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September 14, 1998

Industries At A Glance

The Industries At A Glance tables are available in PDF. To view a PDF file, download the Adobe Acrobat Reader

ow does your industry compare with others profiled in the InformationWeek 500? Where does it rank when it comes to doing business on the Web, providing workers with access to enterprise data, fixing year 2000 problems, and overall IT spending? These charts provide comparisons for several major areas covered in the InformationWeek 500 Qualifying Survey conducted in June.

Take a look, for example, at E-commerce. Here the financial services industry leads the way-100% of the finance companies in this year's ranking provide customer service or sell products or services on the Web. Not surprisingly, the IT industry also ranks high. Hospitality and travel companies ended up at the other end of the scale.

Yet the industries with the largest percentages of companies actively doing business on the Web take a back seat in one major E-commerce measurement: sales revenue generated from E-business transactions. Pharmaceuticals/medical equipment companies easily rank highest here, generating an average 52% of total sales from E-commerce.

The financial services industry is tops in providing workers with desktop access to data stored on enterprise systems. Banking is next, followed by IT and the pharmaceuticals/medical equipment industry.

The insurance industry ranks at the bottom in data access, but ties with hospitality and travel for first place in year 2000 compliance. Companies in those industries say on average that 74% of their custom applications areyear 2000 compliant. On the other hand, pharmaceuticals/medical equipment companies report the lowest compliance, only 50%.

The median IT budget as a percentage of revenue for all of the InformationWeek 500 companies is 2%. Several industries, such as financial services, banking, and telecommunications, are well above that.

Breaking down IT spending into several components, the industry devoting the highest portion to purchases of new products and technology is retail and distribution. Companies in this industry on average earmark 23% of their IT dollars for that category.

Year 2000 fixes are eating up an average of 10% of IT budgets among all of the InformationWeek 500. The industries allocating the highest portions of the IT budget to year 2000 work are hospitality and travel (16%), financial services (15%), and telecommunications (14%).

Consumer goods companies and banks devote the highest portions of IT budgets to E-business; professional services firms and manufacturers allocate the least. Consumer goods makers and transportation companies also spend a higher percentage of IT dollars on research and development.

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