The distribution sector, including wholesalers and transportation companies, will increase IT budgets in 2004, according to a report from Forrester Research Inc., a technology research company. Thirty-three percent of companies responded that their IT budgets would increase compared to their actual spend on IT budgets in 2003, and 20% of that 33% expect their IT budgets to increase by 10% or more.
The report, “Distribution Industry IT Spending Profile For 2004,” also said spending on application software as compared to actual spending in 2003 will remain about the same for 57% of companies, with 21% spending slightly more. Oracle, PeopleSoft and SAP topped the list of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) vendors distribution companies have worked with in the past 12 months, but 27% of companies surveyed said they don't consider any ERP vendor as their core business application provider. Oracle followed suit with 13.1% of companies considering it their core business application provider.