More than 20 percent of the financial companies in Taiwan plan to increase their investment in information technology (IT) next year, according to the results of a survey released yesterday by the Institute for Information’s Market Intelligence Center.
The survey results show that 21 percent of companies in Taiwan’s financial sector will boost their IT spending for next year, 44 percent will maintain their investment at current levels and 12 percent will reduce their spending.
The survey of financial companies’ IT investment plans for next year covered six areas: IT training, IT manpower, information safeguarding, Internet communication and IT software and hardware.
The results found that spending on IT software and hardware is expected to slow down, while investment in online communications technology could grow by up to between 13 percent and 15 percent.
The survey results reveal that financial companies’ main goals for next year are reducing operating costs as well as improving the quality of their financial products and services.
They also show that the main difficulty these companies face in terms of the development of their IT systems is overcoming the problems posed by system integration.
Demand in the areas of service oriented architecture, a methodology for systems development and integration, as well as business process management, a method of aligning an organization with the wants and needs of clients, is expected to remain low next year, the survey said.
This finding shows that the solutions in these areas developed by the IT industry have failed to satisfy the needs of financial companies, an analyst at the center said.
Huang Cheng-chie (黃正傑) said that some of the factors for the low amount of interest among financial companies in adopting innovative service systems next year are information security management concerns, the difficulty in assessing the benefits of the systems and the fact that relevant business models have yet to be established, as well as legal restrictions.
As for financial information systems, Huang said 30 percent to 40 percent of financial companies in Taiwan had already installed such systems, meaning that demand for installation and upgrading of such systems is expected to remain low over at least the next three years.
The Institute for Information’s Market Intelligence Center has served as a strategy and policy think tank to aid decision makers in industry, government and academia since 1984, serving Fortune 500 companies and many other prominent Taiwan ICT companies.
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