Deltek Clarity: Focus on IT Report Unveils Surprises in GovCon IT Spending

This afternoon, Rich Wilkinson, Deltek’s VP, Government Contracting, unveiled the results of the Deltek Clarity: Focus on IT Report, sharing analysis, insights and predictions on the current and future states of GovCon firms’ IT spending.

The survey posed over 40 questions to 233 Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and senior IT executives from a wide array of GovCon firms. Participants were asked questions about how much their firms spend on IT; how much of their department-specific IT was being outsourced; and even the degree of iPhone adoption. While the firm-specific replies remain anonymous, the aggregated results show several significant differences between smaller firms (with revenues under $10m) and their large firm (revenues over $100m) peers.

As expected, respondents indicated a tough year for IT as budgets shrank, even as demand for additional services grew. Smaller firms took the greater hit, as several indicated spending up to 7% of their annual revenue on IT, while larger firms spent roughly 2% of revenue on IT, due to better economies of scale.

The Clarity: Focus on IT survey also found that while Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server dominated the GovCon database application space, up to 20% of firms reported the deployment of open source database MySQL. While larger contractors used only those three databases, several smaller firms reported supporting up to nine different types of server deployment.

Rich said that the survey’s biggest surprise came in the form of GovCon support for Apple’s iPhone, a mobile device that was previously viewed as a consumer-only device. Blackberry phones still lead the pack with 71% support, but 45% of all reporting firms indicated support for iPhone. Yet, mobile applications remained low on the investment scale versus the area that most IT departments were interested in, information security.

A free PDF copy featuring highlights from Deltek’s Clarity: Focus on IT report is now available for CIOs, IT managers and government contractors seeking more insight into the biggest trends in government technology.