A new IDC survey found that 75% of surveyed CIOs in ANZ faced the economic downturn without cutting IT budget or staff, but still implemented cost savings.

The main areas where savings were achieved were in administration operation (45%) and ICT (11%), and IT spending growth remained at steady levels.

According to the report the top three CIO priorities in 2009 are: reducing costs (27.6%), recruiting and retaining staff (10.3%) and meeting user expectations (10.2%).

“While we used to talk about IT as a tool for business transformation, it was generally considered voluntary,” said Melissa Martin, Senior Market Analyst, IDC. “However, as IDC’s 2009 results reveal, thanks to the global economic crisis, there is business transformation whether CIOs like it or not.”

Respondents also said that the importance of IT was highlighted during the economic downturn as 58.2% of respondents said that IT contributed to the operational capacity of their business and 33.8% viewed IT as a source of competitive advantage.

The survey also found that the top three areas of IT investment over the next 12 months will be: systems infrastructure (18.6%), including security, storage, network and middleware; back office (16.1%), such as enterprise resource management; and front office (14.7%), including customer relationship management.

IDC’s Forecast for Management surveyed 140 Australian and 120 New Zealand CIOs during 2009.