Business Focus is a weekly column providing at-a-glance
statistics and commentary on spending priorities and trends in
particular sectors. This week we look at food
retailers.
Large food retailers spend an average of £10,620 a year per
desktop, compared with the average UK spend across all industries
of £8,455.
At £4,907, the supermarkets' spend on IT services is greater
than the UK average of £3,052, reflecting their widespread use of
outsourcing. But the big food retailers spend less than average on
hardware and IT staff.
Analysts agree that the four most important areas of IT for
large food retailers are ordering systems, human resources
applications, supply chain software and electronic point of sale
systems. It is here that most of their IT budget gets spent, with
much of it going to outsourcing suppliers.
Although food retailers spend twice as much on IT per desktop as
fashion retailers, they spend slightly less on IT per employee than
leading fashion companies such as Arcadia, Debenhams and Next.
MethodologyThe analysis is based on Computer Weekly's database of more than
60,000 IT budget holders, twice yearly user IT expenditure surveys,
CBI/Kew senior executive surveys, government surveys, government
demographic data, HM Treasury economic forecasts and Cambridge
Econometrics industry sector forecasts.
Further details
www.kewassociates.co.uk