IT Survey Spotlights E-Commerce.

FEI's third annual Technology Issues for Financial Executives survey, released at the Forum on Finance and Technology Conference in mid-September, shows a marked shift in what FBI members view as their major challenges in IT. Where Year 2000 computer conversions concerns had been an overriding issue a year ago, the issue getting the most attention these days is electronic commerce.

E-commerce, in fact, has become the single largest area of discretionary IT spending, the survey found, at 18 percent of IT budgets. Moreover, 71 percent of companies said they are involved in an e-commerce project. On the other hand, Y2K has quickly paled into a memory, and fewer than 10 percent of the respondents said they experienced Y2K problems that they regarded as more than minimal.

A notable change, the survey authors said, "is that survey respondents seem more ready to view technology as a strategic resource and a lever to improve business effectiveness." As an example, the issue that had ranked first as a "constraint" last year -- reducing enterprise operating costs -- fell to sixth place this year. At the top was "measuring product and customer profitability," followed by "facilitating analysis and decision-making."

On the other hand, there is still considerable uncertainty about how to use technology to best advantage. Fewer than half of the respondents said they had an IT plan, and nearly a third admitted to being uncertain of the return they are getting on their technology investments. Some 345 surveys were completed, with 98 percent of the companies coming from the U.S. Once again, the CFIT survey was done in conjunction with Computer Sciences Corp.