eIQviews

Interesting data out of Goldman Sachs today.

Exhibit 26: In terms of ROI benefits, which types of initiatives will your organization fund in 2009?

Projects that will reduce operating expenses including personnel costs 72%
Projects that will drive top line revenue growth 59%
Projects that will meet compliance obligations 46%
Projects that will reduce future capital expenditures 33%
Source: Goldman Sachs IT Spending Survey.

So what does that mean? It means that it’s all about cost containment and that means it’s all about efficiency. Of course, the only way to gain IT-based efficiency is to automate your security and/or compliance activities (probably both).

That’s why a lot of folks (including eIQ) are going to be pretty focused on the ideas of security and compliance automation this year. That’s going to be one of the only ways to get projects funded.

So over the next week, I’ll be doing a series on cost containment here at eIQviews. We’ll focus on areas that are applicable for automation, as well as strategies for communicating these imperatives to senior management (that will eventually need to foot the bill) for any new tools for automation.