The economy surely will affect the way we all do business for the next six months or more. You still may have some discretionary IT budget left in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2008, but I seriously doubt there will be any excess funds in the first quarter of 2009. In fact, drastic reductions in corporate spending are a certainty for the foreseeable future. That means IT budgets will be slashed–even for those few organizations that have so far not seen a decline in revenues. Information technology is a service–not a profit center–and even necessary services such as IT will be expected to reduce spending to help maintain corporate profitability or, perhaps, corporate viability. Bailout funds are quickly drying up. Those organizations that weather the storm are going to do some serious belt tightening.

Get Smart

Sounds scary, and it should. But it is not a signal for corporate IT to go into maintenance mode or survival mode. This should be a time for corporate IT to reorganize, reprioritize, and plan for the future. Business cycles come and go, and the best IT departments will be those that have readied themselves for the future–not those that have hunkered down and buried their head in the sand. Use this time to go into smart mode. Create efficiencies that will make your IT organization even better when the current crisis passes.