Whose idea was it anyway?

Just where do the ideas about new technology purchases begin? Based on our 2005 Technology Decision Making Study, 49% start with the IT organization--32% from the IS/IT pros in the trenches and 17% from IS/IT executives. This contrasts with 41% of tech ideas arising from the business side of the tracks, either at the business unit, operations, or executive levels. Compared to our2003 version of the study, the ratio of ideas originating from technical professionals grew by 9%, while business level-generated notionsshrank by a similaramount.

We also took note of thesizeable shifts at the individual organizational level. From the table below you can see the biggest change is intheproportion of technology purchase ideas arising fromIS/IT executives--nearly 1/3 more ideas spring from the top technical brassthan 2 years ago.

Business units are generating about 25% fewer IT purchase ideas this year, whilecorporate operations staff, on the other hand, are coming up with roughly 25% more tech purchase ideas than they have in the past. As we continue to crunch the data, it will be interesting to see if there are differences in the types of solutions these groups promote.