Opportunity Beckons In Enterprise

Forty-eight percent of solution providers surveyed in February expect sales growth of at least 6 percent in the enterprise segment over the next three months. This marks the third straight monthly increase and is the highest percentage since CRN began collecting data more than two years ago. Moreover, these high sales expectations appear to be justified, provided the economic recovery does not stall, according to data from the most recent survey from the Business Roundtable, also conducted in February. Among those results:

-- Nearly 90 percent of the 122 CEOs surveyed expect their company's sales to increase over the next six months, with only 1 percent anticipating a sales decline.

-- More importantly for the channel, 43 percent of the CEOs said they plan to increase capital spending over the next six months, up from 35 percent in the previous survey in December.

-- On the issue of employment, CEO attitudes are slowly improving. One-third of the respondents said they expect to increase hiring over the next six months, up from 25 percent in the previous survey.

Security heads the list of spending priorities for enterprise-size companies and is growing in importance, according to other CRN research data. This trend is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future, as the whole issue of security rises to the highest corporate levels.

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