Tough times

After enjoying buoyant conditions for several years now, the organisations that make up this year’s MIS 100 have been operating in an altogether tougher environment for the past nine months or so.

The financial services sector was the first to feel the chill in the wake of “Lehman Monday” last September but the shock waves have spread throughout the corporate world and brought information technology budgets into sharp focus.

Resources firms, airlines and media companies are among those that have felt the full force of the global financial crisis, and reformulating IT strategies has played an important part in dealing with increasingly difficult trading conditions.

Not that the private sector is alone in feeling the pinch. Federal government agencies, while immune to the vagaries of market behaviour, have been presented with a very tough cost-cutting agenda of their own, courtesy of the Gershon review of public sector IT spending.

Despite the obvious cost pressures, the Australian economy has so far held up very well compared with the carnage we have witnessed in the economies of Europe and the United States, so it isn’t all doom and gloom.

Although there could be plenty of twists and turns ahead, there is still good reason to believe that we can emerge from the other side of this mess in a relatively strong position in comparison with many of our trading partners.

And even though conditions are hard at the moment, it has been encouraging to see so many organisations recommitting to major IT projects as a way of driving significant organisational change that can deliver competitive advantage.

A couple of major federal government departments are getting to the pointy end of transformational projects and there are plenty of similar examples in the corporate sector at various stages of development.

It takes a lot of work to put together the information in the pages that follow but our list of Australia’s leading IT users continues to provide a valuable snapshot of the strategies they are employing. We hope you will find this year’s edition a useful resource and an interesting read that demonstrates the sensible approach being taken by most CIOs and senior management teams.

Costs need to be reduced and discretionary spending, at least for now, has been consigned to the past. But as with all recessions, this one will eventually end, and it will be those information chiefs who demonstrate bravery without resorting to recklessness that will emerge on the other side with the most plaudits.

– Brian Corrigan, editor MIS

How we selected: The 75 companies profiled in the following pages are the ones CIOs cannot afford to ignore. They are the big players, those that influence the buying patterns around Australia and the rest of the world. They will be in CIOs' minds whenever they have potential purchasing decisions to make, no matter what their areas of expertise. To qualify for the list, the companies must have a significant presence in the Australian market and service a large portion of their revenue from outside their domestic markets. These companies were selected by a panel of 30 judges across the Asia-Pacific region.

How we selected: How we selected: There is a vibrant and increasingly competitive local IT sector, so this year's MIS Strategic 100 has dedicated these pages entirely to Australian-based vendors. The fierce competition to make it on to the list of the most tactically important operators in the region has certainly proved impressive. Our expert judging panel chose the following 15 from an extensive cast of local players. These companies were selected by the Australian-based judges.

How we selected: The 10 Rising Stars are often very new businesses, but ones that show signs of seriously influencing the way technology is bought or deployed. Many of these companies can expect rapid growth, to make acquisitions, be acquired, or otherwise significantly increase their presence in the marketplace over the next 12 months. This is an early warning to take note of companies that are already impressing savvy CIOs. The list was compiled after suggestions were made by our expert judges throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

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