Who is influencing IT budgeting and decisions anyway?

IT budgets and decision making is no longer the sole preserve of those in-charge of the IT organization. Increasingly, enterprise architecture practitioners are playing a significant role in determining IT budgets and influencing where those dollars go. According to a recent survey by research and advisory firm Gartner, EA practitioners have an influence over their organization's IT budget allocation that is either "final decision maker" or "great deal of influence".

Based on the EA survey results from Gartner events in North America and Europe, analysts estimate that in 2012, EA practitioners had a "final decision-making" influence on $331 billion in worldwide enterprise IT spend and a "great deal of influence" on $774 billion in worldwide enterprise IT spending. Overall, EA practitioners had an influence that is either "final decision maker" or "great deal of influence" on $1.1 trillion in worldwide enterprise IT spending.

As per Philip Allega, managing vice president at Gartner, EA practitioners are increasingly focused on delivering on business value and strategic transformation. "Gone are the days of just 'doing EA' with little value or impact. Sixty-eight per cent of organizations surveyed stated that they are focusing their EA program on aligning business and IT strategies, delivering strategic business and IT value, or enabling major business transformation."

Leading EA practitioners are focused on creating diagnostic deliverables to help business and IT leaders respond to business and technology disruptions, Allega added. He argued that technology and service providers would do well to be conscious of the emerging trend. In his views, technology and service providers should develop targeted marketing to this new generation of EA practitioner as they have a significant influence on their organization buying decisions.

Those that fail to understand the priorities, strategic focus and impact of EA practitioners will jeopardize their ability to sell into an organization, he concluded. Entrainement Nike