You'll find the solution here. Free spending in the IT department is a luxury of yesteryear. Let the Net help you cinch the belt a little tighter. Much as we'd like to, we can't promise that the IT department's job is going to get any easier this year. On average, IT budgets are expected to be up just 8 percent this year, cooling off from last year's 12 percent growth rate, according to Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
Tighter budgets mean it's more important than ever to back up vision with planning.
In the past, companies worried more about the requirements of a specific software application than the health of their network. That means thinking in terms of centralized, companywide standards. Gone are the days of disparate initiatives, disconnected wide-area networks, and multiple databases. Building infrastructure takes qualified help, of course, and even increased international- worker visa quotas are not expected to remedy the ongoing IT staffing shortfall. This worker deficit is now estimated to be as high as 800,000, according to a recent Morgan Stanley Dean Witter report.