Customer buying behavior for IT services and solutions has changed markedly over the last three years with the economic downturn. Now, even as the market appears to be turning upward, many of these changes appear to be more permanent. To succeed in the new environment, IT services organizations need to understand how to position themselves in response to new market realities.

This ITSMA Update provides findings from ITSMA’s spring 2003 survey on customer buying behavior for IT professional services such as technology planning and consulting, systems or network integration, major software application implementation, and managed services. Survey respondents hailed from Fortune 1000 manufacturing and financial services firms based in the U.S., and from large U.S. federal and state government organizations.

The Update illluminates current customer priorities and identifies how those priorities ar echanging. In particular, the research points to three key trends:

• Customers this year are even more cost conscious and risk averse than they were last year
• Customers are naturally segmenting into two camps: price sensitive and brand sensitive
• Customers are more willing than ever to consider doing business with firms they have never used before