There is little doubt that despite the apparent signs of recovery throughout the UK, for most in IT the future will be challenging. NCC does have a belief that ICT across all businesses in all sectors will play a pivotal role in the post recession recovery. The general theme from our discussions with members is that they remain under huge pressure to change; delivering more with the same, is as good as its going to get over the next twelve months. The stark reality for most is that the expectation on them will be to deliver much more with much less - and to achieve this they will need to reflect on how to deliver differently.

From the NCC's recent Spending Survey the evidence is clear that although IT spending per end-user results show only a slight decrease, it is the prediction for IT growth which clearly reveals the effects of the recession. Respondents are less optimistic about the growth in IT spending over the next year.

Only 42% predicted any increase in IT spending for next year, while 12% predict their IT spending will stay the same and the largest proportion, 46%, reflect a decrease. These cut backs are likely to fall somewhere between 6-12% year on year. You can read the summary on page 18.

Another inescapable challenge for most organisations - public and private sector - is the need to harness the information within the business to create value. You have to ask whether we are leaning any lessons from the past... As far back as the mid 90s we witnessed the rise of an important movement, Knowledge Management - recognition that organisational knowledge, in its various forms and attributes could be an important source of competitive advantage in the marketplace - but somehow there seems to be collective collective failure to really grasp this. Knowledge management really needs to become one of the core competencies in today's competitive environment, where so much value in companies resides in their people, systems, and process...

(ITadviser, Issue 59, Autumn 2009)