BI etc), plus good soundbites from CIOs. Brilliant stuff for key account planning and account based marketing.

I’d highly recommend reading this superb FT article which analyses the year to come from a CIO perspective. In particular, this quote from Ian Campbell, of British Energy and chairman of the UK-based Corporate IT Forum, is really enlightening.

He says his priorities are: “first, year-on-year savings on business-as-usual expenditure – “The more companies just ask for a ‘flat’ 10 per cent across all areas, you know there is a general squeeze,” he says.

“Second, he says, are service efficiencies which demonstrate IT is providing exceptional value for money, and third, continued outsourcing and “managed service” activity.

“He argues for the need to ensure there is no wasted investment or poor cost control: these will be far more noticeable in a downturn and quickly show up poor management.

“He says there is already a greater focus on return on investment, with payback expected even more quickly. Interest in “technology” projects such as Vista or Services Oriented Architecture has also dwindled. Software as a Service (SaaS) has its supporters but he adds: “There is little in the way of proper commercial offerings, so we have not seen many massive deals or a shift in the market.”

This article features an interesting breakdown of Westpac’s IT budget in the light of the CEO’s concerns over IT’s performance. Interestingly, the breakdown shows the bank’s compliance spending has increased dramatically – part of a wider trend?

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/soa/Kelly-laments-Westpac-s-poor-IT-performance/0,139023166,339292944,00.htm

Useful 2009 IT marketing spend statistics released this week by IDC research – there’s a free webinar here covering the research. Some of the main benchmarking highlights, as described by Jon Miller:

-Marketing Budget Ratio (marketing spend/revenue): 2.8% average (2.6% for hardware, 5.1% for software, 0.8% for services)

- Program-to-People Ratio (program spend as a % of total mktg. spend): 61%

- Marketing Staff Throughput Ratio (program spend per staff): $293,000

- Slide 23 describes how companies allocate their program budgets across events, advertising, direct marketing, marketing support and sales tools, digital marketing

- Slide 24 shows how staff is allocated across functions

- Slide 25 shows how companies are allocating their digital marketing budgets across advertising, search, email, etc.

Note that these benchmarks are for large IT companies with average revenue of $6 billion a year.